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Generative AI (GEN AI) has swiftly climbed the ranks of business priorities, with 83% of C-suite executives across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region now placing it among their top three concerns, according to new research by Salesforce.

The study which surveyed 1,243 leaders from large organizations, highlighted that 54% of businesses already have a clear Gen AI strategy, while 40% are in the process of developing one.

The findings point to key drivers behind this AI push, with the desire to innovate customer and employee experiences (44%) and meet rising customer expectations for faster, more personalized service (44%) topping the list. Boosting productivity and efficiency also remains a central motivator, noted by 43% of executives. 

In terms of leadership accountability, CEOs are seen as most responsible for ensuring successful integration of Gen AI, according to 37% of respondents. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) follow closely at 25%, with department heads accounting for 19%.

When asked where Gen AI would create the most positive impact, APAC executives pointed to information technology (42%), operations(31%), customer service (30%), and research and insights (28%).

Despite its broad adoption, 93% of APAC executives acknowledged that significant barriers still impede Gen AI's full integration. The most common challenges include accessibility and inclusivity (37%), lack of skill-building opportunities (31%), incomplete customer or company data for AI training (30%), concerns over AI tools delivering inaccurate results (30%), and cost to implement Gen AI tools (30%).

Industry-wide Growth

The Salesforce study aligns with a broader trend revealed in Capgemini's "Harnessing the Value of Generative AI 2nd edition" report, which indicates that 80% of organizations are increasing their investments in Gen AI into business operations has surged, with 24% of companies having integrated AI across various functions - a significant jump from just 6% last year.

Retail, in particular, has seen a notable rise in AI deployment, with implementation growing to 40%, more than doubling the figure from 2023.

GenAI emerges as top priority for APAC C-Suite leaders, Salesforce study reveals

In a historic move, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that Indian cricketers, men and women, will get equal match fees in a move towards achieving pay equity. 

It is incredible how far women in sports have come but unfortunately not far enough to be paid as much as their male peers. That’s been the story for a long while for sportswomen in the country and it is all set change with BCCI announcing equal pay for men and women cricketers.

BCCI Honorary Secretary Jay Shah put out a tweet saying, “I’m pleased to announce BCCI’s first step towards tackling discrimination. We are implementing pay equity policy for our contracted BCCI Women cricketers. The match fee for both Men and Women Cricketers will be the same as we move into a new era of gender equality in cricket.”

He further said, “The BCCI Women cricketers will be paid the same match fee as their male counterparts. Test (INR 15 lakhs), ODI (INR 6 lakhs), T20I (INR 3 lakhs). Pay equity was my commitment to our women cricketers and I thank the Apex Council for their support.”

While corporations have been open to the idea of using women in sports as the face of their brands for some time now, there is still a huge disparity in pay when it comes to remuneration for the actual sport these athletes play.

With this move, finally at least cricket would be getting rid of the pay gap for good. The move is being applauded and appreciated by stakeholders in the industry and fans.

Indian cricketer, Mithali Raj who is also the former captain of the India women's national cricket team shared a post on one of her social media handles saying, “This is a historic decision for women’s cricket in India! The pay equity policy along with the WIPL next year, we are ushering into a new era for women's cricket in India. Thank you Jay Shah Sir and the BCCI for making this happen. Really happy today.”

Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur also left a thank you note on Twitter saying, “Truly a red letter day for Women’s Cricket in India with pay parity announced for women and men. Thank you BCCI and Jay Shah.”


Equal Pay in Cricket: Indian men and women cricketers to get equal match fee, announces BCCI's Jay Shah

Festive season started with a bang as e-commerce players clocked in a sale of $3.5 billion in sales between 22 and 25 September, contributing to 60 percent of the projected GMV (gross merchandise value) of 5.9 billion for the whole first wave of festive sales, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants.

