 "Tanmay Mohanty, Craig Greenfield")
Craig Greenfield is the chief operating officer of Performics Worldwide, one of Publicis Groupe's emerging digital marketing agencies. The latter set up base in India in 2011 and has been rapidly adding clients here including Airtel, Olx, ICICI Bank, Star India, Standard Chartered Bank, Birla Sun Life Insurance and Tata AIG among others. This comes as parent Publicis Groupe ups the ante in digital — emerging as the only top three ad holding companies to derive over 50% of its revenues from digital.
Greenfield, a US citizen, on a trip to India recently highlights to Viveat Susan Pinto how big data is changing the way digital is measured in India and the potential of mobile marketing alongwith India MD Tanmay Mohanty. Edited Excerpts:
What are the plans and projections for Performics here in India? How different are you from others?
Tanmay Mohanty: We have always had a distinctive position in the market as being a pure-play performance player. By performance marketing, I mean the ability to not only create digital content, but also measure it rigourously. We strengthened our position with the acquisition of Resultrix, a performance marketing agency in India in 2012. We have been able to leverage both brands and draw out the similarities to build a very strong performance product be it with our one-search approach or technology and data driven planning and media innovations.
We launched Performics mobile in 2015 as we saw this is a mobile first market and we have seen tremendous growth and response here. We also set up the first ever media-tech and analytics division in Bengaluru that helps clients make informed decision on the choice of technology and works on implementing them to drive maximum ROI on their investments.
In India, client acquisitions are our main focus. Existing clients are moving from single digit spend in digital to double, due to growth in mobile internet. We are examining further investment opportunities in technology driven solutions to drive the growth story.
What has been the response of advertisers/marketers to you so far in India?
Craig Greenfield: Globally Performics had a great year of growth, and won business directly or with ZenithOptimedia. India plays an increasingly important role. We have had some great new business, good numbers, great talent, good product and rewarding partnerships with our vendors and publishers. It will continue grow faster than most of our top markets, so it is incredibly important.
The approach in pitch wins in India are now being utilised in other markets, making India an exporter of great work. We have had a tremendous year in India. We have some great brands in our kitty Like Airtel, Nestle, OLX to name a few and we have been going really strong in this market.
What are the broad trends in digital and what kind of technological and consumption shifts do you see happening this year?
Craig Greenfield: The next decade will see the rise of new multi-billion dollar industries that will fundamentally change communication and commerce, in an even more profound way than how the smartphone has disrupted business and empowered consumers in the recent past. 2016 will see the Internet of Things, smart homes, virtual reality, connected vehicles, and meaningful wearables become very real consumer offerings. We’ll see the rise of a super-connected consumer journey—your tablet, phone, watch/band, TV, smart home, fridge, car will all connect and interface with each other. This creates a mass of consumer data that can be used to buy and optimize ads or experiences across the journey. This connectivity paves the way for a future marketplace for ad buying that leverages this data and makes it actionable.
Your specific observations of the Indian market and its scope for growth?
Craig Greenfield: Both India and China are now among the top ten markets in the Performics global network, which was not the case two years ago. So their growth is clear to see and due to size and opportunity, this growth will become even stronger. We believe the opportunity around ecommerce especially on mobile in these markets will play a key role in Performics global growth. India is a vibrant democracy with a healthy economic outlook and with huge ambitions in the digital space. What we have been doing so far has just been the tip of the iceberg.
India has crossed the one billion mobile subscribers mark and given that mobile becoming the first point of access for the Internet, the future looks extremely exciting.
Has programmatic buying evolved enough in India and is there further scope for growth?
Tanmay Mohanty: Savvy brands across the world are investing in programmatic buying to more effectively reach the right consumer through real-time bidding and targeting techniques.Programmatic is still nascent in India and various parts of the world, with only about 8-10 per cent of total display spends being allocated here so the only place to go from here is up. The primary reason for the lack of scale has been the lack of clean, first, second and third party data. This is will evolve as brands set up their own tech stacks and look at display as not just add on but an integral mix of their performance and branding plans. This will also grow rapidly as advertisers embrace a more open data policy that will enrich the entire ecosystem.
How is big data changing the way digital is measured today?
Craig Greenfield: Advertising started out as 100% art a few decades ago. But with the rise of big data in recent years, advertising is now shifting to a blend between art and science. Performics’s main focus is to extract meaning from big data to understand consumer intent and deliver dynamic and personalized experiences. We then measure performance and rigorously optimize (investment level, creative/copy and audience) based on each touch point’s influence on revenue.
Nothing is sacred, as we relentlessly test and learn and make decisions based on data. However, it is important to not let big data carry you away. Successful performance marketing campaigns must blend art and science, man and machine. Advertisers cannot treat consumers like data points; they must uncover the distinct motivation behind each click to match experiences to intent.
