Tag: Storyboard

Storyboard18 YoungGuns are here! The biggest celebration of next-gen creativity

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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It’s the age of Augmented Intelligence, where tech-powered human creativity drives brands and businesses. At the heart of the great tech wave is a new generation of talent paving the way to the future.

Storyboard18’s YoungGuns is the biggest celebration of future-ready young professionals in advertising and marketing who are driving businesses and brands forward and bringing glory to India globally.

Their work has helped brands and businesses grow and given India greater creative and business clout the world over. We honour, recognise and celebrate these pathbreaking, promising young individuals through Storyboard18’s YoungGuns initiative, a flagship programme from the Network18 Group.

YoungGuns is the grandest celebration of the brightest brains, revolutionary ideas and creativity enhanced by technology, which are putting India on the global map, creating future-ready brands, and powering the growth of businesses.

Storyboard18 will honour the YoungGuns at a glittering ceremony in August. There will be illuminating conversations with the leading lights as breakthrough talent and marketing and business leaders come together for an exclusive gathering to encourage, support and celebrate the bold brand makers.

With the spotlight on the young talent, the event also aims to bring out forward-thinking ideas that leave a mark in this brave, new tech-fuelled world.

So, stay on top of the breakthroughs and what’s coming. Keep watching this space for more.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Storyboard 18 Exclusive: ‘Uncertainty Is The Name Of The Game,’ Mark Read, CEO WPP

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In an exclusive conversation with Storyboard 18, Mark Read, CEO, WPP is sharing his outlook for the coming months, key client concerns, with advertising conglomerates raising their forecasts for the year, have they emerged unscathed by the digital ad market troubles and impact of the layoffs at Big Tech on advertising business and other sectors.

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:

From Wars to Government changes, recessionary concerns- how’s all of this impacting the business? What are some of the biggest concerns you’ve heard from agency leaders from the WPP ecosystem?

Read: Our agency leaders are focused on doing great job for our clients. Delivering fantastic creative work. Helping them grow their businesses, do well on e-commerce, building relationships with their customers, manage their reputation, communicate what they are doing and leading their people through difficult time. So there are no particular concerns by the agency leaders.

What are the clients concerns, how are they reacting to these uncertain times?

Read: I think the key word is ‘uncertainty’. We had our results a couple of weeks ago and I said on our earnings call, ‘there are very few clients that are catastrophizing the situation for the next year. I think most clients are looking to support their brands and a lot of clients dealing in the inflationary environment are trying to sort price increases. So marketing becomes more important as they are trying to innovate, to be on the side of the consumer. So they have to communicate with their customers. At the same time, they face headwinds around the world.

Uncertainty is the name of the game. And we have to be agile as an organization and help our clients react to things as they unfold.

Opinions on US recession differ. Goldman Sachs have it at 35 percent, most of the people in the US have it at like 75 percent. So, I have slightly sort of given up on predicting the future, my efforts are on how do we respond more quickly to me honest.

Also Read: Godrej Consumer’s Sudhir Sitapati on how to build brands that last

We do have a predictive question, but first are clients behaving differently? In terms of media spends or hiring?

Read: (The) interesting thing is that there has been sort of analog-digital split. There is no doubt that Covid accelerated the transition to more digital marketing. But, actually if you see the growth this year has been a little bit slow in digital media.

WPP and our agency players actually grew more quickly in the first six months of the year than Google or Meta, Snap and Twitter. Now, if you said to me 5 years ago that we would grow on top of these companies, I wouldn’t have believed you. This demonstrates the value of what we do, the resilience of our business model, the fact that we tend to work with larger companies.

Yes, they work with large companies but they tend to have a lot of small and medium size businesses- micro entrepreneurs, a lot of VC funded start-up money going into marketing., crypto, etc. I wouldn’t say that there is money being pushed to traditional media but I certainly feel that like everything in life, it’s a balance.

When it comes to hiring I don’t think a lot of clients want to add to the fixed cost.

All four big advertising agency holding groups have raised forecasts for the year, are you suggesting that the conglomerates have so far emerged unscathed by the digital ad market troubles?

Read: I wouldn’t say we are unscathed. I would say WPP isn’t just an advertising company anymore. We are helping clients do public relations, manage their reputation. We are helping clients build mobile applications, help them develop websites, etc. there are a lot of things not just related to advertising on its own. It reflects the breadth and the resilience of our business models.

Also Read: Ayan Mukerji gives a sneak peek into what’s on Brahmāstra Part Two | Storyboard18

What’s the scenario on the new business front? Do we expect more pitches in 2023?