The first wave of festive sales comprises Flipkart’s Big Billion Days, Amazon’s Great Indian Festival, Meesho’s Mega Blockbuster Sale, besides sales on other platforms such as Myntra, Ajio, and Nykaa amongst others.

Redseer's report further states that the first four days of the festive period saw the overall Daily Average GMV (gross merchandise value) rise to 5.4x compared to BAU (business as usual) days for overall online retail. First 4 days of festive sale this year is 1.3x the first four days of the previous year festive sale.

“Redseer had earlier projected a GMV of $5.9 bn (Rs 41, 000 Cr) for festive sale 1 and as expected, we are on track to achieve this figure. 60 percent of our forecast is already achieved in the first 4 days of sale," says Sanjay Kothari, associate partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants. 

Around 50 to 55 million shoppers made purchases during the first four days of sales. In terms of categories, mobiles continue to be the top category driving the sales. The report states that during the first four days of sale 1,100 mobile phones were sold each minute, with a total of Rs 11,000 crores of mobiles sold on large e-commerce players. Premium phones (iPhone 12, 13 and OnePlus) drove mobile sales.

This has happened on the back of upgrade programs and new launches supported by value offers.

In terms of units, 60-70 lakh mobiles were sold in the first four days.  “We are expecting a total sale of 90 Lakhs - 1 Cr units of mobiles for Festive week 1. We are also seeing premium phones driving mobile growth this year,” said Sanjay Kothari, Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Fashion category witnessed a 4.5x jump in terms of daily average GMV from BAU days, to reach Rs 5,500 crore in the first four days, it said.

E-commerce marketplaces usually hold up to three sales leading to the festival of Diwali. The first of these sales is usually the largest and usually accounts for more than 50 percent of the sales during the festive period. 
 
 
 


Ecomm players clock $3.5 bn in festive sales in four days: Redseer report

Another Bollywood release bites the dust. Tall promises, umpteen promotions, real life wedding of the star cast and still Brahmastra couldn’t manage to bring in the expected moolah.

Hundreds of crores are being spent on marketing Bollywood movies with actors performing hook steps, singing songs, creating memes, collaborating with influencers and travelling around the world talking about their movies. 

Still, most of 2022 releases failed to leave a mark at the box office. Analysis by Emkay Research says, Q2 FY23 box-office collections are falling way short of expectations. The quarter has clocked close to Rs 2.4 billion till date, against Rs 9.8 billion in Q1.

Covid-19 is no longer the reason because Hollywood releases as well as Indian regional cinema have been performing exceptionally at the box office. Films like KGF and RRR made close to Rs1000 crore each from theatrical release only. So what is missing? Experts said it's nothing but good content.

[caption id="attachment_2271" align="alignnone" width="1280"]<img src="https://images.storyboard18.com/storyboard18/Untitled-design-2022-09-27T224945.831.png" alt="Data on box office collections by Emkay Research" width="1280" height="720" class="size-full wp-image-2271" /> Data on box office collections by Emkay Research[/caption]

All show but no go

“Marketing alone can never sell a movie. In fact, the amount of marketing being done is actually a waste of resources. 'Liger' is the most recent example. Content is still the king and star cast or good marketing cannot make up for the lack of good content,” says film trade analyst Atul Mohan.

The makers of Liger, for instance, roped in all top digital influencers to create original content for the star cast. Popular creators like Niharika Nm and Neethu Nair were on-boarded for the same and none of these content pieces garnered any less than 25 lakh likes and millions of views. The film, however, didn’t even make it past the Rs50 crore mark at the box office.

“Word of mouth makes a movie popular and that happens only when the audience likes a movie. Promotions can take the people to the theatres in the first weekend. For the growth to sustain, the movie needs to do well beyond the first Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Only good content can make that happen,” adds Mohan.

According to him close to Rs500 crore has already been spent this year on marketing initiatives by the Hindi film industry.

Analysis by business insiders corroborates the observation of marketing experts.

