MAM
Siddharth Dabhade hangs up his boots at MIQ, joins Lemma
MUMBAI: After 24 years of navigating the competitive corridors of tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Criteo, Siddharth Dabhade steps into the limelight with a new challenge.
His journey from the boardrooms of global multinationals to the forefront of cutting-edge innovation now finds him driving Lemma’s vision of revolutionising the digital out-of-home (DOOH) landscape.
As the newly appointed CBO, performance business at Lemma, Dabhade’s mission is clear: to take this omnichannel platform to unprecedented heights with its trailblazing, outcome-focused DOOH solutions.
Can his wealth of expertise and transformative leadership redefine the boundaries of advertising?
The stage is set for a new chapter in Lemma’s growth story.
Dabhade brings over 24 years of leadership experience in the digital advertising and technology sectors. Before joining Lemma, Dabhade served as the MD at MIQ, where he successfully launched and scaled commercial operations across India and China. He has held key leadership roles at industry giants such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Criteo, amassing expertise in P&L management, strategic advisory, business development, and customer relationships.
At Google, Dabhade led the travel business for India, and during his tenure at Criteo, he significantly contributed to the APAC leadership team, driving the company’s growth in the Indian market.
Commenting on his new role, Dabhade said, “As Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) continues to grow, it is now at the heart of omnichannel journeys, offering brands unparalleled opportunities to connect with consumers across screens and digital spaces. I’m excited to be a part of Lemma’s vision to pioneer this shift and to lead the expansion of the new solution as a powerful tool for outcome-driven growth through outdoor media globally.”
Lemma founder & CEO, Gulab Patil welcomed Dabhade’s appointment, stating, “Siddharth’s track record of driving growth in the digital adtech and programmatic space makes him an invaluable addition to our team. With this solution, we’re offering brands the next level of full-funnel performance driven by OOH, and Siddharth will be key in ensuring its success across markets. His leadership will be instrumental in capitalising on the massive opportunities that OOH now presents in not only shaping but also driving results through a full-funnel approach, from Outdoor to outcomes.”
Under Dabhade’s leadership, Lemma aims to reinforce its mission to transform emerging media through programmatic adtech. The company is focused on offering brands a comprehensive outdoor-to-outcome solution, leveraging DOOH to drive measurable results. This strategic expansion signals a pivotal moment in Lemma’s journey, positioning it at the forefront of the $65 billion global OOH market.
Brands
Creative Intelligence: Using AI to Predict Which Ads Will Actually Convert
Priyanka Aeron, Director & Co-founder of Thrive Global AI
MUMBAI: In a heavily populated digital landscape, simply being creative with your advertising will not guarantee that your ad will be successful. In fact, brands today are producing more content than ever. However, very little of that results in actual engagement or sales. However, Creative Intelligence, powered by AI, is fundamentally transforming the advertising industry.
Creative Intelligence utilizes data, machine learning, and statistical behavioral insights to analyze and predict how well a creative asset will perform prior to it being published. Therefore, marketers no longer have to rely on either their gut instincts or post-campaign analytics for making informed decisions before production. That said, AI-powered creative intelligence greatly improves results and decreases wasted dollars spent.
Moving Beyond Guesswork
In the past, making ads was a mix of gut feeling, experience, and A/B testing. These methods were useful, but reactive by nature. People have already spent their budgets by the time the results are looked at. AI models can find patterns that are linked to higher engagement and conversion rates by looking at huge datasets. These datasets can include things like past campaign performance, audience behavior, and visual elements like color, composition, and facial expressions. This helps marketers guess which ads will do well even before they go live.
Decoding What Truly Drives Conversions
AI-powered creative intelligence allows for an evaluation of advertisements that is not limited to the basic data but also explores the elements of an effective advertisement through subtle reactions; clarity and directness of the ad message and how well the ad captures audience’s attention in the first three seconds. AI can also provide insights into the successful use of advertisements directed to human faces, which connect through eye contact based on media channels, and how advertisements that utilize shorter but clear calls to action may produce more clicks from certain populations. The insights, provided through AI, provide marketers with the ability to think beyond creating more advertising material and additionally create more effective ad campaigns that actually convert.
Personalization at Scale
Consumers expect relevance more than ever. Irrelevant mass messaging is not going to work in a society inundated with information. Hyper-personalization, using AI, allows companies to create content that suits individual segments within their target markets based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors. Rather than having one single message that aims to reach everyone, brands can have many versions of their messages tailored to each segment within the market. Such flexibility is what makes campaigns successful nowadays.
Faster Iteration, Better Results
Another advantage to using AI in creative decision-making is speed. Companies must improvise because their campaign cycles are shorter than ever before, and having the ability to iterate rapidly is more important than it has ever been. There is no greater way to do this work than through AI, as new technologies give brands the ability to test multiple creative avenues and figure out which ones are working well. This reduces a lot of the testing that companies would otherwise have to do and makes the process faster.
With AI, brands can also make creative changes in real-time during a campaign, allowing the, to make vital decisions and adjust their creatives, rather than waiting out. This allows for faster adaptability, well-tested campaigns and reduced lost ad spend.
The Human-AI Collaboration
Even though AI is capable of performing certain tasks, its purpose is not to eliminate human creativity. Successful campaigns require human collaboration with computer intellect since both complement each other. While computers are capable of dealing with massive amounts of information, discovering patterns, and providing predictions, humans are the one to inject stories and emotions into campaigns.
The Future of Advertising
As the complexity of advertising becomes harder with the passage of time, Creative Intelligence will play a significant role in helping marketers formulate a strategic approach. The yardstick that will set standards for determining whether a marketing firm has fulfilled its responsibilities will be the forecasting of future outcomes, as well as personalized content and optimization of creative elements in real-time. In contrast to the existing scenario where the campaigns remain fixed, these campaigns will be capable of adjusting themselves according to the customer interacting with the brand, as well as other trends on social media channels. This will enable brands to offer customers an engaging experience that will exceed expectations. The biggest hurdle marketers will face will be finding ways to utilize these capabilities without compromising branding and enhancing the creativity of the team involved.
