At Glance, we are aiming to make the surfaces smart: Vasuta Agarwal

Vasuta Agarwal is responsible for leading ad monetisation for all consumer properties of InMobi group globally. Prior to this, she was MD for Asia Pacific region, responsible for the P&L and business for India, Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, and ANZ markets driving consistent scale and growth over 3+ years.

She has been with InMobi, one of the first start-ups and unicorns to go global from India, for over 10 years and has worn many hats in the organisation – from Founders’ strategy to product to business roles. Before InMobi, she was with McKinsey as a management consultant, and with Intel as a chip design engineer. She is a graduate of BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

In conversation with Adgully, Vasuta Agarwal, Chief Business Officer - Consumer Platform Advertising, InMobi, speaks at length about how Glance has gained popularity as a content platform, how Glance stands out in the highly competitive mobile content delivery space, global expansion plans, and more.

Glance has gained immense popularity as a content platform, delivering personalised content to millions of users. How does Glance curate and deliver content to ensure it remains engaging and relevant to diverse audiences? 

Today’s consumers are finding themselves in the midst of a content storm, where there is a firehose of information coming at them. This makes discovering content that they love a challenge. Glance is on a mission to change that. We empower consumers by bringing the content they seek to them on the first surface they engage with every day. Glance is an AI-powered smart lock screen content platform with over 200 million consumers in India. Its popularity has been catapulted by curating inspiring, enriching, and engaging content for diverse audiences. 

Glance offers content across 18 varieties of categories, each catering to the unique interests of our users. From entertainment and fashion to world news and technology – we’ve got it all. We also use data signals such as content interests, languages, and demographics to deliver personalised content to cater to individual preferences. 

By leveraging AI, Glance tailors content for each consumer, ensuring higher engagement by enabling serendipitous discovery of content that matter to our users.

The mobile content delivery space is highly competitive. What are some of the unique features and strategies that set Glance apart from other content platforms in the market? 

Glance stands out in the highly competitive mobile content delivery space by offering several unique features and leveraging innovative strategies, which set it apart from other content platforms. 

Single platform, multiple destinations: Glance stands out as a unique platform that embodies the essence of being a single hub with multiple destinations. Consumers can engage with premium content across destinations such as -  

• Lock screen feed: One-click access to endless curated, personalised, and binge-worthy trending content. 
• Shop: The curated shopping experience (powered by Roposo) for a single click browse & buy of varied products from their favourite brands 
• Live: The gateway to elevated live content and engagement with exciting interactive features, fostering a deeper connection 
• Gaming: Unique, one-click gaming experiences without app downloads or unlocking their phones, while also seamlessly watching live tournaments  
• Sports: From live scores to key match moments, to post match analysis, lock screen turns into a digital stadium for sports enthusiasts 
• Trends (News/ Fashion): Gives users access to latest trends on news, fashion from around the world with a single click. 
• Personalised Content Curation with AI: Glance utilises advanced AI algorithms to curate personalised content for each consumer based on their individual interests, behaviour, and demographics. The consumers in India are spending close to 25 minutes per day on Glance, consuming and engaging with the content on Glance across different categories such as Gaming, News, and shopping.
• Enabling mindful content experiences: Glance aims to be consumers’ companion throughout the day, enabling and delivering information that they need in that moment. We prioritise a smooth and seamless user experience. 

We understand how our consumer interests have evolved over the last few years, and our own ethos has been shaped by that. Glance brings various destinations that cater to each unique interest together under one unified interface, delivering a cohesive and enriched content experience to millions of users. 

Glance’s content delivery relies on lock screen technology. How do you strike a balance between user experience and ad monetisation on the lock screen to avoid overwhelming users with ads? 

At Glance, we are aiming to make the surfaces smart. The once humble smartphone lock screen has now gained immense popularity with the consumers as they move from mindless scrolling to mindful content consumption. Given that we are on one of the most personal surfaces that consumers centre their lives around, we understand the great responsibility that comes with this space. Some of the guidelines that we follow are mentioned below:

1. Creative guidelines: We are serious about enabling a pristine and seamless content experience on the lock screen. Our teams prioritise and maintain high content standards for everything displayed on the lock screen to ensure the best quality and most native creatives on the lock screen.
2. Right targeting: Using its AI-based algorithm, Glance evaluates content based on user engagement and retention, prioritising ‘engaging’ content while fading away less engaging material. This also helps us ensure that the content is relevant to users in terms of interest, audience, time of day, etc. 
3. Frequency capping: Glance also works on an algorithm to ensure that there is fresh content available for the consumers always. For every consumer, a particular piece of content is shown only a certain number of times during the day.

Glance’s experiences are curated through partnerships with reputable developers, content partners, and media companies. The partners also adhere to these guidelines to ensure the lock screen’s pristine appearance and user experience are upheld. 

Glance has expanded its presence in multiple countries. How do you adapt content and user experiences to suit different cultural and regional preferences? 

That is a good question. 

We enable the content which is here and now. It means, we need to understand the local culture better and connect with the audience more. Here is how we ensure that we are relevant to the culture of the land that we are present in:

Localised Content: In select territories, we curate content that is relevant and specific to each region’s culture, customs, and language. This involves collaborating with local content creators, publishers, and media partners to produce region-specific articles, videos, and news.

Cultural Sensitivity: We place great importance on cultural sensitivity when curating and presenting content. Avoiding content that may be offensive or inappropriate in certain cultural contexts is crucial to maintaining a positive user experience.

The Gen Z and millennial demographic are significant users of Glance. How do you ensure that Glance remains appealing and relevant to these digitally savvy generations? 

There is something for everyone on Glance.

Engaging content destinations: From live to collaborative games, the gaming tab on Glance provides some interesting options. Users can scroll through interesting products ranging from home décor to wellness to accessories on the shop tab (powered by Roposo) and enjoy shopping.

Different content formats: From full screen display image to short horizontal video to text-based news and articles – Glance enables different content formats which suit different category of consumers.

Glance has a vast amount of data on user behaviour. How do you protect user privacy while utilising this data to improve content recommendations and advertising targeting? 

We are fully placed to comply with applicable privacy laws across every aspect of our business and the land in which we operate. As a trusted partner of leading brands across the globe, we are dedicated to protecting consumer privacy while generating value for our publisher partners and creating a safe and transparent marketplace for advertisers.

Looking ahead, what are some of the key goals and milestones that Glance aims to achieve in the next few years, and how do you plan to execute these goals? 

We are super excited about the vision of Glance. In the days to come, we are working on continuing to improve the user experience, using the power of AI across different use cases, doubling down on the Live streaming and gaming phenomenon and growing the distribution of Glance through various partnerships.