Naval Seth, deputy head of research at Emkay Global Financial Services, in his report says "Sub-par content quality is being rejected by the audience.”

Poor content is pushing the audiences to switch to other languages and mediums of entertainment, according to the report. It further says, “Critics reviews and word-of-mouth communication, which play a major role in box-office collections beyond the first week, have been negative-to-mixed for most movies released since the end of the pandemic. Thus, most movies have even struggled to recover the cost. A mega-star cast, which was able to pull audiences to theatres, is now no longer effective as weak content has become the decisive factor. The first weekend net box-office collections for movies with prominent stars are getting restricted to less than Rs400 million now vs pre-Covid levels of Rs1,100 million on an average.”

Evidently, this is why analysts are calling Brahmastra a disappointment even after clocking box office collections to the tune of Rs160 crore in the first week.

The second week hardly has a chance to make enough money given the poor content reviews, experts said. Clearly even touching the Rs200 crore mark is not enough for a film budgeted at Rs450 crore where close to Rs40 crore was spent on promotions only.

Ticket pricing and demand-supply gap

The same research from Emkay, also points out that most current and potential movie releases in the next few quarters were conceptualized pre-Covid or during the Covid period. 

Gauging consumer behavior, consumption habits seem to have changed and content needs to evolve accordingly, to pull them back to theatres.

Additionally, the inflationary scenario has raised the cost of movie-going, which has increased content-quality filtration by patrons.

Basically, pricing is another issue that has been keeping moviegoers away from the cinema screens when it comes to Bollywood releases. Misplaced implementation of the 4Ps of marketing is a big reason behind the failure of box office performance of these releases. There is less focus on product and pricing, said experts.

<blockquote>“Either you answer the question of why one should pay for the ticket they are buying at the theaters through a fantastic product or you make sure pricing matches the run of the mill product you are selling,” said Rachana Monteiro, SVP, Starcom.</blockquote>

If the pandemic has done anything, it has increased the consumer expectation of quality content, according to Monteiro. “From the demand perspective expectations have gone up and from the supply perspective content quality from Hindi films have only fallen,” she adds.

Southern films vs Hindi films

The success of southern films offers a lesson or two for Bollywood, says Kumar Awanish, Chief Growth Officer, Cheil India.

<blockquote>“They (Southern films) have perfected the art of knowing what a viewer across India wants. Their films resonate with audiences beyond the local geographies. Hindi films are often dubbed to be elitist and have alienated the big screen watching audience of the hinterlands,” Kumar Awanish, Chief Growth Officer, Cheil India.</blockquote>

As the pandemic receded a lot of films from South have hit the big screen dubbed in multiple languages enabling them to gain traction across India.

However, Bollywood’s only hope to make up for money lost at the theatres was the OTT release.

“Let’s wait for a month and watch it on OTT- this is the idea that has killed most of Bollywood’s box office business,” says Monteiro. According to her the availability of world class content OTT has made the people very choosy about what they want to watch at the theatres.

[caption id="attachment_2272" align="alignnone" width="1280"]<img src="https://images.storyboard18.com/storyboard18/Untitled-design-2022-09-27T224842.478.png" alt="Highlight on reviews, views and Net Box Office Collections (NBOC) by Emkay Research" width="1280" height="720" class="size-full wp-image-2272" /> Highlight on reviews, views and Net Box Office Collections (NBOC) by Emkay Research[/caption]

How can Bollywood bounce back?

Good content is the only solution, experts citing examples of the two successful Bollywood box office hits of the year- The Kashmir Files and Bhool Bhulaiya 2.

Innovative marketing can also be of help, says Awanish.

“Marketing is an important tool to ensure that audiences are back post pandemic hiatus. Unlike Hollywood, where big studios put their entire heft behind the marketing of a film, Bollywood has to go creative if it has to grab attention of the viewers who are still dragging their feet to the theatres,” he tells Storyboard18. 

