Customer & tech key to branding: experts

Experts believe that changing profiles of consumers and disruption in technology have thrown up new challenges in the field of advertising and marketing (which are part & parcel of branding), but, however, the same have also opened up a huge window of opportunity that needs to be embraced.

While, Omnicom Group Inc Chairman & CEO AsiaPacific, India, Middle East, Africa (APIMA) Tim Love pointed out the differences in the value system of new age customers and the need thereof, to develop newer ways of communicating and developing new proccessed to accelarate growth, Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej said that there is a need to understand where the customer would be in the future and create a brand equity based on that.

Similarly, 20:20 Social Consulting Director Dave Evans observed how the new age media has taken away the traditional opportunities of interruption (like ads in the middle of a TV programme among others), by laying more emphasise on the customer and need to find newer ways of sending across the message to the customer. Stating that one must change the rules of reaching out a bit, he said the focus must be on allowing the customers to engage with the communication of the brand and that this can be done by understanding the new age media and the consumer.

Taking this forward, Yahoo India Managing Director Arun Tadanki said that companies must view online advertising differently while wooing firms to increase their budget allocation for online advertising. Stressing on the importance of digital media, BBDO President & CEO Worldwide Andrew Robertson said that times have changed and that the ‘medium is no more the message’ but ‘the message is the medium’.