'New media needs to have a shelf life of its own'

At the recently held e4m Confluence in Mumbai, a panel of industry heads and experts spoke about the challenges of measuring returns in the new media landscape, along with the expected ROI. The panel dwelled on the importance of tailoring media strategies to each brand’s unique lifecycle stage and the weaknesses, the need for a clear brief and single KPI to guide marketing efforts, rather than chasing multiple metrics. The panellists agreed that a multi-channel strategy was crucial for growth, with a focus on understanding audience behaviour and measuring success across different mediums.

The panel was chaired by Sneha Beriwal, ex-CMO, Vahdam. Others on the panel were Anita Kotwani CEO – Media, South Asia, Dentsu; Monaz Todywalla, CEO, PHD Media; Tushar Malhotra, Head of Marketing, Bisleri International; Priti Murthy, President, GroupM Nexus; Navin Khemka, CEO, South Asia, EssenceMediaCom, and Siddharth Dabhade, Managing Director, MIQ.

Navin Khemka spoke about the new media and what it means to measure the ROI of it. “I absolutely agree that new media needs to have a shelf life of its own, rather than getting obsessed with measurement. Also, the metrics of measurement for all media today are very, very different. Rather than having just one metric trying to combine all media together, it is also very, very important to make sure that every media have its own has its own shelf life, and also is measured for the reason why we are using that media. So, today traditional media or digital media or content or performance, everything has its own pros and cons and they will need to be measured accordingly. So, I would say that yes, treat every media for the strengths that it has, and measure it accordingly. And then look at the success it can get deep for the brand and draw learnings from that rather than being obsessed about the ROI.”

Speaking about the marketing landscape, Monaz Todywalla said, “The marketing landscape is complex. But that does not mean that you chase seven KPIs. You’re not going to see success. So one single KPI is very, very critical. And more importantly then, to keep mental models aside and trust what the data is telling you. More often than not, we see a lot of mental models at play, rather than what the data is telling us.”

Siddharth Dabhade added his views about how technology plays a role in the marketing world. “Technology is a tool and it will always have its limitations. But it is still a great tool to bring all the channels together. It can also help you to make sense of your first-party data. You can also add third-party data to your first-party data. You can create more customized cohorts, and figure out which channels are suitable for your cohorts and data layer. Many advertisers are doing it many are in the journey of evolution as well.”

The panel also discussed that growth and business growth are crucial for agency folks to stay relevant to advertisers. The experts also highlighted practices that could help the players stay ahead of the curve.