Brands
How hotels and private clubs can retain brand recall among customers in times of COVID-19
The impact of the current COVID 19 pandemic on multiple industries is being noticed across the world. In the time of social distancing and home quarantine, travel and hospitality are among the worst impacted sectors! The hospitality industry is highly dependent on tourism which has borne the brunt of the current situation. This has led to multiple cancellations of room bookings, occasion celebration and even general dining, greatly impacting their revenues and raising concerns of possible layoffs post the pandemic crisis.
Private Lifestyle clubs, which offer F&B, activities and event venues, are mostly dependent on members and guests for revenue generation. The current lockdown has impacted not only the footfalls but also the rising cost of maintaining the expensive infrastructure without actual revenues coming in. It has also adversely impacted the members’ lifestyles, who were used to a routine of working out or spending leisure time at the club.
However, once normalcy resumes, club members might want to resume their daily routine and may even do so more enthusiastically than ever. This could primarily be so in case of using the gym and working out, so as to get back in shape and make up for lost time and also to get back to socialising – one of the greatest deprivation in the lockdown. In order to address this influx, clubs would have to be prepared with the following measures:
The clubs will have to ensure
– The club building and facilities are sanitised and there are clear visual indicators of the same to reassure the members of the safety and reiterate the management’s focus on the members’ health and well-being
– They are ready to service their members like never before as they would be visiting the club after a long hiatus and thus need to have a great experience to keep their loyalty intact
– Ensure there is no downtime of any of the facilities as the tolerance levels for the same might be quite low. The members would be raring to use all the facilities available to the same extent as during normalcy or even more
During this downtime, it is also essential to continue to work on brand recall and maintain contact with patrons by sending out e-mailers and through digital medium with social awareness messages and informing them about the efforts taken up by the club. This would help brands to a) resume operations on a high note post the hiatus, and b) have adequate prospective sales in the pipeline to be able to weather the losses incurred.
The digital media is a big boon in the current situation, allowing businesses to stay in touch with their current consumers and lure in prospective customers too as most people are currently resorting to digital media for information and entertainment. Those businesses that can effectively use the same would definitely be able to reap its benefits in the near future once we approach normalcy!
As the markets and the economy finally come back to normalcy, hospitality, travel and private clubs will play an essential role in bringing people back together and share the sense of solidarity in these times of collective grief.
(The author is general manager, The Acres Lifestyle Club & The Fern Residency. The views expressed are his own and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)
Brands
Google says Gemini AI cuts irrelevant ads by 40 percent
AI driven search and ad tools boost relevance and results for brands.
MUMBAI: In the never ending hunt for the right ad at the right moment, artificial intelligence may finally be sharpening the aim. Google says the integration of its multimodal AI models, Gemini, has reduced irrelevant advertisements across its platforms by 40 percent, as improved query understanding allows ads to match user intent more closely.
Speaking at a roundtable on Thursday, Google vice president of Global Ads Dan Taylor said the company has been steadily deploying Gemini powered upgrades to interpret complex search queries more accurately. “We have been making Gemini based improvements to query understanding at a rate of almost one launch per month over the last two years. As the models improve and our ability to deploy them improves, ad quality continues to get better,” Taylor said.
The improvements come as Google leans deeper into AI driven advertising tools. According to the company, 2025 saw a threefold increase in Gemini generated creative assets produced by advertisers using its AI powered ad solutions.
The company also highlighted how these tools are influencing marketing performance for brands in India.
Insurance marketplace Policybazaar recorded a 28 percent rise in health insurance sales while reducing cost per sale by 23 percent after adopting AI Max, a tool that interprets natural language search queries to improve ad targeting.
Meanwhile, hospitality platform OYO reported 50 percent higher return on ad spend (ROAS) and a 25 percent reduction in cost per acquisition after combining its existing search campaigns with Google’s Performance Max (PMax) advertising campaigns.
Taylor noted that evolving consumer behaviour is also reshaping how brands approach digital advertising. According to Google’s data, 86 percent of shoppers in India using Google Search said they were open to trying new brands or products, suggesting that AI driven discovery tools could increasingly influence purchase decisions.
Beyond advertising, Google is also investing in what it calls agentic commerce, an emerging model where AI agents autonomously assist users in discovering, comparing and purchasing products online.
“Our goal with agentic commerce is twofold, first, to remove the grunt work of shopping so consumers can focus on the fun parts; and second, to work hand in hand with the industry to build the foundations needed to make agentic commerce seamless and secure across the web,” Taylor said.
The push into AI enhanced advertising and commerce comes as Google’s core ads business continues to grow. The company recently reported $82.28 billion in advertising revenue, marking a 13.5 percent year on year increase.
For advertisers navigating an increasingly crowded digital landscape, Google is betting that smarter algorithms and sharper intent signals will make ads feel less like interruptions and more like timely suggestions.
