IPRCCC 2019: Data in communication is crucial, say experts

On Day 2 of IPRCCC 2019, a conversation that is perhaps the most crucial in a digital era, saw industry experts discuss data in communication. The session dealt with several important questions- ‘How do data and digital insights set the tone of any PR and marketing campaign? How much of analytics is required in it? How has digital media, social media and analytics evolved in these years and how can digital media be more relevant in PR? Lastly, what’s the impact of digital media matrix?

Moderated by Ruhail Amin, Sr. Editor BW Businessworld & Executive Editor BW Applause, the panel consisted of Anuj Dayal, ED/CC/DMRC, Ruchita Mehra - Head - Communications, CSR & Digital, P&G Health, Sujit Patil, Vice President and Head - Corporate Brand and Communications, Godrej Industries, Aseem Sood, CEO, Impact Research and Measurement Pvt Ltd, Tuhina Pandey - Head - Global Corporate Communications & Public, Tech Mahindra and Nitin Thakur - Director, Brand & Communication, Max.

Amin put the first question to Anuj Dayal, about how when one compares communications today to what it was earlier when it comes to the use of data, how has that evolved over the years? To which Anuj Dayal replied, “Data I feel is extremely essential and crucial for anybody involved in media or marketing. Ultimately it’s a message that you are trying to get across. You are trying to influence somebody, which is your target audience. Without data, you are going in blind. I work in the Delhi Metro and data for us is extremely crucial for everything. Whenever we are tunnelling, we'll be tunnelling blind because Delhi is already a developed city there are water lines, sewer lines, telephone cables etc wherever we dig, it is completely different from what we are expecting., so my point is if we don’t have data on what is below the ground I won’t be able to do anything. It would disrupt the whole city. This is just an illustration. Data is crucial.”

Answering the same question, Nitin Thakur said, “The topic has two distinct points, one is how much is communication using analytics and data in designing communication and the other component is that how once they’ve done their campaign how actively are they able alter, tweak or measure their effectiveness. A few years ago, AVE was the holy grail of measurement, we like to think we’ve moved far away from that onto more specific matrices but as per the latest report that is the World PR report done by ICCO for 2020, in Asia Pacific 56 per cent companies or respondents are still using AVE, contrast that with UK where only 16 per cent of them are using it, so that’s the sad part but I’m an optimistic person so let’s look at the companies that are using this. The fact is some of this in sighting was driven by when PR practitioners moved from just handling the media or being conduits to media to many more stakeholders, they started using not just a media but the whole gambit of PESO, which is paid, shared, earned, owned. That brought with it more integration with the marketing folk, more in sighting. Most large organisations today before they’re going in for any communication campaign, it’s quite insight-driven. Both is campaign design and measurement a bulk of the industry has come a long way.”

Speaking about data in communication, Ruchita Mehta said, “Earlier, we used to largely depend on consumer researches which were very few, now with digital it’s all out there, so as a practise what we do is we bring all the marketers, ad agency together, PR agency together and digital agency together. We spend a lot of time on the drawing board, going over the objective get all the data out there and that’s how we identify the mix. So, a lot of time goes into planning, so data is used through and through to start and measure along the way, digital also allows you to tweak because as you go along you see what’s working or not. It’s a big boon and complimentary and we should leverage it as much as we can.”

Is data as important for the domain of communication as it has become for the marketers? Sujit Patil said, “I think when someone says Data is the new oil, it’s a fact of life. Without data, you cannot do communications. Gone are the days when it was a fashion statement that we need to be in the press, today's time forces us to base all our strategies on data, so for us at Godrej, we have around 22 business and over 46 brands, and the fortunate part for us is we touch about 750 mn consumers in this country. If data is not available we are not able to create a strategy that is aligned to what the business needs are. So three things we use data is for, course correction of the overall communication strategy, create insights on what competition is doing, and third most important is to understand the pulse of the market.”

Aseem Sood believes that the real question is not whether or not people are using data because everyone is using it to manage their communications programme and to take decisions. He elaborated, “Your level of maturity on how effectively you are able to use that data is more important today. In the past, because data was not easily available or we did not have the know-how to process the data well, we were using basic elements. Now if you are moving to an integrated level, you are able to co-relate data coming in from different sets. How far are you going on the maturity curve and how well you are able to use the data is the more important question?”

Replying to a question of how evolved communication space was today in using data, Tuhina said, “If the world has changed how is that we will not? There is almost a need of the hour to deal with data as is. Do we have the eye for data? What do we need to analyse? Do we know the questions we want to ask? The challenge that communicators and the experience that we have as a reservoir will come in handy in asking the right questions of the data.”