id8 media solutions was founded in 2001. In 2008, AmanSwetta took a Joint Management control of id8 along with Tanya Swetta to take the agency to new heights. Aman is a media & communication maven and an outward facing futurist who sees the future of marketing & communication is an integrated model. Under his foresight, id8 developed new divisions of Design, Digital Marketing, Filming, Production, Event Management, Graphic & Visual Communication, to deliver new and untold stories with integrated marketing communications model.
While the globe is becoming a smaller space with innovations in technology and communication, id8 is constantly reinventing the wheel in the ecosystem to align with the ever-changing algorithms of the ecosystem and encourage a forward momentum for brands across the board. Strategies are extraordinary when necessary, subtle when appropriate, adaptable wherever and whenever. If you ask who are we? We are your everyday superheroes with an eye for exceptional. We are your extended marketing and communications arm.
id8 motto has always been ‘We Think Globally and Act Locally’.
Aman Swetta, Co-founder and JMD, id8 media solutions Pvt Ltd, in an exclusive chat spoke about the changing landscape of communication in the new normal.
id8 the journey?
id8 media solutions Public Relations was established in 2001. Founded and conceived by Tanya Swetta – id8 grew extremely fast and acquired a solid reputation for being the go-to agency when you needed a solid and effective PR strategy. id8 media solutions has the expertise to go to market for many industries such as Tech, Corporate, Luxury, Beauty, Hospitality, Wellness having a roster of both Indian homegrown brands as well as internationally renowned companies and products. It was Tanya’s expertise in the communications space combined with her sound business and market intelligence that brought id8 to the rank of top rated PR agency in the country. In 2008, Tanya and I decided to combine our strengths to create an integrated marketing communications firm under the id8 name, this was born purely out of our foresight to predict the future of effective communications – with me leading the Creative Content Digital Marketing and Events divisions and Tanya the PR and Marketing. My expertise lies in filmmaking and digital marketing. My first media convergence project-TANMAN.COM- centred on wellness and enhancement of human life through digitization. This is a project that is very close to my heart and involved years of research and understanding of how two diametrically different mediums can elevate each other through the correct channelling. This journey and my connectedness to the force of digitisation attracted me like a magnet, to make my contribution and introduce digital to Id8.
Our mission and vision aligned to introduce new elements to Id8’s family other than PR and marketing such as visual content and design, digital marketing, film, event management, for a 360 marketing solution that any CMO and CFO would favour based on the value proposition. We enjoy having a diverse range of clients and it has been and will continue to be our goal to enhance marketing and branding experience in a relevant, effective and integrated manner using creativity and analytics, strategies and sources across digital and offline platforms to build and grow brand awareness and sales through insightful marketing strategies.
The pandemic is seeing a surge in growth in the Digital side of the business how is id8 strategizing for the post covid scenario?
Digital was here in the late 90’s! We just had not seen its full power unleashed till the early 2000’s. In my opinion digital was always going to grow – this pandemic has just given it a so-called vitamin shot. The vitality of digital is unquestionable in all of our lives.
As digital was roaring in our country in pre-COVID-19 phase, it attracted even more attention and users as we stepped into the quarantine phase. One of the many luxury hotel brands Id8 served, our recent one has attracted online searchers immensely for the past few quarters delivering potential leads and customers. Since the pandemic kicked in, we have observed quarterly improvements as we are targeting specific segments to enhance quality of leads utilizing budgetary needs effectively for achieving greater ROI based performance. A concrete branding and marketing strategy backed with timely planning and implementation is the only way to be able to achieve success based on the goals you set.
How do you strategize for various verticals and clients as the digital world is moving in a very fast phase?
