Experts explore ways to adopt a mobile first approach at MMS New Delhi

Modern Marketing Summit 2017 has been the quintessential thought leadership forum for brands, agencies and mobile leaders to network and gain insights on all things mobile marketing. Part of the global network of summits in the US, UK, Europe, NZ, Australia and Singapore, MMS India provided a powerful introduction to the region with 200+ of India’s top Brands, Agencies, Publishers and Mobile Innovators in attendance, the 2017 edition showcased the best in class mobile work from different perspectives. The theme of the 2017 Summit was ‘Mobile at the Centre of Your Brand and Customer Experience – Adopting the Mobile First Approach’. The 2017 edition showcased the best in class mobile work from unconventional perspectives. 

The day-long Summit, held on October 25, 2017 in Gurugram, brought together the best minds in the industry who shared their insights and expertise on how they are making mobile platform a priority. The agenda allowed in-depth discussions into topics that included ‘Engaging your Consumer through Emerging Technologies such as AR and VR’, ‘Mobile, Mobility & Markets’, 10 inventions to look out for in the next 12 months, ‘Winning the Micro Mobile Moments - how is data helping brands to crack the code’, ‘The Right Measure for Video on mobile’, ‘The Year Of The Chatbot: how AI and Chatbots are making brand marketing smarter’. 

Speaking at the second edition of MMS, Jaswant Singh, MD, India, Comexposium, said “The clear and dominant focus of marketers and brands is moving towards capitalising engagement through mobile platform. Mobile First approach is moving from just targeting to higher levels of engagement through innovative technologies like VR & AR. MMS 2017 was aimed to capture the true essence of this engagement and a journey of consumers and brands interacting with each other at various levels and how they both mutually benefit each other.” 

Industry Speak 

Sujit Ganguli, Senior General Manager & Head - Brand and Communications Group, ICICI Bank:
“Social media today is inevitably a dynamic platform and players like us need to be 300 per cent sure while mapping customer behaviour and customising deals for them. ICICI works broadly on three factors, that is, data usage, customer behaviour on social media platforms, transactions which customers make on the e-commerce sites. Today, mobile is not only a gadget but the consumer behaviour and it is really interesting how brands are harnessing this platform.” 

Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah, Business Head – Auto, Telecom & New Business, Facebook India:
“Initially, it was one to many – then one to one – and now it is one to community kind of transactions. The idea is to use info for relevant communication and how to make it micro ‘momentish’. E-commerce clients have a program for core customers and look alike audiences – it generates prospective buyers and we have seen 50 per cent in CPRs and cost of acquisition went down.” 

Maneesha Khanna, Director – Global Media & Content COE, PepsiCo:
“Mobiles today attract much more eyeballs than TVs for viewing videos. 60 per cent of the video today is viewed on mobiles and as a brand; we can’t afford to ignore this fact.” 

Ashish Tiwari, Head, Digital Marketing and PR, Hero Cycles Ltd:
“Today’s business model is mobile first and mobile only world, that is, screen, location, context and intention aware. Mobile centricity is required for search, advertisement, content engagement, sales and support. Today, every user including digital employees, customers think, act and expect differently. They want every business to feel, serve and work just like their favorite app.” 

Sujatha V Kumar, Director - Category Marketing & Corporate Brand, The Coca-Cola Company:
“To engage more consumers a brand needs to create more content. Small screen today gives users a freedom to watch content as per their personal choice. Content viewing has evolved from what was broadcasted on television earlier. We as a brand now are increasingly utilising the mobile platforms to build engaging content and increase reach.” 

Bhaskar Ramesh, Head of YouTube Sales & Brand Advertising:
“The role of video is different for brands to understand the customers’ journey. More than the established players, it is the small players who have to customise their video content to engage more with their customers. Video from daily soaps to On-Demand Web-Video shows assisted by dramatic growth in 4G and cheaper data, the Shift on Mobile has been substantially visible to engage with customers across regions.” 

With innovative Data owners such as Zeotap, ComScore and 100+ brands like Jubilant FoodWorks, Tata, GSK, PepsiCo India, The Coca-Cola Company, the Summit facilitated a holistic view across industries on mobile. 

Some of the biggest names from the industry, including Sunder Madakshira, Head of Marketing, Adobe; Ramesh Bhaskar, Head of YouTube Sales & Brand Advertising, Google India; Kedar Gavane, Vice President, India, comScore; Tushar Vyas, Chief Strategy Officer, GroupM; Pankaj Munjal, Managing Director, Hero Motors Company; Abhinav Kumar, Country Development, Trivago; Maneesha Khanna, Director - Global Media & Content COE, PepsiCo India; and Subroto Gupta, SVP & Head of Innovation & Business Excellence, Jubilant FoodWorks Limited. Other eminent speakers included Tejinder Singh, COO, Arvind Internet; Tomas Hrdlicka, Chief Marketing Office, HomeCredit; Sauvik Banerjjee, CTO, TataCLiQ, and VP - Digital Initiatives, Tata Industries & Advisor to Group Companies; Anita Nayyar, CEO – India & South Asia, Havas Media Group, were of part of the 2017 edition.