‘To be a successful marketer today, you need to be agile’

The eighth edition of e4m TechManch saw a panel of industry heads discuss the actionable insights on adapting agile approach to digital strategy. At the CMO panel, the industry leaders shed light on the topic ‘Adapting An Agile Approach to Digital Strategy’ and discussed how planning multiple digital strategies is key in ensuring an on-demand and flexible approach to solutions; how AI can leverage data to provide actionable insights for an agile approach for digital marketers and more.

The panellists for the e4m TechManch session were Nitin Saini, VP- Marketing, Mondelez International; Puneeth Bekal, EVP & CMO, HDFC Securities; Ajay Dang, President Head- Marketing, UltraTech Cement - Aditya Birla Group; Murali Krishnan, Co-founder & CMO, Wow! Momo Foods; Shilpi Kapoor, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Payments Bank while the panel was moderated by Amaresh Godbole, CEO, Digital Technology Business, Publicis Groupe India.

Highlighting the need for marketers to be agile in the competitive marketplace, Amaresh Godbole, CEO, Digital Technology Business, Publicis Groupe India, said, “This is the first time in the history of humanity that we are experiencing technology acceleration which is leading to a lot of phenomenon like content gluttony where people are hungrier for content. Every significant moment is now becoming a global moment, thanks to the power of social media. To be a successful marketer in today's age, to get the attention of the consumer, you need to be agile”.

Talking about Mondelez’s digital journey, Nitin Saini, VP- Marketing, Mondelez International said, “There are a few things that helped Mondelez in its digital journey. We invested upstream on building a digital COE and a separate team looks after digital, which includes data and artificial intelligence. I think there is a culture of marketers wanting to experiment particularly in the area of digital. Also, leadership steer and the leadership alignment are very important which have helped us on this journey”.

When asked about how difficult it is in the finance industry to be agile, Puneeth Bekal, EVP & CMO, HDFC Securities, said that the financial services industry is going to grow and explode and hence it becomes an opportunity to push ourselves and look at the touch points beyond the traditional marketing touch points to engage with consumers. “If you look at the number of Demat accounts opened in the month of June, 4.2 million accounts were opened and this is a regular average number of accounts which have been opening for the past eight odd months now. The total number of Demat accounts is around 162 million in India and the penetration is just about 7%. This means the industry is booming and will continue to explode”, he said.

Talking about the evolving consumer behaviour, Ajay Dang, President Head- Marketing, UltraTech Cement - Aditya Birla Group, said personalization today is the key. “At a very simple level, you need personalisation, you need information, you need trust. These are three things that somebody needs to do to make a good decision”. “We believe solving issues for consumers builds value for us”, he added.

Sharing her thoughts on how agility functions in the banking arena, Shilpi Kapoor, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Payments Bank, said, “Payments bank are banks which connect the last mile, provide banking to the unbanked and the unserved. So, for me, the first thing to solve, is not agility, it is how do we simplify banking. The entire backbone of Payments bank is digital, because everything that we are doing is in the digital space.”

The panellists mutually agreed that in the evolving digital landscape, agility has become a cornerstone for modern marketers. Amaresh Godbole summed up the panel discussion and highlighted what agility means in the digital age today. “Agility is not just about the marketer going faster, but allowing the consumer to go faster. It is about how do you build a journey and make it easier for people to make decisions, to complete transactions and carry out tasks. Therefore, thinking beyond marketing, but solving problems from a business lens and creating a frictionless experience for the consumer, is what agility is all about in today's world,” he said.