Nitin Agarwal is Senior Director, Marketing at ShopClues.com. Passionate about consumer behaviour and brand promotions, he is an astute marketer who brings his combined expertise in technology, data analytics and marketing to his role at ShopClues.com. 

His key focus areas are branding, media planning, rolling out campaigns in offline and online channels etc. He helms activities directed at augmenting the e-commerce player’s customer engagement/retention and acquisition.

Prior to joining ShopClues.com, Nitin bootstrapped a health and nutrition start-up, Health Raga and was instrumental in setting up its e-commerce channel. He has over seven years of experience working in diverse industry sectors such as automotive, banking and e-commerce. He has been associated with some of the most renowned organisations in the world including Gulf Oil Corporation Limited, Ashok Leyland and Genpact.  

Nitin has an MBA from the prestigious XLRI, Jamshedpur and a B.Tech degree in Computer Science from JIIT, Noida. 

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Nitin talks about ShopClues’s strategies to engage with the consumers, staying ahead of the competition and the challenges faced in tapping into the digital medium. Excerpts: 

Q. How does the digital medium - Internet as well as mobile - figure in ShopClues’ plans to reach out to the Indian consumers?

ShopClues being an e-commerce company has always capitalised on the digital medium to the maximum. Digital was a medium of choice, and will continue to be one of our major media channels, as far as our advertising strategy goes. We look at digital as not just a medium for advertising but also as a revenue channel and that’s why we call it performance marketing.

Consumers are shifting from desktop web to mobile web and apps and we are riding this trend as well. ShopClues launched the Android app in 2013 and Windows app in 2014 and has received more than 2.5 million installs. By end of May 2015, we will be launching our iOS app as well. 

Q. And what marketing initiatives are you undertaking online to stay ahead of the already established players like Flipkart and Snapdeal? 

We have always believed in offering consumers superlative retail experiences which are based on deep insights in consumer shopping and mindsets. Sunday Flea Market was a similar endeavor to tap into “haat/mela” shopping concept which is very popular in different parts of India.

The Sunday Flea Market has seen tremendous response from the customers and gone on to become a flagship property in the merchandising scheme of ShopClues.com with over 2 million visits every Sunday.

Usually on weekends, most of the other e-tailers witness a 15-20% drop in traffic. For ShopClues, with the Sunday Flea Market, Sunday is the busiest day of the week when traffic surges up by 15%. Also, nearly 60% of the customers who buy during SFM, return to shop for non-deal products on our site. So SFM goes way beyond being just a customer-acquisition tool, and in fact strongly aids retention. With approximately 2 lac orders on a Sunday, SFM is one of the biggest marketing properties in the country.

Q. As a CMO, what are the main challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium? 

1. Customizing our offerings for the mobile medium.
2. Keeping pace with technology changes in the digital space.
3. Contesting for increasingly shorter attention spans of customers in the overexposed digital media.

Q. Could you please share in brief a couple of digital marketing campaigns ShopClues has done recently or plans to do next and what makes them different or noteworthy? 

We constantly experiment with new digital features and one of the star performers for us has been Google’s Gmail Sponsored promotions where we have driven performance at scale taking advantage of the precise targeting. 

Our mobile user acquisition campaigns on Facebook too have been a benchmark of success in terms of cost efficiency and scale. A/B testing of various target groups and ads has proved to be worthwhile there.

We also ran a 360 degree digital campaign for live Hangout with Chennai Super Kings team which was RSVPed by over a lakh people. 

Q. Is social media having any significant impact on how you market your products or services? 

Social platforms are most appropriate for impulse driven categories like Fashion & Home Decor and lets you meet the right audience at the right place and at the right time. Also, sponsored campaigns on Facebook and Twitter by their very nature allow very accurate interest and demographic targeting. 

Q. What kind of analytics or social media tools do you use?

We use Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics.  

Q. Three months ago, ShopClues.com raised $100 million from Tiger Global. As per several media reports, the company is reportedly on the look out to revamp its senior team and spend aggressively on advertising and marketing as the company plans to targets a five-fold jump in business by next year. Could you elaborate?

We are aiming at doubling our headcount by 2016. We are getting ready for scaling up the operations, and might have to look for people who have seen the kind of scale Indian e-commerce is set to achieve. We continue to be on the lookout for senior talent, and on finding the right fit for this position, we will surely consider it.

As for marketing and advertising on television, radio, print and digital platforms, we are looking at investing about 150 crores for the year 2015. 

Q. What percentage of your total marketing spend is on digital? How do you see that move in terms of growth and focus?

The digital spend continues to comprise a significant part of our marketing mix and grow for us 10-20% m-o-m. Even after venturing into offline marketing last year, we continue to initiate more user engagement initiatives on digital, as this is where our target audience is.  

Also, we ensure that we use the medium efficaciously to bring new consumers on our platform. For our merchant base, we are planning an extensive offline campaign which will be launched shortly in May 2015. 

Ritesh Singh is currently the CEO at ARM Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. He has more than 14 years of experience across activation and digital space, during which he has worked with noteworthy national and multinational brands as their extended arm. Later, Ritesh, along with likeminded partners, started ARM Digital, a digital consulting company. 

In his current avatar, as the CEO of ARM Digital, Ritesh has worked with a diverse list of clients including Gionee, NIIT Ltd, Zee Learn, Pearl Academy, Panasonic, Citibank, MTS, among others. Ritesh strongly believes in convergence of media, with digital at core with expertise in designing strategies to deliver benefits from all mediums, TV, Print, Radio, OOH or Activation.

Prior to this, he was the National Director at MEC Interaction, and has also held several key positions at Starcom MediaVest Group. In his earlier role before ARM Digital, he led the conception and deployment of digital strategy. His experience spans an array of clients including Samsung, Aircel, Western Union, General Motors, SAB Miller and Himalaya.

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Ritesh talks about the role of a media planner, what to keep in mind while buying inventory for digital campaigns, and the challenges faced by media planners today. Excerpts: 

Q. With outcome-based campaigns and algorithm-based decisions, how do you think is the role of media planners evolving? Do you think it will move from planning to just monitoring/controlling in the coming years?

When was the last time any individual as a customer or brand manager or marketing manger said, ‘We don’t need more value for money?’ ROI has always been a major driver of media campaign planning/buying/management. As for the roles of Media Planners, they will always remain vital to the success of a media campaign. Today, thanks to the large data mapping capabilities, you can map the journey of a user right from his entry to his exit, therefore it is possible to plan a campaign at several stages of the same journey and optimise it in order to achieve the desired ROI which could be simply awareness driven or hardcore metric like sales driven.  While all of this data is available, are we really making the optimal use of it to plan the campaigns based purely on the data? Not so sure, and that is precisely where you will always feel the need of an expert planner on board, even though major parts of optimisation and even execution to a certain degree is machine driven. 

Q. As a Media planner, what are the biggest challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium? What are the most important things you keep in mind while planning to buy inventory for a digital campaign?

One of the major challenges that we face is that of data suffocation. By that I mean, there is too much data available, we talk about digital being a medium that is measurable and I agree, but what has largely been missing has been using this data as the launchpad of the planning 2.0 if we may say that. Most people in the industry are still using age old methods for planning, while the massive collection of data is basically lying there begging for it to be interpreted. The big challenge here is for us to effectively utilise and channelise this data and come up with the right solution. Another major issue is that while we talk ‘multi-screen’ and ‘going mobile,’ we still are very much nascent in the space. How many players in the market are considering things like Dual Screens as an absolutely key component of their planning? Not a lot, so from the perspective of evolving forms and formats too, we have not made the strides that we should have.The most important things that we keep in mind while we buy inventory is largely divided into four broad segments: The key is obviously the client objective, the second is always the audience affinity and knowing where the target audience is, we then take a look at the past performance from campaigns and finally there is consideration for costings. Several other practises such as real time monitoring and optimisation play a key role here too. 

