‘Media quality matters but should be paired with other important factors’

exchange4media in association with Double verify conducted a roundtable where industry leaders from the brand as well as the agency sides came together to discuss the importance of media quality, the challenges they are facing and the way forward. The session covered various nuances of advertising and marketing where how to have a holistic campaign and achieve the objectives were discussed and people chimed in with their experiences be it from the agency point of view or advertiser point of view.

The discussion was moderated by Biprorshee Das, India Editor, WARC and the panelists include a diverse range of people. The panelists were Ashutosh Nagare, Vice President, Head of Performance Marketing, Interactive Avenues; Aatika Ehsan Ansari, Head of Media-Digital, Pernod Ricard India; Jaiti Hariani, Business Director,  DoubleVerify; Latish Nair,  CDO, EssenceMediacom; Nachiket Deole, Group Director-Sales, DoubleVerify; Raktim Borthakur, AVP, Starcom; Smita Salgaonkar, Country Manager-Data and Digital, Media Monks; Jinit Shah, Director-Digital Media, Pivotroots; Shefali Sangra,Program Director, Programmatic, LS Digital; Udit Mittal, Media Planning, Tata Motors; Siddesh Kerkar, Head of Marketing, Aditya Birla Finance Udyog Plus.

While discussing the subject every speaker put forward their take. Shah of Pivotroots said, “When it comes to performance marketing it really comes to the machinery of performance algorithm, etc. We see a lot of clutter in the industry that we are in. So what to choose and how do we really identify that we are talking to the right people at the right medium in the right contact I feel that context is slightly more important than quality.”

Deole of Double Verify also said in the same spirit, “When we think about quality, it consists of three-four things which are a durable, brand safe environment, for offering and delivering to the right people. It should be like hygiene.”

Kerkar of Aditya Birla Finance Udyog Plus, pointed out the importance of media quality. He said, “How to identify the quality of the medium that I am trying to buy, more relevant and disruptive audience vis a vis where I'm running a campaign and saying I'm trying to reach audiences. Media quality makes a difference in both the cases.”

Mittal of Tata Motors spoke from the perspective of an advertiser. He said, “From the perspective of advertisers if you see there is a line from Spiderman that with great power comes great responsibility. We have started analyzing media quality with the help of actual conversions that are happening. So we have decreased our budget on impressions and increased the budget on actual conversions and ROI when we see because the automotive industry is in transition space. We used to see launches in a year but in today's time, we see launches every month so that's where the quality of data that we are obtaining from our partner is very crucial. We should ensure that we are not dependent on the impressions and reach but we should focus on more objective- related parameters.”

Salgaonkar of Media Monks, spoke from the perspective of an agency, “More from a partner perspective, we support advertisers in every practice. When we talk about ad quality, we are in a very unique time in the advertising and marketing cohort. There is a lot of effort that is going into talking to the customers themselves. Now that we know our customers, we should be able to reach them in an environment where they prefer to reach. Media is not dependent on certain platforms only but there are a lot of platforms that are arising where we can create our universe, so our quality becomes different. The approach is subjective, business-based and how do we apply it in the cross-marketing funnel.”

Nagare agreed with the points made by Mittal and Kerkar, he said, “There is no standardization of quality, and the second thing was moving away from impression and focus on conversions. I think awareness is pretty much lacking.”

Nair of EssenceMediacom said that whatever we do if the investment is not matching with the result that means we are doing something wrong. Ansari of Pernod Ricard said that she hails from a brand which has a lot of limitations when it comes to advertising and marketing so they have to keep a lot of checks and balances in mind. She said that we have evolved as an audience so what my brand was doing a decade back, they cant do it now. She made a point that brands need to also consider a safe environment where the consumer can be reached without any hassles. She said, “The thing that one should determine is the environment in which the consumer wants to receive the communication.”

Sangra of LS Digital said, “Objectives can be different it would be branding campaign it would be a performance campaign but you need to keep in mind the measurement. If you cannot measure the campaign, it is of no use and a waste of money. So if you are achieving the results then there is no point in the campaign.”

Borthakur of Starcom, said, “Whether it is a performance campaign or whether it is a branded campaign, quality of the inventory really matters. Every part of your campaign journey including data should give a holistic picture of which direction you are heading to.”