The pandemic has brought about notable shifts across industries, and the case has been no different for marketing. Today, digital marketing has become a crucial aspect in order to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. In our weekly BrandWagon Ad Talk series, industry experts highlight what has changed over the past two years and more importantly, are these changes here to stay. Karthik Hariharan, head of marketing, axio talks to BrandWagon Online, about the dos and don’ts of digital marketing, best marketing campaigns, and more.
What is the difference between launching a brand in today’s digital era versus earlier?
The foundations of brand-building remain unchanged. While in the digital era, the medium has evolved, marketing continues to remain the same in principle. What has changed however is the mindset of being digital-first and thinking through every execution from a digital standpoint. The diversity of media mix, a very targeted focused approach and the opportunities to scale present the avenue for brands to be launched swifter than ever before with real-time analytics and facilitating quicker consumer adoption. The earlier notion that “we need brand advocates/great word of mouth” today is a reality with consumer voices being heard more than ever.
What are the recent best marketing or advertising campaigns you have seen and why?
I would say this of the entire marketing engine that kicked off the Royal Enfield Himalayan launch in 2023. A brand that had a cult following, the campaign was crafted effectively using their community of bikers, and influencers and a launch fuelled by a wonderful campaign that captured the unpredictability of biking. While the conventional discourse of biking has been freedom, I particularly liked the representation of unpredictability in biking and how reliability matters, which in this case signifies the Himalayan – the bike and the mountain range.
Which brand in the last year has made the best use of digital and how?
AI has been taking the world by storm and there’s some use of AI in almost every digital campaign today but what I enjoyed learning about was the Nike “Never done evolving” campaign. The brand used machine learning to map, learn and create avatars of Serena Willians, and pitted her against herself for an earlier time to better learn her technique and create valuable insights on building the next tennis champion.
In a post-Covid world, what are the dos and don’ts of digital marketing?
Covid led the world into digital transformation and the “dos” that it taught us are to learn to adapt, spot trends, build a significant online presence using e-commerce and create great virtual experiences.
The biggest “don’t” in this race is not to overlook data privacy given that an increasing number of people are choosing digital, it is vital that marketers respect and build a healthy ecosystem.
One recent bad case of advertising you have seen, and why?
No one wakes up to make a poor ad. What happens is often they miss the mark in messaging, context and intent that makes them come across as false, snarky, or even insensitive. Many have not done well, and it is a learning process for brands and marketers that consumers are always on the move and may have different expectations. In that sense, I don’t think it is fair to isolate one piece of bad advertising among the many.