'CTV is the sweet spot between digital and television'

Connected TV is a huge opportunity for brands to reach a vast pool of influential consumers with high purchasing power, according to a power-packed panel of experts at the e4m TV First Conference. The topic of discussion was  ‘TV + Digital – An Advertiser's View’.

The panellists comprised Punit Dharamsi, Vice President -Marketing, AMFI; Pradnya Popade, Head of Marketing and Communications – Samsonite; Samir Sethi, VP & Head of Brand Marketing – Policybazaar.com; Shilpa Desai, EVP & Head, Marketing – HDFC ERGO General Insurance and Anooj Kapoor, Chief Creative Officer, Dangal2. The session was chaired by Nikhil Kumar, Vice President, India & South East Asia – mediaSmart.

Initiating the conversation, Kumar pointed out how consumers switch between TV, mobile, laptops and many more in today’s multi-screen world.

Sharing his views on advertising memos, Sethi noted: “Whenever we are watching television, it is no longer undivided attention that we are giving to television. We are constantly fiddling with our phones – texting friends and colleagues on WhatsApp, answering work-related emails, looking at Instagram reels and a bunch of other things. 

"On the positive side, the phone is completely unengaged because your primary medium of entertainment at that point in time is the big screen (television). So for example, if you are a digital brand and a consumer likes your proposition through advertising, they don’t really have to wait for their next store visit to respond to your communication. They might just pick up their phone and log on to your website and download your app which is exactly what we see.

"We plot the spot data of our TV campaigns along with our website traffic data to figure out what’s happening after we are running ads but also to dig deeper and figure out what components of the media plans are working better than the others for instance what channels, time bands, days of the week and also what creatives are working better. So, when we advertise on television, apart from the long-term brand-building benefits, we also get immediate ROIs. Therefore it acts as a good performance medium apart from being a long-term brand-building medium.”

Sharing her perspective on how the digital and linear world is evolving, Popade commented: “We have reached out to almost 25 per cent of Samsonite affluent audience through FIFA, KBC, Sony Liv advertisements through connected TV because our audience is mainly those who are having 40,000 plus devices. That’s how we could map the data and connected TV is giving you that particular data. Today you can see whether it is a small tab or a 40 or a 65-inch TV.”

Dharamsi noted, “We use each and every medium that is available to us to send out our message. For us, TV gives the reach and digital helps us to create reminder medium, recall, engagement and then get into their consideration set. We use each medium to their strength and try to convert that into consideration for our category.”

Moving further into the conversation, Desai said, “One per cent of GDP is the amount of insurance that gets sold. 99 per cent of the population is not insured. As we understand, television is a very laid-back medium. Digital is a hyperactive medium. Connected television is a very sweet spot between the two and as marketers, you need to nuanced about what is the role of each of these devices in your overall life and hence, the opportunity for advertisers to create some kind of impact.

"What digital has allowed us to do is put a lot of accountability in the way we spend and I think connected televisions give you that sweet spot. If you combine the nuances that digital allows you to leverage along with the medium like television which is one to many, you have a great opportunity to create very compelling advertising provided you understand what’s the play for it.”

From a content standpoint, Kapoor conveyed, “So far as the regular television is concerned, we all know the rules of the game, from an advertiser’s and a content creator’s perspective. In our market, largely soaps and comedy are in the GC genre popular and mass brands advertise on television. I think there are a lot of opportunities for small businesses because sometimes in connected TV, you can approach only a local market. I also see a great opportunity in the digital space in terms of curating specific content to block competition.”