Bangalore: Growth marketing specialist DCMN is expanding its footprint to Asia, with the Berlin-based company officially launching operations in India.
Home to a vibrant startup ecosystem and a magnet for venture capital, India offers fertile ground for marketers focused on digital brands. DCMN has opened an office in Bangalore and hired business development expert Bindu Balakrishnan to head up its local operations. Prior to DCMN, Ms Balakrishnan headed up business development for digital startups and in the healthcare industry, with more than 10 years’ experience in both India and Europe.
DCMN Co-Founder and CEO, Andreas Dengler, said: “This year, DCMN is going international. India is the ideal entry point for Asia: it has a large internal market with a lot of buying potential, a tech-savvy population that is increasingly going mobile, and a large number of digital brands that are multiplying at a breathtaking speed.”
Andreas Dengler added: “With all the venture capital flowing into the country, competition is high and many startups face pressure from investors to scale fast. This is where ROI-driven marketing comes in: they not only need to get their brand in front of the right audience, on the right platform, and at the right time. They also need to make sure they’re investing their marketing budgets where it counts, resulting in measurable growth for the business.”
Within India’s diverse media landscape, many brands have focused on running TV campaigns as they compete to get consumers’ attention. However, according to DCMN’s Country Head India, Bindu Balakrishnan, measurability is not as widespread as in Europe and the US.
Ms Balakrishnan said: “Indian digital brands are spending huge budgets on TV campaigns but there is often no analysis of how effective these campaigns are at driving sales. Using its unique TV tracking technology, DCMN can measure direct response to the spots aired. We can then further analyze the data on metrics like channels, spot length, language, weekday and daypart, and optimize around what works best for that particular brand to help them to get the best ROI on their TV budgets.”
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, DCMN has so far opened offices in the US, UK and France, and plans to use the India hub to expand across the region as part of its further internationalization strategy.
Figures show that venture capital investment in India has reached record-breaking heights. Risk capital of US$9 billion was funneled into Indian startups last year, according to the YourStory Startups Funding Report 2015. As competition between these businesses heats up, ad spend is also rising: advertisers in India are forecast to spend about $7.41 billion on paid placements in all media, up 11.3 per cent on 2015, figures from eMarketer show.