Read: We took part in the Coke pitch, I think the biggest review in our industry’s history. We did close to 150 meeting all of them remotely, on video. What is my view is that the new business line is as strong as it was a year ago, if anything then I think just a  marginally stronger.

Pitches are going back in person. I am a little bit disappointed by that. I like the fact that we were working and pitching remotely. It saves a lot of money in airfares and it is good for the planet as well.

I like to make sure that we continue to use the hybrid model of pitching as well. That is the way forward for our industry. Pitching is busy, the Coke pitch, they started with 6000 agencies, there are big pitches underway. They may not all be public but I think it is a busy end to the year. And I think a busy 2023.

As interest rates keep rising faster than expected how worried are you now about the outlook for the coming weeks, as?

Read: Yes, that is my concern. I was old enough to remember the 1970s. Inflation is a tough beast to wrestle with. Typically, interest rates need to further up that people expect to get it under control. So I think that is the challenge that we will face is how high do interest rates have to go up.  In the US, you saw inflation coming just under expectation all of a sudden the stock market is up 5 percent and everyone thinks that the problem is solved and then you get more pressure on inflation. It is a tough thing on the policy maker.

I think we are cautious about the trajectory of interest rates and I think that is going to be the thing that we will have to watch over the next year.

India is one of your top 5 markets globally. What excites you about the India market?

Read: Firstly, I love India. I am looking forward to coming back next year. We have 11,500 people in the India market. We are at a great position in the market.  In Srini (CVL Srinivas) we have a very strong leader for our business. But, we have strong people across our businesses who are fantastic. Creative leaders like Piyush Pandey. The work we do for our clients is so impactful. I can go on about the reasons to be proud. I am proud of the work that we do for our clients. The work we did for Mondelez in India won us a Titanium Award at Cannes. That’s one of the most prestigious awards in our industry- a collaboration between Ogilvy and Wavemaker.

(It) really shows how combination of creativity, data and tech can produce fantastic results and can win on a world stage. We are serving multinational companies in India and many domestic companies in India. I have learnt a lot from business leaders in India. I have been lucky to meet Sanjeev Mehta. He has been a fantastic client to us.

I think the economic outlook for India is strong, it is our best performing market globally for last 10 years. It has been our fifth or sixth biggest market in WPP. If you say one day we will overtake the UK, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Also Read: Havas Media expects India to be the third largest market by 2030

You are opening campuses all around the world- what is the strategy behind this and how is it helping WPP? 

Read: Look, some people might think we are mad opening offices at a time when people seem more reluctant to come into offices than most CEOs would like. But I think what we are trying to do is create a place where we can attract the best talent, where our clients could see the best talent, that talent could work together and collaborate. We have fantastic campuses in Mumbai and Gurgaon, they are really bringing 3,000-4,000 people in a building and sometimes we call it a ‘temple to creativity’. It is a place where people can come, be inspired and collaborate and do their best work. That’s what we have to do if we want more people to spend more time in the office. That is what we want in terms of collaboration, quality of work and quite frankly for people’s mental health as well.

What is the kind of impact of the ‘tech troubles’ that you expect on the advertising business?

Read: The tech troubles are really because of slowdown in revenue growth which is inevitable because when they grow so big they can’t outgrow the market. This is matched with probably over enthusiastic hiring over last 1-2 years and it is not good for people who have been impacted. But, I think the platforms remain increasingly powerful. What we are pursuing is a result of more innovation or more competition in the market. The impact of Tik Tok has been to take share away from other platforms. The growth of Amazon, which has also done the same thing. So, I think it is good for our clients to have more competition, to have more options, to have different ways to reach the consumer. 

Layoffs at Twitter, Meta, Amazon and impact on other sectors. Do you think other companies and sectors will also follow suit in large-scale employee layoffs?  Is it an opportunity for the advertising sector to get back it’s lost talent? 

Read: We have got great talent inside our agencies particularly in India. But, I am sure there is great people to work for tech companies if they want to comeback or come to work at WPP then just drop us your CV or resume, we will have a conversation. I think a little bit the ‘grass is greener on the other side’. So, I think it is good to have a bit more rebalancing if not unfortunate for the people involved. But as an industry we can provide great careers to people to work with some of the world’s largest and biggest brands to really have an impact but also to do something positive for the society.

But, we are cautious on hiring and many companies are cautious on hiring but I hope we can navigate the next 12 months without having to take massive layoffs across the organization.

Cautious on Hiring or is there a freeze on hiring?

Read: I would say we are strongly cautious on hiring. We have clients to serve and there are many talented people out there. But I want to be in a situation where when we take somebody on, we are confident that we can keep, train and develop them. I don’t want to see ups and down in that sense when we are hiring.

Finally, what are your expectations from 2023?

