The 120 Media Collective and UK based Diagonal View, today announced their joint venture, ’Sooperfly’. The partnership is the first of its kind in the rapidly growing digital video space, where two companies with high pedigree and diverse skill sets have come together to create a killer proposition for talent and publishers to enter the world of video creation, distribution and monetization. The 120 Media Collective will package professional content and substantial audiences to drive premium ad sales and brand integrations.

The company will have a three-pronged approach to empowering the entire digital video ecosystem:

 

1. Bringing new & existing talent into the digital ecosystem by breaking down barriers and providing an entire suite of services including development, production, channel management and audience building. The content will range from the self-promotional for individual talent to premium content that can fit into emerging subscription platforms.
2. Tap into large publishers and curate, manage and monetize their existing content.
3. Sooperfly will also empower and enable brands to turn publishers with the creation of video led properties around the enormous talent pool that exists in the ecosystem today.

 

Sooperfly will forge 200 partnerships during 2015, across individuals, publishers and content collectives, who will co-produce content across a range of genres including lifestyle, beauty, fashion, comedy, sports, education, technology, the performing arts and more. The network already boasts names such as celebrity journalist Vir Sanghvi, celebrity chat show host Tara Sharma and stand-up comic Radhika Vaz, while collectives such as Shalom Films and The Rolling Garaari bring in a variety of topical and serial content. Initial advertiser partners will be announced later this quarter. Currently internally funded by the partner entities, the company aims to be a top 3 player in digital video across the APAC region over the next 36 months. 

Commenting on the partnership, Roopak Saluja, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, The 120 Media Collective, said, “Sooperfly is The 120 Media Collective’s digital video distribution arm that gives us the capability to build content brands direct-to-audiences.  It capitalizes on the production expertise of Bang Bang Films and Sniper and the digital marketing credibility we’ve built with Jack in the Box Worldwide but most importantly, it leverages our credibility with brands built over nine years.  Diagonal View as the global leader in audience development and channel management is the ultimate partner to join forces with in taking Sooperfly to a position of leadership in empowering digital video across Asia.”

Diagonal View was founded in 2008 as a joint venture with ITN. With access to more than 2 million hours of professionally shot content from ITN, the company quickly established itself as one of the world's leading digital producers and audience builders. Today, Diagonal View is best known for the exponential growth in subscribers, views and engagement time delivered to clients such as Sony Music, Comedy Central and CBS. Their own properties on YouTube such as AllTime10s (higher weekly views in the US than many top-rated cable television shows) and TheFootballDaily (larger than the Chelsea, La Liga, Fox sports channels) are testament to what smart audience management can do. 

“The market for professional video is global, and through local partners we have had great success throughout the US, Europe and the Middle East. We see huge potential in the Asia Pacific market, and believe this partnership and its unique skill sets will deliver professional video to substantial audiences”, said Matt Heiman, Founder, Diagonal View. “Our past success and experience with audience management and IP creation meets a current need gap in the APAC market, whether it’s brands looking at a scientific approach to video, or content creators and publishers looking for better management of their online properties.”

Digital marketing is fast coming into its own as a specialised discipline. From the early days of setting up websites left, right and centre and cutting cheques for search engine optimisation, it now encompasses social media, mobiles and apps as powerful new possibilities.

So much so that some companies now have Chief Digital Officers (CDOs). In some cases, the CMO or the CIO may wear the hat of the CDO as well. The point is, the digital realm is getting bigger and more important as you read this.

In a world that is happily clicking away for content, groceries, travel, leisure and anything that fills up our life, how do you do digital? Sure, a bunch of boutique social media firms and others with 360-degree charters and integrated plays have come up recently, but as a digital marketing professional or CXO, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a few best practices handy, would it? So here you go:

1. Identify the digital goals for your organisation: There are pioneering companies that have set their ambitions to nothing less than complete digital transformation. At the other end of the spectrum, there are (still) firms that are splitting hair about whether to go beyond a brochure or static website. Deliberate on where your company wants to be in the next one or two years and decide on specific digital goals.

2. Get the T&T (the team and its tools): Both these Ts will be crucial to the success of your digital efforts. However, in all likelihood, if you have the right team in place, they will go find the best digital tools to work with.

Again, in today’s increasingly fluid scenario, having a team doesn’t necessarily mean hiring bench-loads of Facebook junkies; it might work better to onboard a couple of digitally savvy professionals who are nimble-minded. They could even be hand-picked from within the company. Also, they should be able to manage the work outsourced (if any) to specialist agencies, programmers, etc.

3. Have a well-articulated social media policy: We keep reading of employees or customers cribbing on Facebook, Twitter or other social sites, followed by the klutzy approach taken by certain companies to respond to their comments. Given the generally open culture that social media fosters, even those who are not authorised by the company end up jumping in the fray—often causing reputational damage.

Building a brand online may be considered hard but it is nothing compared to the nightmare of salvaging a sullied reputation. It is best to have a detailed, idiot-proof policy (this must remind some of their boss :) concerning the use of social media and responding to comments or taking any other course of action. Goes without saying that a quick complaint-redress mechanism needs to be built alongside the policy. On social media, you must respond in minutes and hours rather than business days or weeks.

4. Mobile in the middle: In the feverish world of e-entrepreneurs, they have a new mantra for a successful business model: it’s called mobile-first. The idea is to think of the mobile phone (essentially the smartphone) as the first touch-point for customers (some storied mobile-first stars include Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, Spotify and Evernote, among others).

Not every corporate entity on Earth needs to be mobile-first, of course. But with the usage of mobiles exploding and the number of those phones going smart increasing like crazy, it would be stupid not to give “mobile” the place it deserves. The caveat here is not to think of mobile in terms of any single device but to look at enabling employees, partners, customers—whoever—to interact with your organisation anytime, anywhere, using anything that can connect to the Internet (you might have heard of the Internet of Things).

5. Balance speed and quality: If you ask around, most people would agree that the speed of life as well as business has gone up several gears in the past decade or so. In the context of digital, they would also aver that quality—the quality of content, software, etc—has gone down. While the race for digital supremacy is impelling most organisations to cut corners on quality, reduce time-to-market and respond to customers faster than ever, the winners will likely be those who manage a fine balance between speed and quality. It’s tough to achieve, but very much within reach, especially for companies that are not constrained by resources (or mindset).

