Why strategy and creative for TV and Digital are necessarily different? | Karan Amin [#15]
39m 8s
The conversation delves into the intricacies of digital marketing, emphasizing the need to create content tailored to specific platforms like YouTube. It highlights the challenges of repurposing TV ads for digital platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, stressing the importance of engaging storytelling that aligns with the platform's features. Success stories of digital campaigns, like Pringles on TikTok and Cadbury's collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan, illustrate the effectiveness of user-generated content and easy consumer participation. The discussion also touches upon the significance of standing out in a crowded digital space, as seen in Zoom's virtual background contest. Ultimately, understanding and utilizing the strengths of each digital platform are crucial for brands to create impactful and engaging marketing campaigns.
Transcription
6836 Words, 37176 Characters
I don't think consumers differentiate between 85, 95 and 90.
People only differentiate between 0 and 100.
At the top, there's only room for one, right?
I believe in India, 80% of celebrity use-agent advertising that I see is not thought to be.
Creating is easy. What to create is a million-dollar question.
Hi, you're listening to Marketing with Vani in which I speak to marketing gurus.
Together, we decode how marketing works in the real world to grow your business.
Today, you can't not have YouTube in your digital marketing mix.
Every founder today is asking, "Why can I not put my TV ad on YouTube as is and make it unskippable so that my viewers are forced to watch?"
To answer this question, I'm speaking with Karan Amin, a path-breaking creator,
winner of the Cannes Gold Lion and a passionate digital advocate for almost two decades.
So Karan, I want to ask you, since you're a digital guy, you think digitally,
I want to know from you too often, you know, clients say that the TVC that we've made,
let's just use the TVC as is and put it on YouTube and make it nonskippable.
Because if you make it nonskippable, then the viewer will definitely have to see it
and I'm happy to pay for a nonskippable version. Why can we not do that?
What is the logic for that not being a good idea?
Why can I not make a TVC and just put it on YouTube as is and make it nonskippable?
So basically TV as a set format, you are limited to playing a video on a television when you make it as a TVC.
And similarly, when you take that TVC to YouTube, I mean, well, you can definitely run your TVC on YouTube,
you can put it on Facebook, you know, even on Instagram, you can just upload your TVC as is.
I mean, that's what most brands do.
But however, all the engagement they will get is similar comments if somebody ends up watching the whole thing.
Also, when you load it as a nonskippable ad, people are on digital largely to see content,
to enjoy content, to watch content.
If you give them an ad which is nonskippable automatically, they are hating your brand a lot more
versus even having 1% of likeliness for it because your ad is worked as an ad to interrupt their experience of the platform.
So, I mean, that's I would say the larger issue as to why you do not use YouTube as your television medium
because you either use YouTube to engage, to have, to tell a larger story or to build this whole content game that YouTube is about.
Okay, so tell me, when you talked about content, Karan, help me understand, should I as a creator,
should I be thinking differently about content for YouTube versus TV?
Of course, because YouTube has a lot of different media formats. YouTube has a 6 second pre-roll which is nonskippable.
You can tell your entire story in 6 seconds. You have managed to tell the consumer about your brand without hampering their user experience.
And I think that's a great way that some brands have started to use YouTube.
Also, YouTube has other formats like now, YouTube has shorts.
YouTube also has a Stories version just like Facebook and Instagram has. YouTube has a Masthead which has a lot of other interactivity in it.
YouTube even gives you an option of using things like end cards.
Earlier they had this thing called annotations but now they have end cards where basically you can actually lead the user
onto almost like a storytelling treasure hunt of sorts where at the end of the video,
the user can choose between should I follow the story by clicking on this or should I follow the story on clicking by this.
So actually you can do a lot more with YouTube. Also, YouTube gives you a lot of other features like live like Facebook does.
You can actually have content which goes live and have people interacting with that content and interacting with content with comments and
getting live feedback from users as your content is playing out.
