With the onset of the festive season, brands are looking to stand out and capture the mindshare of the new-age digital consumers, amidst a positive consumer sentiment. Infact, 50% consumers are likely to increase their festive spends this year, the playbook ‘Decoding Consumer behavior and Winning the 2021 Festive season’ by MMA, GroupM and Amazon Advertising, revealed. The playbook aims to help brands in making efficient decisions around their media strategy during the festive season. It captures insights around consumer sentiment and marketer expectations for the upcoming festive season, along with implications and recommendations for advertisers.
As per the playbook, 62% consumers are currently undecided about the product/brand choice and would start researching products one or two months before Diwali. Moreover, 80% consumers will research or purchase products online and 50% consumer journeys will be digital only. 77% consumers’ journeys will involve Amazon while 84% are likely to buy on the platform.
On the part of brands, 80% of brands are looking to maintain or increase their marketing budgets for the festive season. 76% of brands will be allocating more spends for digital as compared to last year with the preferred platforms being Facebook, Amazon and Google. The playbook stated that brands should leverage multiple touchpoints — be visible across touchpoints leveraging connected TV, video, search advertising, among others to drive active/passive discovery and leverage efficiency related metrics to assess performance holistically. “76%of marketers mentioned they will be allocating more spends for digital as compared to last year. Hence it’s key to understand omnichannel users better in the changing times as we continue to drive the narrative of shaping the future of marketing,” Moneka Khurana, country head, MMA India, said.
According to Tushar Vyas, president – growth and transformation, GroupM South Asia, digital influence in consumer journeys has increased significantly while e-commerce adoption has accelerated in the last 18 months. “Digital is no more a support media platform but is core to media plans. Ecommerce platforms offer brands the opportunity to hand-hold consumers across the purchase funnel by not only aiding in active/passive brand discovery but also in closing the loop by measuring performance objectively. This playbook contains several key insights and is a must-read for any marketer who is planning for the festive season,” he added.
“Digital is a part of our lives now like never before and the influence is only increasing. Ecommerce portals act as gateways to this world that we are so quickly embracing and are playing a crucial role in brand and product discovery. For marketers, this presents an unprecedented opportunity – to be able to identify and leverage customer intent at an unprecedented scale,” Vijay Iyer, director- ad sales, Amazon Advertising India stated.
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