According to him, Netflix offers a plethora of lessons especially the way they share their social media content. 

“Their content is highly engaging and apt which, speaks the language that touches the pulse of the viewers. Trailers and promotions done by these production houses spotlight the key scenes with a purported objective of leaving audiences on a cliff hanger,” he adds.

Hindi cinema will need more than money, influencers and marketing tricks to keep drawing audiences to theatres and not let the streamers eat away at their pie. The right content at the right price should help Bollywood battle its blues. 

This is not the end though. As they say, 'picture abhi baaki hai'.

Why is Bollywood failing to take off despite the marketing blitz?

It would have to be the stealthiest marketing activity ever involving a brand ambassador. 

The 1970 FIFA World Cup was surrounded by a lot of fanfare. It was also a time when Brazil was invincible and coloured pictures were introduced for the first time from a major multilateral event. 

Hans Henningsen, a representative of the PUMA, reached out to Pelé during the 1970 FIFA World Cup. A $25,000 offer was made to him (with an additional $100,000 in subsequent deals) to make Puma synonymous with the sport for decades.

Just seconds before Brazil and Peru's World Cup quarterfinal match began, Pelé walked straight into the middle of the field and asked for time to tie his shoes. As he bent down and grabbed the laces, millions of people around the world watched.

The thick, curved stripe was unmistakable, as was the message it silently communicated: “Pelé, the greatest living athlete at the time, was wearing Puma boots.”

Let's fast forward to 2021. 

In addition to innovating with its products, Adidas is slowly understanding the importance of marketing. With Parley's foundation, they pivot toward a more purposeful brand-building initiative - Save The Ocean. 

As part of their brand ambassador campaign, Rohit Sharma wore a new pair of shoes in every match during the 2020 IPL season.

All of these are examples of acts involving Brand Ambassadors that go beyond advertising and pitchmanship. 

Consumers are becoming more averse to advertising, so brands need to create acts that receive earned media, conversations, and chatter so that they remain top of mind. Rather than just selecting the names of one's favorite celebrities, they should invest more time in considering what to do with an Influencer.

Once, celebrities would hold the product and say things like, "Drink it.". I do!”. Today Influencer marketing has evolved beyond pitchmanship. Many celebrities are willing to co-create products with brands they endorse. FWRD (part of the REVOLVE Group) announced Kendal Jenner as their creative director recently. Justin Timberlake did the same for Budweiser Bud Light Platinum in 2013. 

Celebrities will be more willing to exchange equity with brands to offer their services as BDNOs (Brand Directors in Name Only) or CDNOs (Creative Directors in Name Only). Content creators and influencers are the ones who have cracked new-age marketing code with cult Instagram followership, reels and thumb-stopping content, personal engagement and envious feed aesthetics.

Brands are also noticing "the rise of OTT stars". 

Stars like Rohit Saraf, Divyendu Sharma, and Vikram Massey from Netflix and Amazon Prime would be ideal for brands that appeal to younger audiences. The Souled Store, Misfit by boAt, and H&M are among the brands they've already endorsed. 

But their popularity still can’t be matched to that of the mega-stars. However, I doubt what mega-stars can contribute to a brand with the highest top-of-mind recall in its category. 

The brand should stay away from getting a mega-star if awareness is not an issue. There is always a misattribution risk associated with bigger stars since their ads run simultaneously for brands across several categories.

Sushant Sharma is brand manager of boAt. Views expressed are personal.

Quick Take: Think marketing, don’t think celebs!

Success in brand building depends on creating, nourishing, and continuously reinterpreting a unique and compelling identity or “meaning. That meaning has to be commonly held. 

Individual preference is deeper when it is enforced by social acceptance. This is an almost magical contradiction. The credit for this discovery and decoding it goes to the eminent Social psychologist Solomon Asch. He challenged our idea of ourselves as autonomous beings. He developed an experiment to establish our urge to conform. His work revealed that when people are confronted with a majority opinion, they just tend to conform. 

