Digital advertising in APAC has reached a critical juncture – no longer trailing mature markets, but leading the way. Consumers are embracing new platforms, prioritising social and gaming and ramping up CTV and streaming consumption. The landscape has also seen the emergence of trends like the need for holistic measurement, transformation through AI, the coming of age for retail media networks and automation in attention.

The big question here is – how are advertisers ensuring media quality amidst the changing landscape?

At a recently held closed-door event by DoubleVerify, a panel of digital experts across different sectors got together for a roundtable discussion on looking at how the industry can capitalise on future opportunities and respond to future challenges, considering the fact that from an increased focus on privacy to the promise of attention, to the growth of AI, 2024 is set to be a pivotal year.

Moderator Nachiket Deole, Head of Sales, India, DoubleVerify started the discussion by sharing that one of the researches done by the company around pre-covid and post-covid consumption behaviour showed that 74% of Indian respondents have subscribed to one more paid streaming service, after covid. “The consumption has doubled, and it is not restricted to only one media. For example, there are many OTT apps for consumers to choose from. So on one hand you have this massive spike in content consumption and on the other hand you have so many different avenues through which users can consume content,” he explained.

Each avenue has its own parameter to measure success. So the key challenge for marketers here is being able to accurately measure and leverage each channel efficiently.

Kunal Dhrangadharia: Global Brand Lead, Royal Enfield chimed in and said, “When we evaluate a campaign, we go straight to the mother objective – are we to drive leads, impact or a combination of both? So in case I am in the midst of a new launch, most of the inventory will be on impact. But also, a huge amount of sustenance effort goes in acquiring possible leads.”

Speaking specifically of the auto category, he added that digital has evolved into a very important media to derive workable leads for this category.

However, for the longest time, digital has been perceived as a medium to enhance performance and not necessarily build a brand. Dhrangadharia breaks this myth and says that Royal Enfield has largely been a digital-first brand. “There are many campaigns that we roll out in a year that do not even see TV,” he added.

The discussion further shifted gear from auto to wearables category, where Siya Wadhawan: Head - Product Marketing, boAt Lifestyle pointed out that it is important for marketers to be clear on what they are seeking – breadth or depth? “I think personalisation is dead now, it is personalisation on scale which needs to be the focus. So if today consumers are consuming a lot of content, then as a brand it is my challenge to be a part of every piece of content but at a different level,” she added.

Milind Shah, Head of Brand Marketing at MG Motor pointed out that many marketers use several tools to measure. “But at the end, the KPIs that we see, are basic KPIs. No one talks in depth about how the business is impacted by certain campaigns,” he said.

Shah also highlighted that digital as a platform is evolving rapidly, with something new coming every other day. “The challenge here is the talent, the education of people who are experts in this domain,” he added.

However, the measurement criteria looks indeed different for a sector like retail. Arpita Gandotra, AVP Marketing, Reliance Digital says, “We link it a lot to ROI, to sales. For us it finally boils down to how much we really made or how much was the sales during that period and then we map it accordingly.”

Mayank Prabhakar, General Manager, Head of Digital Marketing at Vivo mentioned that from a marketing investment perspective, there always is a funnel. “It cannot be converted into performance in just a year. You need those 5 years at least to get into the market and start performing,” he pointed out. Sharing Vivo’s example, he shared how the brand started with music and camera phone, and once that was established, it decided to venture further into performance.

Experts also further delved into the branding versus performance debate, where Srijan Virmani Integrated Media & Experience Strategy - Marketing, Coca-Cola pointed out that performance always limits the brand’s reach. “When you get into branding, and reach out to more audience, you are increasing your width. What you will see, from a performance lens, is that your conversion rates will start increasing,” he said.

Virmani also feels that when a brand solely focuses on performance, it fails to communicate the purpose that it really stands for.

On similar lines, Rajiv Dubey, Head of Media at Dabur adds that for a legacy brand like Dabur, it is important to build brand love first. “You have to create a brand that people can’t forget, and then leverage on that further. Top of the funnel is the first goal for a company like ours. Second aim is to not leave people who are low hanging fruit, for instance, if they are somewhere to shop and you aren’t present then you lose out on them,” he said. Dubey also adds that it is important to keep advertising and to keep targeting the relevant audience.

Panning out and looking at things from a non-brand perspective, Abbhishek Chaddha, Executive Vice President, North & East Interactive Avenues said that in India, technology grows on a leapfrog basis. “If you look at the advent from feature phones, to SMS as a medium to smartphones and we are at CTVs now, the consumers are forced to consume content on these platforms,” he said.

Chaddha added that brands need to look at audiences and how they are consuming content. “We should stop buying technology, that is where we are complicating in our heads. With so much fragmentation across platforms, we should create content and communication as per the platform,” he said.

Gopa Menon, Head of Digital, South Asia, Mindshare pointed out that the key challenge of the medium is that everyone is working in silos. “The industry needs to be moving towards a direction where everything can be brought together,” he said.

Speaking about privacy conscious consumers, Anuj Somani, Senior Marketing Manager, Volvo said that targeting on digital is just going to get worse, with the growth in privacy regulations. “If you notice, there are incognito modes coming in because consumers do not want to be tracked and they don’t want to show what content is being consumed,” he said.

To surmise, the experts deliberated on all things about digital, content, targeting, AI and privacy, with key takeaways being around how with the growth in content consumption, advertisers can make most out of their media investments.