How data oiled digital marketing brands but also caused them to slip

Albert Einstein once famously said: Nothing happens unless something is moved. This could well apply to the digital medium. It saw significant churn in 2018 what with giants like Facebook and Google questioned on privacy issues, data breaches and view-ability standards.

The year exposed the low trust deficit that exists between the two giants and the government in their home country. WhatsApp, however, finally came around to accepting that it just had to do something about fake news and rumours on its platform, pushing it to launch an ad campaign in India. This was aimed at educating consumers about the demerits of spreading fake news and how lives were endangered because of it. 

However, the biggest worry for me as a digital marketing professional was the spate of data breaches through the year. One account says that the first half alone saw 4.5 billion records exposed to data breaches. This is disturbing to say the least.

Rajiv Dingra, Founder & CEO, WatConsult

Storied brands have fallen prey to data breaches — Starwood Hotels, British Airways, Forever 21, Whole Foods, even space agency NASA wasn’t spared. Closer home, the Aadhaar data breach earlier in the year that exposed nearly 1.1 billion citizen records from across India. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) refuted the allegations about the breach saying that Aadhaar information cannot be updated without the citizen’s biometric details. Yet, the entire episode has been disconcerting, pointing to the vulnerability of data. Predictably, digital transformation is the buzzword as we go into 2019. And I have a few suggestions on what brands can do to navigate the digital world.

Invest in video content: While video has become the most important digital marketing asset a brand can create, there wasn’t enough of it in 2018. The strategy is to be “always-on” when it comes to video content rather than launching videos around a campaign only.

Real-time marketing is real, tap it:  That is true. If there is one brand that made sure it did real-time marketing well in 2018 it was Netflix. The manner in which the streaming service leveraged trolls on actress Radhika Apte’s presence in its shows is telling. Unfortunately, not all brands are able to spot the opportunity in real-time action. It is tricky. But turning around a difficult situation on social media will be an art that brands will have to master.

Talking up topical moments: Again, clutter-breaking campaigns around occasions such as Diwali or Dussehra haven’t been frequent. Some brands such as Mother Dairy have done it well; it is a priceless skill.

The importance of an owned e-commerce strategy: While most brands focus on what their strategy is going to be on Flipkart or Amazon, there are few who are willing to give their in-house e-commerce channels a long hard look. Unless brands focus on building an owned e-commerce platform with a clear agenda to grow it, the latter will not become a formidable channel of sales at all. Ignoring an in-house e-commerce platform could be detrimental to brands.

Experiment with voice, AI, AR and VR: New-age technologies like artificial intelligence, voice, augmented and virtual reality are here to stay. If, as digital marketers, we don't experiment with these technologies today, we will not know how they will work or operate tomorrow. The risks quite simply have to be taken. A case in point being IndusInd Bank, which recently launched voice-based banking services, enabled through Amazon Alexa.