What is Mindshare’s mantra for successful digital media buying?

In an uncompromising digital landscape, media buying agencies have emerged as key players that enable advertisers to navigate the complexities of digital advertising with finesse. The growth for digital has been spectacular, especially during and post-Covid. But it has prompted media buying agencies to reconfigure their approach to digital business, which was previously taken as a side hustle by most brands.  

Mindshare’s head of digital, South Asia, Gopa Menon has been associated with the space for roughly two decades. He has seen the medium toddle through its infancy and blossom into the robust ecosystem that it is now. He speaks to afaqs! about the intricacies of digital media buying, the metrics at play, and the emerging trends.

Edited excerpts

How has digital evolved over the years from a media buying standpoint?

Post-Covid, there has been a huge shift from a consumption point of view. People are online, consuming, interacting and transacting. Naturally, brands and marketers are trying to reach out to these consumers. Digital has become significantly more important for brands now. 

We’ve seen digital go from a pure display kind of an interaction to having now become an interconnected world. At Mindshare, we believe that the entire journey for brands should be full-funnel. The brands should be present throughout the process, and so, we believe in a complete integrated story.

Now, digital has evolved to a point where brands can micro-target the consumers. 

There seems to be a trend of agencies providing integrated solutions. What does Mindshare have in its mind going forward?

Mindshare believes in integrated narrative, and we are doing high-end performance campaigns for clients as well. Our near term and long term focus will primarily be on performance. So, we intend to scale up our performance portfolio to that end. This is something the clients demand of us as well. 

Over the last few years we’ve worked with brands like Disney, where we’ve been doing scaled-up performance campaigns. We intend to broadbase that and, obviously, scale that up to a considerable level. How we do it relies on automation, looking at the right tools and the right talent to get it going. 

With so much emphasis on performance campaigns, what is the hiring protocol at Mindshare at the moment?

We’ve been focusing on diversifying our talent-pool. We want to get more talent in performance, but also in e-commerce and data. These are three pillars that we are betting on. Most of our hires right now are between these three pillars because that is where our future is. Most of our investments are going into data-analytics, tech, commerce, and performance.

How have brands matured in terms of their understanding of digital?

This would depend on the lifecycle of the brand. Digital has been around for the last decade, and has grown in importance in the last five years. There are brands who’re ahead in this journey, and they pretty much know what they are looking for, and they need an agency partner to deliver that. 

But there are brands who have just started their digital transformation journey, and it becomes a more consultative process for the agency. It is a mix, with most of the clients already having matured digitally. 

What are the metrics and parameters that go into successful digital media buying?

It comes back to what the objective of the brand is. If they are trying to target a younger audience, we monitor their passion-points, and devise our media approach. For instance, if you are looking for a younger audience, you want to be on platforms such as Insta, Snapchats of the world, and of course, OTT. If you are looking to target a slightly discerning audience, then Connected TVs can come into play as well. 

Now, the success of the campaign depends on what the objective is. If the brand is trying to drive awareness, then the metrics you look at would be reach, frequency of operations, and the impact of the post. If the objective is to drive consideration among consumers, then we look at how many people are influenced to go and look at trials. In terms of performance and conversion, we look at how we’ve been able to shift the needle from a business outcome perspective.

But with so much reliance on impressions, and clicks, how do you deal with ad fraud?

At GroupM, we have strict guidelines on how we navigate this. We work with third party partners and before any campaign we have a minimum requirement of 60% viewability for the campaign. We work with the partners to deliver on that particular brand guideline, from an activation standpoint. All our clients are advised to look at these third-party tools and implement them to prevent ad fraud. 

Since the spends are now moving up on digital, the awareness of ad fraud is growing as well. Clients are concerned about where their ads are being shown, and want to be able to differentiate between a bot and a user. Education has gone up considerably, and people are keen to look at this. 

With the kind of growth digital has shown, are we seeing a traditional fade-out?

While digital has become the largest advertising avenue for brands now, with traditionally dropping to second. But the both will co-exist going forward. It will be more of an integrated cohesive story in terms of how brands are able to reach out to audiences across that spectrum. All things will become digital, as we’re seeing with CTVs, and with Print as well. I see a seamless integration of these channels. 

What are the emerging trends in the digital space?

We’re seeing the rise of AI, and brands have started to explore the possibilities. We’ve seen Generative AI and its implications on the creative world. We can also expect the influence of AI in media implementation, between scripting and automation. We’re using AI tools for optimisations of the campaigns as well. 

Emergence of CTV is another trend that we should all look forward to. Some studies have shown that in India, more than 90% of TVs sold now are Connected TVs. There is going to be a huge portion of consumers who use CTVs to engage with content, and naturally, brands would want to leverage that as well. 

From an e-commerce and quick commerce standpoint, convenience of consumers has become paramount.