 Now as the digital wave in India gathers momentum with rapidly growing smartphone penetration and increasingly mobile consumer base, have branch really understood how to create a strategy around digital. How can brands adapt to the digital medium to use it not just as different platforms but as an effective tool for brand communication? To talk about this, joining us in the studio is Mark Henning, the head of media and digital for Africa, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region at Millwood Brown, one of the world's leading research agencies with expertise in effective advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research. Since 2009 of course, Millwood has offered annual predictions. They forecast crucial digital and media trends for brands to build strategy. They had 2016 annual digital and media predictions outlined seven such key trends as well. It's great to have you with us on the show Mark. Thanks Vikram. So how is the digital landscape looking to you right now in India because a lot has been said about this. India being a very different market, we're leapfrogging a lot in terms of the entire PC bit is gone and there's so much of mobile happening. In that kind of landscape, what's your understanding? How different is this market from the many other geographies you're working? Well, I think there's a lot of change going on within India at the moment. We've seen digital advertising really growing quite strongly, 13.5% of overall media spend at the moment, forecast to continue to grow going to the future. But as you say, one of the interesting changes in India is that mobile is really taken over. The PC stage is going to be I guess left behind or leapfrogged along the way. So that creates some interesting opportunities because the rest of the world is still trying to understand that whole mobile space as well. So India might have felt you're behind from the PC stage, but actually you're up with everyone in terms of the mobile stage and what that means and how to play out. It's interesting that you mention opportunities over there. So when you're leapfrogging the PC bit, what are the unique opportunities that India has right now and how is it poised against what's happening in the rest of the world? How evolved are we when we talk about the mobile advertising landscape? Yeah, I think mobile generally is an area that people are really trying to understand more about. It's growing very rapidly, but people are really learning how best to involve in that environment. It's a device that's always on. You're connected all the time. It's a very personal device. So the rules of engaging consumers in that environment is quite different. So one of the things that we are finding all around the world and is very relevant for India as well is what context and how are people consuming the content in that environment. One thing that we also see around the world is that receptivity to advertising is quite low in the mobile environment. They're more used to seeing ads in print in outdoor on TV than they are in mobile environment. It's a bit more of an intrusion. So for brands to really understand how consumers are using that device, what are they using it for, gives them the opportunities for when consumers will be open to receiving messages and what type of messages they'll be open to receiving. You talked about television and print. Now it's interesting because these two have been the darlings of the advertisers and this has happened for a long time, but digital is quickly gathering momentum. It seems to be the base of growth is phenomenal. Where does that leave television and print right? Now when it comes to advertising because one aspect of it is, and this is the larger view that I'm getting, is that television has been quick to adapt to the changes that digital is bringing about but not so much in print. You agree with that point of view? Well, print is a really interesting one especially in the case of India. In terms of print around the world has really seen a decline as digital has really grown. Whereas in India, print still remains a very, very strong media. So I guess in this market that gives quite a different paradigm for what that means for print and how it's going to adapt over time. TV, on the other hand, remains a very, very strong mass reach vehicle. That's where it's held its power. It's also a media where people have put a lot of money into and they know it works. It's been proven over a long period of time, right? So people are very attached to TV campaigns. It comes to move it in? That's exactly right. So one of the things that we see in the digital space is that people are actually just taking their TV campaigns and putting them into the digital video environment. And I think one of the lessons that we would say for India marketers is that's not always the best strategy. The digital environment is quite different. You've got a range of different contexts. So YouTube, you can skip after the first five seconds of the video. On Facebook, you've actually got to click on the video to actually be displayed the video and there's a range of different formats. So how to succeed in that environment is quite different. And the type of content you might need. So in that skippable environment, you want to grab attention up front. You might want to get your brand out there up front. Whereas in the TV environment, it's more laid back. People let the media wash over you. So you don't necessarily have to grab their attention so much up front. So it requires some different techniques and requires some, I guess, made for specific environments, content to be created along the way. And one of our predictions this year is that marketers are going to waste money on digital video because they're just going to take a lot of their TV content and throw it across. And some people will actually not want to receive just a standard message. So you've got the opportunity in the digital environment to engage with people and do things a little bit differently. So why not grab it? And I guess a couple of good examples of that is an example I can can think of is in a vine environment. So a six second short video on a loop, OK? Not a lot of time to get a message across. You certainly can't take the first six seconds of your TVC and throw it into that environment and hope it's going to work. All right, so creating some specific content around that, as Nissen did for the launch of one of their cars, where one of the key messages they wanted to get across was it went from 0 to 100 in less than six seconds. Right. So they used the vine video. They showed the car accelerating and then it did it in less than six seconds. So they had a presenter there with who needs six seconds as the sign that comes up. So they used the format to be part of the message and it had permission to play in that environment. So it was using the current format and was well received by the target audience. The people who are having the most success, the ones that are sitting there thinking, well, where are the consumers going to best engage with my content? What messages do I want to get across? How are they going to be consuming the vehicles, whether it's going to be on mobile or or a tablet? Or is it going to be in the TV in their lounge room? And what type of communication do I need to get in that? All right. So how can I tie all that together so it achieves the