So in fact, it's actually evolving as you go ahead and there are a lot of even content creators, vloggers,
that you'd use YouTube as a platform to build what they're all about.
So I think for a brand to use YouTube, you'd rather use YouTube for what its strengths are,
which is the fact that it's got great amount of content creators, great way to tell stories and shorter formats,
especially the six-second unskippable because you're actually able to communicate your brand message without hampering the user's experience.
The core thing is how do I not hamper the user's experience of the platform.
Very nice. And tell me YouTube apart. I mean, both of us sound like we've been paid by YouTube to do this.
I wish that were the case, but never mind that. But YouTube apart,
for any form of digital advertising, how should one think about digital as a medium versus TV as a medium?
I made a 30-second TVC and that 30-second TVC, in every place, why can't I not have it online?
That's what I said. You can definitely have it. You can put that TVC on.
But then you know what happens? A brand say, for example, uploads its TVC on Facebook or YouTube.
Then the brand is like, why no one is watching my ad on YouTube?
Why is my ad on YouTube watched only 5,000 times?
Now that is where the fallout happens because you've uploaded on YouTube thinking that everybody is on YouTube,
consumers on YouTube, consumers on Facebook, so I'll not put on TV, I'll put on YouTube and Facebook.
But nobody is going to watch your ad because it is an ad.
And YouTube will not serve ads just like that because it's like the way it's serving content.
And therefore, you need to promote it. You need to boost it.
By boosting or promoting it, what are you doing as an essence as a brand?
You are ending up advertising your advertising versus advertising your brand.
A person, a user now is clicking on an ad and when he clicks on that ad, he ends up watching an ad.
After that, you also click on your link to come buy your product.
You have wasted his journey by giving him three clicks to end up watching an ad.
What a disaster for a brand and what a waste of media money because you have used media money
to drive people to watch an ad on YouTube or on Facebook.
When you can actually use media money to get that guy to click on something to go fill a form,
enter his mobile number, give you his email address or comment or talk about your brand or talk about your film that you made.
So it's literally taking, you cannot take your TVC model and apply it to digital assets
because all you will get is somebody, you know, either only the thing you'll get is somebody,
if they click on an ad and watch your ad, they'll end up liking your ad or you'll get views.
But having a video, having one billion views is of no use if nobody bought your goddamn product.
Yeah, yeah.
So what is it about TV versus digital account?
Sorry, say that again.
I'm seeing the monetary angle of promoting your film on YouTube or Facebook.
When you've done that, you know, you spent one crore rupees
promoting a video on YouTube for it to get one million likes.
The barber on the road also spent one crore rupees, he'll also get one million likes.
So what is the difference between your video having one million likes and one million views
and a barber's video having one million views?
Right, right.
You're not an editor.
Yeah, so here you're saying we are treating the quality, the quality of the ad is not playing any role.
I mean, the creative itself is not playing any role at all, it's just a function of the monies you put in.
Now tell me about the creative itself, Karan.
Why is it that we consume creative on a TV like an ad?
I mean, the consumer is the same.
It's me who's watching TV, it's me who's staring at my mobile.
Why is it that I'm watching TV and expecting an ad?
And why is it that I'm staring at my mobile and not wanting to see an ad?
That's because TV has been around for generations and as you watched all kinds of things on TV,
you know that there is an ad, you know it's always going to come.
There's going to be a commercial break unless you bought some really premium subscription like they have nowadays,
like Netflix, for example, you're not getting an ad there.
But all other channels, there is an ad, you watch KBC, there is an ad, you watch IPL, there is an ad,
you watch any TV show on TV, there is an ad and people are aware of that.
But when you look at a mobile, and that's when I say mobile first,
which is that people are consuming content on a mobile phone.
They are using the internet or social media to consume content
and content is what drives a person onto a mobile phone and onto the social platforms.
These social platforms as of today are now monetizing their platforms
because most platforms are free, YouTube is free, Facebook is free, Instagram is free.
So how do they make money?
