The sixth edition of GroupM’s ‘Brew’ was hosted on October 16, 2023 in Mumbai. The day-long event featured speakers, sessions and masterclasses across content, culture and tech.
Welcoming delegates, Vineet Karnik, Head – Sports, Esports and Entertainment, GroupM South Asia, said, “As we all know, we are witnessing major disruption from the perspective of platforms, formats, technology and the role it plays in the marketing world today; that’s exactly the reason why we curated Brew six years back because we need to get updated with the trends and possibly look at the way we are going to be engaging our consumer over a period of time from a marketing perspective. An average Gen-Z today spends six-odd hours a day on a mobile device. That’s a serious amount of time to be sharing on the screen.”
He added, “With the digitisation and the age we are in today, we can’t ignore our population in rural India and the penetration of a smartphone is almost about 40 pc. They are spending almost 60 pc of their time today on the mobile phone by consuming at least one video every day. That means we can’t ignore the entire world of video and video ads today. The challenge we are facing Is targeting the consumer today in a fragmented media landscape where the attention span has become so limited and fragile that appointment viewing is very difficult and very premium – that’s one of reasons why we need to be constantly updated with the trends.”
The speaker pointed out that tech will play a key role making it seamless from a consumer engagement point of view, in newer ways that are unfolding.
Nurturing Gen-Next
‘Gen-Z & Alpha: Nurturing the Next Generation’ was the theme of a session that set the ball rolling. Moderated by Ajay Gupte, CEO, South Asia at Wavemaker, the panel featured Suresh Narasimha, Co-Create; Ayush Shukla, Founder, Finnet Media; and digital creator Chandni Bhabhda.
On work ethic and how different the young crop is from the older groups, Narasimha explained, “Fundamentally, there are two kinds of youngsters – one is too socially oriented who can drop a Rs.40 to 50 lakh salary on the campus without second thought, just to go on to work for an NGO. Too oriented socially that they will do anything to get sustainability in place. The second category of people is ones who are extremely self-centered. Their understanding of finance is much better than yours and mine. You will see two kinds of innovation – one which is extremely commercially oriented with the aspiration to create a unicorn and others who don’t mind what it is they are doing as long as they are doing “good” work. What motivates them is the purpose and their own self-interest. The kind of startups that you see in Gen-Z are phenomenally different and they break all your stereotypes.”
Hear the Creators
Ayush Shukla, Founder, Finnet Media, pointed to three things that motivates the segment: purpose, recognition, and impact. He expounded this as: what are we doing, who are we doing it for and what are we getting out of it. The reason content creation is popular amongst Gen-Z is because all these three are satisfied, he observed.
Talking about the relationship between Gen-Z and brands, he noted, “Whenever I am speaking to brands, they don’t understand creators and they don’t understand influencer marketing. Now it’s about educating them. Two things which usually come into play are the monetary aspect and the creative freedom aspect. A lot of creators today, especially the Gen-Z creators, don’t want to compromise on their creative freedom. If a brand is coming to them with a brief, they would ideally want the brand to treat them as ambassador or partner and let them drive the brief and decide how they want to create that content and how they want that message to be delivered to the larger audience, because the creator understands their audience the best. Usually, it’s a big no from a creator when a brand is very rigid. The brands pay extra money if they are very rigid on the brief but what happens later is that the content does not work. And when the content does not work because the creator is not being heard, the brand feels that influencer marketing or this creator is not working out for them.”
Recalling her journey of how she became a digital creator, Chandni Bhabhda revealed how she transitioned from being a lawyer.
Speaking about deciding what content to put out there and ensuring people resonate with it, she asserted, “Don’t think so much. Spontaneity and consistency is the key.”
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