Read: It is going to be a challenging start to the year and it will get better as the year goes on.

Also Read: Decoding the Indianisation of Starbucks

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

In conversation with IKEA, Amazon, Xiaomi on new campaigns ahead of festive season

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Swedish furniture major, IKEA has tweaked its brand strategy for India to drive a deeper emotional connection with the consumers in the country. Launched just ahead of the festive season is the brand’s Ghar Aajao campaign. Anna Ohlin, Country Marketing Manager, IKEA India is speaking about this campaign as well as the company’s plans for the country and how after Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai, the brand’s focus is now on Delhi.

In the recently released Kantar Brandz India Top75 Valuable Brands reports, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the new number one most valuable Indian brand claiming the top spot from HDFC Bank which had held the position since the first ranking was unveiled back in 2014.

Six b2b tech brands and 11 consumer tech brands contribute 35 percent to the total value of the ranking reflecting the rise of Tech India. And six banking brands deliver 19 percent of the total value. Also notable for their performance are insurance brands which have performed well as the pandemic increased consumer focus on the protection of life and health.

Also Read: The Great Skill Reset: How are companies hiring for marketing and brand roles these days?

Storyboard18 is in conversation with Deepender Rana, Executive Managing Director, South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar and Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director, Insights Division, Kantar.

Tech brand Xiaomi is asking consumers to ‘wait, don’t buy tech yet’. Diwali is the biggest shopping season for consumers, especially for the ones looking to purchase gifts for family, friends or their own consumption. Especially with tech, big-ticket purchases happen around the auspicious occasion of Diwali. So why is Xiaomi contradicting what the industry is saying in the lead-up to the Diwali sales? Storyboard18 speaks with Anuj Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer at Xiaomi India.

Also Read: Storyboard18 x Momo Media: Let’s Talk — Mascots in Indian advertising

The great Indian festive season is here and brands across the board, have started unleashing their mega marketing campaigns. eCommerce major Amazon is launching its biggest campaign of the year. Manish Tiwary, Country Manager and Vice President, India Consumer Business at Amazon is in conversation with Storyboard18’s Delshad Irani and shared the genesis of the Amazon Silia campaign. He also shared his outlook for the festive season.

Watch the accompanying video for more.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Bookstrapping: India’s Most Fearless — true stories of extraordinary courage

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Where the mind is without fear…

Where in India is Galwan located? And where is filmmaker SS Rajamouli when you need him?

This is perhaps the best way for me to introduce you to ‘India’s most fearless’ – now a trilogy of books honouring our men in uniform. The third book was released this independence day and features ten true stories of extraordinary courage and fearlessness, providing glimpses of the incredible heroism of Indian soldiers. The first and second book in the series had 14 stories each.

These ‘as-yet-untold stories’ are edge of the seat phenomenon. Non-fiction writing of this kind is an extremely nuanced skill. Other than the customary fact checks, is the need to keep up the pace, while not dropping the gravitas by a single notch.

Here are five reasons to pick up this book.

1. You can never be prepared to face what comes next. With our marginal knowledge of the Sino-Indian crises, we learn here that decades-old protocol stipulated that both sides be unarmed. Suddenly, Havildar Dharamvir discovered that over a thousand Chinese Army soldiers were sprinting towards his unit. Now, they had been fighting smaller numbers of Chinese for two hours before that. But this was their main force, an all-out assault that the Chinese side was launching! The authors talk about ‘a curious mix of determination and fearlessness, tinged with an edge of foreboding that was visible in the soldiers eyes’. As the soldiers steeled themselves, rallied by their commanding officer and a group of younger officers- they were in mood to step back! And yes, since you’ve already googled it, the Galwan River flows from the disputed Aksai Chin area administered by China to the Ladakh Union Territory of India.

Also Read: Storyboard18 | Bookstrapping: Tears of the Begums – Stories of Survivors of the Uprising of 1857

2. Put yourself in the shoes of Rekha Singh, a middle school mathematics teacher in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, who was taking a scheduled class. Her phone had been set to stay silent in class, except for calls from one person.She was speaking to a man she had married less than six months earlier. ‘”I won’t have a phone signal for a few days,’ army medic Naik Deepak Singh said. ‘Aage jaana hai (We have to proceed to the forward area.) Rekha tried to read her husband’s expression through the glitchy, blocky video, but could only barely make out that bemused half-smile she had come to know well. She also knew not to prolong conversations, given how delicate the signal always was when he made a video call. She quickly muttered the usual hurried plea to take care, stay warm and to call her as soon as he could next. Nothing much she could do. Would you call this helplessness or bravery of another kind?

3. There is a first-hand account of Operation Randori Behak, a fearsome Special Forces encounter in the mountains of Kashmir’s Keran sector. I’m not giving you more on this!