Q. How does programmatic buying or any other tech tool impact your job (whether it has become easier or tougher)? 

With programmatic buying, the major challenge is that the brands themselves today, have not married to the idea of programmatic buying model. It is the ‘always on’ nature of programmatic buying that perhaps is holding the evolution. And a major factor that is holding this trial back is that we are at an evolving stage and stuck somewhere in between machine-managed media and man-managed media, with there being no single window interface which would help us monitor everything and make choices. It is only when we move to a full self service models, lot of which are in work, a bit like Google's Self service or even Facebook's Self service model, would we be able to seriously consider programmatic buying as a viable consideration. 

Q. What are the main takeaways from this job? Does your experience help you plan for a performance campaign which is result/outcome oriented? If yes, could you please share a couple of instances?

Media campaigns have always been result oriented. The only thing that you could argue has changed is the spectrum of numbers. Where you may be talking about a few hundreds a couple of years ago, you are talking in millions today, so its just extrapolation in terms of numbers achieved. Everything is bigger. So the job as such of a media planner is still the same bridge between objectives and right strategy/planning/buying/optimisation and that will continue to remain as it is for a while at least. 

On the experience front, yes experience is always a valuable asset more so in media planning than in several other verticals of digital marketing. For example, for a personal electronics brand which is new in India and is largely focussing its efforts on brand awareness, brand building to clearly outlining a point of differentiation through good communication, great visuals, strong features etc to say a B2B brand which is running media in order to acquire leads for a franchisee where fee alone is well into single decimal million figures, the planning process and methodology is so diverse. This is where all your experience counts as you plan very differently based on the objective of the campaign right from acquisition to consideration to say purchase. 

Q. Are there any industry trends and technologies that you find exciting right now that might help your clients?

Some of the key trends we feel would be absolute crucial in 2015 are:   

1. Real time live agile actions,

2. ensuring you stick to your point of view based on experience of the past,

3. Walking mobile first instead of just seducing ourselves with the idea of everything mobile repeatedly, 

4. Foundations for programmatic buying and,

5. Finally marrying the offline online experience using more rich media and integrated content.

Q. What issues or challenges are your clients facing right now?

It is a classic problem of clutter or simply put, population vs pollution. There is way too much on the plate that is being served and in too many flavours, sometimes in trying to taste every possible exotic cuisine we end up losing our own identity or the major objective and that is exactly what is happening with clients as there is too much to chew upon. 

Q. Could you mention some recent campaigns that you found noteworthy? And what do you think makes them stand out?

There was a twitter media buy, we had purchased the top trend on May 16th with #MoreThanSlim. It was a planned exercise as that was the day when the Lok Sabha election results were to be announced, and we knew the entire conversation on twitter will be about margins. Since the hero product at the time for Gionee was at that point the slimmest phone in the world, it set a nice mandate where we could connect the most followed event of the country to our product for an insane level of engagement. The result was a lot of new followers on board as well as a moment of big win when Indian National Congress used the hashtag in their tweet. It was advanced planning as well as foresight that really stood out more than the brilliant result, which saw Twitter themselves create a business case study out of the campaign and publishing it.

Q. Going forward, how do you think will the relationships with publishers, brands or other players in the digital ecosystem hold sway for media buyers? 

The relationship will continue to remain the same. Yes, we will move to a more machine managed ecosystem eventually but the bridge that the media planner is between the brand and publisher will continue to exist and largely nothing will change even if we move to a fully self service platform. 

Q. Any words of advice you would like to share with your peers and the community at large?

A senior industry leader, today head of the biggest media agency said, "We are only as good as today". And I think that it is an important thought to keep in the mind as far as the community at large goes. Past accolades, glories and awards, is waste of time, live in today. We must ask ourselves 'Are we doing something new each day?'

Uday Sodhi is currently the EVP and Head - Digital Business at Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. (Sony Entertainment). He has over 24 years of experience across verticals, including online talent acquisition, digital and mobile Entertainment, mobile VAS, search, e-commerce, web hosting, VoIP in India, among others.

He currently heads the digital business of Sony Entertainment Television and is responsible for growing its digital properties, including online entertainment portals like www.SonyLiv.com and www.LivSports.in. The group's mobile apps and mobile games also come under his purview.

Prior to this, he was CEO of HeadHonchos, a job search service, exclusively for senior management professionals. And before HeadHonchos, he was CEO of Balaji Telefilms' new media business, where he was responsible for building the mobile VAS, mobile entertainment and internet business for Balaji Telefilms.

At Balaji, Sodhi was credited for the launch of Hoonur.com, a talent portal that enables people to audition online. Prior to that, he was senior VP of Interactive Services at Rediff.com, and before that he worked with Net4India and Bausch and Lomb India.

Sodhi is a post graduate in marketing from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS). 

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Sodhi talks about Sony’s strategies to strengthen its mobile offerings to consumers, the future of VoD platforms in India and the importance of providing relevant content across multiple channels. Excerpts:  

Q. You launched Sony LIV two years ago. How has the response been so far?

Sony LIV gets 5-7 million monthly visitors online, while the mobile app has been downloaded 15 million times. Our presence across diverse digital platforms like mobile, online, telecom and YouTube is quite strong and these are important sources of revenue for us. We are growing at a rate which is faster than the projected digital market growth.

Increase in mobile internet connectivity, low tariffs and introduction of cheaper smartphones has led to huge increase in consumption of video content on mobile. The consumer today is looking for content on the go, thus making mobile a key focus. As a result, we launched a number of apps including KBC Play Along, creating a second screen experience allowing viewers to answer questions with the contestants and win prizes. We also have the KBC Official App allowing fans to engage with the show any time they want. We’ve had approx. 2 million downloads for the KBC suite of apps and over 13 million downloads for both Sony LIV and LIV Sports.

Q. Could you please share a brief about the current strategy and direction that Sony is taking in digital in India. What are some of the key things you will be driving personally? 

We will strengthen our mobile offerings to consumer and our agenda is to make 2015 the Year of Mobile Entertainment and deliver great content through product innovations on SonyLiv.com and LivSports.in. We will continue to grow and scale. We will continue to innovate and engage our users by establishing our marquee properties in the new media space. 

Q. How is the digital media affecting TV viewership in India? What key changes have you observed in the past few years?

Digital media won’t affect TV viewership as they both cater to different set of audiences. With the emergence of the second screen we see a paradigm shift in the way today’s consumer consume content. A typical consumer is present across multiple screens at the same time, he is watching the TV, surfing the internet on his tab as well as checking the phone to connect or chat with friends. 

The emergence of new digital platforms, connected devices, video portals, increasing bandwidth and changing consumer habits for anywhere, anytime, any device binge viewing is augmenting the online consumption story in India. Latest report released from ComScore notes rapid growth in online video consumption in India where video consumption has doubled in the past two years to 3.7 billion videos per month. This burgeoning growth has been driven by a sizeable increase in the number of online video viewers, in addition to increasing consumption per viewer. 

Q. What do think is the future of Video On Demand (VoD) platforms in India? And where does LIV Sports feature in this?

VOD is here to stay and grow. Today, content distribution and content consumption has gone democratic and there is relevant content present for all types of audience across multiple channels. Video On Demand (VoD) platforms are bound to grow with time as digital is not bound by any constraint of time and space, thereby enabling viewing from anywhere, anytime and from wherever possible. Today’s netizens stay connected all the time on their mobiles and tablets and they want their share of entertainment likewise. Consumers want to engage, interact and consume content at their terms, at their convenience and in their method.