The only way that they make money is through advertising
and creating these display opportunities for users, for brands.
But users hate ads, it's common, even before there was social media,
even before there was the internet, when there was an ad coming on TV,
a lot of people were either changing the channel or muting the video.
And being digital, a user is looking for his content, he's not looking for an ad.
If an ad plays the option, the user has an option to scroll past it
or just wait for the skip ad button and skip it, everyone is looking for the skip ad button.
This is fantastic.
So now Karan, should we talk about why shorter content works better on digital?
I want to tell you all about the, in the whole TVC thing and realize I didn't tell you this thing,
which is basically the fact that all the digital and social platforms have their own features.
I've switched off my video.
All these features have a link, basically the user's behavior linked to these features becomes a lot more interesting.
A person engages with these features on various social and digital platforms
and brands should be using these features to tell their stories in interesting ways.
When you use a platform for its strength and its features, the consumer engagement is a lot higher
and consumer conversion is a lot faster.
For example, a 30 second ad playing on Instagram or Facebook, the user will mostly scroll past it
because any user can spot an ad from a mile away.
But you tell the same story in Mute because on Facebook, a lot of users watch videos on Mute
and majority users are just scrolling social on Mute because they're at work or they're doing something
and while they're doing something or they're waiting somewhere, they've kept their phone on silent.
They're still in their phones, people are in office meetings and they're in their phones
and you don't know what they're up to but they're scrolling on Mute and therefore there's Mute storytelling.
What's very interesting is that when you run your TVCs on Facebook or YouTube or even Instagram
you're not using what the platforms are known for or what the platform's strengths are.
All the social platforms, especially different platforms have different features.
For example, Facebook, automatically when you load a video on Facebook, Facebook will run that video in Mute
because a lot of users on Facebook watch videos on Mute.
A brand should actually embrace that and start telling their brand story in Mute
because if they've played in Mute, there's a higher chance that the user will not scroll by it
and watch it and spend time and engage with it.
Mute storytelling is very, very big on Facebook and Facebook even tells brands to try and tell their story in Mute.
Similarly, if you use Instagram for its most watched feature which is Reels
and in Reels, stories are looping, the story is told in a very interesting style
or using a filter or using different features that go into creating Reels.
Also, what Reels does is very powerful because in Reels, when you upload a Reel,
you can actually reach into Instagram's music library and take tracks from the music library to support your Reel
and all those tracks are popular music tracks. In a normal sense, in the normal world,
if you have to cut a TVC and then use a popular track, you end up spending lakhs
or even crores paying the royalties for that track.
But if you use that track from Instagram Reels, you're getting it for free.
So why are brands not doing this? Why are brands not creating Reels
where they're using these tracks and getting their story or getting their brand story
told in a very interesting as well as native way of the platform
which therefore would get their content a lot more shares and a lot more talkability.
When you upload TV ads on Instagram or on Facebook, they get skipped, they do not get shared
but content made true to the platform gets talked about and gets shared.
Very well said, very well said. And the other bit since you talked about Facebook on mute,
the other thing that we've also learned is that because Facebook is held ransom
to the speed at which your thumb scrolls, the other thing is also that storytelling
must be such that the most important message that you need to communicate on the brand
should ideally be communicated even before your thumb can scroll it up.
Yes, although that's something a brand really needs to understand which is that
when you make a TVC and you put that TVC on TV, that TVC on TV is not playing only once.
You've got a media plan and the person watching IPL will end up watching your TVC 100 times.
But when you put that TVC on a Facebook, literally it is a single scroll for the user.
Once the user sees it and scrolls by it, it is gone. They will never see it again.
So you have spent a brand, spent lakhs and lakhs of crores making a TVC.
You spend crores making a TVC and putting it on Facebook and any user once he has scrolled by it, it is gone.
He will never watch it again.
What a waste of production money and what a waste of media money, massive waste of production money.
You spend crores making a video that a person is going to watch once and that too if he watches the entire thing once.
What a disaster.