4. Army stories are never short on inspiration – meet Nitika, the wife of young Major Vibhuti Shankar Dhoundiyal, who was killed in action fighting terrorists in the aftermath of the February 2019 Pulwama terror attack. The tragedy persuaded Nitika to drop her corporate job and join the Indian Army. In her account is embodied the voice and grit of the many proud, grieving military families who fade completely out of view each year in the wake of gallantry awards and official recognition.

5. There is also the story of Cyclone Tauktae in the Arabian Sea, in which more than 16,500 houses were damaged and 40,000 trees were uprooted. Navy ships rescued more than 600 people (and continued to look for more) after waves up to eight metres (26 feet) high hammered offshore oil installations, even as engineers were working to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people.

The reader’s heart will go out to Group Captain Varun Singh, who was the sole survivor of a horrific helicopter accident in which Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat and 12 others were killed. He was a decorated young fighter pilot,and his story captivated the nation as he fought to stay alive for a week. Tragically, he didn’t make it. I cannot get over the story of treacherous, irrational bloodletting by China and that of an Indian Air Force pilot who ejected from his doomed fighter less than two seconds before it hit the ground, only to find that he was…

Read the book to find out more.

Also Read: Bookstrapping: Hul Hul — The suppression of the Santal Rebellion in Bengal, 1855

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

There will be a complete change in how people perceive real money gaming: Deepak Gullapalli

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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It’s been a busy year for Head Digital Works. Known for its marquee real money game property, Ace2three, the company has not only touched a customer base of 40+ million registered players but also brought Shah Rukh Khan on board to be the face of the brand. Overall, the business is working on building a strong brand recall and establishing itself as a safe and credible platform.

Founder Deepak Gullapalli says a lot has changed since they started operations. The biggest change being in perception around real money gaming.

“Back in 2011 if I had to go out and say that I operate online rummy, the first question that would come would be ‘is, is it legal, is it good’? But that is no longer how it is,” he tells Storyboard18.

Edited excerpts.

You have been around for quite some time now. Tell us about the journey and the major changes the industry has seen?

When we launched in 2009-2010 there weren’t any smartphones. So it was only a desktop. People used to browse the internet to play games. Between 2009 to about 2014, 100 percent of our customers were playing on their desktops. But when the smartphone revolution happened during 2014-2015 we saw a super-fast shift from desktop to mobile phones in about 18 months. We had about 90 percent of our customers move to mobile devices. This transition also helped the industry also grow because users started playing games while on the move. Irrespective of whether they were there on a bus or a cab or on a train they were playing. Staying home was no longer the prerequisite for playing games. This also pushed the time users spent on playing. On a day to day average, time spent per customer increased by over 3X. This is also when we saw a shift in geographies. Our users were initially from tier I cities but with smartphones the user base started spreading. We saw users from different economic profiles who came from what we today call the Bharat Market.

With change in user profile, your messaging must have changed too? What are the changes you have done to your marketing strategies with the diversification of your audience?

With users moving from desktop to mobile we changed our marketing strategies completely. The biggest change was in the ad formats. Pre 2015, at least 95 percent of our ad spends went towards text ads which is your typical Google search ads. Today, we don’t spend more than 20 percent of our marketing budgets towards text ads. Our focus is on video ads.

Coming to the change in messaging, what we tell our customers now is completely different from what we were telling earlier. Earlier we used to ask users to play online rummy because online rummy was new but that was the message 7-8 years back. Today, it’s more of a feature driven marketing strategy. We are telling our customers about our commitment towards quality and also focusing on the trust factor because that is the most important aspect of a business like ours.

At the end of the day users are doing financial transactions so it is very important to focus on safety especially given the fact that there are hundreds of gaming websites being advertised including ones from outside India that operate illegally in the country. So it’s very important to make sure consumers are protected and they are playing on legitimate apps and sites. This is the essence of our messaging today. It is very important to focus on safety, security and trust and these factors are part of almost all our campaigns.

Also Read: Why Indian brands are advertising in NYC’s Times Square

Even if we look at the recent SRK campaign, we used him to spread awareness and not just popularize our brand.

Our endeavor is to constantly educate the user about the space and help them understand that they need to look at it as a form of entertainment only.

The last two years saw platforms like yours clock huge user base numbers, did your marketing spends also go up?

In the last two-three years our annual marketing spends have doubled. The industry is growing rapidly and as a company we are growing at an average of about 35 percent – 40 percent CAGR. Doubling of marketing spends, that kind of reduces that profitability but it is important to focus on marketing mainly because of the number of companies that have come up in the space in the last five years. Additionally, digital marketing itself has become very expensive, unlike what it was five years ago and digital takes up 60 percent of our spends.