6. Spread digital as a culture: This one is for the long term as well as the biggest impact. Arguably, it’s also the trickiest one. Remember the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” Having said that, people are not horses and digital is much different from water. With a top-down approach, can-do motto, the right tools and persistent monitoring, long-term organisational change can be brought in.

The key here is culture rather than strategy: you can strategise all you want, but unless the organisation’s culture is soaked in digital, the results would be sub-optimal. No wonder management guru Peter Drucker is said to have once remarked, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Or lunch, if you are a lunch person, but you get the idea.

And here’s the short, two-word conclusion to this article concerning your digital journey: start now.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com

Anupama Mandloi is currently the Managing Director of Fremantle India Television Productions Pvt Ltd, which has produced shows like Indian Idol, X Factor, and India’s Got Talent, among others. It is part of FreemantleMedia, one of the largest creators, producers and distributors of television brands in the world.

A key player in the television industry for two decades, Mandloi’s first stint with TV was in 1994 as a director and editorial coordinator for Plus Channel (promoted by Amit Khanna, Dilip Piramal and Mahesh Bhatt). Her career has spanned 15 years of programming in the broadcasting space with channels such as Sony Entertainment Television, Sab TV and Star Plus. She has been with Fremantle for five years now.

In this exclusive email interview to Sanjay Gupta for India Digital Review, Mandloi talks about Freemantle’s strategic direction in India, whether digital is impacting TV viewership, and Freemantle’s digital talent hunt, India’s Digital Superstars, among other things. Excerpts:


Please share a brief about the current strategy and direction that Freemantle is taking in India. What are some of the key things you will be driving personally?
FremantleMedia in India is consciously building fresh and alternative pathways for business development. While television content will always be the primary focus we do see opportunities opening up in the digital and live events space as well as building franchises from formats owned by us. The intent is to build IP and leverage our global distribution network. We have a head of licensing who drives these initiatives with his team. My focus is to ensure that the roll-out of these properties is consistently high quality in creative as well as execution.

How do you think is the digital media affecting TV viewership in India? What key changes have you observed in the past few years?
I don't believe the TV viewership is being impacted yet. The television dynamic in our country is not going to change substantially for another ten years at least as we still remain a fairly conservative market and have yet to grow adequately in terms of infrastructure to support the digital platforms.

The point of interest is really the creation of parallel platforms that allow for experimentation as well as asset building. It is clearly a space where new and younger viewers are gaining traction and advertisers are looking actively at focused viewership. The transparency of data is another very attractive quality in this space as well as being user friendly in terms of individual convenience.

With the growing popularity of digital, do you think the traditional TV viewing has suffered or do you think the overall market has expanded to include all media?
The overall market is expanding to include all media.

TV channels and production houses started experimenting with digital a few years back but the two media are still seen largely as separate and diverse. Do you think the time is ripe for the marriage of TV and digital? How do you think will the integration be achieved?
It’s happening already across some of the key television properties where digital is supporting and helping to build the interactive engagement with viewers. FremantleMedia has been doing this globally with all our properties where the second screen phenomenon is given a lot of attention. Usage of social media and apps to interact with the primary content on television has helped us build a very strong digital presence.

What differentiates India’s Digital Superstar (IDS) from numerous other talent hunts?
First of all, ease of audition is the main differentiator. The participants do not need to spend money travelling to a location to give auditions. They can shoot their video at their convenience within their homes/place of work and upload. They can shoot their act on the cell phones so there is no investment required.

Two, the auditions are open right through the competition until one week before the finale, giving anyone and everyone a chance to participate. Three, everyone can post more than one video right through the competition to increase their chance of making it into the top ten as the scoring is cumulative. And finally, [it allows] immediate gratification of knowing where you stand at any point in the competition.

How did you choose Zenga TV for the partnership over other players in the market? Also, given that the videos are hosted on YouTube, could you have partnered with it directly?
We wanted to partner with someone who had a deep understanding of this space and could help us build the backend for this show. The ease of navigation is dependent on the architecture that is created and that is critical to success. We are working with Zenga and One Digital as partners in creation and execution. YouTube has been very helpful with guiding us in using their platform to build viewership.

What benefits does Freemantle envisage will accrue to it from holding the talent show? Given that a lot of hugely popular and successful talent hunts currently happen through TV channels, why did you opt to go digital with IDS?
It is already a space we are familiar with and know how to build. We are leveraging our expertise in the talent space to enter the digital space. It will help us build talent to feed our existing TV shows as well as own talent that we can build other properties with…We will eventually create other genres as well for this platform.

Publishers and TV media owners have been trying to leverage user-generated content for some time but only a few (such as Facebook and YouTube) have succeeded to an appreciable extent. Do you agree and if so, what are the challenges they face?
Social media has effectively leveraged user generated content to create very clear 'celebrities' in this space. It is a world in itself and once you enter it you see a rich tapestry of creative minds, edgy and fresh content creators and 'stars' that have a following of millions. In the time to come, this space will explode. Several media owners as well as traditional media people predicted this almost ten years ago and today it would be fair to say that the space is growing rapidly and everyone wants to hitch a ride in this galaxy.

Typically, as TV programming for general entertainment goes currently in India, a channel places big bets on a serial or show, spending huge amounts of money in its promotion. How accurate are such bets in your opinion? Do you think digital is changing this approach by proving to be a test-bed before actual launch?
Any content creation is a bet. It can be instinctive or scientific but it remains a bet. The odds will always be in favour of those willing to experiment and push against the tide.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com

Rajesh Kumar looks after marketing for SAP, India Subcontinent region, which comprises India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. His mandate covers all of SAP solutions, including partner as well as customer marketing. In a career spanning two decades, Kumar has had diverse experience in technology and consumer marketing, with stints in companies such as Seagram, Perfetti, Microsoft and HCL. A Mechanical Engineering graduate of NIT, Kurukshetra (Haryana), Kumar holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He has also completed a programme in leadership and change management from Wharton. A regular speaker at industry and marketing events, Kumar was honoured with the Brand Leadership Award by CMO Asia and recognised among the “50 Most Talented CMOs” in India in 2012.

In this exclusive conversation with Sanjay Gupta for India Digital Review, Kumar talks about the happenings in the B2B technology marketing space, the growing role of social, digital and analytics, and what sets SAP apart from others in its realm. Excerpts:


Q. Given that a lot of action has been happening in the digital space over the past one or two years, how does that change the marketing equation for SAP—especially from a B2B perspective?
The way digital is changing or impacting B2B marketing, in my mind, is a bit different from B2C. For long B2C has been driven by creative and communication and distribution and, eventually, customer pick-up. For them the challenge has been measurement. The big excitement for B2C in digital is the ability to measure and take instantaneous action based on that. That is something which, to some extent, has always existed in B2B. This is because we do have a very finite universe [of customers] and we know them very deeply. Also, our solutions are complex and require a lot more engagement.

