Sanjay Nazerali, Global CSO of Carat Media and one time BBC point man, urged the audience to reorient their thinking since the world was changing. He elucidated his point through four themes. Mr Nazerali said “Cross border e-commerce is at around 25 billion dollars currently. That’s 10 per cent of the total e-commerce revenue worldwide. That figure is expected to grow and reach 30 per cent by 2020. So consumers are doing the exact opposite of what Donald Trump wants to do.”
He went on to say that Globalisation was not dying but the new phoenix was about moving from physical goods to selling data and information. Citing an example he said “Ray-Ban’s future isn’t about selling their products, but it’s about selling a digital print because everyone will have 3D prints in the next two years. Capital intensive businesses are going to be knowledge intensive.”
He believed that SMEs ought to be the focus, as they contribute to 40 per cent of the country’s GDP currently and was growing at 12%. Listed companies are growing only at 1.5% in comparison.
Speaking of convergence, he said the profitability of digital companies was declining. This however did not mean that interest in this platform was declining.
He said “The truth is that digital cannot be measured by how long one spends on a screen. Convergence will become what digital does around you. India is now growing faster than the growth of digital. Screen-based digital has plateaued. Agencies have to help clients leverage digital technology. With stuff like Amazon Go, where a person doesn’t come in contact with anyone and just walks out of a store with what they require, or a wrist band stopping someone from eating more because they’ve consumed their limit, we aren’t in a world of ‘Internet of things’, but in a world of digital reality,” he said.
Data was a great love of marketers. It helps the brand get closer to the consumer. However ad blockers cost advertisers around $250-300 million each year in India. Which mean the data was being used incorrectly. Creative folk claimed they were hampered by data. Perhaps one needed to look at it differently. Data, he said may be true but it was not the truth.
He said “Just because one can measure something doesn’t make it important, nor can that devalue something that cannot be measured. Data needs specialists like doctors and designers as they speak in a different language. We need to interpret that and translate it to something as easy as Apple did with technology.”
He however had a word of caution for those who looked for sales in the short-term and stated that long-term business health should be very important. Finally Mr Nazerali said it was important to differentiate between innovation and doing something in an interesting way. Finally he said it was important to make mistakes and learn from them. While advertising may be aimed at creating demand, it can also be about initiating social change.
Maneka Gandhi, Union Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development urged the advertising community to help fight injustice against women. Speaking about the reasons why women were subjected to violence she said “One reason for that stems from the fact that powerless men, who are probably facing some sort of issue themselves, are looking for someone who would be weaker than themselves. They think women don’t have recourse. If a lady goes to the police, they’d probably tell her that she’s facing the trouble for some fault of her own. In fact in some of the cases we get, we find that killings happen around two years after they’ve been complaining to their parents. The parents fault their own daughters and urge them to do things differently.”
She also blamed feature films for the same. She said, “Romance starts with eve-teasing. Then, the hero fights with a villain and finally wins over the lady. It began 50 years ago and still continues to happen.”
Another reason she cited was women being fewer in number. The minister said “When women become less, you see them being married at ages that are as low as 12. The ministry has put forward ‘Beti Bachao’ to help against this and within a year we have seen results. The ratio between women to men has changed from 830 to a 1000, to 910 to a 1000 in just a year in Haryana.”
Gandhi also spoke about ‘One Stop Centres’ that have been introduced to help women facing violence. These centres are now equipped with a doctor, policeman, lawyers etc and any woman can ring up or visit it if she faces or anticipates violence of any kind. She urged the industry to help her in developing an app. The app will focus on the safety and will alert 10 random individuals in the vicinity and will also alert the police. She also revealed that her team was now regulating matrimonial sites and got them to follow a code. This was in response to women who had posted their advertisements on these sites and got lewd comments for the same. On social media threats, a hashtag ‘#IAmTrolled’ has been created and women are encouraged to use that and complain against threats they receive on social media.
Gandhi has the support to Facebook, Twitter and the police to track the people who send out the abuses. Gandhi talked about a ‘sexual harassment at workplace act’, for which she’s looking to get the support of the finance ministry and get all companies to have a team for this on their audit. She urged the community to create content and push women rights. She said “There is a need to talk about rights that include girl only schools, girl sports, menstrual hygiene, working women hostels, safe public spaces, increased maternity leave, safe transport and more through advertising. Look for ways to push this in for advertising of fans, etc. One advertisement that did this well was for Nirma. You can mix messages, and push in a message so that women can go forward. Ads can go further than films.”
Now no festival is complete without awards. Agencies like Mindshare won 2 Gold Abbies. First in the best use of branded content and for in the best use of an integrated campaign category. Lodestar UM, Milestone Brandcom, Maxus, The Social Street, MediaCom Communications, Shemaroo Entertainment, IBS and Dentsu Webchutney won a Gold each. In all, 53 Media Abby Awards were awarded this year. Of these, 10 are Gold, 26 are Silver, and 17 are Bronze
