Chennai: MMA India, the not for profit marketing trade body with a heightened focus on Modern Marketing, has concluded the final day of the IMPACT virtual event with discussions around ad fraud, impact of vernacular content, business agility, and a peek into the future with forces reshaping the way a brand connects with consumers.
The day began with welcome remarks from MMA India’s new Board Chairperson, Amit Jain, Managing Director, L’Oréal India who acknowledged how Impact in its 10th edition has emerged as a credible global property. He also said, “There is an acceleration towards purpose driven brands. As Generation Z gets into the consumption class, they expect brands to demonstrate their commitments to a broader set of societal challenges. Brands need to have strong ethics and demonstrate actions consistent with their values”.
Key highlights from day 2 include:
Renowned futurist, Founder & CEO of BrainReserve, Faith Popcorn revealed that AI and digital assistants will take over the majority of customer’s buying decisions where traditional marketing and advertising will change to interact with digital avatars yet becoming more personalized, learning from an explosion of layered data, and expanding into new surfaces of the digitally superimposed world.
Dr. Sundar Bharadwaj, Coca-Cola Company Chair, Professor of Marketing, The University of Georgia, The Terry College of Business, shared his perspective on designing a winning marketing organization (WMO). He established that a winning marketing organization is structured around the customer and the outcomes instead of having product focus or functional expertise.
As per an extensive study done by MMA globally, WMO is primarily a function of 3 things:
- Right structure
- Roles and responsibility of marketing
- And, marketing capabilities of an organisation.
The study suggests that upping the game in marketing capabilities (marcap) leads to 2.5x sales growth and 2.35 % increase in market value.
- Highlighting the most common issues of Ad Fraud, Dr. Augustine Fou, an Independent Ad Fraud Investigator along with Dhiraj Gupta, CTO & Founder of mFilterIt revealed the current state of ad fraud and how poor detection technology is defunding mainstream sites.
- Lexi Sydow, Head of Marketing Insights, App Annie, revealed the State of Mobile in India, boom in M-commerce changing shopping behaviour and how mobile has become the channel of influencing financial decisions.
- Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Co-Founder, Trell highlighted the impact of vernacular video content on commerce & marketing, and why it is a game changer for marketers.
- To reflect the changing e-commerce landscape, Prasanth Kumar, MMA India Co-Chair; CEO, South Asia GroupM and Moneka Khurana, Country Head – India, MMA, unveiled an e-commerce playbook which highlights the shift in media and content consumption, purchase patterns, transformation in consumer behaviour and how these changes are impacting consumer journeys and importance of touchpoints.
- Other sessions saw experts sharing a 3-step value model of future-proofing business growth and innovation, exploring potential and growth avenues of AI.
The event concluded with closing remarks from Rohit Dadwal, MMA India Board Member; MD – MMA APAC who said, “We are amid a historic disruption that has accelerated digital transformation across sectors. To help businesses keep up with the constantly evolving landscape, MMA is playing a significant role by bridging the two worlds together – driving local perspectives through various councils and bringing international best practices to India. We aim to provide the right assets, tools and capabilities to help build this industry”.
