What a dramatic change this Covid19 has brought to our lives, whether it is the business or for us human beings. India went for a complete lockdown beginning March to fight the pandemic. Undoubtedly, all business establishments irrespective of their strength and type of industry have been affected by the recent outbreak of COVID-19 to a great extent.
Businesses, jobs, saw great upheavals, the world also saw a tectonic shift in the way we communicated. The Indian Advertising all through this crisis/ lockdown has been on their feet by innovating new methods of communication for their brands to reach out to their consumers. Brand communication was more empathetic, keeping in mind the sentiments and moods of the consumer in general.
Medianews4u in their series ‘Back to Business’ have spoken to 70+ brands on how they are effectively changing their communication strategies. We are now talking to the Advertising Agencies who are the brand custodians on what will be their strategy for their clients in the new normal.
Priya Jacob, President – Media, Network Advertising on the agencies strategies and way forward in the new normal
The nation has more or less opened up now, what as an Agency would be your priorities toward your brands?
No matter how clichéd it may sound; Network’s way of working has always been and will remain with client’s business interest as the only objective. However, it will mean a very different rigour typical of a difficult time. For future investment of media money will require constant conversation with client on a regular basis.
Brands in the new normal are now seeing new buying habits, as a brand custodian what will be the new strategies and advertising message?
We have been listening to the consumers of our client’s brand and the category that the brand falls into very attentively since time we realised no one knows when things will be back to normal. So, a lot sharper yet localised information is being collected and provided as an input to our media planning
As brands now are going digital, chances for more brands to look for their own E platforms, your thoughts?
Absolutely. However, brands need to expand their reach over and above their own platforms necessitating the complete understanding of the digital ecosystem vis-a-vis consumer behaviour.
Will Digital be on top of mind for planners in the new normal as compared to traditional spends?
Digital is not a complete solution by itself. Yes, digital as a medium will continue to be top of mind for planners across all categories and will play a huge role apart from being a transaction platform as well.
How will you rebuild brand loyalty for certain brands which fell off the radar during this lockdown?
Brand and Brand loyalty are like myths, they build over time through storytelling and actual experience (moment of truth). For brands with very high mind measures (awareness, preference etc.) will certainly have an advantage over the newcomers. Especially the ones with minimal differentiator.
As GEC’s are back with fresh content, are you seeing a spike in spends?
Yes
With IPL on the horizon and the approaching festive season, what is the scenario you are envisaging for Brands and Advertising in general?
There are many indicators that point towards a greater commercial pull for IPL this year. The biggest of them being timing and the other one being the anticipation of higher than last year’s viewership and the third being lack of any other high reach content around that time. We believe it will be a sell-out.
