Adgully Exclusive | Focused on creating a compelling user experience: Microsoft's Neville Taraporewalla

Neville Taraporewalla, an early starter in the field of internet and currently the head of Microsoft India for the Consumer and Online Business has been a mentor to many in the in the digital space and is a name to recon with in this space. He provides strategic direction to the Microsoft Advertising business driving long term success and market growth of Microsoft Advertising in India along with offering digital innovations.

With over 23 years of experience, Neville has been an early adopter of the Internet and the digital space. During his tenure with Yahoo! India from 2002 ' 2006, he was instrumental in reversing Yahoo India's fortunes, and played a pivotal role in converting the India office into a profit centre. In 1996, he led The Times of India Group's foray into the Internet space, where he was in charge of online media sales, content production and marketing.

Adgully caught up with Neville Traporewalle to pick some pearls of wisdom about this space and to know more about whats happening at Microsoft.

So what has been Microsoft key's focus areas in the consumer segment? He said, "Microsoft is driving to realize a vision for consumers of social, seamless information, communication and entertainment across multiple platforms. We aim to help consumers connect to the people and things they love and bring to life new digital experiences across the three screens and the cloud."

"We are focused on creating an integrated and compelling user experience across a wide portfolio of products and services. And we are one of very few companies in the world that can execute across such a broad array of services and experiences. Microsoft brings the magic of software into every aspect of consumers' lives: helping them connects to one another enjoy a world of entertainment and get more things done ' anytime and anywhere they want," he added.

Sharing some of his interesting campaigns that were done by Microsoft, he sated, "There have been some innovative & interactive rich media advertising campaigns, particularly on the MSN platform. Some of the popular campaigns are Proctor & Gamble (Launch of New Pantene), Levers (Vaseline, Dove), Toyota (Altos), ICICI Bank, Dell, Dish TV, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Lakme Fashion week Nokia N8 and TATA Manza.

Some examples of innovative campaigns on MSN India include:

· As part of a first of its kind innovation in India, MSA launched an innovative digital campaign to announce a new color for TATA Manza..

· The expansion rate for the Tata Manza campaign was 72.16 % as against industry standard of 19.21 %. Considering the short attention span of the consumer the average duration spent on the Tata Manza advertisement was 38.88 seconds.

· The Coca-Cola campaign on MSN was successful in impacting the online audience, in creating awareness of the Diwali offer (the key campaign objective).

· HUL partnered with MSA exclusively for the Grand Finale webcast.

· The event was aggressively promoted through editorial plugs & integration links across the MSN India Network.

Then explaining the basic objective of The Secret Online Lives of Mothers in India¦Revealed, he said, "Microsoft believes in investing to better understand the evolving needs of our consumers.

Aligned this vision, the goal of this survey was to provide advertisers with new approaches to reach a prominent population, who not only purchase products and services for themselves, but also have great influence over the purchasing decision of their household. Spanning eight markets in Asia, the research findings include China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. With Synovate leading the quantitative front, StarcomMediaVest Group (SMG) and Microsoft Advertising embarked on a qualitative journey to interview approximately 30,000 mothers between 20-49 years of age to better understand the "why' and the "how' behind her online attitudes and behaviors.

But the question arises how has this data helped advertisers?

According to the survey mothers are becoming increasingly digital savvy, and conversely, much more cynical to overt advertising and hence brands need to create relevant online experiences that reach them at the right time with the right message. The findings from this study are helping us design more effective online campaigns for our clients to reach mothers where they seek information, stay connected, learn about products, and make purchasing decisions. Elaborating below in detail what it means for advertisers:

· Advertisers can harness mothers as online brand advocates

Brands not online in Asia risk becoming irrelevant to this influential audience. As a media owner, Microsoft Advertising gives brands access to Asia's mothers who are media savvy and active on the Internet. The results from India show that expecting mothers have the greatest reliance on the Internet (44 percent say they can't live without it); mothers with children younger than three rely heavily on social.

· Microsoft Advertising gives advertisers access to one of the broadest networks to reach mothers where they seek information, stay connected, learn about products, and make purchasing decisions Microsoft Advertising believes in the power of digital advertising to tell a million stories to one person, rather than one story to a million people. According to this research, mothers are receptive to a myriad of brand messages at once. Additionally, with its roots as a technology company, Microsoft Advertising can provide advertisers with tools to help demonstrate return- on-investments and highlight the impact of targeted, digital campaigns.

What kind of expectations do advertisers have from digital today? What are the main concerns for clients in today's scenario?

Advertisers today face a constant need to innovate and to provide a seamless brand experience across multiple screens. The findings of a 2011 report entitled "Living with the Internet" provide a number of compelling insights into how consumers are behaving on the internet, and what this means for brand owners and advertisers. This is aligned to Microsoft Advertising's (MSA) vision to understand the consumer better and help marketers apply this understanding to engage better with their audiences and enhance their brand communications. Microsoft Advertising is an ideal media partner for a new form of media and can help create an impact through the Mobile, Rich media and Social media spanning these 3 screens:

Rich media:

· Enhancing engagement: Rich Media provides the opportunity to make advertiser' message really engage the viewer, delivering click through rates up to five times higher than static banners and encouraging the audience to stay with a brand for longer.

· Rich media CTRs are, on average, up to 3 times higher than standard banners

· Brands actively connect with audiences through interactive formats that drive engagement.

Mobile:

We look forward to hear more from Neville and Microsoft India. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]