Sony LIV is the one point digital destination into the world of Sony Entertainment Network. It offers interactive, rich and immersive user experience through various innovative features. Users can use the Mood Wheel on Sony LIV to watch their favorite video as per their mood/genre; they can create playlists of their choicest of shows through My Q and be rewarded as a LIV Guru, by consuming Sony LIV content.  In addition to original complete content, Sony LIV also offers short content formats like Catch-up episodes, Quickisodes and Short crunch episodes. The premier Video on Demand brand is available online and on other platforms such as on Android, Apple IOS, Java, Windows 8, Sony connected-TVs, Blackberry Z10 and Nokia mobile phones.

LIV sports offers both VOD as well as LIVE video content. The idea behind the launch of LIV Sports was to create a premier digital sports entertainment destination where we will offer quality content which is mass inclusive and not designed to cater only to ardent sports fans. We have attempted to redefine the way sporting content is presented and consumed. It kicked off as the official mobile and Internet broadcaster for the 2014 FIFA World Cup TM and then went on to acquire mobile and Internet broadcast rights for the South African RAM SLAM T20 Challenge Series for India, Vijay Amritraj backed Champions Tennis League, the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying tournament and the Australian Open.

Q. A few years back, TV channels and production houses started experimenting with digital, but the two medias are still seen largely as separate. Do you think the time is ripe for the marriage of TV and digital? How do you think will the integration be achieved? 

The TV is here to stay and won’t be replaced by the Internet. But, based on the younger crowd, we can confidently say that the Internet as an entertainment viewing option has a very healthy user base. However, TV will continue to remain a primary media activity as it far outweighs alternative video viewing methods in terms of total time spent.

TV shows are simultaneously tapping into digital and mobile platforms as consumer’s video consumption behavior is changing into “Cross –platform intake” or “platform agnostic” intake. 

Q. Apart from your mobile apps, most of your videos are also hosted on YouTube. With the growing popularity of YouTube, do you think the video consumption on your mobile apps has suffered or do you think the overall market has expanded to include all media?

No, video consumption on mobile apps have not suffered because of YouTube. On the contrary, Sony LIV has seen consistent growth in video consumption on mobile. The category is expanding – so we don’t see YouTube hurting content consumption on our platforms.

Q. Recently, it was reported that within the next six months, Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd (MSM) is looking to produce original shows for its online site and mobile application, Sony LIV. Could you elaborate on that? 

Yes. MSM is in talks with independent producers and filmmakers to create a few shows, expected to go live on its digital platform (Sony LIV.com and Sony LIV app) in June. 

Q. Will this new content be available exclusively on Sony LIV, or will other platforms also be used to scale up distribution?

New and original content will be available on both Sony LIV and YouTube and we will see what other platforms we could take the content to, in order to scale up distribution.

Q.  What is your current revenue model for Sony LIV & LIV Sports?

Presently, both Sony LIV and LIV Sports are advertiser funded platforms. 

Mobiles have changed the world as we once knew it. Out of the seven billion people on earth, there are as many as 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions. Looking at this data, one is forced to wonder – when did this happen? When did mobiles cross over from being ‘a luxury’ to ‘a necessity’? All this progress is a result of continuous evolution in mobile technology and diluting cost of mobile devices in the last 20 years. And this is a milestone set in the history of time!

A recent UN report said, “In India, there are more mobiles than toilets.” Now this might be an jibe at the inadequate sanitization facilities in the country, but it doesn’t shy away from the fact that mobiles have found their place in peoples’ lives as an indispensable object that connects them with their families, becomes a friend in emergency situations, a teacher that lets you in on the secrets of the world and an entertainer after a long day of hard work.

Smartphone, the younger, more versatile generation of mobile phone, along with the emergence and availability of high speed internet has opened up yet another dimension – M-learning, which translates to learning on mobile. M-learning is the future of learning and education and as the name suggests is based on optimum usage of mobile technology coupled with digitized content and network facilities.

India, the world’s second largest smartphone market, currently has around 140 million smartphone users which are expected to rise up to 650 million smartphone users in 4 years, according to a survey conducted by networking solutions giant Cisco. The biggest chunk of these users are students, presently ‘students’ as a group has 3 times more penetration than any other group of smartphone users. This has given M-learning a fertile ground to flourish, and flourish it has.

India has rapidly picked up its pace in the field of online education. M-learning is proving to be the requisite solution for the many challenges faced today by education industry in India. Major challenges include unavailability of adequate resources to take education to every corner of the country, a wide variety of spoken languages and the inability to set up a homogeneous medium to keep standard curriculums throughout the country along with ease-of-access and cost.

Upcoming in M learning are dedicated smartphone apps that aim on and are capable of revolutionizing education by filling in the gaping holes of regular classroom education. These apps are versatile in their mode of operation and can be used as a one-stop solution for delivering high quality education to each and every part of the country.

Learning is not restricted to students; in fact learning and education has no age. A working professional could also need to learn and improve his/her skill sets without the availability of additional time for the same. Mobile education apps have proved to be boon in such situations. Since, all the information of the world is available at the push of a button, it is easier for working professionals to improve their knowledge anywhere and at any given time.

India is a land of vast and varied terrain and not all classes, regions and cities have the same educational facilities available. Students often have to migrate to the hubs of education in search of better learning opportunities, which is a convenient option for students belonging to affluent families but is financially crippling for lower and lower-middle classes. Here is where mobile education plays an important role to solve such difficulties with ease. With a low entry cost, smartphones and M-learning have collectively made it possible for families of limited means to have a fair chance at quality education and all the assorted benefits associated with it.

There are two schools of thoughts regarding M-learning, one believes that M-learning is a passing trend that will never equate to the importance of regular offline learning while the other sees M-learning as the evolution of education system as we know it, which is expected to only improve with time. We belong to the second school of thought and that’s the reason we created iProf, an M-learning education marketplace, completed with an app and web, which aims to revolutionize education in India and give it a new face. Have we managed to put a dent in it? Only time will tell, but 1 million+ app downloads in a matter of 127 days is definitely a good start.

Company Name	Quick Call
Mission	To create a complete hub of business outsourcing which can perform all non-core functions of every startup, SMB & exhibition organizer.
Overview	Quick Call is new age outsourcing firm working for exhibition organizers, start-ups & SMBs. It provides quick, easy and low cost outsourcing solutions in customer care, business research and business development. Quick Call is the extended arm of any firm which is looking to scale rapidly and cover market quickly without the hassle of hiring, tracking and managing employees. It allows you to focus on your vision and increase profits by taking up all your organisational tasks on project basis. With Quick Call, outsourcing does not mean per agent per shift charges. However, commercials, deliverables & SLAs are decided on project basis and Quick Call takes complete ownership for execution with utmost confidentiality. The kind of projects we are doing range from attaching taxi drivers to aggregator apps, getting sellers to register on fledging  e-commerce portals, selling exhibition space and a lot more.
Launch	April, 2014
Founder	Neeraj Tyagi, Founder & Business Head, Quick Call
Team	8
Segment	Outsourcing
Location	New Delhi

 

The concept of using business data to improve organization’s decision-making is not new. It all started with improvements in digital data storage and computing systems in 1970s and within a decade, software systems such as Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Executive Information Systems (EIS) came in vogue.  But still, most of the work done during this initial phase centered around intelligent reporting and not actionable business insights. That began to change with the advent of ‘Analytics’ into decision-making, with a few firms such as Amazon, Capital One, among others, pioneering the way and devising their competitive strategies based on data-driven analytics. When done right, analytics brought irrefutable benefits and helped businesses create sustainable competitive advantage. However, to a large extent, analytics was (and still is) delivered via custom project model and that presents some serious strategic limitations.