To me, the value proposition of B2B is very interesting. B2B was restricted in terms of overall communication and the power of a big idea in the previous ear [pre-digital] because the spillage was unviable. To reach out to 25,000 or so companies, it didn’t make sense to go for TV or large-scale print media. So direct marketing became the primary mode—but there’s only so much you can accomplish in traditional direct marketing. I think digital brings the power of data-driven marketing which, at some level, has existed in B2B for long. I think digital is also bringing the power of creativity to B2B.

At a principal level, if you create an excellent piece of communication, people will pull it out and watch it over and over again. So I think the opportunity in B2B is to be creative again. And we all know the power or value of a story from which the customer can benefit.

Q. How important is social media in that context?
If you look at some of our large customers, we engage with them in different parts of the organisation at different levels and at different points of time. I think social media is a great way for us to build engagement with them. It allows us to engage with them on an ongoing basis. Not many in the B2B space are doing it and the models for B2B social engagement are just evolving—which is exciting, as we are already working on the cutting edge of that.

One of the things that social has brought up is that there is the individual voice and there is the voice of the company—now you can hear that individual voice and engage with them on that. In the earlier, traditional direct marketing model, communication was a one-time thing...maybe some telephonic conversations and an event later on as follow-ups. But now it is consistent. And we are a company about expertise—we have islands of expertise in different areas like retail industry, mobile technology, cloud computing, etc. So people can be the nucleus of those communities and engage with them before, during and after a communication or event. These various things are no longer discrete pieces of communication: it’s continuous and it’s two-way...This is how I’m seeing things shape up: very focussed, very personalised and on-goal.

Q. What kind of analytics or social media tools do you use?
We use a range of analytics and social media tools. Being a technology company, it is easy for us to be led by the tool; but the crux is to identify where is the value for the customer and where is the incremental value for us. So we are trying to solve that first and then see which are the right tools to do that.
 
Q. SAP as a company is known for deep domain expertise in different industry segments for which it provides solutions. Does marketing follow a similar, vertical-focussed approach in how you view the universe of customers?
The answer is, Yes. Because a customer in, say, retail industry is very different from one in the IT industry, you have to treat them differently. So we have deep industry expertise and we are going by industry. What happens is that at the top level, we have some large customers in multiple industry segments so we engage with them accordingly. Then, as we go down the chain, there are customers of a specific industry and geography. Like in Ahmedabad, you have apparel and pharmaceuticals; in Hyderabad, you have life sciences, real estate and construction...So we look at those clusters and that’s how we go to them and engage them through industry associations, etc, to bring them together. Then we have the capability to give them a comparative view from other markets that may be ahead of the [tech adoption] curve. So we can paint a picture of how a solution can impact their business outcomes.

Another approach for us—especially for the large mid-market segment that is saturated with the first-level solutions such as ERP—is to think, How can we take them to the next level? For them we have solutions that are mostly horizontal, even though there may be a higher incidence of a solution in a particular industry. For instance, solutions for consumer-facing functions, talent management and recruitment, etc. They are not our traditional customers, so we are building further engagement with them.

Q. How do you think is cloud computing impacting marketing?
As more and more cloud solutions come in, a lot of operations are going to the back-end. In today’s world, the reality of the business is happening where it touches the customer or an important stakeholder like a channel partner. So, different functional and business heads are also realising the need for IT and they are also getting tech savvy. And it is a partnership of the CIO and the head of function that is coming into play. We are working with all these technology and functional heads. We are actually going to where they congregate—associations, professional bodies, etc—and build a dialogue with them. And again, this dialogue is first about how can we make them successful and then technology becomes an ally.

Q. In an expanding universe of customers, how is your messaging changing for the digital era?
If you look at our new messaging, it’s “Run simple.” The pace of change has quickened globally and the businesses have become more complex; [but] technology can help you run simple...

Q. So it builds on your earlier message of “The best run businesses run SAP?”
Yes. Not only that, we are simplifying the way we engage with our customers. So we are simplifying the contracts, simplifying what we can serve them online...we are completely changing our digital presence and we are calling it One Digital. So with a single sign-on, they will be recognised and led to a customised experience. We are going big bang all the way into digital as a company.

Q. From an online or digital perspective, how would your potential customers compare you with a nimbler competitor like a Salesforce.com or a Workday? And how would you measure that perception?
There are two parts to it. One is when customers choose SAP—and we are moving pretty fast there; in fact, we have the largest base of cloud users in the world. We have achieved this through organic growth as well as acquisitions, for the idea is that this change [digital/cloud] is happening right here, right now.

The second part is that when customers choose a solution in the cloud, sometimes they may go for a point solution in a hurry—but it doesn’t talk to their back-end. And we run back end for most organisations. So if you are wanting to do customer analytics, from where will you get the data for that? From ERP, of course. When you want to do analytics on payroll, talent, etc, globally, where will you pull the data for that? Again, from the systems. If you want to innovate in terms of purchasing, you’ll again need to get the data from the company back-end systems. So, at one end, with HANA, we are giving it to them real-time. We are able to provide the customers an integrated solution across functions, and the solutions are all interoperable. So while some of the competitors may have their own advantages, for us, the fact is that we can provide them integrated innovation end-to-end, and the solutions all talk to each other. So some companies may want to do something in a certain way for a short time but eventually, they would want all their solutions to talk to each other.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com

Nand Kishore Badami is Director and Head of Marketing at Cisco for the India and SAARC regions, where his mandate is to ensure tighter alignment of strategic marketing objectives and outcomes with the company’s business plans. An IT industry veteran with over 27 years of experience, Badami has held senior positions with leading IT organizations, including HCL Infosystems, Tally Solutions and Citrix Systems. Prior to joining Cisco, he was VP of global marketing at Netmagic Solutions.

