By Dheeraj Sinha, CEO, Leo Burnett, South Asia & chairman, BBH India
The year 2023 is going to be a challenging year for the industry. While we will face the headwinds of the slowdown in the big tech companies as well as the start-up ecosystem, the year will hopefully continue to chart a positive growth curve for the industry. Building on the successes of 2022 and driven by the post-pandemic learnings this year, the biggest trends which shape the narrative for 2023 will be:
Impact on the global stage
India’s roaring success at Cannes this year across agencies marked our proverbial arrival on the global stage in 2022. Now that the stage is set, all eyes are on us . This year, the industry needs to accelerate this momentum, making our mark with consistent but benchmark-worthy work, and solidify our creative prowess on the world stage. With an eye on the future, 2023 will be about unleashing the full extent of India’s talent on the world stage.
Building deeper capabilities across commerce, tech and data
The introduction of 5G, AI, commerce and data-enabled content presents new opportunities to leverage technology and creativity to make a real difference. Agencies will need to be at the forefront of adopting and innovating new practices and enhancing deeper capabilities to solve for the entire marketing funnel. Creating a thoughtful and data-driven full-funnel marketing strategy can drive significant value. This year commerce is expected to lead exponential growth for the industry, while digital media continues to grow and evolve at a fast pace. The focus will continue towards integrating data, technology and creativity and to create new platforms and solutions for the client’s business problems.
Regional solutions
One of the biggest cultural shifts that we have seen in 2022 has been in terms of content consumption, with the rise of original regional content from every part of the nation. This trend will gain more strength in mainline advertising and communication in the coming year. The current narrative has now been replaced with an in-depth outlook of authentic region-wise experiences.Regional communication is poised to enable clients to win big across markets. With that in mind this year we launched LB Regional, a specialised division to provide a more defined service within the network and help rewire how brands approach ‘Indias’ within India. Going forward, regional communication can potentially reinvent advertising strategies.