It is trite to say that a brand is a repository, not merely of functional characteristics, but of meaning and value. In increasingly crowded and highly competitive categories, brand differentiation based on discernible product differences is quickly imitated and duplicated by competitors. So, what makes one brand take a lead and stand out?

Brands become phenomenally valuable because their existence has been translated into powerful meanings which society acknowledges. They are worth billions or trillions of dollars because they had gained a kind of meaning that was universal, larger than life, iconic.

The commonly accepted meaning of a brand is its most priceless and unique asset. 

Whether you’re selling a soft drink, a service or a truck, what your brand means to people will be every bit as important as its function, if not more so. This is because our derived meaning tells us “this one feels right” or “this one’s for me.” 

Meaning creates feeling in the collective conscious and unconscious. Such meaning cannot be developed via short lived advertising campaigns, but only because of consistent and enduring expression in all forms and facets. And the more it is acknowledged by many, the more this meaning will get strengthened.

An understanding of Social Psychology helps marketers understand how they are perceived or not. This, when converted to consequential actions may create enduring brand identities that deliver meaning to customers, drive up perceived value and inspire customer loyalty. 

All Powerful brands can create social norms for their acceptance and inject themselves into cultural codes that enhance their centrality. The reason some brands become synonymous with categories, cultures and even national identities is because they have acquired acceptance via social consensus. Their ability to be at the high table and still be the mass choice does not conflict with their aura. You fly in a Boeing on a budget airline as does the President of the United States on Air Force One. Warren Buffet drinks the same Coca-Cola that the poorest person would. 

Group conformance can lift above commitment to what individuals hold true. Solomon Asch pioneered this work in impression formation, prestige associations and conformity. In his paper ‘Opinions and Social Pressure’, published in 1955, he elaborated on the social influences that shape a person’s beliefs, judgments, and practices. This revealed the effects of group pressure on individual decision-making. It was the first time we deciphered how, and to what extent, people’s attitudes were influenced by social forces around them. My point is not to view this negatively but to appreciate, as marketers, how this dynamic plays out. Positive conformance done for the right reasons can build mammoth brand advantage.

Asch’s work was preceded by that of the Turkish psychologist Muzafer Sherif who, in 1935, set out to answer similar questions. He used a visual illusion called the autokinetic effect, wherein a stationary spot of light seen in a dark room appears to move. The subjects of his study were told that the light was going to move and asked how far they thought it had shifted. Tested in groups, the participants’ estimates converged into a group norm, revealing that they used others’ estimates as a frame of reference in an ambiguous situation. 

Asch took this forward in a different way. To him, conformity was measured in terms of an individual’s tendency to agree with group members who unanimously give the wrong answer on a task that has an unmistakable solution. 

The simple perceptual task he designed was named the Asch Paradigm. 

The experiment was conducted with male subjects, each of whom was put individually into a group of five to seven “confederates” – these were people who were aware of the real aims of the experiment but were introduced as fellow participants – and each group was shown one card with a line on it, followed by another card with three lines labelled A, B, and C, and asked which one of those three lines was the same length as the line on the first card.

The experiment was organized such that the subject would give either the last or the last but one answer. Over the course of 18 trials, confederates were instructed to provide the correct answers for the first six, but then to give identical but incorrect answers for another 12. This was to test whether the subject would answer correctly or whether he would match his response to that of the confederates when all gave the same but incorrect answer.

The results of the study were revealing. When surrounded by a group of people all giving the same incorrect answer, subjects gave incorrect answers on almost a third of the questions; 75 percent of them provided an incorrect response for at least one question. These figures indicate a high degree of compliance by the subjects. On the other hand, not a single participant conformed on all critical trials, and 13 of the 50 participants never conformed at all. 

