 "We are moving to a data-centric and digitally charged world: CVL Srinivas")
Not every campaign needs real-time measurement; what is more important is developing a real-time mindset, CVL Srinivas tells Sangeeta Tanwar
Brands keep talking about digital a lot. However, digital in India is still less than 12-13 per cent of the total advertising spends. How do you explain this dichotomy? Going forward, what are the factors that will help expand digital?
Yes it's true that so far there has been more hype about digital than the actual spends. And the reason for that has to do with infrastructure and the measurement matrix. For example, what should be the common standard of matrix for measuring digital is still not very clear. Also, a lot of people both on the agency side and the client side operate with mental models of the past where they are comfortable with the traditional media matrix and the traditional media model that tells them if they did this much of GRP on TV they will get so much for the brand etc. People have got used to these kinds of models. And because of these reasons there is so much talk about digital but spends are in the range of 10 to 15 per cent.
Third, people who work in the communication space are coming to grips with the media (digital) and what it can do for both brand building as well as for driving sales and performance. We see the contribution of digital to advertising spends going up sooner than later. Having said that, India as a market will have a strong traditional media presence for some more time to come. Especially TV is no danger of vanishing anytime soon. And in fact even print will continue to grow.
How and in what ways can the media industry go about shifting advertiser focus from media efficiency to building salience? What are the alternatives to advertisers evaluating agencies based on the cost efficiency of their media plans?
It's unfortunate that even today in a majority of the cases the cost efficiency of a plan is being used to determine whether the plan is good or not. I have seen during my career that the lowest cost plan does not necessarily do the job the best. Media strategy or planning needs to have as much innovation, breakthrough thinking and strategy as it must have cost. You need to balance the two. And today it's possible to look at and measure the brand value being created by a campaign. There are many other metrics available that are more outcome focused - as in what has the campaign actually done to the brand, be it in terms of health measure, sales, market share, etc. The more mature advertisers are moving from the output metrics to outcome metrics. Because the rate or the cost of the media plan is hardly going to affect the outcome it's only an output measure.
So how important are advertising effectiveness awards?
Advertising effectiveness awards are important as they provide a lot of motivation. They also ensure that we are constantly looking at breakthrough ideas and raising the bar. Having said that, I also believe that we have far too many awards as an industry. A time will come for us to sit together and figure out whether it's worth the time, effort and energy to be a part of each and every award function. Here, I'm not questioning the industry awards. Being a responsible member of the industry we will always want to support industry awards. But outside the industry, there are a lot of events and awards that need a serious relook.
Clients are pushing agencies to evaluate campaigns in real time so that course correction can be taken. Does the media industry have appropriate measurement models in place to meet the growing clamour for "accountability"?
I think measurement models are still playing catch up. We have always seen that the consumer is ahead of anybody else followed by brands and people who work in the communication industry. Research in measurement always ends up being a laggard. And one cannot blame them because there is so much of dynamism and the pace of change is really fast. Coming to real time measurement, not every campaign requires real time measurement. I think what's more important is to operate in a more real time kind of mindset while creating communication and media strategies. Because that is the way the consumer works today. Things are falling slowly in place as far as that aspect is concerned.
Brands keep talking about digital a lot. However, digital in India is still less than 12-13 per cent of the total advertising spends. How do you explain this dichotomy? Going forward, what are the factors that will help expand digital?
Yes it's true that so far there has been more hype about digital than the actual spends. And the reason for that has to do with infrastructure and the measurement matrix. For example, what should be the common standard of matrix for measuring digital is still not very clear. Also, a lot of people both on the agency side and the client side operate with mental models of the past where they are comfortable with the traditional media matrix and the traditional media model that tells them if they did this much of GRP on TV they will get so much for the brand etc. People have got used to these kinds of models. And because of these reasons there is so much talk about digital but spends are in the range of 10 to 15 per cent.
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However, going forward we see all this changing. First and foremost, the digital infrastructure in the country is slowly improving - both in terms of the availability of bandwidth as well as smartphones penetration. All these are positive developments for digital. Second, we are now seeing a lot of innovation in language content. All these days, digital in India was largely English. But India as a country is heterogeneous and for anything to scale up in the country you need to get to regional languages. It's only now that digital platforms are embracing global content and that will spur growth going forward.
Third, people who work in the communication space are coming to grips with the media (digital) and what it can do for both brand building as well as for driving sales and performance. We see the contribution of digital to advertising spends going up sooner than later. Having said that, India as a market will have a strong traditional media presence for some more time to come. Especially TV is no danger of vanishing anytime soon. And in fact even print will continue to grow.
How and in what ways can the media industry go about shifting advertiser focus from media efficiency to building salience? What are the alternatives to advertisers evaluating agencies based on the cost efficiency of their media plans?
It's unfortunate that even today in a majority of the cases the cost efficiency of a plan is being used to determine whether the plan is good or not. I have seen during my career that the lowest cost plan does not necessarily do the job the best. Media strategy or planning needs to have as much innovation, breakthrough thinking and strategy as it must have cost. You need to balance the two. And today it's possible to look at and measure the brand value being created by a campaign. There are many other metrics available that are more outcome focused - as in what has the campaign actually done to the brand, be it in terms of health measure, sales, market share, etc. The more mature advertisers are moving from the output metrics to outcome metrics. Because the rate or the cost of the media plan is hardly going to affect the outcome it's only an output measure.
So how important are advertising effectiveness awards?
Advertising effectiveness awards are important as they provide a lot of motivation. They also ensure that we are constantly looking at breakthrough ideas and raising the bar. Having said that, I also believe that we have far too many awards as an industry. A time will come for us to sit together and figure out whether it's worth the time, effort and energy to be a part of each and every award function. Here, I'm not questioning the industry awards. Being a responsible member of the industry we will always want to support industry awards. But outside the industry, there are a lot of events and awards that need a serious relook.
Clients are pushing agencies to evaluate campaigns in real time so that course correction can be taken. Does the media industry have appropriate measurement models in place to meet the growing clamour for "accountability"?
I think measurement models are still playing catch up. We have always seen that the consumer is ahead of anybody else followed by brands and people who work in the communication industry. Research in measurement always ends up being a laggard. And one cannot blame them because there is so much of dynamism and the pace of change is really fast. Coming to real time measurement, not every campaign requires real time measurement. I think what's more important is to operate in a more real time kind of mindset while creating communication and media strategies. Because that is the way the consumer works today. Things are falling slowly in place as far as that aspect is concerned.