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Brands, firms need to consistently innovate, says GroupM’s Prasanth Kumar

It was a good year for WPP-owned media agency GroupM steered by Prasanth Kumar since May 2019. On the sidelines of Brew, an annual GroupM event for clients held in Gurugram, Kumar spoke of new accounts, changing the world of media and the increasing importance of speed in offering marketing solutions. Edited excerpts:

How was 2019 for GroupM and what is 2020 looking like?

Compared to the last 2-3 years, 2019 was a good year for us. It had multiple challenges and all of us know about it. But we won Hindustan Unilever’s digital business, Mondelez, Vivo, Parle Agro…all of this gave momentum to our business. We also won the Emami business making it a good mix of MNC and home-grown clients.

How have things changed in the media agency business?

Ten years ago the media plan had TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising. It’s gone much beyond that. In digital, earlier there was just Google. Now there are so many over-the-top (OTT) video streaming platforms, social media, influencer marketing and the entire e-commerce sector which has buzzed up.

This brings on many more stacks in a media plan as a solution for marketing. There are abundant content opportunities for brands to co-create. The new tariff order has disrupted broadcasting, there’s OTT disruption.

Lots of print publications have strengthened their digital offerings. So how wide can you get, how deep can you go, is extremely critical to the marketing solutions you offer.

Opportunity is not on a single media bank. Throughout the day, a consumer’s life is dynamic. You read a newspaper, listen to the radio, consume Facebook, Google on a mobile, or have appointment to watch linear TV which has fixed hours for shows. These days even intelligent technologies is making us learn more about the consumers—where they are and what content are they consuming.

So culture becomes essential to content if you want to co-create, or gain insight on how you want to reach out to consumers. Look at TikTok. Millions of people are becoming fans of certain celebrities on TikTok. Earlier, only films stars were celebrities. Now there are TikTok celebs. These are opportunities for a media planner.

Under content, which formats are growing the fastest. Is it video?

There are films, web series, short formats, which is all video. Then there are events. Sports is also very attractive for content. Then there are genre experts or influencers, as we call them. There is also user generated content. As a format, audio-video has more power to stay connected with consumers. But native advertising and getting influencers to write about things are by no means smaller. But it has to be done in an impactful manner to get the consumers’s attention. It is not enough to ride on pop culture, one needs to also contribute to it. So this is beyond media plan. We have co-created content for Unilever, Pepsi, Volvo and Castrol.

Which will be the most powerful platform in this decade?

Not sure if there will be one medium or a wider set of opportunities for brands. But learning from consumer needs should be consistent. How they are evolving is an important aspect. Some media platforms may consolidate, some new ones may come with unique advantage for consumers. Some more Indic platforms may get launched. There is opportunity for OTTs to look at languages.

We are a uniquely placed country. Creating content in regional languages become an opportunity for us to deeply connect with consumers. One thing that will change is speed. Brands, companies, supply chain (media owners) will consistently need to innovate.

Source: Livemint