Brands need to establish a data value exchange: Vasuta Agarwal

As digital media becomes more ubiquitous in the marketing strategies of brands, platforms must address consumers concerns of data privacy, security and client concerns such as brand safety and privacy compliant tracking of the consumer footprint. Platforms also need to address the question of content moderation and ask themselves whether they are publishers or aggregators.

Adgully caught up with Vasuta Agarwal, Managing Director - APAC, InMobi, on the sidelines of the 15th India Digital Summit 2021, conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which concluded on January 20, 2021, to understand what is the ask of marketers from a digitally mature marketing environment.

While brands are optimising spends across multiple digital channels, is it always an integrated approach?

Any brand, at the end of the day, wants to engage their consumers with the right message at the right place and the right time. This means that brands need to be consumer-first and effectively leverage the channels where their customers are. In the era of the connected consumer, the mobile is the primary, native and most crucial device amongst all. Consumers spent close to 4.8 hours per day on their smartphones, with drastic change in media and shopping consumption habits in 2020. Gaming, Short-form Video and OTT emerged as the most dominant content consumption havens. And according to an InMobi survey, 2 out of 3 respondents discover (learn), research (explore) and purchase (buy) using their smartphones. Brands need to invest in channels that capture the mindshare of the consumer, are transparent and measurable and deliver the impact and ROI that the brands aim for.

Will brands have to allay concerns around data privacy on their own platforms to be perceived as trustworthy?

In today’s world, the consumer is more than willing to share their data if they see that brands are engaging in a relevant or personalised manner. According to an Accenture survey on data privacy, 87% of the respondents said that they’d want brands to drive more a personalised engagement and 73% consumers are ready to share data if brands are transparent about how they handle it and the subsequent value that they provide to the consumer. Therefore, brands need to do 2 important things: 1. Establish a true data-value exchange with their customers, and 2. Build highly relevant and personalised experiences based on the data that has been captured through the data-value exchange process.