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. Carina Chopra, head of marketing, Lightspeed India 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 advent of digital media has leveled the playing field. Earlier, buying expensive and limited spots on satellite television and premier print publications used to be limited to large and legacy brands. With the advent of digital, there are multiple online store-fronts and advertising billboard digital equivalents now available to communicate and distribute one’s brand across the internet. As long as one has a differentiated and strong product offering, and clearly understands its target consumers and their behaviors online, they can use available venture capital to scale their offering. With the democratisation of data in India, there has been a proliferation of video consumption and the rise of social media, designed for India as well. There are thus many more touchpoints to have an ongoing conversation with consumers, and also to understand their interests and attitudes in more depth allowing for constant visibility, communication, education, and creativity in how brands interact with potential consumers.
Staying silent is no longer an option, and neither is relying on one tent-pole annual activity to further the brand awareness or conversions. It is now a dialogue, where brands have to be open to a two way street, encompassing feedback, reviews and comments on their campaigns and offerings from consumers too.
What are the recent best digital marketing or advertising campaigns you have seen and why?
In a world of constant stimulus, pings and distraction, competing for the nano seconds of a consumer’s attention has become an uphill battle for even large and well entrenched brands. A great example I have seen lately is Apple where they create engaging and fun content even to communicate new product features or their sustainability reports. By following characters in a short film, you are able to learn much more about the product and service on offer in a way that captures a consumer’s attention for a longer period of time, and increases awareness and retention of key messages.
In a post-Covid world, what are the dos and don’ts of digital marketing?
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation and learning curves for all organisations. Brands that may have relied on more offline marketing channels, were also nudged into finding the right modalities of digital for their brands.
The do’s and don’ts of marketing for any product or service are consistent but work only on the foundation of a strong and differentiated offering, that comes from answering a real consumer/enterprise need, and a deep understanding of the consumer behaviours.
Running digital ad’s en-masse at high spends and frequency, will not solve the above or targeting Gen-Z consumers with static text ads may not produce the best results. Performance spending, without the bedrock of a strong brand will not yield sustainable/long-term returns and therefore the rules of marketing are governed more so by the audience and their needs and behaviors, than the existence of various platforms and tools.
Digital marketing, when targeted and designed for the consumer at hand, can be extremely effective in building reach, awareness, consideration and conversion for any brand and it’s interesting to see how older, and traditionally more offline brands find ways of navigating this new medium.
Also given the innate speed of responsiveness of the medium, one should be actively looking to insert themselves in topical or trending events and conversations, far easier and quicker than it would take to do in the TV/Print world but brands should be mindful of authenticity and empathy when doing so, versus looking to capitalise on an existing conversation.
It is also key for brands to use the digital medium to tell longer and more purposeful stories than they may be able to in the finite space and spots of print and TV, and given the propensity for purpose and sustainability among digitally native consumers, it would be remiss not to use the medium for that.