MAM
GUEST ARTICLE: Mobile OEM advertising solutions are helping D2C brands ace their performance marketing game this festive season
Mumbai: Due to conservative market behaviour since March 2019, covid-19 has restricted businesses from taking a full-scale marketing approach. However, mobile user penetration has grown enormously since the same period in India due to the increase in usage of internet services and the affordability and economic viability of smartphones. The upsurge in the use of mobile technology has led to an accelerated growth in the consumption of D2C mobile apps. Moreover, with mobility and in-person interactions returning to life in 2022, consumer behaviour toward D2C brands is also drastically growing.
As the festive season in India is about to hit the roof, D2C brands are expected to garner significant attention and demand, and consumer sentiment looks upbeat, particularly in tier I & II cities. For these brands, the expectation of such seasonality means growth in revenue through performance marketing, as consumer brands during special promotions and festivals in India are proven to generate more business.
Boom expected in the post pandemic era…
As per the ‘Second Festive Pulse Survey by The Trade Desk/Nasdaq: TTD,’ there will be a 68 per cent increase in Indian shoppers this festive season with nearly seven in 10 shoppers intending to shop on D2C sites. While observing the current trends, there is increased competition between D2C brands as they become more focused on their ad spends to maximise growth during this festive season despite the concerns over rising inflation.
App marketing opens up avenues to acquire loyal users for D2C brands…
Indian D2C brands are thriving with an omnichannel marketing avatar that includes a mix of DOOH, TV, and digital ads using search and social, print, and more. While measuring the success of traditional marketing methods is difficult, one can effectively measure the ROAS (return on ad spend) with performance marketing through mobile OEM (original equipment manufacturer) app marketing.
Leveraging OEM app marketing strategies to acquire users during this peak festive period can give D2C brands a more lucrative ROAS and increase user engagement. In addition, with mobile OEMs, D2C marketers can tap into untapped audiences and help them unlock a newer and more efficient revenue stream.
Mobile OEM advertising offered by mobile OEMs such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Samsung can help D2C brands with enabling app discoverability: D2C brands can leverage appographic targeting to target users with similar apps and unique app interests beyond the category during the festive season.
Appographic targeting with mobile OEMs is potent in providing high-value users and acts as a powerful strategy for app marketers.
Better Visibility: To increase ad visibility during special promotions or festivals like Diwali in India, D2C mobile apps can take full advantage of “app store featuring” with display formats such as Splash and Interstitial ads. In addition, mobile OEMs offer unique ad placements for special shopping and discount cards during the festive season.
Increased re-engagement: Few mobile OEMs offer down-the-funnel re-engagement for m-commerce apps with special placements during the festive season to regain static users who have been inactive on the app. For such occasions, featured custom placements are highly recommended for increased brand awareness. In addition, D2C apps can also get consultations about the kinds of creatives that best work for the festive season to get the maximum reach and engagement.
Getting the most of your app marketing strategy for ‘22 festive season…
While developing creatives for display ads, app marketers must be highly attentive to ensure that their brand resonates with the colour scheme and fonts. It best helps the users identify and engage with the brand. Secondly, since mobile media buying inventories get increased bidding from app advertisers during the festive period, D2C marketers need to book high-impact branding placements on a timely basis. Before the pricing increases, D2C marketers need to plan media buying effectively. Equally important is to explore PMP deals at private marketplaces with mobile OEMs where app marketers can bid on high-performance-based suggested inventories.
As consumers buy more from brands directly from the brands’ websites or apps, D2C brands should rightfully leave no stone unturned to scale their app marketing efforts and get some fresh eyeballs with a positive outlook on engagement and retention.
The author of this article is AVOW co-founder Ashwin Shekhar.
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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.