Badami holds a bachelor's degree in commerce from Bangalore University and a post graduate in marketing management from Indira Gandhi National Open University. In this exclusive interaction with Sanjay Gupta for India Digital Review, he talks about the importance of digital and social media for Cisco, how the Internet of Everything is set to reshape work, and the challenges CMOs face in optimally using digital, among other things. Excerpts:

Q. What role does digital play in the marketing efforts of Cisco in India? 

Digital marketing forms an important and integral part of the marketing-mix for any marketing campaign that we undertake at Cisco India. We were the early adopters of digital marketing tactics and a definitive proportion of our marketing budget is earmarked for digital and social initiatives. It’s also important to point out that while we undertake standalone digital and social marketing campaigns, we try and include digital marketing tactics in every campaign including the offline tactics.

Q. At what stage of evolution do you think is the digital space in India? How do you think it is growing—or not growing?

Digital marketing is in a fairly mature stage. While the B2C space has definitely leveraged digital and social, B2B is witnessing its application as well. The times ahead would focus on e-commerce and applications interface centred around mobile as a platform. Business intelligence practices and tools would be taking centre stage.

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

We recently did a social media campaign on Twitter. The objective was to capitalize Twitter traffic for response generation and contact acquisition through online targeting and promote video capsules across social media platforms for social engagement and nurturing.

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

Digital marketing tactics are best leveraged for thought leadership, customer relationships and brand awareness. While digital is perhaps the most comprehensive and measurable medium as compared to others, it’s difficult to leverage the digital medium for revenue-generation plays.

Q. Is social media having any significant impact on how you market your products or services? What is your viewpoint on the growing consumption of social media and its place in the digital mix?

We have had many add-ons such as establishing a virtual market place and selling products online. It has definitely helped us set up a better sell-out structure. Social media is an important ingredient of our marketing mix but social listening again contributes to the core in engaging with the influencers.

Q. You have a very positive outlook on the Internet of Everything and even launched a show around it on TV. How is the IoE ecosystem coming together in India? What significance would it have for marketing or, for that matter, for CMOs?

The Digital India programme of the government is focused on the digital empowerment of citizens, wherein infrastructure would be offered as a utility to every citizen, and governance and services would be on demand. According to Cisco, for the Internet of Everything, the total value at stake in India is $511 billion over the next 10 years, out of which the public sector value at stake is $116 billion, which includes creating smart + connected communities and verticals such as health and education. Our vision of the Internet of Everything is that we will live in a world where everything—and everyone—can be connected to everything else. The Internet of Everything will change how we work by delivering more information, better decisions and increased economic value. 38% of total IT spend is already outside IT with a disproportionate spend in digital – it will be 50% by 2017. This signifies the dramatic shift of demand and control away from IT and towards digital business units closer to the customer. What that means is that marketing departments can act as digital start-ups and CMOs can lead in a world where hundreds of thousands of sales people, resellers and channel partners look for nimbler and newer ways of doing business in a fluid digital world. I believe marketing has never been more important for the competitiveness of a company.

Our IoE brand campaign earlier this year set out to communicate this message. From a strategic marketing perspective, it is crucial to build awareness and enable conversation and engagement opportunities around it. It also requires continuous and concerted efforts, particularly around a vision and a longer term strategy to execute and attain the desired impact.

Q. What advice would you like to share with your peers in the industry? 

Digital media is perhaps one of the most powerful mediums to reach your customers and today's marketers and strategists should adapt it as a bible of marketing.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com.

The mobile platform is steadily changing the game for all publishers, so much so that everyone from the small publishing houses to the big news publishers are forced to revisit their online content strategy.

According to research firm GfK, total mobile phone sales in India are expected to touch 200 million units this year, of which 53 million would be smartphones. The number of mobile subscriptions had already crossed the 900 million mark a few months back. Given that most of the smartphones and a significant chunk of the feature phones are connected to the Internet, consumers are increasingly accessing different types of content through mobiles.

Talking about the Indian Internet users on mobile, Nitin Mathur, Senior Director, Marketing - Yahoo APAC, says, “The number of users accessing the web on their mobile handsets in India is expected to reach 155 million very soon, maintaining a quarter-on-quarter growth of 20%.”

With the rapid growth of Internet enabled mobile phones in India, publishers are witnessing a major surge in online mobile traffic. “About 30+% of our traffic is now mobile," says B.G. Mahesh, Founder of online publisher OneIndia.com.

Mathur concurs, quoting even higher mobile traffic figures. “More than 50% of [our] traffic comes from mobile, an increase of 3X; also, the time spent on mobile grew 79% in the last year alone,” he says. According to him, today the number of monthly active users on Yahoo (including Tumblr) exceeds 1 billion, up at least 6% over the last year. Across Yahoo and Tumblr, on a device basis, the company now sees more than 550 million monthly active users on mobile.

The shift of traffic from desktop to mobile is happening for many Hindi publishers as well.

Bharat Gupta, Executive President - Marketing and Digital, Jagran Prakashan Limited, says that based on the current rate of change and adoption, they are expecting “mobile web to be bigger than desktop Internet use by the end of first quarter 2015.”

Gupta also adds that this year, 51.7% of their online users were on desktop, significantly less than the 67% desktop users last year. In contrast, mobile users grew to 46.97% from 31.75% in 2013.

“The average split for us is close to 50:50 for desktop vs mobile+tablet. This can obviously move in favour of mobile/tablet - we anticipate this going in the direction of 60:40 in the next couple of years in favour of mobile/tablet,” says Sandeep Amar, Chief Operating Officer, India.com.

For regional language publishers, so far, the split between desktop and mobile is still skewed in favour of desktop, but mobile traffic is expected to grow faster in the coming years. Boby Paul, DGM - Marketing (Online) of Malayala Manorama Co. Ltd, says, “For us an average of 84% and 16% of the total traffic is happening from desktop and mobile devices respectively. By next year or so we are expecting the mobile traffic to double to around 25-30%.”

 

Refining their mobile strategy

With current and future traffic growth coming from mobile, no wonder publishers are refining their online content strategy to proactively benefit from this platform shift.

“We all have to think a lot more about the mobile strategy as the youth is always on the mobile,” says B.G. Mahesh of OneIndia.com.

Yahoo, for one, has ensured that all its products have a mobile presence. The company also made its homepage experience available on feature phones and focused on delivering cross-screen experiences to its users. This year, Yahoo launched Mail, Flickr, Weather, Aviate, News Digest, and Homepage in India on a mobile-first basis. The result: today, over 50% of Yahoo users in India access its network through mobile.

Sanjay Trehan, Head - MSN & MSN Apps India at Microsoft, says that in a bid to address the multi-screen audience, the company recently launched the new MSN, which is slated to be device and platform agnostic.