objectives I want to achieve? Sure. And a key is a good example here of how they actually bought all those elements together. So you had a sponsorship of the Australian Open Tennis. They ran their TVC campaigns. They ran their sponsorship across the tennis coverage. But they also had an integrated app that allowed Sam Groff to serve on the TV as part of the ad. If you had downloaded the app, you could actually stand in front of your TV and interact with that app on your mobile phone. And how do you do that? And return the serve. Oh, you return the serve? So he serves. You watch it on the TV and then you try and return the serve. Right. And you gain points for that. They made it a bit of a game along the way. And they had a big promotion around that. So just use that opportunity of deeper engagement that the mobile device gives you, but integrate it in with the broader campaign. So I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is that they treat digital as one big bucket. But digital is actually a whole heap of different environments. A lot of marketers, a lot of advertisers are looking at social media much more than they were in the past. Are there possibilities that are very cost effective that need to be tapped into that are waiting to be explored further? Yeah, and there are. And I think there's the thing you have to be careful of around there is it's not for every brand. So some brands, it's great. So Red Bull is a great example. They put on major events and they do a parachute jump from the stratosphere. It's great from a social media point of view. People share it around. It's news. It's entertaining content, an interesting content. It fits beautifully with the Red Bull brand in terms of extreme sports and giving you a lift and all that sort of thing. But for other brands, trying something like that, if it doesn't fit with what your brand's about and how you're moving your brand forward, then just because you can do it, I wouldn't always recommend that you do do it. Some people are trying to manufacture a social media viral campaign or something along those lines. But it's very, very difficult. You've got to get that right. There's no secret formula. There's no secret formula. In fact, that's what I was going to ask you. What are the key elements when you want to create a campaign that is going to go hopefully vital? No secret formula, but a couple of things that might help you along the way. One, humor. Make it funny. Content that is funny tends to get a better reaction from people is more likely to be passed on by people along the way. Humor works. I guess the second thing and one of the key things is don't just put it out there and hope. You've actually got to support it with above the line media and push people to the site. So we find that the most successful viral campaigns, the ones that get the most views are the ones that have actually had a very good support campaign that sits around it. They're not just a piece in their own right. And whatever you do, and I would argue that whatever you do, whatever part of digital you're using or whatever media you're using, you should be looking at how you're going to measure the effectiveness of it and whether it's working for you or not working for you. So in the social media space, there's a lot of positive, negative sentiment type of information you can get back in terms of what are people talking about? Is it working for you? So you do a bit of a test run? Yeah, we do a bit of measurement around that. We look at it from understanding the social metrics around it, but we also look at what the impact is on the brand, because you can get positive and negative comments, but might have a different impact on the brand. So you've got to be a little bit careful. A good example that comes to mind right now, Mark, is Facebook and FreeBasics right now. They put so much into their campaign considering it's a digital brand by itself, but to be kind of pushing for something that was largely a social cause right now, and now the first step has been taken, the regulator has come in and said, look at this point in time, net neutrality stays. Where does that leave a brand like Facebook? Do you think they got it wrong with FreeBasics and how much they put themselves into it? Not sure. I mean, I think that's really a question for them as to whether they feel they got that right or wrong along the way. But I think championing that cause could easily have a very positive impact for them as a brand out there in the market. If it had worked. Well, the fact that it didn't work, they're still showing they support that out there in the environment. So if consumers have got on board and think that's a great idea, regardless of what the regulator has said, that could still have a very strong positive impact for Facebook brand. Yes, they might need a different strategy in terms of growing their brand and building that out in the marketplace. But that doesn't just because the regulator hasn't gone that way, doesn't mean it's a bad experience for the brand. Mark, on a slightly broader note, to talk about the trends when it comes to digital marketing right now in India, going into 2016 still, we're at the start of the year, what do you see happening right now? What stage are we at and where are we headed now in the immediate future? Continued growth, I think that's the key trend and continued growth in that mobile space. That's the one that's going to keep developing, keep growing. I think the interesting thing in India is the role of the infrastructure. So things like video, which have really taken off elsewhere in the world, what's going to happen with the bandwidth and the consumer experience around the video in India, I think is one of the challenges in front of the Indian marketplace. But I don't think there's any doubt that digital, in all its forms will continue to grow and take a bigger share of the advertising dollar. That's what we've seen elsewhere in the world happen. I believe that's what will happen in India. I think the interesting thing now is for marketers, is the smart ones are the ones that are going to get ahead of the game, right? They're going to be the ones that are actually bringing and thinking about digital right up front. Not thinking about a little bit of add-on. I've got a little bit of extra money experiment with that. They're going to be thinking about, what's the right role for the media? How do I incorporate digital in that? What type of content do I need to put in that? How do I tailor it to make sure that I'm getting the right messaging? I think that the really successful marketers in India, are the ones that are going to be bringing that up front and thinking about it right at the start of their campaign processing. So stay ahead of the curve is what you seem to be suggesting and sometimes a bit of experimentation, taking a few risks over there as well, might be the order of the day, considering it's at such a nascent state. So there is a lot to gain from there and the possibilities are unique. Absolutely, I think risk is not a bad thing. So long as you're measuring and trying to understand what it's doing, learning about mistakes is a great way to move forward as much as anything else. So as long as you're getting that measurement and feedback back, you can learn a lot by taking risks. Mark, many thanks for joining us on this edition of our show from logo to impact.