Getting SRK on board was a huge move? How did it help the platform? Did you see a huge spike in traffic after the campaign went live?

We can say the traffic we got on the platform in the recent times is because the spends on this campaign with him was significantly higher than the other campaigns we did. Then again with SRK our target was never clocking traffic numbers. Our competitors had celebrity endorsers for a long time but we waited it out and got SRK to help us build a brand recall and that happened like never before. During the responsible gaming campaign featuring SRK, we observed an overall lift of 636 percent on YouTube with reference to A23 keywords. A23 cares, which was our symbol of Responsible Gaming, saw a 170 percent increase in interest on Google Trends during the first 3 days of the campaign. Average registrations on our platforms are growing 0.5X month on month and we have witnessed a 30 percent increase in conversions ever since we signed SRK (First 2 months after the announcement of getting SRK as our brand ambassador). However, there were other factors too that contributed to the growth.

There is a lot being said on regulations. Do you think self-regulation is enough for the space? Also, do you think that there should be a central law governing the space even if it’s a state subject?

We do have a lot of federations comprising the leading place, in place for self-regulation, but self-regulation works only to a certain extent and it’s not enforceable by law. So if some company wants to do whatever they want to and don’t want to be part of the federation, we can’t really enforce it on them by law. The industry has become so large and the number of consumers playing on these websites and apps has grown so much that government intervention and a guiding regulation is an absolute necessity primarily to protect the Indian consumers and ensure fair conduct. Regulations will also help in getting rid of illegal gambling companies taking away money from the consumer and the country without a single rupee being paid in tax. So, whether it happens at the state level or a central level as an industry would we welcome anything. Having said that, a central regulation will help in terms of having to follow one set of rules. If every state starts having their own rules it will be a little challenging for both the businesses and the users.

There is so much being done to spread awareness and promote real money gaming as a game of skill — has the perception actually changed?

Perception change is not an overnight thing. It’s a long term process. The process according to me started in 2014-15 itself and is still on.

In 2011 if I had to go out and say that I operate online rummy the first question that would come would be ‘is, is it legal’? But that is no longer how it is. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry with investments coming from across the globe. It is looked at as another booming industry and so the perception has been changing and will continue to change for good.

In the next five to ten years there will be a complete change in how people perceive real money gaming.

Also Read: Storyboard18 | Bookstrapping: Tears of the Begums – Stories of Survivors of the Uprising of 1857

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The Great Skill Reset: How are companies hiring for marketing and brand roles these days?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The marketing and brand management function in companies across various industries is witnessing a significant change in the way their roles are evolving. In the wake of the pandemic, as rapid digitization has taken over various industries, there has been an evolution of the traditional marketing roles as well.

With marketers of today wearing multiple hats, companies are now tweaking the way they hire candidates. There is a willingness to hire from new-age industries, look for unique skills and pick candidates who will bring innovative thinking to the table.

Experts that Storyboard18 spoke to share that as marketing becomes more customer-centric, the skill sets in demand today include ‘analytics’, ‘data’, ‘statistics’ and ‘systems thinking’.

Customer Centricity matters 

Mercedes-Benz India, which launched direct-to-customer business model ‘Retail of the Future’ (ROTF) in 2021, highlights that this model provides real time customer data that enables the company to sharpen its campaigns and CRM initiatives.

Also Read: upGrad co-founder reveals big hiring plans ahead of funding round

“This has led to our marketing efforts evolving from traditional mass market campaigns to targeted, one-to-one customer focused, customised initiatives,” says Santosh Iyer, vice president – sales & marketing, Mercedes-Benz India. He says, “Today, we have ‘Customer Journey Managers’ as opposed to ‘Brand Managers’. The ‘Customer Journey Managers’ now play a key role in curating end-to-end customer experiences which align with the luxury quotient associated with the brand,”

Customer centricity scores high for fast moving consumer goods firm Nestlé India as well. The company, which sells products such as Maggi, Nescafe and Kit Kat, emphaises that its hiring function is led by customer understanding and centricity along with the ability to leverage data-centric approach to finding consumer first solutions.

“The core aspect of consumer-centric approach still remains crucial and is at the center of our selection strategy. With the changing media habits of our consumers, we are keen on exploring talent who are exposed to omnichannel approach to brand design and digital to understand the new-age consumer deeply,” says Anurag Patnaik, director- human resources, Nestlé India.

Entrepreneurial mindset, agility in demand

Companies are also looking to hire candidates who would take ownership of products or services they work on. They live, breathe and understand the products/services they work on and take full ownership even if things go south.

