Last week, Outside In started a 2021 Reflections series of sorts. The first two pieces were planned on Consumer Marketing and you can catch the 1st release here at:
In the part 2 series of 2021 Reflections on Consumer Marketing, we cover learnings by brands in successfully adopting ‘digital’ enablers for their marketing efforts and highlights the importance of building ‘scalable concepts’ beyond vanilla initiatives Grab your coffee…
A) Outstream Video Ads – New Format Potential
Outstream videos are mobile-only ads that appear on partner sites and apps outside of YouTube, playing in either an app or within content on the page. These ads can help increase brand awareness by getting your videos in front of more people. They are designed specifically for mobile and tablet, so users can tap to play your video ad or easily scroll past when reading the latest news or shopping for products
Ads play automatically on mute when they appear on screen. Users can unmute with a tap. Users can either scroll past or dismiss when an ad appears. They show on Google video partner apps and mobile website for mobile and tablet devices. They are charged based on viewable cost-per-thousand impressions (vCPM). Marketers will only pay if the ad is viewable. An ad counts as “viewable” when 50% of the ad screen space is visible for two seconds or more of continuous video play
Example: One Plus Series 9 Launch by Indrani Khanvilkar, mCanvas
One Plus had a live launch plan on YouTube with an estimate of 1 million viewers
mCanvas helped them released the video ads across multiple content websites and apps making the consumer views reach 3 million at launch and 12 million users in 75 minutes
Best Practices include: a) Target a section of the audience and make ads. For instance, local/lingual ads connect more with regional audience via their regional tongue. b) Align with ecosystem context. For instance, target campaigns featuring rains with audiences in regions where it is raining
KPI to Track: MOAT Video Score, or MVS, is a video ad score ranging from 0 to 100. It benchmarks the sound, motion and sight aspects of a video. The score is based on the average percentage of the video that was audible and/or visible, amplified by the screen real estate. It assesses the quality of different video ad exposures on mobile and desktop devices
B) Personalized Communication at Scale – Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. (GCPL)
Digital/E-Commerce Pillars (from 2016 Onwards): Digital Engine, Digital Content, Data Management Platform (DMP), Vernacular Digital Communication – They believe it is important that consumers are communicated in languages they are comfortable with
It observed a shift in the behaviour of its core target audience i.e. women, in the home insecticide category as they switched to digital-first channels such as on-demand video, casual gaming, and other apps on their mobile devices
And they preferred to consume this content, if available, in their native language. This provided GCPL with a unique opportunity to identify and engage with connected consumers in an intelligent and personalized manner at scale. GCPL decided to push more vernacular video communication to attract Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada and Malayalam speaking consumers
They personalized online videos for its insecticide brand Kala HIT, for instance, through its work with InMobi. The personalized online videos delivered a significant 22% higher ad recall for the Kala HIT brand and its significant role in the media mix helped the home insecticide category record a 15% growth in revenue last year – helping to break through a high-clutter environment and build brand salience
The company pushed out 105 unique mobile-first video assets across seven brands. The videos also led to some viewers turning into shoppers of the brand – over 10% of the audiences that were reached moved from top-of-the-funnel to conversion
C) Xiaomi – Fans and Employees as Brand Ambassadors
Manu Jain, MD Xiaomi India: A lot of our marketing campaigns feature fans and employees. If you look at our recent campaign, all the promos, everybody in that campaign is one of our team members, one of our employees. Team members are the best brand ambassadors for them as they know the product better than anyone else
D) OTT as TV Advertising
TV Advertising always remained a ‘go-to-factor’ when it came to building a brand and scaling up a brand’s potential. In a pre-Covid scenario, millennials would spend 2 hours a day consuming content. In a post-Covid world, this has shifted to around 4.5 hours a day. At an annual level, it amounts to nearly 70 days!
Owing to cheaper data and increased penetration to smart phones, consumers exercised their preference towards OTT platforms during the lockdown. And that is how OTT made inroads into the media and marketing mix of most brands
Key Observations:
Jasneet Bachal, CMO, Yes Bank: Marketers have to reach out to consumers where they want to be. For brands who don’t want to be on TV and are looking at cost optimization, OTT provided the reach but armed with a low barrier to entry in terms of investments
Shashank Srivastava, Senior ED, Sales & Marketing, Maruti Suzuki and Prabhvir Sahmey, Senior Director, Samsung Ads: As TV and OTT watching by consumers rose tremendously, there was a convergence between traditional content consumption and newer media – unlocking a lot of data (on consumers)
Siddharth Dabhade, MD, MIQ Digital Commercial: TV defined advertising and marketing in the previous era and it will continue to do the same. With digital, the purchasing behaviour of consumers would change, which would reflect the well-informed reach of the sellers from an assumption based approach. Since consumers are on a look out for entertainment, there would be an emergence of form factors that would satiate their needs
In Conclusion
According to Twitter India, there is a 73% correlation between a brand’s cultural relevance and its revenue. Keeping the relevance in mind, brands need to build strong personalities not just on social media but on other platforms too. Conversations should serve brand motives but should not forget to listen to the customers – according to Gopa Menon (MD Mindshare) and Krishna Iyer (Head Channel Sales, Twitter India)
References and Sources:
1. Notes from ET Brand World Summit 2021
2. Rory Sutherland Insights: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-keynote-address-by-rory-sutherland-vice-chairman-ogilvy-uk/86640978
3. Ford: Who Invented Weekends? https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/who-invented-weekends
4. Kevin Keller Insights: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-the-art-and-science-of-branding-by-kevin-keller/86633975
5. Outstream Video Ads: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7665144?hl=en
6. Outstream Video Ad Example – One Plus Series 9 Launch by Indrani Khanvilkar, mCanvas: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-how-do-video-ads-fare-outside-of-ott-platforms/86644985
7. mCanvas Oneplus Case Study: https://www.mcanvas.com/case-studies/2021/see-how-oneplus-reached-12-million-users-in-75-minutes-with-mcanvas-live-streaming-video-format-to-launch-its-new-onePlus-9-series.php
8. MOAT Video Score KPI: https://www.inmobi.com/blog/2017/09/19/metrics-that-matter-the-new-viewability-standards-for-mobile-video
9. GCPL Personalized Communication and Inmobi Case Study: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-driving-personalised-communication-at-scale/86642122; https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/gcpl-to-scale-partnership-with-inmobi-11631604743832.html; https://go.inmobi.com/gcpl-digital-transformation-with-inmobi/
10. Blend Data and Creative: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-data-a-decision-maker-or-support-system/86649247
11. SBI Mutual Funds Example: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-brand-marketing-for-a-recovering-economy/86637944
12. Choosing the Medium – Digital: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-digital-medium-a-two-headed-sword-with-performance-and-branding/86638076
13. Xiaomi Brand Ambassadors: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-building-brands-reimagined-by-manu-kumar-jain-md-xiaomi-india/86643604
14. Changing Consumer Habits: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-the-consumers-have-changed-but-have-brands-kept-pace/86642594
15. Twitter Insights, Brand Conversations: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-role-of-conversations-in-brand-building/86640222
16. Mamaearth Journey: https://www.forbesindia.com/article/onlinefirst-brands/mamaearth-a-baby-care-brand-grows-up/61303/1
17. Mamaearth Learnings: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-varun-alagh-from-mamaearth-on-growth-and-adoption-of-digital-media/86644606
18. OTT as TV Advertising: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/brand-world-summit-2021-how-connected-tv-and-ott-is-complementing-tv-advertising-in-a-performance-driven-world/86641185