In addition, many publishers are launching apps in different regional languages to engage with the users and stay relevant.

Monetizing the mobile traffic

Now with the growing number of mobile content consumers, publishers are looking for ways to monetize this traffic.

Mahesh of OneIndia.com feels that monetization on the mobile is in early stages, likening the current situation to the early days of content access through desktops a decade and a half back.

Trehan of MSN adds that the “consumer is info-snacking all the time” and for publishers it’s imperative to have a cutting-edge mobile app strategy which borders on a cross-platform approach and aims to address the needs of users.

Amar of India.com believes that display advertising is gradually moving into brand solutions, native advertising, audience data based sales and programmatic sales.

Talking about the revenue from mobile, Mathur of Yahoo says, “Our mobile revenue has more than doubled year over year. In Q3 2014 we saw mobile revenues in excess of $200 million on a GAAP based on our mobile-first focus.”

Mathur emphasises a “virtuous circle” that comprises people, products, traffic, and revenue. “Hire great people; they will build great products that generates increased traffic and, ultimately, increased revenue.”

It is believed that revenues will finally follow—but exactly when and to what extent are the big questions. For the moment, publishers are busy creating engaging content for the mobile audience and planning how to make this content accessible across multiple operating systems and devices.

 

Four months ago, After a 4 year stint with McDonald's, Rameet Arora joined online restaurant discovery and search service Zomato as its Chief Marketing Officer.

Rameet Arora began his career in advertising in 1996 with Arms Communications. During the course of his career he joined Rediff for almost a year and did a short stint at McCann-Erickson as well.

Then in 2000, he joined Leo Burnett as senior account supervisor. Arora was with Leo Burnett for more than eight years. During that span, he worked as director, corporate initiatives and spearheaded the recruitment and reputation drive. Arora handled brands such as McDonald's, Hitachi, UTI, Future Group, Asia Pacific Breweries, Heinz and Complan during his tenure in the advertising world.

Prior to joining McDonald's in 2010, Arora was a part of the founding team of Hindi GEC Colors. At Colors, Arora dealt with branding, consumer pull, launch of upcoming shows and sustained affinity of the channel.

Now In an exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Arora talks about the growing importance of the digital medium, how the online restaurant discovery service market is changing in the country and the challenges faced by the CMOs in making the most of digital. Excerpts:  

1. How does the digital medium - both internet and mobile figure in Zomato’s plans to reach out to consumers?

We’re focused on building our brand franchise with the growing tribe of young mobile and online-centric users. Our marketing effort is a mix of both online and offline activities. As part of our marketing strategy, we use social media to connect with and engage with our user base as well as drive a strong digital campaign. Mobile is increasingly becoming a focus with the explosion of smart phones and shifting internet behaviour (to the mobile phone).

2. How do you see the online restaurant discovery service market in India evolving in the coming years? And how would this evolving market affect Zomato? 

Zomato pretty much defines the online restaurant discovery market in India. We’ve created the market and our focused on growing it. Given the compounded growth in internet usage and explosion of smart phones, rapid growth is inevitable. Particularly in a young country like India which is discovering new food and new lifestyles all the time.

3. What are Zomato’s current digital spends? How do you see them move in terms of growth and focus? 

For a brand that lives in the digital space, it’s fair to assume that digital is a large part of our spend, globally.

4. In the last year, Zomato has been on an expansion spree. And with the fresh round of funding, Zomato's valuations has quadrupled. How is the process of integrating all the acquired brands happening? Are you going to retain some of the acquired brands or are going to bring everything under the Zomato brand?

Zomato has acquired 4 companies globally in the recent past. These acquisitions include MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in the Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland.

Our endeavour is to build an integrated product which combines the best of Zomato and these companies. The integration is phased out to ensure that the user and merchant experience remains smooth. The combined product offering offers the best of Zomato’s exhaustiveness of restaurant information as well as the core competency of each of the other companies. In fact, three of the current integrations are already live and are being well received.

5. What is your take on mobile being a great medium for brand communication? And what is Zomato's mobile strategy, including Apps? 

With the surge in smartphones and an increase in the time being spent on mobiles than any other digital media, the apps space is only expected to boom. Today, more than 50% of Zomato's 30 million plus monthly visits come from its mobile apps across the globe, this is testimony to the fact that local search is moving to mobile very quickly. Our mobile efforts are in sync with a continuously evolving (improving) product coupled with strong mobile marketing.  

6. Why do you think social media marketing is essential for brands? How are you leveraging social media to promote Zomato?

We look at social media as a critical part of our integrated marketing strategy. We believe that if we hit the right chord with our audiences on social media; if they find us fun, conversational and interactive - they’d be sure to spread the word. Through our social networks we aim make an authentic connection with everyone we interact with. We use social media to engage with our users and fan base and sometimes to encourage conversation and feedback.  

7. Please share in brief a couple of digital marketing campaigns Zomato has done recently or plans to do next and what makes them different or noteworthy?

We’ve learnt with time that if you have good content, it will definitely be appreciated. With our content on social media we see a weekly reach of 2.8 million. In particular, our social media post on ‘Things vegetarians are tired of hearing’ witnessed a reach of 5 million.

Here are three of our most popular social media campaigns:

1] There are 2 kinds of people:

On social media & blogs:

- Reach: 1.7 million

- Engagement: 67,992 (on Facebook through likes, shares & on Twitter through replies and favorites and blogs as well)

2] Last meal on Earth:

On social media:

- Reach: 1.1 million

- Engagement: 22,422 (on Facebook through likes, shares & on Twitter through replies and favorites)

3] Primetime Yummies

On social media:

- Reach: 55,8621

- Engagement: 40,998

8. What challenges do you foresee for CMOs in tapping the digital medium?

When a brand exists and lives in the digital space there are obvious challenges in dealing with diverse markets globally and regionally. Digital access, quality of access, device and platform penetration and social behavior all differ from country to country.  

But, digital has also brought alive a myriad of opportunities. By definition great brands surprise us with their ability to customize and yet they have an underlying sense of familiarity. The digital medium has made this more possible than ever before.

The digital platform is causing a lot of disruption in the world of hiring—not unlike in many other realms. While the thick appointment supplements of newspapers now belong to a bygone era, the upstart job sites which ate their lunch themselves are facing tough competition from the hungry buzz on social media. Anshul Punhani, Head of Marketing for India, Middle East, South East Asia and Hong Kong at online jobs behemoth Monster.com, however, seems ready to meet the challenges. He believes that technology has made the function of HR “seemingly easy but functionally tougher.” And that the digital age helps capture logical data about the complete lifecycle of an employee and there are several things Monster does “better.”

