Indian brands taking a more mature digital approach in marketing: Google-BCG study

As Indian brands begin to responsibly manage data, automate media buying and messaging, a new study has noticed six percent of Indian brands were delivering best-in-class 'multi-moment' experiences that resulted in customer journeys getting dynamically improved, leading to better business outcomes.

With businesses growing their customer base and ROI focussing on adopting a path to full data-driven marketing and attribution, companies indulging in multi-moments are seeing significant benefits. These are companies that are successfully connecting with consumers at multiple moments across purchase journey through personalised content.

Moving from connected to multi-moment is where companies typically see the biggest increase in revenue.

At the annual edition of Google’s Think Platforms in Delhi, Google shared insights on how India has fared on the path to digital marketing maturity by unveiling insights from the Digital Marketing Maturity framework. The global study was compiled by BCG and Google. Brands across 10 industries were assessed on their level of digital marketing maturity across stages varying from nascent to multi-moment across regions including India, Japan, South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

India appears to be taking a progressive and a more mature digital approach in marketing, ahead of many brands across APAC, Europe and Latin America, with the most mature brands reporting significant benefits for digital marketing efforts.

Optimising in a single and then multiple channels, the study showed more than 80 percent of Indian brands sit in the two middle maturity buckets 'emerging & connected' , while only 8 percent of Indian brands were at the lower end of maturity 'nascent'.

Matt Brocklehurst, Head of Partnerships, Publishers & Platforms Marketing APAC, Google said, "As per the study, India saw the top quartile of brands in terms of maturity report an average of 7 percent annual incremental revenue and 13 percent annual cost efficiency."

He added combining data and digital technologies could increase the relevance of advertising, cost savings and revenue and could also help marketers get an in-depth understanding of the entire customer journey, helping them better focus their engagement efforts.

Highlighting the importance of first party data at Google Think Platforms, Sir Martin Sorrel, Executive Chairman, S4 Capital said, "There is a clear shift to digital. First party data is gaining importance for all brands, but getting clean first party data is difficult so that is clearly one key area of focus."

The study noted digital channels were becoming the standard across the marketing funnel and consumers were also increasingly seeking relevant personalised experiences from brands. The study also highlighted the increased focus on data privacy regulations and browser policies.

While 92 percent of brands surveyed in India saw first party data as important to marketing, the study showed mature Indian brands tend to typically use cloud solutions to unlock benefit of first party data.

Calling out the challenges in delivering the full potential of digital engagement, the study also highlighted technology barrier as the top challenge. More than half the brands in India that were surveyed struggled to link technologies when collecting, activating data and measuring impact, said the study. Another key barrier that emerged was the lack of a clear business case for data-driven marketing projects impacting the buy-in from senior management and customising how customer data is leveraged.