'Consumers have optimized their life through digital mediums'
During the unveiling of the dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising Report 2022, experts shared insights on the success stories of the digital brands
India has become a major digital hub for brands to grow their businesses. The heavily penetrated digital market has directed the eyeballs to develop strategies revolving around digital platforms. During the unveiling of ‘dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising in India 2022’ report, panellists discussed the important aspect of growing business through digital media and shared insights on the success stories of the digital brands.
The ‘dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising in India 2022’ report that was unveiled on Tuesday revealed that the Indian digital advertising industry grew by 35% to reach Rs 21,353 crore by the end of 2021 from Rs 15,782 crore in 2020. The highest proportion of spends on digital media has been claimed by social media (29%, Rs 6,218 crore), closely followed by Online Video (28%, Rs 5,907 crore). While paid search accounts for 23% (Rs 5,039 crore), display banners claim 16% of the spends (Rs 3,420 crore). Digital media, the report states, is expected to have a growth rate of 30% to reach a market size of Rs 27,759 crore by the end of 2022.
Sandeep Walunj, CMO, Nippon Life India AMC while sharing his thoughts on acceptance of digital medium by consumers, said, “On the digital side of things we were looking towards a path to acceptance. The whole paradigm shift took place due to the pandemic. The whole acceptance of the digital-only model was made hastily. The benefit of this would be people shifted quickly to digital. Consumers have optimized their life through digital mediums and it became very convenient for consumers. People nowadays think twice before going to physical stores. There are a couple of big challenges the digital-only business will encounter is that consumer being a social animal, the touch and feel experience is missing which could impact the loyalty for a brand. Consumers are now more leaning towards the discounted deals and offers that they get online. But digital is here to stay.”
Somesh Surana, Head – Digital Business Group, HDFC Ergo says, “Digital only business will grow much faster than any traditional organization. But it depends on the business and product. Every business has to digitally resolve problems faced by the customers. In the financial sector, both digital and traditional businesses will survive. The larger point we need to understand is that we need to change as per consumer behaviour and we have to match up with their expectations.”
Talking about the success story of the digital-only model, Prasad Pimple, Executive VP & Head – Digital Business Unit, Kotak Life says, “There are so many businesses which adopted digital-only strategies and have become successful. The discount brokers like Zerodha, Groww and Upstox are significantly growing their customer base. Around 75% of new Demat accounts are opened through discount brokers. The same business model was available earlier as well but was run traditionally. The entry of discount brokers completely changed the paradigm, they have not only acquired a good number of customers but are also profitable. They succeeded because they identified and solved problems faced by the customers. They have eased and simplified things for the consumers.”
Vishal Parekh, Director – Monetisation, Yahoo, “There are two aspects in looking at the entire digital-only approach. One is you create a digital business and the other is to create a digital successful brand. It depends on the category and both of these are possible. New-age beauty companies like Nykaa and Sugar Cosmetics have been built online. I believe that the digital strategy will evolve into an omnichannel. A lot of things are evolving in the industry. A company like Zerodha resolved the issue of consumers by educating them about the equities and other financial-related queries which is required to trade. They created an amazing UI and subscription models which transformed their businesses.”
He further added, “With digital strategy, the buying or probably the acquisition of a customer has become easy unlike before. The right attribution to the consumer became a key success for the digital-only business model.”
The dentsu-e4m digital advertising report had been sponsored by HT Media Group and ABP Live, Voot, Yahoo!, and Josh are co-powered by sponsors. mFilterIt, Truecaller, and Trell are Co-Gold partners while Xapad Ads is the Innovation Partner.