A marketing pro with around 16 years of experience in consumer and technology marketing, Punhani has previously worked with Videocon, Microsoft, Samsung and JWT, among others. An MBA from Apeejay School of Management, he holds a Six Sigma Green Belt and was the recipient of the Gold Star Award of the Chairman and CEO of Microsoft for 2007, among other accolades. Here are some edited excerpts from an exclusive email interview to Sanjay Gupta for India Digital Review:

Q. How do you think is the digital marketing space in India evolving? What are the things you believe are lacking or could be done better?
India will evolve just like other international markets but at a faster pace. As more committed investments flow into digital marketing, the pressure to deliver better results will lead to more accountability, maybe better creative and engaging work as well. Brands will need to have a unified strategy that will include digital as a core medium for customer conversations and not just a good-to-have. To deliver better results or to maximise every rupee spent, digital marketing service providers will look at using more sophisticated technologies to improve outcomes. Demand for digital marketing will continue to grow in the months and years to come. Content is playing a very critical role and is now the key driver to decide what media vehicles you want to choose. This has given an added advantage to the digital medium.
 
Q. What role does digital play in your marketing efforts in India?
The volume of demand for digital marketing services as a whole has gone up exponentially. Virtually, every brand needs to have an online presence today. For some, it could just be a website and a Facebook page; for others, it’s a complete digital ecosystem. For us at Monster, we being a digital company, it’s the entire ecosystem. A large portion of our marketing effort goes towards digital media.
 
Q. Monster is a company that leveraged online recruitments early on. However, with social competitors such as LinkedIn taking hiring to another level, what has been the strategy of Monster to counter or embrace that?
Monster is the worldwide leader in successfully connecting people to job opportunities. Our promise is to ‘Find Better by Better Access, Better Connections and hence Better Jobs or Better Candidates’. From Web to mobile, we help companies find people with customised solutions, and we use the world’s most advanced technology to match the right people to the right job. Look out for this space for more.
 
Q. With most content consumption and a large chunk of population, especially professionals and knowledge workers, going digital, how is it affecting the way companies approach and get the right talent?
Technology has made the function of HR seemingly easy and at the same time functionally tougher. Varied forms and easy access to information on digital platforms has acted like a double-edged sword. At one end of the spectrum it has broadened the horizon of talent acquisition and employee management and taken its scale of operations to a global level. The digital age helps capture logical data about the complete lifecycle of an employee, making the talent management process transparent and quick. At the other end of the spectrum, search for information and the credibility of information source have become a big task. Another emerging trend is that firms are now required to mandatorily manage a lot of assets and not just the talent process - employer branding and online reputation. These two spokes of the hiring process have taken a big leap and gathered momentum at almost all big hiring firms.
 
The employer brand is that emotional connect with job seekers and employees that plays a big role in redefining the organisation’s proposition as an “Employer of Choice’. In building a great employer brand, the HR function has the biggest role as the custodian of the employee brand and the employee value proposition. It is worthwhile to note that HR drives employer branding in most organisations, and very few involve their marketing departments in the budgeting stages. According to the Employer Branding survey 2014 by Monster.com & People Matters, 78 per cent of companies involve the HR department in employer branding.

Talent strategy is another hot topic for all CEOs. Engagement and retention of key talent in the organisation has to be the personal agenda of every CEO. According to the same survey, 45 per cent of CEOs actively participate in deciding how to spend the employer branding budget. It further revealed that 91 per cent of CEOs believe that their direct participation in talent endeavours acts as a critical factor for meeting growth objectives of the organization.

India’s rapid economic growth trajectory has caused the demand for talent to surpass the supply. The digital platform has opened an array of avenues for the employment sector; it has been a propeller that has evolved the hiring process for senior professionals, flexible jobs for women, specially-abled, retired and soon-to-retire servicemen, to name a few. There is a gap in the ecosystem to provide equal job opportunities. Analysing the situation, Monster India has taken innovative steps towards providing equal opportunities. For instance, Monster.com along with CII launched ciispecialabilityjobs.in – a platform for the specially-abled people to find relevant jobs. Similarly, we have collaborated with the Indian Air Force Placement Cell (IAFPC) to assist Air Warriors—Commissioned officers and warranted officer/ Senior Non-Commissioned officers seek suitable opportunities in the corporate world, post retirement. Organisational diversity will be a key area of focus for Indian organisations in the coming months.

Q. Please share in brief a couple of digital marketing campaigns Monster has done recently or plans to do next and what makes them different or noteworthy?
Over the years we have launched campaigns that provide better job opportunities to both employers and seekers. For instance, the ‘Wake Up’ campaign urged jobseekers to revisit their original professional goals set up when they began work and it then helped them to match up to their goals, pushed them to embark on a journey for a new job through Monster.com. The company’s positioning was to initiate a  move to the next level as ‘luck’ would favour those who look for ‘Better’ and to ‘Find Better’, one needs to ‘Wake Up’ to the new opportunities. The serious message of ‘wake up to the new opportunity’ was communicated in a unique and creative fashion with the use of animation that e-recruitment category in India has never seen. An interesting way to leverage the digital medium was that on Twitter, the brand popularised the hashtag #WakeUp and invited entries from people on how to rouse their campaign's somnolent protagonist who desperately needs to change jobs. It got 370 entries in 12 hours when Monster.com hadn't even started using the brand name in the hashtag.

Another differentiated offering is Monster’s Virtual Career Fair (VCF) which has been received exceptionally well. It has been instrumental in setting a trend in job and candidate search. VCF is a unique, convenient and cost-effective alternative to actual career fairs in a media-rich interactive environment.

Monster TV is yet another initiative that provides an opportunity to create your very own career channel. Here you can find better ways to pursue your passion, live your dreams and get luck on your side with Monster.com.

Q. As a CMO, what are the main challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium?
Marketing for any brand, product or service should have a balanced integration with the overall business goal. The face of marketing has tremendously evolved with the digital medium. Impact of digital and social medium in marketing is at two levels.
 
First, it is an enabler in ‘story-telling.’ The media mix decision has become such that it is now based on the type of content you have created or earned, so it can be video, audio and text. However, managing content and controlling messaging across the digital space poses to be more of a challenge than the task of getting the message across to the audience.
 