Also Read: Storyboard18 | Stacks & Strategies: Mastercard’s Raja Rajamannar on tech adoption in brand marketing

“It’s equally important to see that the candidate just does not fit the role but also has a potential to grow in it as well over time. We also look out for traits that are important to ensure that the candidate can fit into the PepsiCo culture based on attributes like ownership, being consumer centric, etc,” says a PepsiCo India spokesperson.

Mercedes’ Iyer also emphasises the company’s focus on hiring candidates who display ownership. “There is a clear focus on candidates to have an entrepreneurial mindset as marketing extends beyond traditional domains and incumbents need to add value in business,” he adds.

Agility is another trait that companies mentioned as a desired trait.

“The biggest challenge that pandemic has posed is to deal with uncertainties. Hence, to get talent from diverse backgrounds who have a strong ability to deal with business uncertainties with utmost agility is key,” adds a PepsiCo India’s spokesperson.

Also Read: Job woes increased for those between 18 and 21 years in last 4 years: Report

Upskilling is critical

Digital skill set is a pre-requisite for all companies today and emphasis is being given for candidates who are passionate about customer experience. Companies are also investing in upskilling their existing workforce as well.

Mercedes-Benz, for instance, has tied up with LinkedIn Learning to provide an access platform for people to upskill themselves.

Iyer tells us how it works. “Managers plan each individual’s growth trajectory by strategically mapping courses which will help them transition to the future of marketing, Data, Martech.” he adds, “From the organization standpoint, it is essential that the candidates are also upskilled in the future of mobility, Industry 4.0 and marketing luxury EVs.”

While the fundamentals of how a solid marketing engine works hasn’t changed, the various parts of the marketing machine need to be upgraded in a fast-evolving consumer and media landscape. And as some of the country’s biggest brands look to switch gears, they are on the look out for talent that will fit in the new engine.

Also Read: Storyboard18 – Stacks & Strategies | Spotify and the case of programmatic audio ads: Are advertisers and users listening?

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Indian adland becomes more mature in matters of credit

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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VICE World News’ The Unfiltered Tour campaign is stealing the thunder and the trophies at award shows across the world this year. At the world’s most prestigious ad award show Cannes Lions, The Unfiltered Tour has already got quite a haul- a Grand Prix, a Gold, a Silver, and two Bronze Lions. It has also qualified under many other categories and may bring home some more Lions.

The work was led by PG Aditiya and Gautam Reghunath when they ran the show at Dentsu Webchutney. It took the duo and an army of writers, animators, sound engineers, researchers, historians, freelancers, and a client team to conceptualise and execute the ambitious project.

18 months were spent putting together a guided tour for visitors at the British Museum, which houses some of the world’s most disputed artefacts. Through The Unfiltered Tour visitors to the museum could scan the artefacts using Instagram filters and unlock an augmented reality (AR) experience that visually teleported the objects back to their homeland.

Three screenshots worth and plenty more!

via @Binaifer_dulani pic.twitter.com/XmSNNlvwy3

— Gautam (@gautxm) June 21, 2022

Aditiya and Reghunath executed the campaign and then decided to call it quits at Dentsu Webchutney. A few core team members on the campaign also left the agency to join the both of them at Talented, the newest creative shop in town.

Dentsu Webchutney has been entering the campaign for awards and has been bringing shiny metal home from across the globe. Every time a few trophies are added to the agency’s shelves, they tag Aditiya, Reghunath, and a few others on social posts giving them due credit and respect. So much so that Gurbaksh Singh, chief innovation officer, Dentsu Creative India, couriered a replica of the Grand Prix trophy to Reghunath before he flew to Cannes and asked him to unbox it when they win. Singh had a gut feeling that the campaign will go far and wide.

hahah not this cheeky little Nostradamus @gurbaksh2100 3d printing & couriering us a replica Lion almost an entire week ago & asking me to open it only post 11pm last night. Congratulations to my amazing #TheUnfilteredHistoryTour @webchutney team on our @Cannes_Lions Grand Prix❤️ pic.twitter.com/lpEtnZNOcY

— Gautam (@gautxm) June 21, 2022

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The team spirit of Dentsu Webchutney and Talented is setting the right example for the industry. It says a lot about how the Indian creative community is becoming more mature than notorious in matters of credits. However, technically these trophies are going to Aditiya and Reghunath’s former agency. We asked Aditiya how it feels when that happens and more.

Here’s what he had to say.

What is it like when you get big awards (not technically) for a mega campaign that you worked on for your former agency? How does it feel to see trophies on their shelves?

