The time is ripe for a 'createchie'

For all the talk about the power of digital media, traditional advertising firms don't always harness the new media's strength. With digital marketing channels multiplying, a recent Forrester study suggests that the onus is on the marketers to force their agencies to evolve. In a world of changing consumer behaviour and media habits, is there a pressing need for creative people to master technology as well?

Deep Malhotra
Founder & Managing Partner, Gemini New Media Ventures

Rewind to the year 2004, digital media was the buzzword. Talks of how it was influencing media consumption and how it would rewrite the way media budget was spent were everywhere. At a media conclave, an industry veteran told me that it would all change in about 18 months as we were approaching the tipping point for digital media. A lot has changed since - digital advertising spends have grown to over Rs 2,200 crore a year. We have many more options to spend our digital budget on - from display to search to social marketing - and there are as many generalist and specialist agencies in the industry.

But has this growth been at the rate we expected or deserved? The evolution of the digital media in India hit several roadblocks:

* The approach: The approach to digital has always been half-hearted as it was, and still is, considered as the medium of the future. So advertisers and agencies flirt with the medium and tick mark it for the 'future'.

* The complexity: Yes, digital advertising is a complex subject; there are many factors governing it. Hence the structure of the industry, too, is complex, making things more difficult.

Media consumption habits are shifting towards platforms like YouTube, where there are over 39 million active users spending more than 20 minutes a day, as per ComScore data. Facebook has over 59 million active users spending more than 27 minutes a day. But even now, at the time of allocating marketing spends, digital comes as an after thought. As platforms Youtube, Facebook or Twitter would be as big as few television channels. The day YouTube is compared to television channels is when we shall see the real difference in budget allocation.

* Lack of a collective approach: Digital being a complex media, it cannot be handled as any other medium. It requires time. It is ever-evolving and the parameters of a successful campaign keep changing. It is easy to blame the agency, or the platform used, for not getting the expected success in the short period. It is important to work together to dissect this complex medium to get maximum ROI.

* Integration: Digital strategies are usually thought to be separate from the overall marketing strategy. Therefore, it is not part of the media mix. Internationally, many brands have integrated digital in the overall strategy to great success.

If you look at the digital campaigns around you, you will mostly see campaigns that merely replicate the offline campaign. The first step towards changing that is developing or enabling creative talent who understand technology and see it as a creative challenge.

Shekhar Mhaskar
Digital Media consultant

Here's a phenomenon that has been observed for over half a decade now: every agency, big or small, wants to bring into its fold of services the ever mysterious and very powerful 'digital marketing'. Not only agencies but clients too are struggling to on-board experts from the digital marketing space. But, one question looms large - who is this creature? Is it one of a gang or a gang of a kind?

A handful of the bigger agencies took the right step a long time ago by starting specialised departments to cater to clients' digital advertising requests. In those days, I would say about 10 years ago, their main job was creating plain vanilla websites to help their clients have a digital presence. That could stretch to the extent of creating e-commerce platforms. However, these would be more like websites created by technology geeks. Not so very appealing to the consumers who expect enticing, beautiful, interactive, gratifying forms of digital communication.

To overcome this drawback, then came people who would understand design, in the traditional form though, and try to marry that with the websites. Slowly, the technology person and the creative person started to understand how best they could leverage each other's capabilities and started evolving to offer more than just websites.

Today's consumers talk 24/7 to a brand via different digital media, including, but not limited to, interactive immersive HTML5 website experiences, games, social media applications, mobile applications, instant searches, online merchants, and so on and so forth. The list is endless.

This is evolution out of experimentation, and sans the correct bridge between creative and technology. The need today is the amalgamation of both these traits - someone who has imbibed and inculcated within her the understanding of creative and technology. It could be someone who has studied technology and has a creative bent of mind, or a creative person who has taken efforts to learn technology.

We don't have the luxury of time to evolve. It is like instant noodles; everyone wants it now. Rather than meandering around in a jungle of individual skills, the right strategy for agencies and clients would be to hunt for folks who can be the bridge to marketing goals.

Manmeet Ahluwalia
Head, marketing, Expedia

Internet users in India are expected to grow to 330 million by 2016, according to the latest reports by Boston Consulting Group. Forty per cent of India's 90 million urban Internet users engage in online activities such as product research and price comparison.

In a scenario like this, companies can't afford not to have a strong digital presence to engage with the customers. But the biggest challenge for marketers is discovering the channel best suited to effect the change they want to see in their advertising strategies. However, marketers need to realise that the change can be brought about only by having a person who can be a strong digital pillar within the company and can evaluate/guide outsourced skills. Brand managers need to have the same understanding of social media as they have of advertising or promotions. Being creative and technology-aware are two separate roles. The creative team works on multiple banners, keywords, messages etc, the technology resource takes this to the battlefield.

So, how does a company with a clear message in its mind make sure that the same is being delivered by the agency? By hiring a digital agency? Or getting the current PR/ad agency to collaborate with a digital one to create the right messaging? That's debatable. Traditional ad/PR companies are now offering digital solutions but expertise has to be the first aim. Hiring one agency to cater to all media needs might seem convenient but it's specialisation that delivers the desired results better than integration.

Since customers want customisation today, hitting the right set of consumers with the right media is what the hour demands. One has to evaluate whether the needs of the brand are best served by an active SEO, SEM engines or pure display advertising banners to enhance brand's name, or it needs to boost sales by using tools like CPC, CPA or CPL. Specialised agencies need to be brought into the picture and help plan the best mix and drive optimisation through monitoring traffic generated from clicks and final conversions.

A reason why social marketing has to be a horizontal effort is that it doesn't cost as much as it pays off. Unlike traditional media, digital marketing offers easy ROI measurement. Marketing campaigns and products are generally region-specific, which prompts agencies to work on geo-targeted campaigns with publishers. With low cost and high efficiency, going digital is a must; and since the implications are huge, expertise becomes even more important.

Given such huge risks, one can trust no one but the best. Specialisation is the key. Being a multi-channel company is a path that requires added efforts but is critical for long-term success.