'Brands are looking to transform to not just survive, but also thrive'

GroupM and MMA India unveiled a report “Modern Marketers Guide for Transforming Marketeers” on Tuesday as they set out to guide marketeers on the changing environment in the world of marketing, and how they can do that smartly and successfully.

Speaking exclusively to exchange4media about the report and how marketers can thrive in this era were GroupM’s Chief Strategy Officer – South Asia, M Parthasarathy and MMA India’s Country Head Moneka Khurana.

Parthasarathy talked to us about what inspired this report and its aim. “The theme of this report is on transforming to thrive. What we are saying here is that there has been a period of tremendous uncertainty, not just when we thought we were out of the entire COVID debacle, there's been lots more uncertainty, whether it's inflation, war, so on and so forth. And at the same time, there's been lots of advancements as well, whether it's in terms of technology, whether it's in terms of consumer behaviour and so on. So, the entire aim of this is to literally look at how can how companies and brands are looking to transform in order to not just survive, but also thrive in this in this new age.”

Speaking about the factors that affected the need to transform, Moneka said, “There were three top factors which came out as the need to transform and to think very out of the box to be able to thrive. Those three like, one of the factors MAPS mentioned was, of course COVID. Second being the pace at which technology is evolving, and third being the shift in the consumer mindset itself. So, these three have been extremely potent reasons why the need to transform the tribe as a narrative just lands perfectly.”

Talking about what marketers should invest in amid the plethora of opportunities that they have, Moneka said that the most important bundle to invest into for marketers are the marketers themselves. “So primarily, it's the need for marketeers to be to become full-stack marketeers, who are not only doing what a marketer does, but who are able to drive performance using data and technology at the heart of it, and yet, build the brand and the reputation with storytelling, with design with cultural nuance and with of course, better and equals creative tools.

The second area, which we can't ignore, is investing in data stacks. So, when we say data stacks, it's not investing literally only into collecting data, but it's investing into the entire ecosystem of building a very rock solid, robust data driven strategy and data driven approach to business.”

On a similar note, Parthasarathy says he believes testing is one thing marketeers should spend their bucks on. “I think there's one investment which is never given enough priority, in my opinion, and that's the investment into test and learn. As we move into an era of more and more volatility, the only way for marketers to thrive will be to have a very strong test-and-learn process and a kind of a culture of test-and-learn and there is an investment required. There's a financial investment as well, which is required in that test and learn. It's about learning about consumers, trying to learn about what works, measuring each and every aspect because very often we see even today that learnings are in the head of individuals and not institutionalized.”

With India’s fast paced growth economically in the last few years, Parthasarathy says “India today is the eighth largest ad ex market in the globe. It was tenth not too long ago, and it's moved to the eighth position. More importantly than that, it is by far the fastest growing ad ex markets in the world. Our Group M has this year, next year report which we publish every year. In 2023, the expected growth is around just ahead of 15% as per February estimates. Obviously, we keep calibrating it periodically and so on. Now, last year, as well, it was about 15.7% when we look at 2022 over 2021. So, it's extremely robust while the overall entire world is growing at perhaps half that speed. The second point is even when you look forward into a period up to 2027, we are looking at a CAGR growth of anywhere in the region of 12% to 14%. So, this market is projected to continue to grow, continue to grow ahead of global levels. The other interesting thing is till date, if I look at 2023 it's the only market perhaps among the large markets where every form of media is growing; digital TV, print, radio cinema, out of home, so I think those are positive indicators. That's how marketers are also kind of increasing their investments.”

Moneka spoke about the AI trends as that is turning out to be a game changer this year. “AI obviously has multiple use cases and they will only keep growing, but when we talk about AI for marketing, there are clearly some very strong trends which are emerging and which are also already showing immense success. So, for example, enabling AI powered personalization, that's a very big trend. Whether it is through communication through media, through creative through influencer marketing, but enabling AI powered personalization is a very key trend, to a point where it's already for one of the global reports that mme released some part of the last quarter. It's already shown that when you deploy AI powered personalization, you would see a 25% increase in your customer retention and you will see a 20% growth in revenue.

Second is even when you look at AI from a lens of influencer marketing, there is a lot of experimentation happening on creating AI avatars and creating ways where you could use influencers and ambassadors multiculturallym multilingually and that also is a very big trend. The third is, I wouldn't even actually call it a trend, I would call it as oxygen for businesses. That's basically about having a driving data first marketing where you're continuously finding ways of leveraging data, whether it is your own data, whether it is second party data, whether it's third party data or blended data, but leveraging data effectively to drive marketing and growth.

Parthasarthy, speaking about the balance between creative marketing techniques and technology, said, “The message and the medium are now inseparable. I think what is important is to leverage these trends in the best manner possible manner.”