Proud. Nervous. Exciting. Fulfilling. Confusing. Challenging. All sorts of feelings, to be honest. But I know The Unfiltered History Tour is proud of us. It started as a casual conversation between Gautam (my ex-CEO at Webchutney and now co-founder at Talented) and me, referencing an episode from Empires of Dirt – a VICE original series on YouTube that we both loved. Ever since, over a 100 people have stepped in to do the bravest work of their lives (yet), amidst a raging pandemic, across 10 plus countries – and some of us, for months even after moving on from our jobs officially… because this discourse matters. We’re already seeing its impact with smaller museums and private collectors around the world changing their stance on repatriation. The history buff in me is overjoyed.

The creative person in me knows what he signed up for. Most of the members of The Unfiltered History Tour’s core team are now our founding team members at Talented. We’re all grateful to have left an agency we love dearly after crafting our most impactful project yet. And now, we’re working together again, as a founding team, to build our own agency from scratch. The Unfiltered History Tour is on record our last huge win at Dentsu Webchutney, but in spirit, it’s our first huge win at Talented. We can’t wait to outdo it.

The Lions are not coming to your new work address. What’s your tip for folks who are in a situation like yours?

I think the Lions *are* coming to our new address in every way – apart from the ‘technical’ one Funny coincidence that this project is also about topics like ownership and representation.

Also Read: Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2022: Indian Jurors speak

Make no mistake. We want Talented’s clients to challenge us to outdo the craft, research, detail and commitment our leadership gave the Unfiltered History Tour last year. We want our colleagues to expect nothing less than the kind of deep learning and management their founding team perfected while working on this project. We also want our favourite ex-colleagues and newbies at Dentsu to be motivated by these massive wins like never before.

I’m convinced that the impact of the tour is large enough for more than one or two entities to bear its fruits. We’ve worked with Pixel Party, an incredible external tech-partner for developing and deploying the Instagram filters. With Shaleen Wadhwana, an external cultural historian who helped us perfect our visual narrative. With Ronak Chugh, an external director from Rooted Films for the project’s trailer that went viral worldwide. With over two dozen consultants and freelancers, over 18 months. Each of them and their organisations consider The Unfiltered History Tour their most impactful work to date. These Lions, symbolically if not physically, belong in all of these work addresses.

What according to you makes ‘The Unfiltered Tour’ a winning campaign piece?

It is the first large-scale project around colonialism to be recognised by global creativity festivals. I think juries across shows have found it a necessary discourse to recognise. They’re impressed by the boldness and irreverence in its execution. And they find it a great translation of VICE’s mission to push underreported stories and narratives.

What’s a bit about the campaign you haven’t shared yet?

How we pitched it. The Unfiltered History Tour’s first-ever presentation to VICE was through a scratch film – not a narration of the idea. While the numbers, tone and details in this scratch are all only illustrative – it helped everyone get on the same page about our broad intent, execution and potential for impact in one go. Probably one of the best early decisions in the project that set the tone for the next 18 months.

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Dentsu Webchutney, VMLY&R India win Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2022

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In the 2022 edition of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Dentsu Webchutney won a Grand Prix in Radio & Audio Lions for its ‘The Unfiltered Tour’ campaign for Vice Media. The campaign, which is the most shortlisted Indian entry (so far), also picked up two Bronze Lions and one Silver Lion too in the same category.

In a behind-the-scenes blog for Storyboard18, Dentsu Webchutney’s former CEO Gautam Reghunath described ‘The Unfiltered Tour’ as a “project of serious rigour and ambition”.

The key members who worked on the campaign had multiple secret visits to the museum and spent over 18 months to put together the campaign. And, here’s what it is all about. VICE World News and Dentsu Webchutney launched a new guided tour for visitors at the British Museum in London. Interestingly, the museum has nothing to do with the campaign directly. British Museum is home to some of the world’s most disputed artefacts. Through ‘The Unfiltered Tour’ visitors to the museum could scan these artefacts using the Instagram filters and unlock an augmented reality (AR) experience that took them back in time and visually teleported the objects back to their homeland.

It’s for the first time that visitors to the museum were able to hear the story behind each artefact in the voices of experts from the countries they were taken from and not from where it’s currently housed. A moment of guerrilla genius that gave each of them an opportunity to play ‘audio tour guide’ right under the museum’s nose, said Reghunath. Taking this further, ‘The Unfiltered History Tour’ also extends into a ten-part podcast series featuring these experts, providing a broader education on the artefacts, as well as the history and ongoing impact of colonialism.