Second, the adoption of marketing technologies drives efficiencies and effectiveness in the marketing function. Living in the era of the digital space today, organisations across the globe are connected and active on the Internet—and thus, constantly building a larger user network on a daily basis. With the technologies comes data and data in big forms. Managing big data is a constant endeavour and a constant focus area at our end.
 
Q. While the digital medium has made significant inroads into the entry and mid-level employee recruitments, most senior level hirings still happen either through specialist offline exec search firms or referrals. Any comments on how this is likely to change or not change?
There are only two types of jobseekers—those actively looking for a job and those who are passive or not looking for a job—irrespective of the level or experience of the job seeker.

An active senior-level seeker can only be headhunted if they have their profile updated on a jobs board, as that is the only avenue which leads to larger reach and access across the mix, including head hunters. Even a head hunter would typically do searches on a jobs board to know about a potential candidate before pursuing [the opportunity].

Amongst the passive seekers, there are only three segments –
1.    A passive seeker is passive because he is content with his job, in which case we would still advise them to simply keep their profile updated because we at Monster believe there is always a better opportunity out there and you should keep finding better.
2.    A passive seeker is passive because he feels he is on the right career path and does not need to look out, in which case again we would advise them to update their profile because there is a good possibility of missing something you always desired while you were busy with your life.
3.    The seeker is passive because of sheer complacency, in which case they need a wake-up call.
Moreover, mPower Search for recruiters and mPower Jobsearch for job seekers can help make targeted searches based on parameters for fitting jobs and candidates.

Q. Monster now operates in an increasingly competitive market. How has the marketing function or the CMO role been changing in your industry?
 A host of factors, largely digital medium-influenced, are making the life of the CMO increasingly complex. With the increasing ability to mine and analyse data to drive customer preference, product benefits and business revenue management, the marketing function now has a much stronger impact on business performance. The growing personalisation of marketing activity and the shift to online and increasingly customised seeker/employee benefits defines the future of the industry.

It’s no secret that over the past few years, handheld devices have become the main point of entry to the Internet. We’re coping with two worlds right now, and we really need to understand the differences in what interests them and in how they learn about and utilise the services effectively. We have to do old-world marketing and new-world marketing all at the same time, and ensure that our message and methods are consistent across multiple channels and all aligned towards supporting the brand.

Q. Any words of advice you would like to share with other CMOs and the digital marketing community at large?
In the age of digital consumerism, the CMO role tomorrow will need to converge marketing with technology and content. Marketers will need to become more technology savvy—this is not an option but a necessity to be successful in the world of consumer-driven marketing.

Address the importance of understanding the customer’s world: Digital transformation should be appraised by acknowledging the primacy of being of service to the customer. To be able to build a strategy, and then evaluate business processes and marketing technologies to address that strategy, you need to be able to specifically track the various journeys of customers as they encounter your business and in the broader markets that you serve. At each key point along the way, you must identify the dynamics that customers are experiencing in the physical and digital worlds; what they would like to have [or] happen, and how you can optimise that engagement.

Explore the importance of picking and supporting a great team: the CMO needs to be a great orchestrator to set the right organisational structure for digital success (often collaborating with the CEO), as well as pick and nurture the right people.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com

With a growing mobile infrastructure, India is fast emerging as one of the next big markets to watch out for in the mobile app industry. 

The digital savvy users are constantly on the move and they are using mobile to not only stay connected but also accomplish many of their daily tasks. Whether it’s mobile phones, tablets, or other personal devices, they have all the information available at their fingertips.

The smartphone ecosystem is filled to the brim with applications across multiple platforms, including  Android, iOS,  BlackBerry and Windows. With such a clutter, it is often difficult to ascertain the best of the lot. 

All the same, these mobile applications are ever more important for working individual–whose hectic lives increasingly depend on productivity apps to simplify and organize their efforts. So, we compiled a list of applications that can help you to be more productive at work.

Dropbox (Free) -

Lets you share your photos, docs, and videos easily from any device connected to the Internet. Dropbox was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, two MIT students tired of emailing files to themselves to work from more than one computer.

Today, more than 300 million people across every continent use Dropbox to always have their stuff at hand, share with family and friends, and work on team projects.

Available on: Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Kindle Fire

Evernote (Free) -

Evernote is a multipurpose app that lets you write notes, to-do lists and tasks that sync across all your devices. It's perfect for taking notes in the middle of a meeting. It even has a scanning feature for obtaining business cards. 

Available on: iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia

CamScanner - Phone PDF Creator (Free & Paid Version)

CamScanner Free is one of the most effective scanner apps available today.  You can take a photo of documents or other text with your camera, crop it, and then export the resulting image. With additional features to adjust the scanned images, numerous export options, and lightning-fast scanning speed, CamScanner Free is a must have.

Available on:  Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone 8

Any.do - Task List & To-do List (Free)

List-making and task-management app Any.do has a unique feature called the Any.do moment that encourages you to review your daily tasks. Geolocation reminders actually work in this app, and it's an overall great app for jotting down tasks and goals.

Available on: Android, iPhone, Chrome , Chrome Extension

Zamurai (Free & Paid version)-

Zamurai is a mobile whiteboard collaboration app that enables capturing and sharing ideas and discussions in real time. Users can access the whiteboards from any device.

Available on: iOS

Talkboard (Free) -

Talkboard is a collaborative whiteboard app developed by Citrix. With Talkboard you and your team can sketch, brainstorm, create, and doodle together in real time.

Available on: iOS

 

Videoshop (Paid - $2.99)

This app gives iPhone and iPad owners an easy way to edit mobile videos. Business users will find it especially handy for quickly creating presentations and slideshows. Videoshop includes such features as the ability to add and trim music, create slow motion videos, record voice overs and add sound effects.

Available on: iOS

Buffer (Free for individual use. For teams and businesses $10/month) -

Buffer is a social media management tool that is similar to Hootsuite. Where Buffer differs is in its focus on publishing content, rather than managing various feeds. With Buffer you get handy features such as automatic URL shrinking (a manual task in Hootsuite) and a superior scheduling interface.

Available on: Android, iOS and any browser

Alok Bharadwaj has had a long and impressive stint at Canon India during which the Japanese brand has not only become more widely recognised but its sales have also grown manifold in the country. Currently designated as Executive Vice President, he also wears the hat of the company’s CMO. An India advisory board member of CMO Council, he was awarded CMO of the Year for 2009 by the Council. Besides, he served as the President of Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) for 2011-12 and is currently Chairman of the Office Automation & Imaging Division of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). 