First off, there are clear costs and turn-around time implications, as the value chain from data to decisions is complex and involves many varied tools and stakeholders – technology consultants and statisticians at one end and business decision-makers at the other. Secondly, these stakeholders don’t always understand each others’ worlds perfectly and that leaves wide-open grey areas. Analytics team complain of lack of business support and ambiguous requirements, whereas business decision-makers often get frustrated with slow turnaround or even compare analytical methodologies to black-box whose results they are wary of using. Today, decision-makers want Analytics to provide not only insights but actionable business recommendations and they want them at their own convenience and in a form that is easy to consume (criterion which the de factor standard, PowerPoint reports, don’t always score high on). Recent explosion in the volume and type of data enabled by technologies such as mobile computing, social media, sensor-based technologies etc. has only aggravated these aforementioned challenges.

To summarize, a fundamental shift is clearly underway in how business users like to consume analytics: on-demand and in a more personalized way. On the supply side, technology and analytics vendors are embracing these challenges well. They are leveraging the new frontiers in technology, including Cloud, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and Big Data technologies (e.g. Hadoop) to offer novel solutions based on rich visualizations, real-time tracking and, powerful predictive analytics to count amongst many.

One such path-breaking approach is ‘Productizing’ analytics services or in other words, creating products based on standardized and repeatable analytics services. Many businesses have shown preference to switch from the project-based consulting to these product offerings as they epitomize the ‘Decisions first’ approach and offer several advantages including accelerated delivery of solutions at a significantly cheaper cost. More importantly, Products can lead to true democratization of the analytics as business users don’t have to depend on their analytics partners/vendors to churn the analyses and can access the ‘analytics’ whenever they want it and how they want it. Consider this – A CPG brand manager logs into marketing analytics product through her smartphone to check latest month’s revenues and ad effectiveness numbers. In addition to showing historical data, the analytics platform also simulates revenues and media ROI by how next month’s budget is allocated across media and finally, shows top 2-3 recommendations on how the budget should be spend to meet the targets. With-in an hour, she has analyzed the numbers and figured out an optimal ad spend allocation for the next month. Sounds too good to be true? Actually it’s not.

Few such technology driven products which use analytics to turbo-charge them are already in the marketplace and many more are proliferating. Not surprisingly, this space is being disrupted by the nimble-footed startups who have developed products to solve for very niche challenges and answer high-value questions that businesses are facing. Pick retail sector for example. ‘Manthan Systems’, an India based start-up has developed a range of products for retail industry to manage their demand and supply better. One of them – ‘Demand Signal Management’ – harmonizes retail data with syndicated shopper data to give real-time view into consumer shopping behavior. Across the globe, innovative start-ups such as ‘Sysomos’ and ‘Crimson Hexagon’ have capitalized on proliferation of social media to launch analytics products around social data. One of India’s other top analytics provider ‘Absolutdata Inc’ has pioneered the ‘Decision Engineering’ approach and recently launched a product to help SaaS businesses increase their trial user engagement and conversion.  

At the same time, traditional analytics providers are also waking up to productization as it translates to a host of benefits for them – not only it enhances the quality and scalability of revenues and increases profitability but also makes the business more predictable and sticky with clients. For instance, Accenture has launched ‘Agile Marketing Analytics Platform’ (AMAP), a SaaS based product that enables clients increase effectiveness of their marketing dollars. 

There are lots of other examples spread across the industry spectrum from the financial or retail sectors (which traditionally have been early adopters of analytics) to hospitality or even new-age digital businesses. We could go on but think the point has been made. Clearly, products or productized solutions are the way forward as they rapidly democratize high-level analytics capabilities where clients can plug into a hosted cloud to access fairly sophisticated analytics. Products are also one of key and potentially the biggest growth driver for the traditional and new analytics providers. 

 

• Seems like the net neutrality debate is unlikely to quiet down anytime soon in India and the topic continues to be of interest on social media, mainstream news channels, publishers – both online and offline.
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• In India, over the past few weeks, the drama of net neutrality hit a crescendo owing to two major events. Firstly, TRAI, India’s telecom regulator released a consultation paper that argues that telecom companies have a right to break net neutrality to make higher profits because they incur huge costs on infrastructure and license fees. And secondly, e-commerce firm Flikpart joined hands with Bharti Airtel to become a part of its Airtel Zero service. Since then, Flipkart, which has faced a strong backlash for joining the Airtel Zero programme, has pulled out of the program and the company has come out in support of Net Neutrality.
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• Airtel launched 'Airtel Zero,' a platform through which it will offer users free access to certain mobile apps on April 6th 2015. These apps will be from developers who have signed up with the company. Airtel plans to allow app developers or web service providers to pay money to Airtel so that these apps and services can be accessed by Airtel users for free.
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• Another telecom giant Reliance Communications in partnership with Facebook rolled out Internet.org (in India), a nonprofit organization founded by Facebook in association with a clutch of companies. The goal of Internet.org is to bring cheap Internet to all and is aimed at bringing five billion people under the World Wide Web’s fold.
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• The 150 million customers of Reliance’s mobile service can use Internet.org to gain free access to nearly 40 websites and applications, including Facebook. The websites which were initially part of Internet.org included some of the leading Indian news broadcast and publishing organisations such as Aaj Tak, Amar Ujala, BBC News, Daily Bhaskar, IBN7, India Today, Manorama News, NDTV, Reuters, Times of India and news application NewsHunt, which hosts contents from dozens of other publications. However, many of these organisations have now joined the campaign to support net neutrality.
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• A day after Flipkart walked out from Airtel Zero, online travel services provider Cleartrip, news broadcaster NDTV and the Times Group pulled out of Facebook and Reliance Communications-promoted platform internet.org as the debate over net neutrality widens.
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• Here is a look at the various statements issued by start-ups, entrepreneurs, politicians, celebrities expressing their views on the net neutrality in India:
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• Flipkart: Sachin Bansal, CEO of Flipkart initially defended his company’s decision to be a part of Airtel Zero.
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• However, after backing out of the controversial Airtel Zero service, the company issued a statement, "We at Flipkart have always strongly believed in the concept of net neutrality, for we exist because of the internet. Over the past few days, there has been a great amount of debate, both internally and externally, on the topic of zero rating, and we have a deeper understanding of the implications."
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• Flipkart added:

 

• We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero.
• We will be committing ourselves to the larger cause of Net Neutrality in India. We will be internally discussing over the next few days, the details of actions we will take to support the cause.
• We will be working towards ensuring that the spirit of net neutrality is upheld and applied equally to all companies in India irrespective of the size or the service being offered and there is absolutely no discrimination whatsoever.
• Facebook: Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his position on the #NetNeutrality and Internet.org debate said on a Facebook post:
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• IAMAI: “It looks like Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in its consultation paper, has copy-pasted from submissions of telcos. India has a robust and at times, overbearing IT Act,” IAMAI President Subho Ray said.
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• Ray said in a statement that, “the paper makes an assumption that Internet doesn’t come under any regulations, which is incorrect. All Internet companies are regulated by IT Act.”
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• Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad:
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• Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi:
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• Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir: 
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• Anurag Thakur, Member of Parliament (LS), President BJP's Youth Wing (BJYM), Secretary BCCI & Chairman:
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• Baijayant Jay Panda, an Indian politician, currently serving as a Member of the Lok Sabha: 
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• Prannoy Lal Roy, Co-founder and Exec Co-Chairperson, NDTV: 
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• Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet: 
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• Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO Paytm / One97 Communication: 
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• Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato: 
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• E-commerce giant Amazon.in: 
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• 
  