Digital marketing is a data driven form of marketing. It has made all marketing, advertising and branding efforts quicker and simpler as customer-centric information is just a click away. Client servicing and sales has also benefited extensively from this segment for faster lead generation and conversions from audience to customers. Research is the primary and significant source of backing our digital efforts of id8 media solutions controlled and managed by a remarkable team of marketing experts with a specific skill set in their discipline. This team and we work closely together to cull the research and information, back it up with data and numbers and then create an integrated go to market strategy. SEO and SEM, programmatic marketing, mobile marketing backed with analytics and support gives a deeper understanding of different segments of market, budget allocation across platforms and cross campaign strategization for multiple clients across industries and geographies.
Highlight a striking contrast between home-grown, local, luxury and international clients and how new age social media strategies work for each differently?
A home-grown or local entrepreneur strategizes his business goals differently in contrast to luxury and international businesses. It’s nothing but the journey of small home-grown business or as we all call it these days a ‘start-up’, founded by partners, friends or even family members transitioning itself from a small scale to medium and large scale business aiming for a global outreach.
Despite the fact, functionality from an operational, financial and marketing perspective differs in comparison to international and luxury; there are quite a few similarities too. Local and home-grown businesses might not adapt to hierarchical ways of functioning internally so soon and might be ill considerate of certain risks such as negative PR, higher-end budget, violation of cultural values using marketing strategies, change in business practices and even partners for that matter. On the other hand, an international and luxury business can afford to take such risks up to some point because they are backed by every ready team of marketing and PR professionals, lawyers and much more for turning tables in their favour and monetizing out of situations for safe keeping their brand reputation.
Local and home-grown businesses are open to innovations and new ideas to tap into different market segments, thus, leveraging an edge over competitors through a variety of channels and are open to collaborations and strategic partnerships for exposure to choices that the market has to offer. On other hand, strategic alliances and partnerships don’t come easy to international and large scale organizations as they have an established target audience and preconceived brand identity in place.
Social media now not only serves you with friends and people, but also services of online shopping on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Home-grown, local, luxury and international companies have ventured into this space with exciting promotional offers and loyalty programmes, variety of products and services and most importantly targeting every individual’s need as THE ONE for converting potential customers or leads to target audience.
Communication is the key and it is the sole purpose of presence on social media. Home-grown and local businesses should have a keen insight into customer’s needs through analytics data and chatbots. Well established international and luxury clients have already been making effective use of this feature and setting excellent examples in the market. ‘Curate to personalize’ is the go-to mantra for every business. Ideating and writing content in a story-telling format inclusive of concise and crisp content with a touch of emotion and social wellbeing to educate masses and increase sales works effectively only if it is personalized according to the customer’s needs and desires.
Once a home-grown or local business steps out of their niche market and starts targeting national and then an international client, personalization varies. Content, colours, advertisements, models, graphics and most importantly targeting the required product and service through these mediums enhances a brand’s goodwill.
Influencer marketing is the ultimate game-changer for social media teams across the globe and brands. It solely can break or make your campaigns and requires loads of research and analytics for best results. Influencers are people, well known for their knowledge and expertise of their favored topic and interests which drives enthusiastic engagement from a variety of audiences on youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Celebrities have entered this market too, as they share their vlogs(video blogs) and blogs relating to music, infotainment, travel, lifestyle, fashion just like influencers. Demographics such as age, location, and lifestyle are key drivers for any influencer marketing campaign other than needs and desires of customers. Planning a cross or multi-channel campaign escalates your marketing efforts. Marketing campaigns planned and implemented across multiple channels like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and youtube aids in targeting different segments of the audience and untapped niche market too. Curating relevant, sentimental and timely content and Ads delivered through infographics, videos, motion posters, gifs, live videos is the mantra for success. Social media has proven to live up to every marketer’s time, money and expectations to get a deeper insight and understanding of the audience’s desires and needs. Analytics and marketing automation goes a long way in helping with timely and economical implementation of social media marketing strategy.
Home-grown and local businesses should primarily focus on their budget and accordingly plan and target through ads and posts on social media. International and luxury brands have access to larger tapped and untapped markets but planning a budget for allocating different potential segments won’t cut a hole through their pockets!
How have you helped your brands to achieve their targets digitally in this pandemic and crisis?
