Zee Melt Day 1: When Tom Fishburne praised Amul’s serial storytelling idea

Day 1 of Zee Melt 2018, being held in Mumbai on May 30 and 31, was a reverberating hub of insightful sessions and workshops across industry domains. It brought together ideas that connect marketing, communication and technology and the most valuable leaders and brand marketers from across the globe under one roof. 

Ad industry is in a state of flux: Sir Martin Sorrell 

Sir Martin Sorrell connected from London through a live chat with media veteran Anant Rangaswami, where he spoke about India’s competitive economy. Sorrell remarked, “The advertising and marketing industry is in a state of flux. According to my calculation that we have been developing over 33 years at WPP, it is a $1 trillion company.” 

Speaking about India, Sorrell said that the country had been a potential and an important place for WPP. “India represents to me opportunities in terms of economic and technological growth. India is faster in terms of GDP and population. It is the most populous country with the youngest profile of people,” he added. 

Amul’s idea of serial story-telling is noteworthy: Tom Fishburne 

Tom Fishburne, Founder, Marketoonist, addressed the audience on ‘Your Ad Ignored Here: Marketing at the Pace of Technology’. The session revolved around the amplification of marketing with the use of technology, cultivating an ‘always in beta’ culture of innovation within the organisation and being data driven without being data blinded. 

The veteran marketer and cartoonist noted, “Technology can’t save boring marketing. We need to stay focused on our marketing strategies and not get excited when we see new things. We need to know who we are creating our marketing for and what is our marketing campaign.” 

With the use of cartoons and case studies, Fishburne framed the right marketing mindset needed to take advantage of the modern digital world in the best possible manner. 

Speaking about Indian campaigns and his visit to the country, Fishburne said, “I have never been this excited in my life, it was amazing to be here. I have never seen such an entrepreneurial environment. It is great to see what people can do to sell your small enterprises. On my first trip to India, I loved to discover the campaign by Amul. In 52 years they have campaigned amazingly and their idea of serial story-telling is something worth taking note of. They have campaigned everywhere – from Bollywood to hoardings to newspaper ads. I am always excited to know what incidence their next campaign will be based on.” 

80% of consumers are on mobile: Guneet Singh 

The session by Guneet Singh, Head - Marketing Solutions, Google India & SEA, highlighted some key aspects about the digital industry. He defined creative intelligence as the gap between success and release. Sharing a few interesting keynotes, Singh mentioned, “The big piece of work we do is on video and the reason is 80 per cent of consumers are on mobile. The phone is a very intimate space as it is 12 inches away, but your TV screen is 6-7 feet away which is not an intimate space. The average attention span in mobile is 7-9 seconds; if you don’t change the arc in this time span, one skips the video. That’s how you look at the story arc in digital. In digital, you know the exact persona of the person watching something. It is important for you to build content for the right audience. We have recently made 2,300 videos all running in the same date to distinctive audience.” 

Sakshi Choudhary’s in-depth view into a female driven economy

‘The Rise of the Female Economy’ session by Sakshi Choudhary, Creative Controller, Ogilvy India, provided the audience with an in-depth view into the changing and more female driven economy. While sharing interesting facts and figures Choudhary mentioned, “Women spend twice the time as men, they are playing more games, and they are also on social media.” Citing some statistics, she said, “74 per cent of the purchasing decisions are made by women, and in cities it goes up to 90 per cent. 70 per cent women are buying houses in top 8 cities of India and 40 per cent overnight solo trips are made by women.” 

Speaking about how brands and marketers have realised the changing scenario, Choudhary further shared some examples and said, “Honda has realised that the scooter market is overtaking the motorcycle market in rural India and therefore, they launched Honda Cliq targeted only at rural Indian women. Alcohol consumption among women has been increasing; Bacardi has been making the best of it as their sessions are more focused at women. Hotstar has realised that their video consumption is 3 times more by women compared to men.” 

When kindness is a competitive advantage: Mark Shayler 

Mark Shayler, Director, Ape, addressed the audience on the topic, ‘Purpose is a Superpower and Kindness is a Competitive Advantage’. According to Shayler, “Every single action has a reaction and every single movement has an angle. We are all millennial. People like tactility; if you are making a digital campaign make it real, make it human. We can’t lie anymore, because the Internet is everywhere and the truth will eventually come out. It’s high time that you innovate the new way. Define a purpose, as purpose makes you stronger, being good is new cool and kindness is competitive.” 

Today, people don’t buy products, they buy people: Erica Ng 

While sharing her insights on ‘Brands of Tomorrow | 2018’, Erica Ng, Senior Editor - Asia Pacific Insight, WGSN, spoke about the growing influence of consumer insights on brands. 

According to Ng, “The world is getting future ready and so are our brands. The brands of tomorrow are using the 4 E’s – Engagement, Exclusivity, Experience and Emotion. While today’s traditional spaces are extremely crowded, it becomes a larger deal for the brands of tomorrow to get more creative in their thinking. The brands of tomorrow are engineering vitality, as they aren’t using space to advertise but instead growing their presence on digital. They are using psychographics to understand the consumer needs. Today, people don’t buy products, they buy people!” 

Brands need to address the unknown needs of consumers: Anindya Ghose 

Anindya Ghose, Heinz Riehl Chair Professor of Business and Director of Masters in Business Analytics at New York University, NYU Stern School of Business, is the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious INFORMS ISS Distinguished Fellow Award. 

Addressing the audience on the topic, ‘Using Artificial Intelligence to Monetize the $3 Trillion Mobile Economy’, Ghose shared insights on the increasing benefits of Artificial Intelligence and said, “Crowdedness is one thing which works best in the case of AI, as when people are alone in a crowd, phone is their best escape. Over a period of time, we have witnessed brands identifying known as well as unknown needs of consumer’s, basis which they are ready to invest heavily in mobile data metrics. Addressing the unknown needs is what will give the brand an upper hand to serve better. This metric eventually helps in measuring the ROI on the capital spent.” 

A keynote session by Ricardo Gomez-Insausti, Vice-President (Research), Numeris, was followed by a panel discussion featuring Amit Shah (Head - Distribution Strategy, Star India); Amit Arora (EVP, Indiacast); Arun Unni (Chief Content Officer, Tata Sky); Debkumar Chakrabarti (Pr. Adviser (B&CS), TRAI); Javed Jafri (Media Head - Traditional & Digital, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia & Laos, Unilever); Vynsley Fernandes (Executive Director, Castle Media); and Sanjay Jain (Group CTO, DEN Networks). 

The keynote session on ‘How Return Path Data Will Turbo-Boost Television Audience Measurement Globally’ addressed the challenges faced in the Indian market for TV audience measurement and the global developments taking place in the measurement system. 

Day 1 concluded with an interesting &Prive Soiree consisting of a panel discussion featuring Ogilvy India’s Sonal Dabral and filmmaker & writer Ashwini Iyer Tewari. It was followed by the screening of Oscar winning film ‘The Post’.