Founded in April 2016, AnyMind Group is a technology company for the business supply chain that provides software and solutions for end-to-end commerce enablement. The company provides two broad offerings to brands and businesses, publishers, and influencers: Brand Commerce and Partner Growth. Brand Commerce provides businesses with the company’s platforms for manufacturing, e-commerce enablement, marketing, and logistics, whilst Partner Growth provides web and mobile app publishers along with influencers and content creators with platforms for monetization and optimisation. Partner Growth customers can also tap on the company’s Brand Commerce offering.
The company entered India in 2020 with the acquisition of POKKT, which is their mobile in-app and web advertising platform. POKKT provides a one-stop solution for in-app and web advertising and caters to top global brands across verticals, helping the company achieve a vast spectrum of marketing objectives. It offers native ads, rich media interactive ads, rewarded video ads etc.; having expertise in both brand and performance marketing within gaming, non-gaming app and web inventory that span globally.
The company then rolled out various platforms in India, including influencer marketing platform AnyTag, an influencer marketing platform. It offers end-to-end functionalities to discover influencers, and activate, manage, track and attribute influencer marketing campaigns to business results, including conversion and install attribution from influencer marketing activities. The company also subsequently launched in India its e-commerce data and management platform AnyX, e-commerce enablement solution AnyShop, publisher growth and monetisation platform AnyManager, creator growth and management platform AnyCreator, and digital marketing platform AnyDigital. AnyMind Group has over 1,500 staff across 22 offices in 15 markets – India, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Medianews4u.com caught up with Rubeena Singh, Country Manager India and MENA, AnyMind Group to find out about the company’s plans.
Could you shed light on the two businesses of AnyMind – brand growth and commerce, and publisher partnerships and the strategy to scale them up?
At AnyMind Group, we segment our offerings into two main areas: Brand Commerce and Partner Growth. Brand Commerce is designed for enterprises and contains everything from e-commerce and conversational commerce to marketing and logistics. Partner Growth contains our offerings for publishers and content creators to help them with monetization and user growth.
As a company, we are well-positioned to provide a unique BPaaS offering – a combination of SaaS solutions and Business Process Outsourcing (where we provide operations and consulting services). This extends across marketing and e-commerce (or the business supply chain) and coupled with our networks across each major APAC and Middle East market, we are able to help our customers scale across multiple dimensions.
Ultimately, our offerings are synergistic – as we work with more publishers, we also provide enterprises with access to their ad inventory – likewise with creators. As we scale our networks of publishers and content creators, we’re able to provide unparalleled access to these networks – not just in India but also across APAC and the Middle East. On the other hand, the more enterprises we work with, the more ad demand and influencer marketing campaign demand we will receive – making it easier to collaborate with publishers and creators.
Many brands don’t know how to market and monetise themselves when it comes to digital marketing. How does AnyMind help them in this regard?
As mentioned, we provide a blend of technology and consulting/operations services – and this has proven highly beneficial to our customers – not just for those who are new to digital marketing, but also for those who are looking at newer forms of marketing or looking to enter a new market.
Apart from our technology that includes AnyTag, our influencer marketing platform, POKKT, our mobile marketing platform, and AnyDigital, our digital marketing platform, we also provide our customers with consulting and operations to help guide them throughout their journey.
What role does AI play in helping AnyMind provide end-to-end solutions?
We have offerings like floor price optimisation and influencer recommendations, and going ahead, as a company, we are looking to develop more AI capabilities in our products. We are also adding GenAI into our platforms. One such implementation is the automated translation of addresses for our logistics platform, AnyLogi.
We are continuing to look more into AI implementation, and we have also set up our AI Lab that is based out of both Tokyo and Bangalore, to look at specific implementation and use cases.
Could you give me examples of recent work done that stands out?
Unilever brands Domex and Vim now have an in-depth presence in gaming as activation and engagement consideration through gamified formats & eGaming tournaments created for them.
The Gen Z consumer moves rapidly. How challenging is it to keep up?
One of our core values is to “Stay Updated” – this means that we are always looking to be on top of trends. In addition, our BPaaS model enables our customers to operate in a more agile manner – and we are able to provide new solutions and implementations that are not typically available when they work with a pure SaaS or BPO company – such as implementations around digital transformation and AI.
This initiative helps us to stay on track with market trends and younger audiences. It is not very challening to keep up with the pace, since we have a strong network across regions.
How has the acquisition of POKKT in 2020 helped AnyMind make strides in the country?
The acquisition of POKKT brought in strong local leadership – and we are big on enabling our markets through leaders who know the market like the back of their hand. In addition, POKKT already has a customer base, and we were able to add new value to this customer base, such as influencer marketing and e-commerce solutions.
Are virtual influencers and human influencers both equally important in driving the company’s influencer marketing and e-commerce business?
A healthy balance is always needed in this aspect – virtual influencers can do what humans can’t – for example, live-streaming for 24 hours at a go. However, human influencers bring an authentic approach and experience to social media users.
Could you talk about the company’s product AnyTag and how it helps clients choose the right influencers?
AnyTag possesses data from influencers – publicly available along with those who provide us access to their social media data through the AnyCreator platform – a web and mobile app platform for creators. This data is then used to evaluate whether an influencer is the right selection for a client – with data points including audience demographics, brands that an influencer has worked with, and more. On top of that, AnyTag also provides social media analytics and UGC-utilization functionalities for brands to not just discover the right influencers, but also fans with large followings that match their brand
What are the trends being seen in in-app gaming and how is AnyMind leveraging them?
Consumption has exploded and now we can see substantial numbers coming from every nook and corner of the country. This is contributing to reach & frequency builder for across category brands which are catering through AnyMind’s strength.
In terms of metrics to measure the impact of brands using in-app gaming is viewability an issue?
In fact, this is one of the plus sides of gaming ads – they see some of the highest viewability.
As we move into a cookieless world how are AnyMind and its clients adapting their strategies? Are brands prepared for this scenario?
Brands can be ready if they know where to look. Three immediate solutions come to mind:
The mobile advertising world has lived without cookies for a considerably long time – and POKKT is well-positioned to thrive in a post-cookie world, providing marketers with access to mobile users across the region
Influencer marketing does not require cookies – but access to data to select the right influencers – with audiences and influencers that match the target audience of a brand
The AnyDigital Premium Marketplace – our network of high-quality publishers across APAC – also allows targeting based on contextual data such as categories and demographics.
In addition, AnyChat – with its integration to WhatsApp – is highly useful in India, providing enterprises with functionalities including customer chats, CRM, and a range of other features, to utilize first-party data to engage with customers on a more personal level.
