Brands
Influencer-led brand marketing is the way to target GenZ and millennials
MUMBAI: In terms of media consumption patterns GenZ has the lowest attention span, which comes to only eight seconds and video being the viewers’ choice of content consumption, one-third of them watch videos for at least an hour a day.
Gen Z was the topic in focus at BrandVid 2019 session ‘GenZ: The new video sticklers’. The session included speakers– Burger King India CMO Srinivas Adapa, Leo Burnett Orchard COO Prashanth Challapalli, Onida CMO Pratyush Chinmoi and MediaCom west head Priya Choudhary. It was moderated by Worldwide Media VP – Content Studio Vidyut Patra.
The panellists agreed that YouTube is for getting reach and long-form content, TikTok is for user-generated content while Instagram is for sharp targeting. “Not all brands have a content strategy. They all have a brand strategy. Therefore, they go after influencers. But, people are on Instagram because they are following their interest, not brands,” said Challapalli.
To which Choudhary said that influencers play a role especially with GenZ and even millennials. She said that the lure of brands is going down and the new generation trusts these influencers. Hence, a long term content strategy is extremely important to make it work. “We have done extensive consumer work with GenZ and they are smart. They see through brands using influencers so the minute an influencer starts endorsing the brand they stop trusting the influencers so we have to figure out a very smart way of doing it. And it cannot be in-your-face it has to be subtle. So influencers are worth investing but there has to be a right way to use them,” she said.
In the case of long term content, Adapa feels that it is a struggle. He explained the two ways to look at it, one way could be a story told from the lens of the brand without force fitting the brand plug-in. The second way could be running a series of episodes where a brand can be deeply integrated inside the show. Adapa went on by saying, “From a Burger King perspective, one is from the US and one is from India. In the US we just launched something called an ‘Upside Whopper’ which is a tie-up with Stranger Things since season 3 is launching. Back in India, we launched the limited edition Big Boss whopper which is in line with the reality show. So yes, the straight forward answer is that we need much deeper integrated brand integration.”
Choudhary chipped in and said that the thumb movement today is almost a microsecond and Facebook even believes there are brands can make meaningful content in just two seconds, thus putting pressure on brands. According to her, there are also categories in which a longer video is required. It depends on what job the brand is trying to do, what the category is and which environment one is looking into. “I would like to add that we used to believe that 30 seconds is enough to tell a story, more and more we are realising that better stories can be told in short form,” she said.
Adapa said that in today’s data-driven age, it does not take too long to know if people are really completing your video online or not. “GenZ is very kind with comments, they will let you know very quickly saying you are wasting my time or it is wow, but even in terms of analytics, both Google and YouTube are very clear in terms of x or y percentage of people who actually have crossed this much seconds in a video so it’s very quick and easy to learn and adapt and develop from there,” he said.
When Patra questioned about how home-grown brands are treating this format, Challapalli said that a brand like Ola does not do much of TV commercials. It believes in digital content. He added that Ola doesn’t look at the age of the target audience or where do they come from, it looks at what their pain points are. He gave the example of its April Fool’s day campaign that had nothing to do with mobility but about lack of public toilets. It was later that they realised that every ride will contribute to the creation of public toilets.
Chinmoi comes from a brand that is popular with the earlier generations. Recently, Onida resurrected its devil mascot to target the new generation. “Gen Z customers are the ones who are going to be the major future buyers,” he said.
Challapalli also said, “We do a lot of social listening and data analytics and look at the larger cultural trends that are happening and think that can we do something around it,” he concluded.
Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
