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Sam Balsara, founder, chairman of Madison World, kick-started Day 2 of Goafest 2023 with a masterclass on ‘Media planning in a digital world.’ He began with an anecdote concerning his company, which was established in 1988. In 1989, a premium variant of a soap, called Cinthol Lime, was launched, which was a big bet for his first client Godrej. He prepared the media plan and it consisted of four spots to run on four consecutive Sunday mornings during the popular programme Mahabharat that ran on Doordarshan. 



In the first month of this campaign, Cinthol Lime registered a 5.3 percent market share in the premium soap market.



As part of his presentation, Balsara shared a few valuable lessons on effectiveness of smart media planning and building the Godrej-owned soap brand:



1. In the last five years, homes with television sets increased by 100 billion. But, digital penetration increased by 300 billion. 



2. Until recently, India was not considered a digitally savvy nation. Today, data consumption is among the highest in the world. There has been a 9x increase in short video content since 2016. On average, people spend almost five hours on smartphones daily.



3. At the time of Cinthol Lime’s launch, people were focused with longer attention spans, which proved good for advertisers. Today, people have much shorter attention spans. Multimedia consumption is up 40 percent, and rising further. It is a huge challenge for media planners and advertisers.



4. Earlier, large advertisers had a simple fundamental strategy. They had deep pockets, and they could dominate the media. That is how they became big and continued to grow bigger. This is because through their ad spends, they created a fort around themselves that no small entrepreneur could penetrate. 



5. The confidence of advertisers or marketers in advertising as a means to build brands and market share has remained intact. Today, the world spends $881 billion on advertising every year. 



6. On the subject of Indian AdEx, from 2019, when digital was 23 percent, the Covid-19 outbreak pushed it up to 31 percent in 2020. It further moved up to 34 percent in 2021. Last year, it was 38 percent, and became the number one medium in India. This year, expectations are that it could go up to 41 percent. 



7. FMCG is the largest advertising category in India. It accounts for 30 percent of Indian AdEx. 



8. Large FMCG advertisers have been slow to adopt digital. But in the case of Hindustan Unilever, in its latest quarterly report, it highlighted that more than 25 percent of its advertising budget is spent on digital media. 



9. Digital is becoming popular due to technology. Technology is providing four major benefits: enabling one to go beyond demographics, enabling data-driven analytics, enabling contextual messaging and allowing to harness the power of virality.

Goafest 2023: Digital is just as important as traditional for efficient media plans, Madison's Sam Balsara

Prabha Narasimhan, managing director and chief executive officer, Colgate - Palmolive India believes that brand love has not been sacrificed at the altar of short term sales. 

She mentioned, “As you woke up this morning till the time you reached here, you would have interacted with a series of brands. A lot of them have existed for a really long time.” She cited the example of Colgate-Palmolive which has existed for 200 years, which continues to be loved and experiences growth. 

On day 1 of Goafest, independent journalist Anuradha SenGupta moderated a panel discussion on ‘Brand love suffering at the altar of short term sale’. Apart from Narasimhan, the panelists consisted of Hemant Malik, divisional chief executive - ITC’s foods business and member of the corporate management committee of ITC; and Rohit Kapoor, CEO, Swiggy.

ITC’s Malik, who stated that they are not a digital commerce brand, mentioned, “Marketing has changed. Relationships itself have changed. As per the latest Tinder trends in 2022 instead of brand love, I would like to call it brand situationship. Narasimhan is lucky to run a brand of 200 years (Colgate-Palmolive) and there is a huge love for that brand. But a lot of us create challenger brands, and therefore one needs to find mechanisms for people who will be able to at least experience us.”

Narasimhan traces her footsteps backward and on the subject of building brands, stated that the big brands had three large advantages. They had the advantage of reach, media because it was quite concentrated and also had the advantage of capital. “Now, none of these advantages exist,” she added.

Swiggy’s Kapoor mentioned, “The notion that creativity is that one ad film which wins and is a fantastic output, has to die. Today, everybody has the license to creativity. I don’t think it needs to come from one place. It should flow from ten places.”


ITC’s Malik highlighted that, “You can see that if your brand is not performing well, you will blame the media agency.” He further stated, “Traditional advertising agencies need to change a lot. I need to learn from my agency partners so that we can keep on improving.” 


Malik also said that the challenge is to make sure that all of us are working for the same brand. “We have a marketing insights person, marketing services person, then a digital person, and a performance marketing person. Therefore, we are kind of also segmenting it.”


On his expectations from agencies, Malik further highlighted, “I expect my agency partners to be the experts. Therefore, I need to learn from my partners. My expectation is that they are going to come and teach me things which I don’t know.” Swiggy’s Kapoor agreed with Malik. He said, “I love to get challenged by my agencies, partners.”


Colgate-Palmolive India’s Narasimhan mentioned, “Brand love is most critical for premiumisation. If that brand is not imprinted in my head, this is not the brand I am going to buy from this category, then I am not going to put it in my basket.”


ITC’s Malik stated that, “If you only have brand lovers then there will be no business. We need more people to try different brands so that penetration could increase.”


"You have to have a product that delivers. It doesn't matter if you are an old or new brand, expensive or inexpensive. There has to be consistency in what the brand is telling you. The single purpose of a brand cannot be making money. The idea of having a larger purpose is extremely important," Narasimhan said. 


Maximum number of people who are talking about brands, the average is five. Eighteen percent of people have said that there is no brand they love. Narasimhan stated that first, brands need to make a promise and must deliver on that promise. It does not matter whether the brand is old or new, expensive or inexpensive. Second is maintaining consistency in what brands do.  Communication of this in a manner that attracts attention is a part which is really difficult. “Because, you can take the communication, but it has to cut through, which takes a humongous amount of noise,” she added.  


Adding to Narasimhan’s point, ITC’s Malik stated, “Consumer insights become most important.” He explained that the ability of the brands towards consumers with regards to the way they buy, their needs, and understandings becomes very crucial. 


He further added, “Linking brand purpose with social causes can lead to something like green washing. We are doing a lot of work on plastic or packaging and we are committed to it.  Consumers will see through it if there's a lack of commitment from a brand.”


As the panel discussion came to its final leg, Malik concluded saying, “Nothing goes viral, you have to pay money for it.”

GOAFEST 2023