When you are making content for platforms, you do not need to spend crores.
Unless you are a really big brand and you are sitting on billions of dollars where it doesn't matter.
I spent so much money making such a beautiful film.
I shot with this big director, used this big celebrity. Wow, what an amazing film I have made.
But then that brand doesn't care whether somebody actually went and bought the chocolate or water or the soft drink.
Because you already have billions of dollars. You have made those billions of dollars.
It is only about telling your brand story or telling your story in an interesting way and that is all you care about.
As a brand made this amazing story, whether it converted, whether people bought the chocolate, it doesn't matter to you.
My God, who would have the luxury of saying that?
I mean, I don't see how, I mean, a category ad which cost probably a crore and a half to make.
Did they even sell chocolates for a crore and a half by making that ad?
God, God, that feels so sad that maybe we shouldn't even talk about it.
I mean, even for example, Pepsi, Pepsi makes a commercial with Salman Khan.
Salman Khan alone would have spent two and a half to three crores or maybe even more paying Salman Khan.
They would have spent another one and a half, two crores making the television commercial featuring Salman Khan.
So already six crores would have spent.
If you are burning another five to six crores, getting people to watch that ad of Salman Khan.
Correct? So in total, you have spent ten crores or a Salman Khan ad, technically.
Ten crores would be ten crores.
Have you sold Pepsi for ten crores?
You have not.
Yeah, like you correctly said, I mean, without naming anyone, the fact is that a lot of stuff gets shared.
Which one would think is only being made and shared for the purposes of Kudos on LinkedIn.
Social media likes and hundreds of people talking, saying like, wow, what a beautiful ad.
It's not converting anything for the brand.
Exactly. And you get ten WhatsApp messages saying, what a cool ad man.
And that's great for the ego.
Also, what a cool ad is largely happening between advertising and marketing circles only.
Yes, yes, yes.
There is an ad that goes up on Facebook and some creative director made it or whatever.
And he's like, check out this amazing new piece of work we've made.
And they're only advertising people commenting saying, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
You show the same ad to the capital and they say, what the hell is this?
And those advertising types of, by the way, not buying your product, they're only saying wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
So now I'm shifting track a little bit.
Karan, do you want to talk about your favorite digital campaigns?
And I'm most happy for you to talk about your own campaigns as well.
It will be lovely.
You just talk about which are your favorite digital campaigns and why or good or great digital campaigns and why do you consider them so?
I think some of the great digital campaigns are, I would say in the recent times are ones which have definitely used the platform very, very interestingly.
One of the campaigns which I really, really like is what Pringles did on TikTok and they created this entire thing called Play With Pringles and it was an entire UGC campaign.
I'll send you all these links that you can use later, but it's basically what the brand did is they made a campaign which is where,
and especially when you think of UGC, when a brand has to think of UGC, you have to think of a way where you're going to make it very easy for the consumer to do something as well as participate in.
Something that uses, if you're using your product and how can I use my product, how the consumer can use my product in an interesting way,
which is easy as well as the content that I get in will be different from various people.
Also, like a few years ago, there was this campaign done by Densu Web Chutney for Swiggy.
They did this thing where it was called Swiggy Voice of Hunger, which was very interesting, where they actually used the voice feature of the Instagram DM messaging.
And based on your voice, it created a visual which looked like a piece of food.
So that got, it's easy to do, it's very easy to participate in and it's easy because the more and more people are trying it out and as more people try it out,
you figure out what are the different things you can create.
So when you use a platform for its features and make it easy for the consumer to participate, it drives a lot of participation and a lot of engagement.
Another brand, another one which I really liked was, in fact, what Cadbury and Ogilvie did using Shah Rukh Khan and they did this whole not just Cadbury.
I found it very, very similar to a campaign done in New Zealand a few years ago where they, for this company called ASB,
where they featured the New Zealand Blackcaps, the entire New Zealand Blackcaps rugby team and the mechanism was exactly the same as what Cadbury did with Shah Rukh Khan.