• Here are a few start-ups and entrepreneurs expressing their views on net neutrality:
• 
  
• “We are in complete favor of net neutrality as the corner stone for the online space is being completely unbiased towards its users, irrespective of the size of various entities. Eventually, it should be left to the consumer to choose what they intend to browse. One must find a fairer way for internet inclusion of those who are still not users. Telecom companies must play it fair while creating commercial value for partners,” said Praveen Sinha, Founder and MD, Jabong.com.
• 
  
• "Airtel Zero seems like an innovative solution to bring Internet to every person. Whether this is on a firm footing or a slippery slope will be decided by the actual implementation. The current way of individual companies buying Internet for their consumers is a slippery slope.
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• The right way to do it would be through a central consortium formed from the ecommerce companies and who has the interests of both the startups in this sector and the end users in mind. After all Internet is all about freedom of choice. Keeping in mind that currently it would be free only if you use a particular company makes it free at the cost of the freedom of choice it offers. This is everyone's loss." said Yogendra Vasupal, Founder, Stayzilla, an online accommodations marketplace.
• 
  
• Suvro Ghosh, Founder, HelpMeDoc, an online platform for all healthcare needs, said, "For starters, in a country like India Net Neutrality has vast implications, especially for start-ups many of whom are dependent on the medium for the success of their business. A neutral internet means a level playing field by which innovative ideas get a platform to grow and add back to the economy of the country. Non Net Neutrality will diminish innovation and hurt consumers in the long run."
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• “As a start- up,we are opposing any invasion on freedom of internet. In an equal opportunity world, why should access to any website or an application be restricted or controlled in terms of its speed or availability?After the advent of internet in India, especially in the last 15 years, millions of youths found employment opportunities and millions of others became entrepreneurs tapping all the resources offered by the internet.
• 
  
• Restricting net neutrality by imposing tariff to access every website or an app on a mobile phone would first kill small businesses. For, the service providers may coerce the website/app companies to pay for letting their channels pass through the respective service providers’ internet gateway.
• 
  
• Aside from this, there could be a cannibalisation effect on the small internet businesses which are catering to the large-scale employment needs of skilled and semi-skilled people. Meaning, a service provider may tend to gobble up the small, but popular, internet businesses by demanding equity in those companies or levy a hefty charge for letting the websites/apps pass through their gateway. Or, they can enter such businesses by opening up their own platforms and kill the competition. And, payment for accessing a website or an app is so far unheard of. The payment for websites/apps individually has never been a tried and tested method. It is detrimental in Indian context, now or ever.” said Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni, Founder & CEO, Meraevents.com, an event technology company, Hyderabad.
• 
  
• Shiju Radhakrishnan, Founder & CEO, iTraveller.com, said, “Not upholding Net Neutrality is akin to creating a caste system on Internet. It is disturbing to think of Internet without one of it's basic tenets-Neutrality. If we differentiate between types of data and charge consumers based on that, soon we might have a future where breathing air would be charged differentially based on type and quantity of air we are breathing. Internet is as necessary for the life of a startup as air is for everything living. 
• 
  
• We are able to see this kind of growth and innovation in startups, propelling the economy forward in no small measure, only due to the democratic nature of the Internet. 
• 
  
• If what TRAI is trying to do goes through we will see Indian startups with limited resources dying a premature death. For startups, in addition to getting good people to work for them, arranging funds, getting traction, proving business model, there would be one more insurmountable problem to solve-getting the desired bandwidth for their apps to compete against the bigwigs of the industry. Startups which usually do not have deep pockets are going to have a tough time. India is on a dream run of growth and Innovation and this is no time to create a digital License raj by ignoring Net Neutrality.
• Net neutrality ensures that level playing where true innovation and relentless industry will always win. It is the last resort of free speech, of meritocracy and of ambitious dreams.”
• 
  
• Harsh Shah, Co-Founder Shopsense, said, “Any initiative which creates barriers for innovation is absolutely very bad for the country as a whole. Not only does it stifle existing companies trying to break through, but also highly discourages new entrepreneurs. Companies having the money to pay the “license” for this will benefit by protectionist policies, but overall there will be a decline in the ecosystem as a whole. It is as good as getting back to license raj."
• 
  
• Piyush Paul, Founder & Director - Marketing, Unlockar Apps, said, "In India, like we have aspiring youth looking forward to reach the skies after the rapid success stories of financially less privileged founders making it big on internet. Similarly, there are aspiring countries on the world map that look forward to internet skill development of their population to ensure their growth and grip. Taiwan announcing itself as first Free Wi-Fi country was a big step on that front. Discrimination on the internet, favoring a few on any basis, challenges the basic definition of internet i.e. free community with equal reach and rights for all. It is a two way negative for the society, one by killing the aspirations of skilful people and growing countries of making it big in the world market and secondly by killing the consumer lucidity of trying a competitive and better product."
• 
  
• Bikash Barai, Co-Founder & CEO, iViZ, said, "Net neutrality is important for providing a level field for the best product to win. If we create a discriminating environment, then it is bad for the ecosystem since it artificially creates an unfair barrier for new entrants. It is detrimental for the customer and the innovative startups. Internet should be open and neutral."
• 
  
• "Based on the fundamentals of free speech and knowledge sharing, Fabric of the Internet was built by its founders to be free and equal for all. Net neutrality is the right to communicate freely, without bias and it needs to be preserved to allow for innovation.
• 
  
• A company, just because it is rich in funds and has the ability to subsidise its usage, shouldn't have an advantage over the scarcely funded competitors and start-ups.  It would prohibit any disruptively innovative idea to flourish, stifling overall growth.
• 
  
• Internet service providers shouldn't be allowed to have a say on what passes through their pipes. They are a medium for delivery and should maintain the level playing field. Even the father of the Web, said that ISPs can't be allowed to become gatekeepers and hand pick the winners and losers and show favoritism towards their own sites and services or take money to provide advantage to some over others. It's almost like taking bribe." said Ankur Saxena, CEO of Oxigen Wallet, and President, Technology Innovation.
• 
  
• Mangesh Panditrao, Co-founder & CEO, Shoptimize & Cooliyo, said, “It is very important that we do not let differential pricing and performance creep into the internet. Budding online brands in India are already struggling to reach the target audience due to the huge marketing and advertising barriers created by large players. . It will become even more difficult for them if they have to pay to maintain a level playing field in terms of bandwidth. One of the things that has really worked well for our app cooliyo is the fact that we show products purely on the basis of their merit and popularity thus keeping away any bias. Cooliyo is focused on democratizing shopping for women in India. It makes good business sense based on our experience to let the community decide what to see and what not to. It would be quite ironic if we now suddenly have to face a bias while we try to reach our own community. It would be a massive setback for several startups such as ours.”
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• Raj Iyer, Founder & CMD, icustommadeit, said, “Today, several start-up companies are extensively using the internet through which they  interact and engage with the customer on a daily basis. Especially for smaller companies who work on tight marketing budgets, every overhead is a cost they can save, and free internet gives them a whole new world of opportunity to explore. In the absence of net neutrality, the whole consumer experience will take a beating. It will only act as a barrier to growth so let's save the internet! Internet was is and is always meant to be free. The absence of this will lead to monopolies by a select few and will hurt the smaller start-ups. This is blatant misuse of operator bandwidth licenses issued by the Government.”
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• Aditya Poonia, Assistant Country Manager, Tripda, said, “Tripda strongly supports net neutrality. If you think about the travel industry - most of the digital segment is pushed through discovery of different prices offered by service providers. Having pushed biased content will not only disrupt the existing fair ecosystem but will also promote undemocratic practices.​” 

Archan Banerjee is currently the Group Product Manager (Head) - Digital Marketing at Dabur India Ltd, which is the fourth largest FMCG company in India and operates in key consumer product categories like hair care, oral care, health care, skin care, home care & foods. He has over 9 years of experience across marketing functions, including digital marketing, online PR, lead generation, mobile engagement campaigns, social media, content development, viral videos, blogger activation, e-commerce, Google Ads, LinkedIn, Google Analytics, display advertising - impact & innovation, and live streaming, among others

He currently heads the digital marketing function at Dabur and has a team of digital brand managers reporting to him. At Dabur, he looks after end-to-end integrated marketing communication programmes, small campaigns, digital engagement programmes, an advocacy programmes on social media, mobile, website etc.

