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. Rachit Mehra, head of brand and marketing, Qubo 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?
Launching a brand today has become a lot faster and, to a certain extent, easier; thanks to the available digital platforms for media & e-commerce, not to forget the AI-powered tools that have popped up over the last couple of years. But while it might have become easier to launch a brand – building & scaling it up meaningfully has become more demanding than never before. Because in a world of fast-dropping attention spans & brands popping up everywhere, it’s now harder for brands to stand out – bringing into sharp focus their differentiated positioning, distinctive identities & impactful communication or other initiatives.
What are the recent best marketing or advertising campaigns you have seen and why?
A bunch of great work to choose from, but I especially liked Oyo’s recent campaign. Acknowledging the existing perception issue, the brand used humor smartly to reposition itself with a high quality, premium offering. Great example of a brand understanding the core issue and then taking on the challenge head on.
Which brand in the last year has made the best use of digital and how?
Spotify has been pretty active over the last year or so; releasing quite a few phenomenal campaigns, especially over digital. With its sharp & emotive storytelling along with vernacular cuts for developing a closer connect with audiences across the country, Spotify seems to be acing brand building over digital through such frequent comms bursts. In fact, what I personally like about all their recent work (‘Feel the music’, ‘mixes made for you’ etc.) is the unique balance between personalization & widespread appeal they’ve been able to consistently maintain.
In a post-Covid world, what are the dos and don’ts of digital marketing?
Like almost everything else around us, marketing has also gone through a bit of an evolution in the post-pandemic world. While digital marketing seems to have got a huge fillip post pandemic, marketers should continue to invest in channels wherever the customer is at – online or offline; and not just follow buzzwords. And even when using digital marketing platforms, brands shouldn’t just use them for the sake of it but rather find creative ways of connecting with their customers online. In digital’s favor, brands have recognized the power of content marketing & are building in-house teams, using AI tools for faster execution. We, at Qubo, have developed our in-house content studio that takes care of a large part of our content requirements today.
One recent bad case of advertising you have seen, and why?
I wouldn’t necessarily call any advertising bad because that often comes from a place of subjectivity. I would rather assess a campaign’s performance on its effectiveness in delivering on the intended objective. On that front, I remain curious about the performance of quite a few campaigns that have come out in the recent past including those of Lemon, Dorset, among others.