So both campaigns are very, very similar, but that's a great use of the platform and a great use of celebrity and how people use a platform to tell a story.
So that's something that I really, really liked. Another one that I really liked last year was the Zoom virtual background contest.
The whole thing of everybody was getting on virtual calls, there were people, some people using Google Meet, some people using Google Meet, some people using Zoom.
How do you stand out amongst all this clutter and get people to end up using Zoom or people using Zoom to have a lot more engagement on their work calls.
So basically what they did is they came up with this whole thing where you can add different cool backgrounds versus having a boring background like the one that I have right now.
And they opened it up to a lot of users. So what ended up happening is a lot of people participated and end up using those backgrounds on their calls,
which actually brings the popularity back to Zoom and gets people to end up using that platform.
So it was very, very interesting. Another very interesting campaign that I really quite liked was what the New York Public Library did with Instagram,
where they felt that people were not using, coming to the library and reading a lot of books.
So they created a, they realized that a lot of people enjoy a lot of short form content on Instagram.
And therefore they created this whole series of Instagram novels, which was highly engaging as well as a great user platform.
Basically, in just a store, you can read a synopsis or a snapshot of a novel.
So it's literally a novel in an Instagram format.
You know, so that's very interesting.
A brand is customizing their content to suit what the platform is known for.
And I think that's what makes your idea a lot bigger.
Yes, I really like that example because in this case, New York Public Library,
I would imagine would also be considered like a dinosaur for the, you know, the young kids.
I mean, who considers now going to a library, issuing a book and reading it at home,
because we're all consuming content and short snackable content we're consuming on the mobile.
It's a great way of building a connect with books again.
So that's fantastic. And you know, to the point that you earlier made on the Cadbury's ad or the Cadbury's camping being copied from New Zealand.
Yes, I'm a great fan of copying, by the way.
I'm a great fan of copying.
I believe copying also requires intelligence.
And I've always said this to all my clients that if we can copy right, copy intelligently, then that's a far better thing to do.
Yes, no idea is 100% unique. There is a certain device, there is a certain text,
or there is a certain way you use a certain medium to tell a certain story.
Now, New Zealand blackcap said their story using this device in this way.
You use the device in the same way, but you use Shah Rukh Khan.
You know now Shah Rukh Khan is obviously 100 times bigger than New Zealand blackcaps,
even though New Zealand is a very small population.
But when you've applied that methodology and taken that on to the almost the effect of the fact that small businesses that never had access to a celebrity now will have access to a celebrity.
You have opened up the mechanism for it to be used by billions of people versus it being used by just 1,000 or 20,000 people in New Zealand.
Fantastic.
Okay, now I have another controversial question to ask and I don't know if this is actually true because each side argues it as what is considered favorable for them and I don't know how much of the numbers to believe.
But now in the New Age we say Karan that digital can be used to build reach.
There was a time when we used to say, you must have digital as part of your plan because you get higher engagement on digital and you can reach your audience in a more focused fashion.
TV tends to be more of a carpet-bombing strategy no matter what.
But today they're saying that digital can be used to build reach as well.
When I say today, I'm saying even the last five years.
Now help me understand this.
If digital can be used to build reach, then how do I look at spends between TV and digital?
Of course, one can't write off TV.
There is no way that one can write off TV.
TV does have very large audiences and it remains as the number one watch medium.
But how do I use digital intelligently to be able to build reach without spending a bomb?
See, that's actually a wrong question because you use a platform like I was saying for what the platform is.
Now you can definitely, because there are billions of users on YouTube and people are consuming YouTube every day,
you can definitely use YouTube or Facebook for reach because you will get that reach
because there are those numbers of people and also with digital you can get into a lot more sharper targeting
by saying that only SCCA in a breach candy Bombay is watching this ad
or only SCCA in South Delhi is watching this ad.
You can actually target a lot sharper like that.