Watch all about ‘The Unfiltered Tour’ here:

The other campaign that picked a Grand Prix is VMLY&R’s The Killer Pack campaign for Maxx Flash in Health & Wellness Lions. In India, garbage collection points act as major breeding grounds for diseases like dengue and malaria, while mosquito repellent coils are only used to fight mosquitoes inside homes, Maxx Flash decided to change that practice. The mosquito repellent brand introduced The Killer Pack, a 100 percent biodegradable, innovative packaging lined with 5 percent Active Probiotic Bacillus thuringiensis, which kills mosquito larvae when disposed of in garbage dumps, dustbins, and stagnant water, helping to break the vicious cycle.

Watch the brand’s case video here:

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Storyboard18 – Stacks & Strategies: Adtech Trends To Watch For

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The role of marketing has always been to bridge a connect a brand and its consumers. Over the years data and technology has played a pivotal role in bridging this gap. Many would argue that technology has evolved to become the backbone for driving effective and efficient marketing solutions so much so that digital is set to overtake a more established media like television.

As per an estimate put out by GroupM in February, the total ad spend across media in India is estimated to cross the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in 2022, even as digital is set to overtake TV as the largest advertising medium in 2022, accounting for 45 percent share of the total ad pie.

Storyboard18 spoke to digital experts to understand and identify key adtech trends that will define the India market in 2022 and beyond.

Preparing for Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is the next stage of the web evolution that would make the internet more intelligent or process information with near-human-like intelligence. In Web 3.0, users won’t distinguish between physical and digital experiences. They will expect work, friends, goods, and experiences to be connected virtually.

“This interconnected, live, persistent virtual world with the physical world or reality is also popularly known as the Metaverse. Brands would start leveraging this virtual world as well as components powering the virtual worlds to build Brand experience & assets, drive consumer connect, Associate with the cause, build loyalty, own a moment, or drive real or virtual sales,” says Vishal Jacob, chief digital officer, Wavemaker India.

However, some experts also believe that Metaverse led marketing is still at a nascent stage in India.

“The role of Metaverse in a brand’s larger digital/marketing strategy still needs to be thought through and charted out well before making that big leap. Meta is one of the pillars of the brand experience – when consumers need to experience a brand in the virtual world, not the entirety of the consumer experience,” says Monaz Todywalla, CEO, PHD India.

Return of impersonalisation

One of the trends that agencies have begun to see is the return of impersonalisation – which is a direct result of the personalisation approach not being able to achieve the desired results, says PHD India’s Todywalla.

“By targeting groups or cohorts of consumers with customer segmentation rather than individuals, the advertising tech industry is now finding a mid-way of impersonalising content by taking a step back from hyper-personalisation – turning to strategies and creatives that speak to the common category of potential consumer pools. This largely eliminates the risk of not being able to connect with audiences on the desired level and creates a safe but sustainable model,” she explains.

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Identity resolution of consumers

Third-party cookie deprecation is an industry-wide alarm to regain trust and imbibe transparency with the audience. The following are the areas of impact – targeting audiences based on behavioural data, frequency, verification, custom audience, measurement and lastly return on investment (RoI).

“Focus will shift towards identity resolution by leveraging various data sources like panel, contextual, social listening and logged in environmental data. Solutions like unique ID, contextual targeting, hashed email, 1P data, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) & Artificial Intelligence (AI) are proposed around these areas. The need is not just Customer Data Platforms (CDP) or Data Management Platforms (DMP) but a complete data platform tool that provides effective yet meaningful data,” notes Rohan Chincholi, head – digital services, Havas Media Group India.

“Marketers will have to do a series of test and learn to identify the right solution depending on the use-case as party cookies have e ramifications across targeting, optimisation and measurement,” says Wavemaker’s Jacob.

Data Enrichment

Using first-party data combined with data collected from third-party external sources (like socio-demographic and geographic details) can help boost the visibility of consumer needs, helping brands cater to them effectively across channels.

“Furthermore, it also helps segregate target audiences into specific categories which can then be used for creating more accurate, macro-level strategies. Consumers are more likely to respond well to advertising when it’s done right and data enrichment undoubtedly plays a huge role in augmenting these experiences, adding to the brand’s loyalty value in the long run,” notes Toadywalla.

According to her, the most vital aspect of it all is the ability to foresee the consumer’s purchase intent and more actively identify markers of customer buying behaviour.

“Smart segmentation based on available data sets can make it doubly easier for businesses to reach out to different demographics but with focused precision, thanks to the high-value data obtained from the process,” she adds.

Single marketing lens

Today, data and insights are stored in different dashboards, consumer data is stored in multiple locations. This data is not available across all systems & lacks a central location for critical consumer information.

“There is a pressing need to have a single lens view of brand data that encapsulates all sources to give a holistic picture on cross functional insights (For instance, increase in organic traffic due to branding, impact of branding on branded query searches). That is when connection, context and content parameters seamlessly integrate to deliver meaningful media experiences,” concludes Chincholi.

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