As tech evolves, we will have to be more human & less invasive as brands: Intel’s Roshni Das

As part of the afaqs! and Quora thought leadership initiative - Marketing Thought Leaders, we spoke with Roshni Das, Regional Marketing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan at Intel who shared her understanding of intent marketing, consumer patterns, role of social media and its impact, partnership with Quora, consumer trends and more. The interview is an attempt to highlight a marketer’s mindset to reach a high-intent audience and the dynamics of consumer behaviour.   

Edited excerpts:

One of the biggest marketing/business goals today is to ‘find buyers who are ready to buy’. What is your thought and strategy to leverage intent marketing?

Before the pandemic, technology was important, but now technology is both - important and essential. The rate of change in consumer behaviour has accelerated - readily available access and quality information have helped consumers to be savvier and more informed.  

Today, the onus is on brands to be equally responsible and be in service of the customer to help them make smarter decisions. Our brand proposition at Intel helps to improve lives, and therefore purposefully and seamlessly integrating the brand into the consumer's daily lives is essential.

DemandGen in its ‘2022 Content Preferences Survey Report’ stated that 47% of B2B buyers consume at least three to five pieces of content before they even engage with a sales representative. So, we must keep up with how we're evolving, from conversational commerce to experiential commerce to monetisation commerce. 

Once done with identification, what are some of the tools to drive Intent Marketing at Intel? 

A critical piece of Intent marketing is also the demand tech stack, which has greatly matured. We have over 8000 to 10,000 tech tools and capabilities. These tools are used to drive more precision and contextual targeting. We also have AI in every algorithm enabling better data signals. 

From a marketing vehicle’s perspective, there are content engagement signals that come from various platforms. Social platforms, smarter OTT connections, considerations, and conversational and discovery platforms like Quora. 

A key aspect of Intent marketing is also co-creation. If your brand is in service to the customer, you have your influencers, advocates, opinion leaders, and employees, who share the brand's uniqueness. This eventually helps accelerate intent marketing into a purchase. 

Now that the ‘new normal’ trend has settled, what are some of the shifts in spending patterns that you have observed with your TG?

The pace of change has intensified. Decisions to spend and buy have crunched significantly. For Eg, the PC buying cycle used to be 13 weeks but has now shrunk to four weeks to six weeks, depending on the kind of audience. 

Additionally, consumers are making choices based on the brand’s purpose and vision. During the pandemic, consumer expectations of a brand to drive more sustainable choices have increased. Identifying the company ethos helps our consumers make faster choices. 

Any noticeable shifts in your audience’s consumer behaviour?

• The emergence of new buying segments from tier 3 and 4 towns 

• Comfort with high-value purchases also toggled for brands 

• Back to shopping in-store and hybrid shopping

• Increasing number of audiences spending on entry-level gaming devices

• Eco and sustainability-conscious audience 

• Shopping: A state of mind, rather than a conscious activity 

Today digital has become a marketer’s favourite in the media mix. What are your thoughts on social media marketing? 

We’ve seen every (social media) platform grow and adapt over the last 10 years to change the way people interact with brands – be it stories for more real-time engagement, reels for snappy content, knowledge sharing platforms for discoverability, communities-driven platforms, etc. 

It’s changed the way brands can form connections with a huge pool of audience – which in turn is really moving the needle for how creative we can get as marketeers.

Social Media helps brands to easily market to a set of audiences that your product caters to, that pre-exist on these platforms and are highly engaged. The job is to find the right format to engage with them. The more authentic, collaborative, and creative we can get the better the results will be.

Lately, platforms like Quora (for business) have gained traction among marketers for its high-intent audience. What are your thoughts on brands leveraging such new-age platforms?

At Intel, we’ve already started leveraging Quora in our campaign strategy. Their advantage is the ability to capture in-market audiences, laptops being a high ASP and high consideration platform. People leverage such consideration platforms more to make informed decisions.

Quora also gives us the opportunity to address real people in search of real answers. This 1:1 connection from the brand directly answering your questions goes a long way in building or further strengthening the relationship between the brand and the user. For example, Intel’s vPro platform is the best-in-class platform for enterprises and SMBs, Intel therefore can own or be the thought leader in topics related to endpoint security, hardware-based security, etc. 

Platforms like Quora also identify people as multidimensional – people with multiple interests and hobbies. With blurring lines between B2B and B2C marketing, this enables effective targeting. 

What are the consumer trends that can impact marketing in 2023?

We are in a period of disruption in which behaviours, technologies, and even economic situations have changed because of the pandemic. Therefore, the regular rule books don't apply. 

What has also changed is the classical 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion) marketing. These have always been important, but now the other 3 Ps (People Purpose and Process) have become more essential. 

As an example, our APJ head of analytics uses a very interesting code called the PTP code i.e People-Tech-Process. With the right people and the right mindset, we can use technology in a way that we can serve our consumers with a process that keeps learning and reiterating. As tech evolves, we will have to be more human, and more valuable, but less invasive as brands.

Major trends that will impact marketing include Metaverse and Experiential Marketing, AI, Short Videos, Sustainability and Environmental Consciousness, Employee Advocacy, Hyper-Personalization and Community Building.