But when an ad plays on YouTube as an unskippable ad, like you said,
you are targeting the user, you are getting that reach, but the consumer is already annoyed at your brand
because the consumer is like, this brand has hampered my experience.
So they are like, I have to wait for it to something or the user will mute his phone
or the user will take his phone and keep it on the side like that.
Or if he is on a desktop and the ad is playing then he might mute the ad
and open another tab and go through something else while the ad can't continue playing.
So every user including ourselves, you and me, even the advertiser that is putting up his ad on YouTube
when he is watching content on YouTube, he also has 20 hacks on how to avoid an ad.
So if you are using it for reach then that's what it is, that's all you are getting.
People are seeing your ad, now are they actually seeing your ad? Are they avoiding your ad?
You do not know that. I can tell you, this ad was reached and shown to 5,500,000 people.
How many of those 500,000 people actually saw the ad when they closed the ad and went to another tab?
That you don't know. On TV, the user gets in the channel.
But on YouTube, the user has to watch, has to wait to watch the content that they searched for.
And when you use digital versus TV, you get a lot more versus reach.
You get the possibility of creating some kind of engagement where the user can maybe click on the ad
or engage with the ad. You can get information from the user like whether they are interested in the ad,
whether they like the ad, whether they want to submit their contact information, you can do a lot more.
Therefore, I feel like brands need to do a lot more by putting up these videos or their stuff on Facebook or YouTube
because you can actually drive that participation, you can drive a call to action, you can drive a user to do something.
You should do, you should add that additional layer versus just like this is my ad and now watch it.
So, it's a missed opportunity.
Even on TV, when there is an ad that I don't like, then I'll get up at that time, let's say on IPL, I'm watching the match.
But there are empty number of ads in the commercial bridge which I don't want to watch. I don't like.
I'm sick of watching again and again. I will utilize that time to attend to whatever has to be attended to in the kitchen
or I might just go to the loo or I might make a call in that time or I might quickly send out an email.
Let me give you an example. Right now, IPL is going on and for IPL, for one of my clients, I'm designing an Instagram filter
and the client is obviously asking me how will I get more people to watch this filter, use this filter
and that's where you come in and tell your brand story using the filter versus telling your brand story using a TVC
and give me an example like supposing the filter is and this filter is literally because it's IPL, it's a filter of a helmet.
Now, when you use this filter on Instagram, you can record a video of yourself with the filter on.
The brand could actually take this video with the filter on and use it as their brand video on Facebook and on Instagram
and tell people want to use this filter click on this link and you're saying that they can do that on TV.
No, they can do that on TV while they can do that on TV. They can definitely do that on Facebook and on Instagram as well.
What happens is that the person watching that video gets lured in by wanting to use that filter.
From your brand story telling, you're driving the user into an experience on a digital platform.
When the user comes in, experience is that on the platform. A, they're spending a lot more time with your brand.
B, they're sharing that experience that the brand gave them with 20 of their friends
which is happening organically without you spending a single rupee.
The beauty of digital is to give the user an experience. Do not use digital as a display medium.
You can use it as a display medium but if you use it as a display medium, that's all you will get views.
Views lead to conversion, they do not. Do experiences lead to conversion? Yes, they do.
Very well said. Fantastic. Fantastic. Now, tell me, in the context of categories like BFSI or high involvement products like a car.
I don't buy a car just like that. Would I go to a digital agency and say that short formats can still be used to educate?
I mean, if I'm selling a car, then how can I best use digital? Do formats like memes, short formats?
For example, when I think of digital, I'm always thinking of 10 seconds or less.
Now, in that 10 seconds or less, if I'm a mutual fund, if I'm a car, if I'm an insurance company, if I'm, let's say, a B2B company, logistics company,
would I think of short format, would I think of digital? And if yes, then how do I best make use of it?
So I tell you, honestly, even if you look at digital today, I mean, in general, consumer attention spans are dropping massively.
Earlier, it was 30 seconds, then it became 20, now it is 10, and this in fact, even shorter and less.