Pandemic in 2020 has surely been a roller coaster, full of ups and downs for most of us. Several domains and industries have been hit hard for instance luxury, hospitality, manufacturing, financial services, auto and even IT. Nevertheless, the economy is recovering and we are reshaping ourselves towards betterment. Since Id8’s integrated marketing services has fuelled brands from such different sectors and geographies for a decade and more, throughout the pandemic our digital efforts have helped brands reach the masses and untapped segments of the market across the world.
In the ecommerce industry, id8 is helping brands tremendously in achieving a growth in sales in this pandemic digitally, below are some results id8 has achieved for one of the well-known luxury glass brand:
How important is digital marketing for B2B and B2C in this crisis scenario?
Digital marketing for B2B and B2C during pandemic has turned out to become more tactical and strategic in nature due to limited budgets. Revaluating channel mix, updating content relating to current market scenarios, introducing loyalty offers and appreciating feedback, effective and efficient delivery, monitoring intent and responding accordingly, focusing on website conversions, and keeping on top of content strategy are some of the fruitful and effective ways to maximize results. Most importantly seizing the opportunity that markets have to offer, keeping a track of competitors’ moves, measuring effectiveness of a brand’s overall and segmented performance and accordingly directing budgets for the same.
Two sectors Healthcare and Wellness have made optimum use of this crisis, how different has been their strategy as compared to the last year?
It’s a two-way exchange between an industry or a sector and its customers. The healthcare and wellness sector has not only made optimum utilization of the crisis, they have contributed to our wellbeing and lifestyle extensively. It continued making its share of contributions to the community even during the pandemic as people were indulged in mindful thoughts and activities to keep up with the disharmony caused due to the fear of covid. Gyms, yoga and ayurveda centres, wellness resorts, fitness centres did experience a tragic downfall during the first quarter, on the other hand, hospitals be it government or private experienced a surge in demand due to rising active covid-19 cases.
Marketing and advertising digitally pushed demand for the wellness sector too. Online consultations with dieticians and fitness experts, wellness and fitness centres conducting video classes have driven the demand for maintaining a healthy lifestyle even while at home.
As people are stressed due to disruption of work life balance, so are students and professionals from different backgrounds, in this scenario, mind and body wellness experts, psychiatrist have made a tremendous contribution to helping people with their psychological and emotional needs. Entertaining and aiding such an audience with self-help videos, eBooks, blogs, online forums has come a long way through the pandemic. Even international and luxury brands are supporting mental illness, social distancing and hygiene by conducting campaigns, thus delivering support to the health and wellness sector across the globe. As much as digitization serves our work life needs, it has contributed to our health and wellness too.
This positive impact has been observed amongst people on social and other digital platforms and eventually pushing marketing initiatives in an ethical, responsible and accountable manner.
Do you think that digital marketing is much more effective when it comes to understanding consumer behaviour?
I rule in the favour of digital marketing being effective when it comes to understanding consumer behaviour. It has rendered access to understanding consumer’s behaviour and gaining deeper insights through faster and effective advertising, organic and inorganic search results data on social media, email, mobile and most importantly web. Well laid marketing plans and operations are supported by analytics for measurable, timely and achievable performance. All of these efforts collectively contribute to digging customer-centric
information in the form of databases across different demographics and geographies.
Way forward for id8?
Id8 is an ever-growing integrated marketing firm, serving clients across local, international and luxury sectors. Our initiatives and efforts are the pillars of success for every organization’s cross-functional marketing strategies for an ROI based performance and we are looking forward to evolving and innovating our vision and ideas in the same. Id8 family is a team full of researchers and professionals that continues to be progressive and dynamic adapting to changing trends and market scenarios for attaining milestones and targets. With our international office in Newyork and affiliates in the UK UAE SriLanka Malaysia and Singapore, we now have access to global data and insights across geography and psychographics. We are looking forward to launching our own tech start up and a web series in the near future, and the rest is NDA at the moment.
