WMC 2014: Mobile & Digital Marketing forum discusses 'world going one screen'

World Marketing Congress & CMO Asia introduced the future of The Mobile & Digital Marketing forum for cultivating, inspiring, and involving the marketing, advertising & media communities with an aim to give a framework of today’s traditional marketing models which are changing into digital framework powered by digital practices and tools.

The Mobile & Digital Marketing forum is the ideal program for marketers to discover, discuss, & exchange strategies on digital marketing engagement, case studies and global best practices. The conference that took place on 14th November 2014 at Taj Lands End brought together marketing experts, strategists and media to share and deliver the issues and best practices that shape the digital marketing landscape with like-minded professionals as Summit participants.       

As a part for the same, there were panel discussions, master classes and a lot more by eminent speakers Gabriel Tan, Vice President APAC, Airpush, Inc; C.V.V.S Krishna, President, Sirez Group; Shehan Selvanayagam, Chief Executive Officer, Loops Solutions (Pvt) Ltd. (Sri Lanka) etc.

In a panel discussion, chaired by Aashish Nanavati – GM & Head Digital Marketing, People Interactive (I) Pvt. Ltd, panellist discussed on ‘The Digital Marketing Lifecycle: The New World of One Screen’. The panellist included – Pramod Pratap – Global Marketing Lead – Life Sciences & Services Industries, Infosys Ltd., Kamalakannan Jothi – Head – Mobile, MTV –Digital, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd., and Nishad Ramachandran – VP-Digital Experience, Hansa Customer Equity.

Jothi began by mentioning that while there are talks about difference in consumer behaviour on television and digital, there is a growing difference between digital (web) and mobile as well. He goes onto to mention that content plays a crucial role in this changing behaviour.

Sharing the agency-side of the story, Ramachandran stated that, “With the use of multiple devices, it is essential to know where is the customer engagement higher and better. Over time, we also need to build intelligence to know which devices are the messages you sent (content) opened and consumed more so as to gauge viability and avoid wastage”.

Nanavati pointed that while products (content in any form) today are structured on the basis of the screen they appear on, the quizzed the panellist as to how does marketing help in the process of product structuring. Responding to this, Jothi said, “While today there is higher focus on digital, there is similar or higher dependency on television to make any content popular. However, we at MTV are keenly working on devising content that is approachable across devices. We are also working on strategies where, while we attract our viewers on television with a particular show, we drive them to the digital platform and offer extensive content from there on”.

Pratap however, is of the opinion that the fundamentals of marketing strategies remain the same, irrespective of the time and situation. “Having said that; we also need to understand the nature of product, which decides the marketing and communication strategies and understandably the screens as well”. These, along with many other points were highlighted at this session.

As a part of the Mobile and Digital Marketing Summit’14 50 best Digital Marketing Professionals were awarded. The awards included eminent names like Vikas Mehta, Lowe Lintas, chief marketing officer (CMO) at creative agency Lowe Lintas and Partners;  Himani Kapadia Managing Director – India, DigitasLbi; Sowmya Iyer, CEO of Xebec; Ram Giri, Head - Digital Marketing at ICICI Bank; Sachin Mohadikar. Head - Digital Marketing at Star India (LifeOK); Vikram Kannoth Vishnudas, ‎CFO at Capgemini Business Services; Rajeev Mahajan. Head / Director - Digital and Mobile Banking, Barclays; Vipin Guliani: Sr. Manager, Strategic Marketing (Digital Marketing), Wipro; Rahul Ramchandani, Head, Digital Marketing, Bharti Airtel; Varun Krishna, Senior Vice President - Digital Marketing at IDFC; Pankaj Parihar, Head Digital Marketing at Godrej Group; Manish kumar. Chief Digital Officer at RedChillies & Kolkata Knight Riders; Anil Jayaraj, Chief Marketing officer, Pidilite Industries; Zafar Rais, Mindshift Interactive and a lot more.