PMAR 2021: Customer Data Platform is an absolute must for every ecosystem: Ajit Varghese

At the virtual unveiling of the Pitch Madison Report, 2021, Ajit Varghese, Chief Commercial Officer, ShareChat, spoke about the headwinds and tailwinds that the digital juggernaut must navigate to stay on course. 

Starting off the session, Varghese spoke about the whole behavioural change that the world has gone through. He shared, “Look at the advances in technology in the last one decade, especially with the recent emergence of machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, AR, VR, Wearables, blockchains, payment gateways, we can go on and on on this, but what we have seen is that rapid change in human behaviour. If you now couple that with the change and impact of COVID in the last 12 months, we can also see a big attitudinal shift. Now, whether it's that shift towards quality, safety, privacy, social, trust or even the general outlook and purpose of human life. There is a drastic change in attitude.  

“Normally attitudinal changes happen over a period of three, five years or even a decade, what we have seen over the last 12 months is something that has navigated the entire journey in a period of 12 months. Overall, we all understand that with this behavioural and attitudinal change. we are probably in the midst of a big disruption. We are all aware of that disruption but I think we are agile enough to adapt to that pace of that evolution and that's the real question that is coming to my mind, especially looking at the consumer and the marketing space,” he added. 

Elaborating on the key headwinds of the digital ecosystem, he remarked, “If you look at all the noise around the digital ecosystem in recent times, whether it's the data dialogue or regulations or discussion about monopolies, frauds, etc. All this discussion has one core theme that is central. And that to me is the discussion of consumer privacy and that has become extremely critical, and will probably be critical in the years to come in the next two-three years. 

The world of advertising, marketing, content personalization or the delivery, the way we have known it in the last decade is probably going to change. We all know the cookie is definitely crumbling. Now the question is how do we manage or navigate that. The first thing that comes to mind when I say cookie crumbling is this whole dialogue about personalization which came about in the last five or seven years. I think that probably goes out the window and that is really concerning me. I think serving advertising based on any kind of demographics or user behaviours is almost impossible without identifiers.”  

He explained further, citing examples of Apple and Google. “Yes, there is Apple Safari browser which is talking about privacy and permission-based advertising, since it's a closed ecosystem that may still continue. Google has introduced something called flop. I think it is only based on browsers. So, basically what it means is contextual audience selection becomes the only option, or it’s probably based on site content. And that to me, takes the personalization debate out of the window and that is concerning.” 

According to Varghese, there are always challenges and opportunities in any medium but professionals must evolve constantly. “In any of the mediums that you look at, there is always going to be a challenge and an opportunity and I think, we as professionals, whether it's marketers, advertisers or publishers, our job is to constantly evolve and constantly evolve in the face of that evolution, I think. I have always believed that going back to basics, the philosophy of advertising and marketing over 100 years has not changed much, but yet it gets modernized, a new technology comes in, and they always keep improving our ecosystem using the new methods of technology. So inherently, my suggestions on tailwinds of the digital economy would be in the space of Consumer, Content and Commerce.” 

Varghese advised advertisers and marketers to know their customers and invest in them. “The first and foremost suggestion for any advertiser or publisher or in the marketing agency business is to know your customer. I think never has it been more significant for advertisers or publishers to really invest in their customers and maintain their customer profile. Now, in the last five-seven years, we all have seen the emergence of DMPs. Now, DMPs are more in the advertising space about managing the advertising money.” 

Highlighting the importance of CDP, he further shared, “CDPs - customer data platforms, I think it's an absolute must for whichever ecosystem you believe in, knowing your customer is absolutely needed, creating that identity, keeping that identity with you, getting more descriptive customer profiles, getting to record their behaviours and patterns or any other qualitative data, CDPs help you store it, make it usable for a marketing activation.”