AgTalk | It is 'brand engagement' that drives relevance: Ketchum Digital's Jonathan Kopp

Jonathan Kopp has held various positions with non-profit and professional organizations and today serves on the Advisory Board to aids2031 (a UNAIDS international consortium) and on the Emory Alumni Board Marketing Committee. Earlier, Kopp was a partner at SS+K, an integrated communications agency, where he provided strategic counsel and developed campaigns involving public relations, public affairs, issue advocacy, crisis management, marketing and advertising across traditional and digital media since 1995.

Among Kopp's recent accomplishments at SS+K, he was a member of 'Obama for America's National Media Team, using an integrated mix of digital and traditional communications to connect with younger voters.

Adgully caught up with Jonathan Kopp, Partner & Global Director, Ketchum Digital to know more about Ketchum's strategies, their growth plans and much more...

Adgully (AG): How about your trip to India?

Jonathan Kopp (JK): It has been really nice up till now. I am here for several reasons. One was being "World Brand Congress, where I was a speaker. At the Congress, I spoke about some digital trends and how communication is shifting towards social media. More importantly I am here for Ketchum Sampark because we are working on the launch of Ketchum Digital.

AG: What will be the two key things which will be used to put in a gear and also what does digital refers to you: the social media part of it or the whole bunch of digital?

JK: The world has changed and to me the distinction between that being digital and that being social has been world. We have now entered in the era of social web and there is not a single corner of the web which is not social and the place is perfectly to communication business because if you don't create the content on web it becomes difficult to drive the content in that direction where the communication is really essential. We create content to drive conversation not to drive traffic. The reason behind this that we want consumers and influencers to frankly tell our brand stories in a influencing way. Today it is brand engagement that drives relevance and it is the trust that drives more engagement. So basically we need to do both, create the content and develop a conversation.

AG: Are you somehow monetizing the social content?

JK: Most of the people are in a business of monetizing the content today. We as an organization monetize the business in many ways.

AG: What kind of social media trends do you see in India?

JK: Facebook usage is increasing so rapidly. It is now at number 3 when it comes to social media engagement. Indian market in terms of social media is growing at a very rapid speed. Linkedin has also become an open source for professionals. But I think mobile can drive the whole attention. The numbers in terms of users of internet here in India are already great. Also it seems that blogging activities here in India are taking a toll which shows how the country is growing. Today it becomes really important to maintain relation with our customers because the consumers today do not want to engage with brands, they want engage with the people.

AG: since you have been with other international companies, so what are the trends outside India?

JK: facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, mobile-videos are at the top among the list. The trend of "Gamefication' and "Info graphics' both are taking a toll there. "Gamefication is basically creating more engagement towards relevant information with fun.

AG: What according to you are the two key things that a client should follow to engage more towards social media.

JK: I think there should be a proper social media training that should provided because there are many Indian companies that are blocking social media in a work place. What we found out here is that people think social media is a distraction, it decreases productivity but what we have seen the opposite side of that coin. I think it would be better to harness towards increasing the enthusiasm towards social media. I think I would be best if you could train your employee towards social media engagement.

AG: what does an Indian advertising agencies need to do in terms growing their business at international level?

JK: They need to be social media compatible and they need to train themselves in a way to handle that particular platform. I think they need to get into the process of listening. They should have the capability to know and track the conversation among the brands as you need to understand the environment before you are stepping into that.

AG: What are the challenges that you see as far as working with Indian market is concerned.

JK: My challenge would be to get more and more clients for Ketchum Sampark here in India. We are a firm with offices around the country, fluent with the languages and culture of the industry. So this fact basically removes other challenges that might be faced. According to me bandwidth is a challenge as most of the audience is shifting to digital platforms, there would be some kind of structural challenges, changing and adapting the mindset of the people here is a big challenge.

AG: What growth path do you chart for your team?

JK: you should take the traditional boundaries as past, there should be more and more engagement towards brands and consumers, there should be more engagement towards social media. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]