If you go into where consumers, I mean, not just consumers, I'm saying any human being today is largely, sorry, spending a lot of their time is,
you know, constantly on WhatsApp, your WhatsApping friends or WhatsApping family or WhatsApping work colleagues and all your WhatsApp chats or WhatsApp groups.
The only thing that gets largely shared is not advertising, it's memes, gifs, jokes, forwards, all of these are the things that are getting shared largely.
And all of these things have either a massive sense of humor or some major blooper going down or something so funny that you're like,
oh my God, this has to be shared or it's so shocking that you end up sharing it.
And all of this stuff that you end up sharing in your social media groups or in your groups with your friends on WhatsApp is stuff which is in the shorter formats,
their gifs, their memes, their jokes, because that's what engages, that's what slight hearted, that's what gets somebody's attention.
So if a brand really wants to get attention, grab, you want to grab somebody's attention, then you have very few seconds to grab their attention in.
And gifs and memes are short for my content that is literally created with the sole purpose of grabbing attention.
That's all its purpose is, is to grab attention.
And that is the, and I feel as a brand, whether you know, if you're a boring category, especially like a finance product.
Anyways, the consumer is like, you know, anytime you're, if you're going about your day and you get a call from a random number and you become the phone and like,
hello, I'm calling from SBI Mutual Funds.
And would you like to invest in Mutual Funds?
Instantly you cut the call.
Right, because you don't want to go through that.
But if the same story was sent to you in the form of a meme or a gif and some friends of yours shared it, you might laugh about it.
You might share it with three more people, but at least you're engaging with the brand.
And therefore, you know, if a consumer on seeing basically if a consumer sees a gif or a meme, he has a slight chuckle.
He has a laugh, you know, there is a higher chance that the consumer will forward the same within their peer groups.
If you have an ad for a Mutual Fund versus you have a meme for a Mutual Fund, there's a higher chance that the meme for the Mutual Fund will get shared.
And there's really no chance that the ad will get shared because you share an ad.
Even in a WhatsApp group with your 10 friends, nobody's going to watch the ad.
But people will watch the meme, share the meme, maybe create three more memes of their own or suggest what else the memes could be.
You've gotten a person involved in the brand storytelling versus the person wanting to ignore the brand storytelling.
Fantastic.
I think that, you know, one thing for brands to know is that if they want to really own digital or win a digital, they need to make the user's experience of the web better and easier.
How do I make the user have a great experience on social media or on digital by not interrupting the experience that they're already having?
I think, you know, something that I would like to cover is the fact that, like, you know, the fact that, like I was saying that, you know, short format is here to stay.
And a lot of, like, like, like, like I was telling you earlier that if a brand has, if it's a big brand, a really big brand, and you have, you're already sitting on like billions of dollars, then it doesn't really matter.
And I mean, of course, it matters that you're wondering where you're burning all this media money or burning all this money and why is there no conversion.
But mid-sized brands, you know, mid-sized brands that want this conversion, that need the conversion, that need the conversion so that they get the funding, they need the conversion so that they can, you know, advertise better or build their brand.
They need to use digital and social and all these platforms purely for what they are known for or what they can do to bring that conversion, to tell that story in an interesting way.
A lot of brands, you know, want to tell a story, like, if you have, like, give you an example, like, a brand has, you know, like, you take a headphone, say, you take a headphone or you take a mobile phone.
A mobile phone will have 20 features. Any brand, what they will do is, like, you know, they make one TVC, a 30-seconder or a 40-seconder, and at the end of the TVC, you'd have a product window and they're saying, "Is product main? Yeh hai, yeh hai, yeh hai, yeh hai, yeh hai."
They are like 20, 20 features you're trying to tell in one 40-seconder. Any consumer watching it is like, "Okay, now, maybe this is not for me."
But if you broke down each of those features or even any of your brand storytelling, you bring all your features into multiple 10-seconders or multiple 5-seconders, you are getting using your targeting in a lot sharper way.
