MUMBAI: The best ideas in the digital arena are simple and straightforward. Simplicity can be a very big idea. It is not necessary to have a fancy site and spend millions to get a big marketing campaign done in the digital arena. At the same time it is important to use technology while conceiving a digital campaign. Also there are no best practices. What has worked for one company may not work for another.

These points were made by Star TV VP, head – digital (Internet and Mobile) Lalit Bhagia during a session at the Mobile Digital Marketing Summit held during World Brand Congress 2011. He called them the habits of success for digital. He spoke about ‘Creativity in Digital‘. Another habit that will work is grooming young people as the best digital ideas come from youngsters. That is because they spend a lot of time on new media. This has been learning for him.

Another important thing to remember is that an idea should not be limited to one medium. It should be able to travel across digital, television, print etc. He said that now messaging is for the consumer and not at the consumer. “You need to get consumers to participate. The good news is that the definition of creativity has not changed. You still need insight and a big idea.”
 
He gave two examples. One was a campaign done to promote the ‘Forever Bond Festival on Star Movies. The idea for the campaign was that people want to be like Bond. The campaign allowed them to do that. Users could drive Bonds car on a web page. The aim was to allow fans of Bond to feel like him. People could use their mobile. Another example was the Fox Crime campaign. The idea for the campaign was that there is a detective in each of us. It was a 360 degree campaign and people had to catch a killer. It wasn‘t easy for users. Among other things they had to go through footage from a transit camera. It gave users the experience of being a detective. It is important in the digital world to do marketing that earns attention. It is doing a campaign on Twitter for Love2hateU a new local show on Star World.

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He noted earlier it was just about trying to get a share of the consumers‘ wallet. The difference in digital though is that the consumer is in control. The experience has to be meaningful. Otherwise if he finds an ad annoying he will simply close the web page. One can no longer just throw message at consumers.

Meanwhile Philips Electronics India GM, country head media Amit Tiwari spoke about ‘Role of Creativity and Innovation in Digital and Social Media Marketing‘ at the same session. He noted that while creativity is always part of a campaign brief it is not enough. Innovation is also important. “Innovative creativity is the most powerful creativity that exists. Creativity is important but being different always wins.”
 
He notes that there is a lot of copying of creative templates when companies should be trying to create their own templates. A Facebook presence cannot be the beginning and end of a brands involvement in digital. Companies need to look at whether campaigns are being done for consumers. There must be a correlation what the consumer wants and what a brand is offering. Campaigns in the digital world have to entertaining and response based. This way one can learn what a consumer wants. Campaigns have to memorable and active. Creativity and innovation leads to sales and brand building. He gave the example of the Philips Valentine‘s Day campaign. Intel‘s Museum of Me initiative also worked well.

The last speaker at the session was MobME Wireless Solutions CEO Sanjay Vijayakumar. He dwelt on ‘The Evolution of Kerala Tourism Brand Mobile Strategy – From WAP site to the worlds largest Iphone/Ipad campaign for Tourism‘. The company has worked with the board for three and a half years. There were mistakes made at first. In 2007 a SMS based initiative was done called dream Season campaign which failed. They then decide to use GPRS. A cross branded campaign with Vodafone was done. The phone becomes an audio guide for people wanting to know about Kerala. In 2010 a welcome R9oamer campaign was done with Idea. It has also done a cross branding experiment with the railways. This year ‘Your Moment is waiting‘ campaign is being done with Google for the US and European markets.

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