Prior to this, he was working as the Brand Manager - Digital and Engagement at Bharti Airtel Limited. He has also worked with Genesis Burson Marsteller, Oxigen Service Pvt. Ltd. and Millward Brown India.

Archan is an alumnus of Delhi University and completed his Bachelor’s in Economics. He did his MBA in Marketing and Sales from Amity Business School.

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Archan talks about Dabur’s online strategies to engage with the youth, the changing e-commerce sector in India and how digital plays a key role in the company’s journey to become a young, vibrant and socially conscious brand. Excerpts:  

Q. What marketing initiatives are you undertaking online to stay ahead in the fiercely competitive FMCG sector?

For us, obviously, there is a digital agenda that we want to drive through our digital websites. We created an online content platform for MyBeautyNaturally, which was designed to provide skin-care and hair-care content related to a consumer’s search query. This enables us to drive that agenda with our digital brands.

However, with our integrated pieces we basically figure out what do they [consumers] want to do? If not just a standalone TVC, how do we engage people? It is not just an afterthought either; it’s basically something we think about right when we are crafting out the brief.

Primarily, what we have done is created three consumer category level portals—MyBeautyNaturally, LiveVeda.com and Dabur Dental Care—for personal care, health care and oral care. These are basically the repository hubs because we are a multi-brand company and every brand doing it solo doesn’t work. Our core target audience (TG) is female; it’s women between the ages of 18-34 yrs. So in our core TG premise these category portals give out content which is in conjunction with the How-to feature: How do I fix my hair? How do I get fair? What should I eat?  We also have mobile extensions to our websites.

We also have an influence and outreach programme. We have a bunch of fashion lifestyle bloggers who write for us. We are in partnership with a lot of other publishers also for native advertising, like ScoopWhoop, The Logical Indian, and Only My Health (Dainik Jagran). 

Through digital, we are trying to make Dabur brands young, vibrant and socially conscious, and that is the change we are trying to bring in. Traditionally, you would not have seen us coming out with ‘Brave and Beautiful’ kind of content. The journey of ‘Brave and Beautiful’ started on social media and we got around 2.7 million viral views online and we got about 1.20 lakh shares on Facebook without spending a dime. We thought, how do we make a concept around the shareability of the content? This is a good cause and we want people to feel for it. We knew the potency of the idea the moment we cracked it. And that got enlarged into a rather large TVC ad format. It’s not a "Ghar Wali Diwali" equivalent. It is not only for the digital audience, but it has all the ingredients, emotive content, it’s for a cause, shareability is quite clear, and all this will help you build conversations online. Now, all of this was actually drafted out even before the video got shot. We have a very distinct sense of social and what we are trying to do. We are trying to reconnect the Dabur brands with the young consumers. We want the young people to actually feel for these brands, as these brands are very trustworthy in nature.

Q. What is Dabur’s take on the future of retailing in India and how online shopping continues to grow at the expense of store visits? How is Dabur creating unique, brand-defining experiences that keep customers coming back—whatever the channel?

I don't think the brick-and-mortar model is going to disappear. India is a very large country, and most FMCGs have invested very heavily on distribution, so it is not going to change overnight.

We want to ensure that our brand is perceived in a manner which is relevant to the youth and socially conscious. We want them to know that this is a good brand to be associated with. And thereby, over time, we will be able to create more bonded consumers, like we have done with the previous generations. We are just using a different medium right now to create the same kind of loyal base. Once you have used our products you will get that sense of comfort that, “You know what, at this price, this product is great!” The problem is the trial, generally we see that there is awareness, but you don't want to try because you feel that this is not for me, it’s a generation back for me, and that is the perception we are trying to change.

As far as e-commerce and FMCG is concerned, Nielsen data indicates that convenience shopping in India on groceries has not really caught on. There are a few players like BigBasket and others who are doing this really well, but primarily, right now, it’s all about apparels and accessories getting sold online, it’s about convenience shopping of non-consumables like tickets and books and holiday packages. Mostly what we are seeing from a retailer’s perspective is that in a marketplace model we are definitely going to be present. As an e-commerce strategy, we have our own online distributors, just like we have for offline: we have selected a dealer who is going to list our products on Amazon, Flipkart and others. This is our first level strategy, we are putting up our brand everywhere, where the visibility is needed. So in case you are compelled to buy our product online, you can. However, at this stage, the percentage of it is not much.

Online grocery shopping in India is not a huge phenomenon right now, but we are hoping that in the next 5 years due to the fast paced lifestyle of the consumers this will catch up. There is nothing disruptive about it, the entire marketing is moving towards that. E-commerce is a very real phenomenon; however, that being said, it is not to say that Kirana stores have become redundant. Kirana stores are also needed, because India is a very big market, we have huge demand in tier 2, tier 3 towns  and there are a lot of available mass brands, so this is not a conflict by any chance. 

Q. Retailers have been criticizing Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce firms in India for under-cutting the market and selling products at below the cost price, saying that it would hurt other retail channels. What is you take on this?

The way e-commerce is shaping up, there is a lot of bullish discounting going on, which is not sustainable for business over long term. Initially, the reason why heavy discounting was done by the players and then by the marketplace retailers, who are actually selling the products, was to create that stickiness. The trial barrier has to be broken, you have to be comfortable with doing a purchase online; once that is accomplished, it will propel you to buy more.

So what is happening is that when you are discounting it lesser than the MRP then that is a problem because there is a trade practice violation going on somewhere. Retailers are bound by MRP laws. Here online marketplaces are selling it for lesser price because they are taking a hit on the profit, but whether one can actually stop it, now that is up for debate.

India is very price sensitive. If people are moving towards an e-commerce platform primarily because of the heavy discounts offered on brands by online retailers, then the offline retailers will, of course, have a problem with it. But it is not to say that the impact on business is that heavy—at least we haven't seen it as of now. 

Q. How are you changing your messaging for digital? 

A lot of people ask us, do we alienate our existing consumer base in terms of the marketing messaging? If you look at India, most brands are youth brands, or at least trying to be, because that is where the chunk of the market is, the early adopters. It also makes a lot of sense from a marketing perspective. If you are an early adopter to my brand then through your life cycle you will be able to stick with my brand, thereby you will be my bonded consumer.

