‘Programmatic blended with creativity opens up immense potential for marketers’

Data, technology and creativity together can go a long way in helping marketers achieve the two-pronged objective of making a brand persuasive and famous, believe Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer Wavemaker, Head - Branded Content, Group M; Arjun Ravi Kolady - Head of Sales - India, Spotify; and Shubhranshu Singh, Vice President- Marketing Domestic and International Business, (CVBU), Tata Motors.

The trio was engaged in the chat session at the e4m Xaxis Programmatic Summit on ‘Creating Meaningful Marketing Campaigns’.

The session was kicked off with the participants defining what meaningful means to each one of them. Kolady went on to say what the customers want to accomplish and how it’s measured is meaningful to him. Singh shared whatever gets the brand and the association with customers strengthened and lands the brand in the desired position, whether that’s market share, number of people reached, and eventually moving the business forward, is meaningful to him.

Nagarajan added that programmatic advertising has seen significant growth over the last 3-4 years and creativity is very much part of the targeting, “It is very difficult to take creative out of the idea or targeting out of the idea,” he said. 

Kolady added that conversations in the digital space have been changing for over more than 10 years. The change also includes the number of platforms and the capability and what and how to measure. The industry has got a direction, though achieving the desired outcome has still been the challenge. “Intentions are there but the outcomes are usually not. But directionality wise, it is good to see that data-targeting insight is a part of the conversation instead of just having a gut feeling,” added Kolady.

Singh pointed to the trend of over-measuring the content reach, quality, awareness, in the programmatic space and said that brand metrics and media KPIs can be the causality of over-measurement. “We are often measuring things which are right in front of our nose, and because we have tools to measure, we have a measurement bonanza happening, everyone is measuring everything, but they are not able to make sense of it,” added Singh.

Nagarajan highlighted how data mapping helps in building up the premise of the campaign that is not just based on gut feeling. “We find out who the players are and what’s the gap here. This  eliminates the process of getting it wrong, and beyond that creativity kicks in, and after a point in that journey, the role of data is to justify creativity,” he said.

The trio also spoke about unexpected trends seen over the last few years in digital advertising, about what do different target groups think and how advertising on a digital platform is more challenging for a marketer than what it used to be in the traditional format. 

“It is much more fragmented, but with T20ficitaion, when it hits out at the target, it hits it fast. Things were more predictable earlier,” said Singh. Nagarjun added, “The entry barrier to the spotlight has come down drastically as there are so many platforms,” he added.

All of them agreed that even though the era of having a ‘memorable campaign’ is over, the emergence of data sets has made it easier for marketers to identify trends. They pointed out that creativity cannot be seen in isolation, and is very much part of the programmatic advertising. As the pandemic subsides, and businesses start working full throttle, there is an immense potential for businesses to benefit from the blend of creativity and programmatic advertising, they said.