The year 2013 will go down in history as the year when marketers took big strides in the world of digital marketing. For several major companies, releasing their ads on the web became a norm of sorts. Brands such as Tanishq and Google managed to tug at several heartstrings with their ads that went viral and even Bollywood can’t get enough of the web.
According to the Adobe APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2013, which compared findings from a similar study done last year, in the past year, Indian marketers have made tremendous progress in terms of understanding, readiness and adoption of digital marketing.
Commenting on the findings, Umang Bedi, Managing Director, South Asia, Adobe Systems, said, “Nearly 100 per cent marketers in India now believe that digital marketing can create a competitive advantage for their company, helping them create a more customer-centric organisation, helping with brand differentiation and building greater customer affinity and attachment.” Overall in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), marketers are generally gaining confidence in their digital abilities, with 28 per cent across APAC rating themselves as ‘highly evolved and a leader in their field’, compared to 23 per cent in 2012. Confidence was highest in India (42 per cent), followed by Australia at 37 per cent and Singapore (29 per cent).
Indian marketers believe digital marketing made theirs an agile, opportunistic and an innovative company and helped open up new channels for engagement as well as commerce.
They also believed that digital marketing helped them improve the efficiency (42 per cent) and effectiveness of marketing programmes, helped grow their business faster (30 per cent) and more profitably.
A little less than two-thirds of marketers surveyed ranked digital marketing as an important channel to help in better engagement and activate audiences over other mediums.
Digital abilities In 2012, only 19 per cent of Indian marketers believed they were “pretty good” at digital marketing. In 2013, that number has jumped to nearly 40 per cent. With over 80 per cent marketers using analytics and reporting technologies for better understanding, the survey pointed out that this has led to better market readiness. Also, while nearly half of Indian marketers surveyed were in the early stages of implementing their digital marketing strategies last year, in 2013 their digital marketing strategy is firmly in place.
Show me the Money Despite the euphoria about this new digital world, the big question remains whether Indian marketers are finally putting substantial amounts in digital marketing instead of traditional mediums.
The survey, which covered marketing professionals in APAC, pointed out that the region lagged behind in digital spends. The global average indicates that marketers spend about 25- 35 per cent of their total marketing allocation on digital media, while only 14 percent of marketers in the Asia Pacific region said they are spending on par with this global baseline.
As for India, Bedi said the increase in investments in digital marketing was the most surprising and promising finding this year. “The percentage of the marketers (respondents) spending over 50 per cent of their budgets in digital marketing has increased substantially; from 2 per cent in 2012 to 22 per cent of the surveyed marketers in 2013,” he said.
So where did they put their digital spends? For Indian marketers, social networks were the first clear priority, followed by paid search and online display advertising. They also spent on listening to consumers, getting their feedback and developing communities.
Atul Hegde, CEO, Ignitee Digital Services, said that the digital advertising pie has been steadily growing. “Sectors like e-commerce, IT services, financial and banks are already making spends of 30 per cent and upwards on digital mediums,” he said.
Hegde added that besides the e-commerce boom what’s driving the digital marketing spends in India is the fast growing trend of online video consumption.
“The video consumption trend is expected to attract big spends from advertisers in the future,” he said.
Here is what YouTube predicted for India based on 2013 trends: While it said that major brands are expected to continue releasing their campaigns on the web first, it also said YouTube is increasingly expected to be used for longer duration ads that go beyond 30 seconds. Also ads with humour, emotion and ones that feature babies rule the roost.
As per industry estimates, digital marketing spends are pegged at about Rs 2,500-3,500 crore and growing at 20-25 per cent year-on-year in India.
Experts believe that despite the current slowdown, the digital marketing spends have not been affected as much as some of the traditional media spends.
Challenges Marketers in India continue to face challenges building teams with the right talent, skills and expertise. “Along with senior management’s limited awareness and support, making a strong business case for digital marketing spend is a big challenge for Indian marketers,” the study said.
Prabhu Kannan, Director - Commerce & Innovation, SapientNitro, said that the fundamental driver for spending on digital space is the need to reach out to Gen Y. Companies were also using the space to attract young talent.
He says a challenge in Indian companies is that different departments tend to work in silos. “It is important for the Chief Marketing Officer and the Chief Technology Officer to come together to work on digital plans,” he said.
Kannan said that while the marketing dollars are shifting from traditional mediums to digital mediums, the companies are battling pressure to get a quick return on investments from their digital spends.
And finally, while most companies have Facebook and Twitter accounts, they are yet to finalise clear strategies on how to monetise and derive value from their loyal base of consumers.