Navigating the era of digital disruption: The future of PR and communication

In this era of digital disruption, it has become increasingly important to know how to navigate the market ecosystem. This formed the topic for an interesting fireside chat between Ritika Jaiswal, Associate Vice President, Popkorn, and Suvashish Banerjee, Brand & Business Lead - Luxury & Premium Portfolio, South Asia, EssilorLuxottica, who discussed at length the future of PR and Communication given the important changes taking place in the industry. The fireside chat was part of the third edition of IMAGEXX Summit and Awards 2023, which held on June 09, 2023 in Gurugram.

At the outset Ritika Jaiswal noted how technology has drastically changed the way brands speak to and are marketed to consumers. In this context, she asked Suvashish Banerjee to highlight the changes witnessed in the fashion retail industry.

Banerjee noted how if one looked back about 10 years ago, probably the only thing that people talked about was the Internet and Google. But today with social media and technological advances, the interactions that brands have with consumers is changing. “The world has become even smaller and the kind of interactions that we have with our consumers right now is amazing. It is no longer a Brand-to-Consumer kind of communication, but a two-way communication, where consumers can directly give their feedback. Today’s consumers are more aware, want to know everything about the product before purchasing it, and also like to give their product reviews in a seamless manner, which has been facilitated by the technology available today,” he added.

Shedding light on the impact of influencer marketing, Banerjee remarked that influencer marketing is something that has really given marketers awareness about the kind of reach that they never really expected out of digital technologies. “The kind of assurances and reach that social media influencer gives to a brand right now is absolutely amazing,” he pointed out.

Speaking about how the role of data analytics and consumer insights actually cue in when brands talk about marketing, especially in PR and advertising, Banerjee said, “When I talk about PR and advertising, they all used to be mandates – simple mandates like giving press releases to the big media houses. Now it is much more quantitative – right from data analytics to knowing the consumer, how a consumer is faring, what they are clicking on, what are the trends – everything is on data and we know exactly who the consumer is and what they want, what is their purchase intention. Thus, data plays a tremendous role.”

With more focus on consumers, there is also a growing demand for personalisation in terms of advertising communication. “I am sure with the advent of AI, this is going to be much better. Hyper-localisation is going to be much easier. We are going to show individual advertisements based on particular demographics or gender, etc. We show consumers an advertisement that is specifically meant for them. Going forward, I think it is going to be much more individual, much more personalised,” Banerjee added.

These are edited excerpts. For the complete fireside chat, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZooHP2qDDNM