Take the unique online contest we did for Dabur Red toothpaste called Red Dare. Now, Red Dare was a contest we did with our influencers, basically daring them to break their routine. As you must have seen, in a category like toothpaste, communication is mostly done through a doctor’s lens, “It's good for your teeth, it is good for your gums, it removes bad breath,” etc and there is almost a masking of communication. The message feels almost the same. If you remove the brand name you would not be able to tell which one you are talking about. In such a case, how do you do a clutter breaking messaging communication? And imagine us doing it, more than, say, any other MNC brand doing it. We got a whole bunch of influencers together and we gave them these dares that break their routines. Like, "You actually brush inside your bathroom, why don't you do it in your office or why don't you do it in a shopping mall." Take a video and put it up online, see it on our social media network. And we were able to garner about 142 videos out of this, 86 of which were organic, there were actual people who were doing this. In user generated content (UGC), 86 videos is a very big number and if you do a Google search on #RedDare, the first four pages are flooded with our content, so look at the library value that we are creating. What we have accomplished here is that we have reached out to a segment of audience, who would never generally associate quirkiness or coolness with our brand.

See, the fundamentals of FMCG product behaviour do not really change: it is not that you will stop showering or stop brushing your teeth or having Chyawanprash, people will take a supplement either way. Specifically, Chyawanprash is even more relevant to today’s young audience than it was for their mom and dad. Look at the kind of food that we eat, junk food and fast food. Here people basically need to build their immunity using a supplement and what better supplement than an ayurvedic supplement, which is time tested and is being used for generations. The only difference is that if I say Chyawanprash it sounds old, but if I say it’s a natural health supplement which is going to boost your immunity, suddenly the perception changes. That is the only difference in messaging. We have to make these brands relevant to today’s youth because they are the gatekeepers, they are the ones who are hesitant, and they are sitting on the fence right now.

The younger generation prefer to try an MNC brand because they think that the international brands might be doing it better, but honestly, we have great products to offer and our brands are reflecting that.

Q. What role do you see social media play in that context?

We did another influencer programme on Twitter, #ILiveNaturally. Now, everybody wants to be natural, as natural is the new cool. We did a social media listening on this and we figured out that a lot of people wanted to learn how to lose weight naturally? How to put on packs which make my skin glow? My hair is falling, what should I eat? So we basically did a promotional activity on social media, it was all organic. So we asked a question to people: What did they do to live naturally? Do you jog? Do you do yoga? And suddenly all the youth and Twitter influencers started saying that they use Dabur brands. They take Real juice, and have Chyawanprash. They have Dabur honey mixed in hot water to maintain their weight. Somebody said that she uses Amla hair oil as it is great for hair.

We got around 26000 brand mentions across different categories on something like this. And this was completely word-of-mouth. Advocacy is extremely important for us and word-of-mouth is the most credible form of advocacy. If your mom says it, if your friend says it, there is absolutely no reason for you not to believe it. I could throw billion dollars worth of advertising onto you and you still won't buy it because it’s not credible. But here on digital, people are basically consuming content, the platform is agnostic, you can consume it on Facebook, Twitter, website, blog, YouTube, among others, and we are just trying to ensure that we are present on all the platforms. We are not overtly throwing our brand on to you, we are trying to help you and that is why our content strategy is so important.

And going forward this year, we are looking to create even more AV content, because currently India has about 11% Internet penetration which is expected to double in the next 5 years, and all of it is supposed to come from tier 2 and tier 3 towns. With the reducing cost of smartphones available in India, people are becoming screen agnostic. People want the content and they want it at their own convenience, they could consume the content through mobile phone, tablet, desktop, among others and we just need to be present there, giving you the content you want to read and not the one we consider you should be reading. We are not slapping a brand message on to you, we are actually trying to engage and evoke a reaction in you. And what is engagement primarily? If you feel for something, you are engaged, and we are trying to make you feel. We personally like Twitter, and not just because of the trending hashtags, but because it’s an open to all social media platform, and though Facebook is a social media giant, it is still a friends and family community, but anything on Twitter is like a real-time news feed. So it’s a very integral part of our social media plan. Facebook gives you a less than 1% reach on your overall fan base if you are a brand page, so it just doesn't make sense to get fans. Having a huge 5-10 million fan base and not being able to reach them, then, what is the lifetime value of that customer? And what do you do to engage with them? Are they even reading your message?

According to a survey, most people don't even remember which brand pages they have liked on Facebook, since there is so much noise on their feed and people are more interested in catching up with their friends and family. Our objective on social is to get these influencers who are already present online to spread the word to others about our brands and then see how people react to it. We primarily focus on social media listening which helps us get a sense of what is working and what isn't, and what the entire category conversation is about. That is how you create intelligent messaging. 

Q. In the past year, we have seen many FMCG brands like ITC, Marico, Bisleri jumping on the digital and e-commerce bandwagon to augment sales. Any reason why you were so late entering this industry?

I think the reason is that it takes time for people to wrap their heads around it. We are a mass brand, and the reach is better on TV. So you automatically trust that more. Google itself is only 15 years old. So there is no benchmark. How do I know if it’s actually working or not? But there is movement, it is still agnostic, but there is multiple industry data which is supporting the e-commerce phenomenon. And we are gearing up for the future. Because it’s not about what we didn’t do for say X number of years, it’s about what we want to do now. It takes time to convince people. Under the leadership of K.K. Chutani, our CMO, we have a lot of leeway to do things, to experiment, and the results will come later. Indication numbers for digital are looking good though.

Q. Every generation has its own way of doing things. Today’s youth is not buying products like their parents did. How do you cater to the needs of the youth without alienating your existing customer base?

We already have a bonded and trusted consumer base. If you look at a toothpaste commercial, it is always a child that is shown brushing his teeth and using the toothpaste, but is he going to buy it for you? The answer is no. If it’s good for the child, it’s good for the entire family. Our communication is focused on trying to allow these young people to understand what their parents were talking about. The youth have grown up on the internet, and as such they have access to information at the tip of their fingers. And in the FMCG category there is a lot of interest, a lot of browsing behaviour, about hair products, skin products etc. But most of the buying still happens at a modern trade store, because these are small purchase items. People still prefer to call up their local Kirana wala and ask him to deliver the monthly grocery items to their doorstep. So the delivery system has very much been there in the brick and mortar model. And if people are inclined to buy online, then we are also present on various online marketplaces and online grocery providers.

Q. Do you have an e-commerce strategy or are you planning to have one in the future?

E-commerce is a very recent phenomenon for us, it’s just six months old or so. Our first level strategy is to put the product out there through a credible online distributor, so that there are no fraudulent products. Because there are a lot of people selling products like that online and that is one of the key concerns in health care. We are not bench marking what the competition is doing, we are seeing the scalablity of this business model. Right now, the browse-to-buy intent ratio is not there, and that must pick up. Things are growing in that direction and the online marketplaces have their own strategies to push it. And we are very keenly observing all of this, but what we figure is that we should not just go out there and do all of it at once. We are pacing ourselves, ensuring our product is out there, ensuring that we are able to provide the right amount of services and then we will see how the business goes from there. We have compelling e-commerce strategies on paper right now. We haven’t implemented them yet, because we don’t want to do everything right away. We need to give ourselves sometime to understand the landscape.

Dabur products are listed on our consumer category level portals like LiveVeda.com, MyBeautyNaturally, among others. There is a buy button on those pages, but when you click on the buy button, it redirects you to the Snapdeal or Amazon site, as we don’t sell online directly. Eventually if we see scale in this and we think there is credibility, then we can have a direct payment option, like we have for our Shilajit brand. Dabur Shilajit Gold is our only brand which is an e-commerce brand, so people can come and buy the product directly from our website. For other products, the person is redirected to the Amazon website or Snapdeal website, because they have the capability, the delivery system and the payment options in place. For now, it works for us.

We will eventually look at creating our own channel online. But how we actually do that, and what is going to be the actual format is something we are still working on. We need to first see, how the e-commerce segment in India is shaping out for the FMCG category.

