“Digital transformation that would have taken 6 years has happened very quickly”

Digital has taken a frontline role in the last 6-9 months, becoming the lead medium today. Most FMCG brands now look at building brands using digital, which was not the case earlier – while FMCG brands mostly preferred modern trade in the pre-COVID-19 times, a tremendous shift is seen to e-commerce in a short span of time now. Thus, digital has become an automatic choice of medium and channel today with most brands.

Another important aspect of digital is that with consumption of content going up significantly, the role of mobile in the digital ecosystem has strengthened the medium. For instance, the aspiration to buy an automobile went up after the intital months of April and May in 2020, when sales were literally zero due to the pandemic and lockdown. Here again the role of digital, personal mobility and booking of cars and researching on car using mobile shot up. Dun & Bradstreet India, who launched some of their global products during the pandemic, used digital and found that was one of the best tools for marketing.

Similarly, the insurance business, which is normally sold through intermediaries and feet-on-the-street selling, moved to digital in a big way. Post April-May, all companies had to adopt digital to reach out to their customers and so there was a lot of learning and unlearning for the intermediaries – the industry still sells 90% of its business through intermediaries. The silver lining for the insurance companies was that the awareness levels went up manifold and almost all insurance companies have reached single digit or close to double digit growth.

With the pandemic, digital transformation gathered momentum in the last 6 months. What would have taken 6 years has happened very quickly. Today, digital is not an add-on to brands’ media plans. It has in fact become an integral part of the media plan and is delivering reach. The acceleration of digital has transformed agencies and has made them more digital savvy and they are getting well equipped to face the challenges in the new digital world.

These views were shared at the panel discussion on ‘Growth of digital share in overall media spends’ on Day 2 of MOBEXX 2020, held on December 11. The session was moderated by Naresh Gupta, Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Partner, Bang in the Middle, and the speakers included:

Priti Murthy, CEO, OMD Media

Mohit Joshi, CEO - India, Havas Media Group

Gaurav Mehta, CMO, CarDekho

Abhishek Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer at Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance

Nayna Banerjee, Head Marketing & Communication, Dun & Bradstreet India

Watch the entire discussion here:

https://youtu.be/gtIljXzG5_w