Your content, your advertising content is contextualized to different users and what they are looking for.
Therefore, you can create a lot more sharper targeting as well as, you know, speak to consumers in what they are interested in versus what you want to tell them.
Fantastic. And one last thing, Karan, I want to ask you, you know, since digital is a medium that can be used very effectively even to target different geographical segments,
there are brands that have very intelligently used campaigns. For example, in my time itself, you know, Pepsi did this campaign where they were doing the partnering with food.
You know, what was it called, the increased consumption campaign or I forget what it was called. Anyway, but they, you know, they were pairing Pepsi with the regional cuisine.
So somebody watching in Goa would see, you know, Pepsi paired with Goa and Bronze. Somebody watching from Hyderabad would see Pepsi paired with Chettinard and so on.
Tell us a little about that, about how digital can be intelligently used to have multiple creatives for multiple purposes or multiple audiences or multiple geographies, which is something that you cannot do with TV, unless you have shift loads of money.
Of course, you know, the very interesting and that's kind of the best part of digital is because you can use very sharp targeting and sharp targeting, you can actually have a different storyline, which is scripted for a different audience.
And that's also what I was trying to say in my earlier point, which is, for example, a housewife in South India may have different interests versus a housewife in South Bombay versus that housewife in South Delhi.
And therefore, you can actually script and create different messaging or different stories which appeal to these different sets of audiences when you use short formats.
If a brand has to make 25-seconders that talk to 20 different women, you are actually able to, you know, get interest from 20 different people versus running the same story for all 20 of them.
And I think that's where the, you know, the geography angle comes in a lot stronger as well as the fact that you can actually, you're using your brand's marketing budget a lot smarter.
You're actually saying that, okay, there are 10,000 women in South India and for them, I will create this set of communication.
There are 100,000 women in South Delhi and for them, I am creating this set of communication.
And also keeping that communication within 10 seconds is keeping getting that person engaged by what is relevant and what is of meaning to them versus running one creative asset and hoping that everybody will have the attention for the same asset.
How badly can you screw up one time?
So I did screw up. My YouTube channel is called Marketing Vidvani, the same name as this podcast.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Consumers do not differentiate between 85, 95, and 9
The importance of understanding the medium when creating content for digital platforms like YouTube.
Challenges of repurposing TV ads for digital platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
The need for engaging storytelling tailored to each platform's features.
Examples of successful digital campaigns, such as Pringles on TikTok and Cadbury with Shah Rukh Khan.
Importance of user-generated content and ease of participation in digital campaigns.
Summary:
The conversation delves into the intricacies of digital marketing, emphasizing the need to create content tailored to specific platforms like YouTube. It highlights the challenges of repurposing TV ads for digital platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, stressing the importance of engaging storytelling that aligns with the platform's features. Success stories of digital campaigns, like Pringles on TikTok and Cadbury's collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan, illustrate the effectiveness of user-generated content and easy consumer participation.
The discussion also touches upon the significance of standing out in a crowded digital space, as seen in Zoom's virtual background contest. Ultimately, understanding and utilizing the strengths of each digital platform are crucial for brands to create impactful and engaging marketing campaigns.
FAQs
When you make a TVC, it is limited to playing on television. For YouTube, nonskippable ads may disrupt user experience and lead to negative brand perception.
Digital advertising requires understanding platform features and engaging storytelling to prevent wasting media budget on ads that users may skip or not engage with.
Shorter content grabs users' attention quicker and aligns with consumption habits on social media platforms, where users often scroll on mute.
Campaigns like Pringles' 'Play With Pringles' on TikTok and Cadbury's use of Shah Rukh Khan leveraged platform features and user participation for engaging content.
By understanding platform strengths and user behavior, brands can use features like Mute storytelling on Facebook or Reels on Instagram to capture audience attention effectively.
Tailoring content for platform-specific features enhances user engagement and increases the likelihood of sharing and interaction, leading to more effective digital campaigns.
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