Q. What percentage of your total marketing spend is on digital? How do you see that move in terms of growth and focus?

Anywhere ranging between 5-15% for digital and this is the approximate industry average also. Now, depending on various factors, like if the rate of adoption is faster than expected, then there could be an increase in the overall percentage.

Q. Could you please share in brief a couple of digital marketing campaigns Dabur has done recently and what makes them different or noteworthy?

Well there is the Red Dare contest, which trended in India at number 4 and garnered over 140 videos. It also received 45k tweets on Twitter. Also there is the ‘Brave and Beautiful campaign,’ which salutes female cancer survivors. 700se7 kadam also garnered a great response. It was Dabur’s Sanifresh campaign, which is an initiative to help build toilets for women. The campaign talked about many rural women in India who have it really hard when it comes to relieving themselves every day.

4G i.e. fourth generation is an advanced version of 3G that facilitates its users with mobile broadband internet access.  The technology provides wide area coverage and high speed to mobile as well as laptop users. Offering peak upload rate of 500 mbps and peak download rate of 1gbps; 4G supports HD streaming. 4G network can ensure optimal use of HD phones. With its WiMAX LTE technology, 4G provides path-breaking speed and impeccable connectivity to its users. A game-changing internet technology, 4G network is slowly becoming the ‘Next Big Thing’ that providesimmediate access to everything from around the world at your fingertips. 

With 4G taking the Indian market by storm, the demand for smartphonesis taking an upward swing.The 4G rollout is further influencing the sphere of e-commerce immensely. Online retail firms have to confront logistics as well as connectivity hindrances in order to serve their patrons efficiently. These issues can be solved with 4G internet services. By providing cutting-edge speed and connectivity, 4G is helping online firms to tackle their problems easily. 

Escalated speed and enhanced connectivity provides users with a compelling and satisfactory browsing and shopping experience. Usually it is seen that potential buyers leave a particular site when they are just going to finalise their purchase, the reason being - connectivity problem or slow internet. With 4G, customers can quickly make purchases without having to face any such hassles. This is thus, indirectly boosting the sales of e-commerce companies. 

With 4G for mobiles as well as laptops, e-commerce companies can be unperturbed about the size of images or videos. Even on smartphones, users can enjoy the same experience as on a laptop or PC, due to higher connectivity and speed offered by 4G. Another situation will justify the sturdy role that 4G is playing in the realm of e-commerce. Many a times, it happens that online shopping websites hang or the speed of internet dips while making payments or while checking out. This leads to reduction in the confidence level of customers, leaving them in a dilemma of whether to purchase online or not to take the chance. This can result in dwindling sales for e-commerce companies. With 4G at hand, buyers are able to make instant purchase decisions and check-out in a hassle-free way. 

In order to gain maximum advantage of the fourth generation internet technology, the market is witnessing various e-commerce firms going the mobile-way. In short, for better results, e-commerce firms are turning to m-commerce. With 4G on mobile, people prefer to use their handheld devices to fulfill their day to day needs. Hence, e-commerce firms are coming up with ground-breaking designs and models to utilise the lucrative mobile space efficiently, making scores of firms turn to the m-commerce platform. 

4G, the improved and enhanced version of 3G, is metamorphosing the entire domain of e-commerce, making transactions instant, thus delivering reliable and constraint-free experiences. 

The ‘Digital India’ idea has a slew of start-up and established companies in the technology and e-commerce space excited. They all believe Budget 2015 will be the start of a new era of higher growth. This year the government is focusing on promoting e-commerce, innovation and entrepreneurship.

With the Union Budget being presented tomorrow by the Finance Minister of India, some of the players of the Indian startup industry have shared what they expect from this year’s annual budget.

Below are the budget wishlists from players in the digital startup ecosystem:

Tapan Kumar Das, CEO and Co- Founder,  iTiffin.in, an online and offline healthy meal providing company, says, " I have huge expectations from the budget of 2015. According to me, ‘Nutrition services and Health food’, can be brought under the gamut of Health services, thus qualifying those services for Service Tax. The cost of healthcare in the country should be reduced in order to regulate the increasing number of lifestyle disorder cases in India. Also, I wish Food technology is made free of import duty. Income tax benefits should be allocated to the Nutrition and Health Food sector and in order to recruit people from the skill development academy while Nutrition and Diet Plan services should be brought under Mediclaim policy of General Insurance.”

Suresh Sharma, Founder & Director, iSpyPrice.com, a price comaprison website, says, “According to me, if GST i.e. the Goods and Services Tax is implemented in the budget for this year; it will solve various taxation issues. Until then, the government should relax the tax Inspector Raj.  Besides this, I feel that if the service tax on online advertisements is abolished, it will motivate internet-based publishing companies to create more valuable content and application for websites. The Government should give proper clarifications on service tax levied on advertising income that is earned by Indian publishers in foreign currency. Apart from this, MAT i.e. Minimum Alternate Tax should be abrogated from the e-commerce landscape.” 

Swaminathan Vedaranyam, Chief Executive Officer, VIA.com, says, "As far as the travel industry is concerned, I think there is an urgent need for well-defined policies and clear commitments to ensure that all cultural heritage points are given more attention with improved infrastructural facilities. There is a recent spurt in domestic travel as well as a higher influx of foreign tourists in India and with dedicated upkeep of the tourist hotspots, we can ensure higher growth for the travel industry. Additionally, I wish that there is an allocation towards revitalising all unused airports in tier II and III cities as these geographies hold immense potential today. There should also be a rationalisation of air travel taxes for competitive pricing to boost travel and tourism."

Ganesh Vasudevan, CEO, IndiaProperty.com, says, “The real estate industry in India has high expectations from the first full Modi budget, especially because the previous budget focused on common man. The coming budget is expected to lay ground for affordable housing in India. The budget is likely to bring in some incentives for the first time home buyers and the affordable home buyers such as tax rebates and decreased home loan rate. The realty industry will only improve once the buying power of buyers increases. An increase in tax savings under 80C from the current Rs. 1.5 lakhs and home loan exemption rate from the current Rs. 2 lakhs would increase the buying capacity of home buyers and thereby help recover the realty industry. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT’s) should be fast tracked as it will give the much needed push to the realty industry in India. The budget is also expected to have some inclusions to promote foreign funding for the infrastructure projects.”

Shivakumar Ganesan, CEO, Exotel, says, “Ease of doing business high on startups' wishlist for the Union Budget 2015. Firstly, like the service tax exemption for companies with less than an aggregate turnover value of Rs. 10 lakhs, a standard deduction on all registrations, compliance and remittances until they reach Rs.10 lakhs in revenue will help startups immensely. Secondly, in Budget 2015, the government should be introducing friendly policies for technology startups by setting up a trust or fund to fight and protect the Intellectual Property (IP). Fighting an IP battle can be a daunting task for startups and is also an expensive ordeal.”

Rohan Bhargava, Co-founder CashKaro.com, says, “Creating digital infrastructure should be a prime agenda in the upcoming budget. The broader industry heavily depends on reliable and fast Internet, which remains a distant dream. Even large Tier II and Tier III cities in India don’t have decent broadband. In this budget, the government should take active steps to enhance connectivity in the country. We're hoping that the Union Budget 2015 will address these fundamental problems that the startup industry in India is facing, paving the way for growth and making of a true startup nation.”

Alan D’Souza, Founder and CEO, Vavia Technologies, says, “After Arun Jaitley’s session with the CEOs of Indian software and hardware companies, it is quite evident that this year the government is definitely focusing on entrepreneurship and innovation. As a start-up we expect the government to promote investments on IT infrastructure and motivate entrepreneurs to adopt new technologies.  Further to this the sector expects the government to introduce various IT and software parks to promote growth.”