MAM
Fixing social media marketing for brands
MUMBAI: With social media becoming the buzzword for brands over the last one year, most chief marketing officers have now either created a presence for their brands on social media or are considering plunging into social platforms. However, the marketing community has still not been able to quantify the effectiveness of social media.
The speakers at the 8th Marketing conclave 2012, organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), offered valuable insights to CMOs on social media. The panel consisted of LIC India executive director Usha Sangwan, Kotak Mahindra Group head marketing Karthi Marshan, Shoppers Stop customer care associate and vice president- marketing and loyalty Vinay Bhatia, head branding & marketing communication Alok Saraogi Ashok Leyland and Group M national director social and insights Karthik Nagarajan. The session was moderated by IBM India/South Asia chief marketing officer Virginia Sharma.
Sharma said, “CMOs need to acquaint themselves with technology and social media as their roles change towards becoming a Chief Marketing Technologist. Marketers need to be authentic when communicating with customers via social media.”
It was also opined that companies should use negative feedback on social media as an opportunity to convert negative commentators for the brand into advocates by responding to complaints effectively on an open platform.
Bhatia said, “There should be one single team that is responsible for responding to the feedback of the customers. This team may take guidance from the various departments, but the communication to the consumer should be handled by this one team along with certain protocols according to the individual company’s policy.”
The speakers were unanimous in agreeing that social media needs to be customer centric in its approach and all digital medium needs to reflect the same thought process. The medium today is a vital tool for a consumer focused brand to speak and engage its target audience. However for it to be effective CMOs need to realise that it is different from advertising. For a brand to build a social tribe of online advocates and influencers it needs to have individual conversations between its consumers and itself.
Sangwan said, “Social media is a platform to connect with youth, understand them and present the USPs of your brand to add value to the target audience. We at LIC understand that today‘s generation believes in happy healthy fulfilling life as well as financial freedom, and our brand LIC stand for the same. Accordingly all our social campaigns have been based on this insight which has helped us to engage customers in a meaningful way.”
Marshan offered, “Marketers should remember that when your customer comes online to your website, he has already chosen your brand. Most of the times he or she visits the site to get answers to specific questions. Instead of trying to sell your brand in this case, address this query upfront rather than have him/her search for it.”
Another pertinent point that came through was that a brand needs to be sure of its identity and the social media campaign should be an extension of that identity. A brand need not reinvent itself solely for using the social media domain.
Agreeing to this point of view, Saraogi opined, “One must also remember that the entire organisation needs to be mature enough to handle the consequences of using the social media. The maturity of the medium and the users should also be kept in mind while operating in the online space.”
The panelists agreed that while being online is definitely the thing to do, each brand also needs to back its online performance by offline services and follow-ups. Only an integrated approach to social media marketing can bear the fruits it seems to promise.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
