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Experience Driven Businesses Likely To Grow Revenue 1.8x Faster Than Other Companies: Adobe – Forrester APAC Research
MUMBAI: New Adobe-commissioned research has confirmed that brands which invest in experience transformation across people, processes and technology, achieve superior business performance. By investing across these disciplines, businesses in Asia Pacific (APAC) can trigger a transformation in customer experience that results in increased revenue and a rise in the acquisition and retention of customers.
Adobe commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the business impact of investing in customer experience across the customer lifecycle. The study, The Business Impact of Investing in Customer Experience – A Spotlight On Asia Pacific, found that long term investment in customer experience is paying off for those brands willing to embrace it. The study found that APAC brands focusing on customer experience achieve an average revenue growth rate of 23%, compared with 13% of other companies surveyed.
“It is amply clear that customer experience has moved from being a competitive differentiator to a business imperative for brands, said Kulmeet Bawa, Managing Director, South Asia, Adobe. “In evolving markets like India, significant advances in technology coupled with increasing internet penetration and mobile proliferation have had a huge impact in the way brands are interacting with their audience. The need to be able to provide rich and meaningful customer journeys across channels is leading brands to assume the role of experience makers, to succeed in today’s digital era.”
Key findings of the study include:
· Experience driven brands sacrifice short term wins in favor of creating holistic experiences. Organizations that prioritize holistic customer experiences report higher costs, however they enjoy more than twice as much return on ad spend and are also 1.8x more likely to see revenue growth. They report 80 per cent higher year-on-year growth rates, and a doubling of their customer lifetime value.
· Experience driven businesses are customer obsessed. They invest in specific customer experience and marketing initiatives such as loyalty programs and customer analytics; they are also twice as likely to increase their investment year-on-year.
· Experience driven businesses report happier and more engaged employees. Employees in these businesses enjoy 60 per cent greater personal and team satisfaction than their counterparts in other businesses. They also feel 30 per cent greater company-wide satisfaction.
“The age of the experience driven business is well and truly upon us and it’s encouraging to see brands across APAC investing in experiences and customer loyalty,” said Scott Rigby, Head of Digital Transformation, Adobe.
“There is a higher cost for these businesses, but the boost to their revenue growth rate, customer lifetime value, and even the happiness of their employees all mean the investment is worth it.
“Customers are responding to businesses that are clearly dedicated to providing a unique and customized experience for their entire journey. As customers become more accustomed to this, businesses that don’t manage to deliver that experience are likely to be left behind.”
Forrester conducted this survey with 1,269 marketing, advertising, CX, digital, and analytics business leaders at global enterprises to explore this topic. This spotlight focuses on the results of the 445 respondents surveyed in Asia Pacific (APAC): professionals with responsibility for CX technology decisions and metrics in Australia, China, India, and Japan.
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ASCI study uncovers how Gen Alpha navigates ads in endless digital feeds
‘What the Sigma?’ ethnographic report maps blurred boundaries between content and commerce for 7–15-year-olds.
MUMBAI: Gen Alpha isn’t scrolling through the internet, they’re living rent-free inside its never-ending dopamine drip, and the ads have already moved in next door. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Academy, partnering with Futurebrands Consulting, has published ‘What the Sigma?’, an immersive ethnographic study that maps how Indian children aged 7–15 (Generation Alpha) consume, interpret and live alongside media and commercial messaging in a hyper-digital environment.
The research draws on in-home interviews, sibling and peer conversations, and discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors, psychologists, marketers and kidfluencers across six cities. It examines not only what children watch but how algorithms, content creators, peers and parents shape their relationship with the constant stream of shorts, vlogs, gameplay, memes, sponsored posts and ‘kid-ified’ adult material.
Five core themes emerged:
- Discontinuous Generation, Gen Alpha is not growing up alongside the internet, they are growing up inside it. Cultural references, humour, aesthetics and language sync globally in real time, often leaving adults functionally illiterate in their children’s world. A reference that lands instantly for a 10-year-old in Mumbai or Visakhapatnam feels opaque or disjointed to most parents.
- Authority Vacuum, Parents and teachers frequently lose cultural fluency in digital spaces. The algorithm responsive, inexhaustible and perfectly attuned to preferences becomes the most attentive presence in many children’s daily lives. Rules around screen time feel increasingly difficult to enforce when adults cannot fully see or understand the content landscape.
- Digital as Society, Online and offline no longer exist as separate realms, they form one continuous reality. The phone is not a tool children pick up; it is the primary social environment they inhabit.
- Great Media Mukbang, Content flows as an ambient, boundary-less, multi-sensorial stream. Entertainment, advertising, commerce, gameplay, memes and vlogs merge into one undifferentiated feed. The line between active choice and passive absorption has largely collapsed.
- Blurred Ad Recognition, Children aged 7–12 typically recognise only the most overt advertising formats. Influencer promotions, gaming integrations and vlog sponsorships often register as organic entertainment. Children aged 13–15 show greater ad literacy but remain highly susceptible to narrative-integrated, passion-driven and emotionally resonant brand messaging. Discernment remains low across the board in a non-stop stream.
ASCI CEO and secretary general Manisha Kapoor said, “ASCI Academy’s study is an investigation into the content life of Generation Alpha not to judge them but to understand them. Their cultural reference points seem disjointed from those of earlier generations. Insights on how they perceive advertising is the first step towards building more responsible engagement frameworks, given that they are the youngest media consumers in our country right now.”
Futurebrands Consulting founder and director Santosh Desai added, “While earlier generations have been exposed to digital media, for this generation it is the world they inhabit. This report explores not only what they watch but how they are being shaped by algorithms, content and advertising.”
The study proposes four adaptive, principles-led pathways:
- Universal signposting of commercial intent using design principles that make advertising recognisable even to young audiences.
- Ecosystem-wide responsibility shared among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents.
- Future-ready safeguards built directly into children’s content experiences rather than as optional background settings.
- Formal media and advertising literacy embedded in school curricula to teach age-appropriate understanding of persuasion and commercial intent.
In a feed that never pauses, Gen Alpha isn’t merely watching content, they’re swimming in an ocean where entertainment, commerce and identity swirl together. The real question isn’t whether they can spot an ad; it’s whether the adults building the ocean can agree on where the lifeguards should stand.