Prior to joining Canon in 2001, he was the head of channels for India & SAARC at Motorola for about six years. He has also had marketing and sales stints at Usha International and Voltas. 

In an exclusive interview to Sanjay Gupta for India Digital Review, Bharadwaj talks about the growing importance of the digital medium, how the e-commerce space proved the grey-haired CMOs wrong and the challenges for marketers in making the most of digital. Excerpts: 

How do you think is the digital marketing medium evolving in India?

Any medium is in fact a tool for interactive communication, and it is entirely dependent on how the consumer behaviour is evolving. There is no doubt that in the past decade a lot of transformation has occurred in the way people consume media and content—and this will continue to evolve. With more devices and connectivity, things are quite different from how they were 10 years ago. 

It is now being observed that almost all consumers in our [Canon’s] target audience are consuming digital content, on the web as well as social media. From that angle it is undeniable that in our communication, digital is a critical medium in all our [product] rollouts. In fact, all kinds of digital media are now an integral part of our marketing communication as well as customer engagement. The discussion at Canon is no longer about whether or not [to go for] digital—it is a must have. 

I notice that you have used the word “critical” for digital...

I think earlier, there was a novelty, an anxiety, and people felt that this [digital] seems to be a trend and therefore we should be on that bus. These were the thoughts that were coming to marketers—no longer. It is now very clear among marketers: digital is a critical component of communication for most of them. In fact, for young customers, especially in the metros, digital is often the most used or effective medium. We are still in the process of deploying the digital medium as an industry and also at Canon. 

What percentage of your total marketing spend is on digital?

It is now about 5% of the total marketing spend. However, if you look at only the consumer part of our business [mostly digital cameras], the spend on digital is almost 10%. The interesting thing that most companies, including Canon, are discovering is that it is not only about marketing communication, digital is a great customer relationship medium. And even greater, it is a customer engagement medium. In other words, if you have to connect with the customer multiple times, then digital is the best medium. Because it zeroes in on the customer and it has clear footprint on who all are getting engaged. 

Do you agree that to get the deeper insights from digital, companies need to invest in the right technologies and tools in addition to their marketing expenditure?

That’s right. For now, we are using a broad level of analytics to get customer trends but I do see the future potential for using deeper level of analytics, which will make digital even more important. For instance, this year we are positioning our digital SLR cameras to youngsters. Especially during this festive season, we want them to see the SLR communication, become interested in it and recall the model of the product in the communication. For the first time in Canon’s history, a campaign for this—a one-minute video—has been created for digital. 

How important do you think is digital, in addition to the traditional media, from a branding perspective?

Now, that’s quite an interesting and controversial issue for discussion. Often it is felt that digital is a reminder medium—it is a call for action. On the web, shoppers are usually scouting for great offers. Therefore, for a short duration campaign that is a call for action, it is a great medium. But digital is usually not used by many of the brands for high-ground, high-orbit imagery creation. 

As far as Canon is concerned, brand building or brand image creation is not what we are using digital for; we are using digital for a little bit lower-orbit communication, which is more action-oriented...My personal thought is that digital is now as effective for building a brand image as any other media. The only thing is that the footprint of digital media is still younger, a bit tech-oriented and concentrated more in the metros. 

How do you see the evolution of e-commerce in India and how important it is for the products Canon sells?

I think e-commerce or online commerce is a game changing phenomenon in India in the way products are bought and sold. It is a big transformation happening in India. Seeing the choices, identifying the good choices, finding out the prices and getting the products into their hands without the risk—these define the mindset of Indian shoppers. People are also realising that the best prices are available on e-commerce sites. If you look at digital SLR as a product category, which is the main focus area for Canon in cameras, one out of every four digital SLRs sold in the country is through e-commerce. 

Do you think that the assumptions a lot of CMOs had about e-commerce have turned out to be wrong?

Indeed, e-commerce has actually proved all of us wrong. The first hypothesis that grey-haired CMOs made a few years ago was that e-commerce will remain a very small percentage because Indians love to touch and feel the product and feel more assured with the shopkeeper—completely wrong. The second thing that the CMOs predicted was that the e-commerce guys would not be able to sustain the COD (cash-on-delivery) model because there are thousands and thousands of towns in India—proved wrong. The third assumption that the gray-haired, wise CMOs had was that e-commerce was just a novelty and as long as the players continued to get funds, they would grow, and as soon as they stopped getting funds, e-commerce would stop—again, completely wrong. 

Today, e-commerce is even selling products at prices that are higher than those at the traditional stores if the vendors are able to offer some additional value. In fact, some brands are launching new products through e-commerce. And that is also a value—that e-commerce is offering a product that is not available outside. We are beginning to see many such interesting things in the marketplace. Now all CMOs, including me, who are 45 years of age or above, are realising that we are not the customers for e-commerce sites: it is the 65% of population of India who are below the age of 35. And those customers have a different mindset. So e-commerce in India is here to stay and grow, there is no doubt about that. 

In view of these changes, have you also had to take a relook at your expansion plans, say, the Canon Image Square stores?

Yes, of course. These stores are now being looked at as experience centres where the customers can experience photography. The positioning now is that when you enter a Canon Image Square, it is a world of photography for you—whether you are creating an image, uploading it on a portal, archiving or sorting out the pictures, etc. In fact, Canon is also in the process of launching cloud services through which the customers would be able to upload a lot of their photos. 

What challenges do you foresee for CMOs in tapping the digital medium?

The first challenge is to see the digital medium from the customer angle, how customers see it. Since most of the CMOs are not the customers of their own products, seeing the media from the customer point of view is very, very important. The second thing is that we should not fall in love with our media plans. A media plan is as good as it is effective—and it won’t be effective all the time. So it is not that we have to prove ourselves right: we may have signed on a media plan but we may need to go back and amend it. We need to be very flexible. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that digital is a very fast-paced medium: what we are seeing today may not be relevant one or two years down the line, when something entirely new may come up. So it is very important for marketers to have a deep understanding of how the customers are going to consume media. But one thing seems to be sure: more and more people want to have freedom in how they consume content and, increasingly, they want to do it in their individual, private space. So more and more customisation will continue to drive the consumption of digital content.

Sanjay Gupta is an editorial consultant and freelance writer based in Delhi. He can be reached at thinksanjay@gmail.com