Top trends 2014-15: The rise of ‘brand engagement’ in India
Marketers in India are increasingly adopting ‘brand engagement’ as an integral part of marketing campaigns. According to an Omnicom Media Group India report, What’s Next Trend Report – 2014-15, that discusses top 10 India trends in digital and mobility, ‘brand engagement’ is an area to watch out for. The term essentially refers to connecting and communicating with consumers at an emotional level. There are a few critical issues that a marketer must keep in mind while designing a campaign, and the most important among them is dynamic preferences of the consumer.
In a bid to keep the consumers hooked on to the product, brands have emerged as the new publishers. The media holding company has highlighted that content marketing for brands will ensure higher level of brand engagement beyond the number of hits or Facebook likes across various platforms.
“It needs to be an ongoing process of engaging with consumers by creating and curating relevant and valuable information in the form of videos, blogs, applications and more. In return, the brand earns equity in the minds of the consumer,” explained Avinash Jhangiani, Managing Director of Digital and Mobility at Omnicom Media Group India.
In the digital marketing space in India, mobile advertising has emerged to be the most recent trend in branding which has fuelled the rise of micro-video and short-form content among consumers. And with this boom in the content and information, the need for engaging content has increased manifold to keep the consumer hooked. They are not only consuming dedicated content but also becoming a source of content creation which brands can leverage on.
This has created the onus on brands to provide content that is engaging and fosters interaction among the consumers. Marketers should do away with intrusive marketing and focus more on personalised marketing. Consumer should be able to add to the existing content and share it across their network.
“Brands can start conversations and provide consumers with the right tools and mechanisms for content creation. This can not only positively impact brand metrics but also enable product innovation. Such ‘outside-in innovation’ can provide competitive differentiation for brands,” added Mr Jhangiani.
This has further lead to the advent of native advertising which is blurring the line between brand content and publishers’ advertising space. Subsequently, this raises the bar on brand engagement and is filling the gaps between publishers and advertisers, the report said.
In native advertising, the content appears with relevant placement in form on branded content or advertorials. Here the source of content is coherent with the point of consumption of the commodity. This establishes a better connect of the brand with the product.
“A native ad is one of the most effective methods of getting consumer’s acceptance for a brand. If the consumer’s journey continues to a destination with great branded content, that is useful and share-able, then the brand can claim to have built the right engagement,” Mr Jhangiani said.
According to the report, consumers are 52 per cent more likely to view the native advertisement than a regular one and 32 per cent more likely to share it than a regular banner advertisement. Also, native advertising enjoys 71 per cent consumers in terms of recall value against 19 per cent for regular advertisements.
