'Media practitioners need to understand how consumers live in real and virtual world'

'Every company is a technology company' will be the new mantra in the post-pandemic era, dentsu South Asia Chief Executive Officer – Media Divya Karani said at the unveiling of the dentsu-e4m digital advertising report.

"The past two years have been unprecedented for us as people. One of the most important changes is the all-consuming wave that businesses are grappling with (and) systemic changes in media, technology, and consumer behaviour. I am mindfully calling out these changes as systemic. This is best captured by a client quote wherein he very simply said "today every company is or will soon be a tech company". Across sectors, whether you are FMCG or BFSI, or any other sector, you need to be a tech company," she stated.

dentsu, Karani said, typically looks at digitisation beyond the disruption to the many possibilities that this opportunity accords as well as harnessing the promise that digital holds for tomorrow with innovative and fresh thinking.

"We believe that digital inclusion is a basic human right. Therefore, we as practitioners, need to create change for the better by going beyond digital inclusion to ensure digital well-being. This ensures that digital truly realises its growth potential," she added.

She also highlighted the growing convergence in our daily lives and how that will change the way brands communicate with consumers.

"We have never been as connected as we are today and in doing so convergence has occurred in our personal and professional lives across our leisure and information lives and in brand awareness as well as action. This convergence happened so seamlessly that sometimes it is difficult to separate one from the other and the brand funnel that we were as used to all these years is in itself questionable morphing as we speak and changing shape," she averred.

Karani also feels that media practitioners need to truly understand their consumers by understanding how they behave in virtual and real worlds.

"As practitioners, it's all about truly understanding the consumer, and when I say truly understanding the consumer I mean understanding their mindset and their motivation and expectations within the different environments. Understanding how consumers live in the real and virtual world and what do they do when these two worlds intersect is one of the most important factors and then creating a bridge with media as an enabler to build powerful experiences that captures consumers' attention, engages and then not only builds a relationship today but focuses on where they are taking the consumers tomorrow," she said.

Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Officer – Media, dentsu, and CEO, iProspect, said businesses have been focussing on expediting their digital onboarding from first to the last mile of their processes since the pandemic began.

The pandemic, he said, debunked the theory that digital is only a distant marketing and distribution channel. "The next wave of half a billion consumers will consume digital for personal and business purposes. Digital brands saw a massive growth in their revenue backed by strong enablers like shifting consumer behaviours whether it is for entertainment, e-commerce, or digital payments."

He also highlighted that dentsu works with clients across key sectors like e-commerce, insurance, stockbroking, entertainment and has helped them leverage this trend and gain share in the market against competition

"Businesses of all sizes whether micro, medium, large or small are recognising the power of digital and adapting their business strategies. By the end of 2022, the majority of Indian enterprises will be using digital as their backbone bringing the concept of Digital India to life," he added,

Thadani believes that the next few years will see convergence in the domains of company operations, marketing, and delivery with digital being at the centre.

Consumers, he stated, are engaging in one-to-one personalised experiences which allow brands to understand and then with insights help marketers to understand what consumers want. "Conversational interfaces such as smartphone devices, chatbots, and voice search have changed the way consumers engage with businesses," he noted.

Abheek Biswas, AVP – Consumer Insights, WATConsult, said brand and consumers are already moving to a more direct and transactional conversation beyond the e-commerce platforms more so with the emergence of digital payments platforms.

"Businesses will be operating with digital as their backbone and actualising the idea of Digital India. We will see the emergence of web 3.0 which will be extremely interactive, experiential and will blur the lines between virtual and physical. This seamless usage of augmented and virtual reality will change the way brands interact with consumers forever," he elaborated.

Noting that change is the second nature of digital, Biswas said that the technological pillars will change from SMACK technology like social, mobility, analytics, and clouds to the realm of dark technology pillars like blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, extended reality, and quantum computing.

"Metaverse is a powerful virtual engine to give us the power of both digital and the real world simultaneously. NFTs are being created for anything and everything. We will see the transformation of advertising from advertising which we see to the one which we feel and experience," he asserted.