The results proved that the subjects themselves were highly consistent. Those who broke away from the group opinion and provided an independent answer did not accede to the majority even over many trials, while those who chose to comply with the majority seemed unable to break this pattern.

When later investigated in one to one meetings, the compliant respondents acknowledged that they knew their answers were incorrect, adding that they did not want to stand out or appear different and foolish. They just wanted to fit in. 

Asch performed variations on the experiment to test what difference the size of the majority group made to levels of conformity. He found that just one confederate had virtually no influence on the subject’s conformity, two had only a small influence, but three or more encouraged a relatively stable tendency to conform. This is a cruel manifestation of ‘more the merrier’. 

Unanimity mattered a great deal in the apparent steam rolling. Even if only one confederate offered an alternative answer, the subjects were much more likely to provide an independent, correct response. This finding highlighted the power of even a very small dissenting minority. 

Asch discovered that if he allowed the participants to give their answers privately, by writing them down on a piece of paper, conformity visibly decreased. It has a bearing on modern day Direct to Consumer models and of groupthink impacting choices made online. Asch found the tendency to conform was strong irrespective of educational backgrounds and this is noteworthy. 

Asch’s conclusions noted the power of social influence to shape a person’s beliefs and behaviours. If something becomes normal for a group, social pressure will ensure greater conformity. Inspired by Asch’s theory, Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience showed that ordinary people are capable of cruelty when under pressure to conform.

From a marketing standpoint, it reinforces the first mover advantage as well as the adoption of majority share brands. It explains that a group exerts profound social effects on its members and conformity serves important social functions. 

Solomon Elliott Asch was a pioneer in the field of social psychology. He was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw in 1907. At the age of 13 he emigrated to the US and studied psychology. He received a PhD in 1932 from Columbia University, where he was influenced by Max Wertheimer.

Asch taught at Swarthmore College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, where he supervised Stanley Milgram’s doctorate, before moving to the University of Pennsylvania. His many awards include the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. He died aged 88 in 1996.

Key works

1951 Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment
1952 Social Psychology
1955 Opinions and Social Pressure
1956 Studies of Independence and Conformity

Shubhranshu Singh is vice president, marketing - domestic & IB, CVBU, Tata Motors. He writes Simply Speaking, a weekly column on Storyboard18. Views expressed are personal.

Simply Speaking: Social identity, conformance and acceptance

Advertising is a profession of many professions. There are copywriters who are lyricists. There are art directors who are sculptors. There are planners who are consultants. And, then there are copywriters, art directors, and planners who jam together to crack brand campaigns as side-hustles because the money is too good to refuse.

Pursuing passion projects is actively encouraged by many advertising agencies and moonlighting is an open secret in adland. 

But it’s not just passion that drives people to look for work elsewhere. 

The temptation of moonlighting stems from the fact that ad agencies don’t pay well. The average salary of an entry-level copywriter is anywhere between Rs 2 Lakhs to Rs 4 Lakhs per annum. It is similar for art directors. In the case of account management executives, it’s about 10 percent more. 

According to Prathap Suthan, managing partner and chief creative officer, Bang In The Middle, creative executives are not paid enough money for what they do. “For the amount of time they spend on a campaign, they are paid one-third of what they deserve. You pay them 100 percent of what they are entitled to and then they would not moonlight. However, the fact is agencies don’t have the money to pay them well,” he explains.

Manoj Jacob, executive creative director, Crayons, echoes Suthan’s views when he says, “Let’s be honest, no one wants to take up extra work for fun.” 

He shares that the reason advertising folks have been moonlighting for decades is “because they are not compensated well. If agencies start giving their employees the salaries they deserve, the talent will not look for opportunities outside.”

A senior creative director of an independent agency tells Storyboard18, even though advertising agencies pay less, they come with a glamor quotient. “Youngsters join an agency for the brand value that it will add to their portfolio, and nothing else,” he says. 

Some agency chiefs think if there are no conflicts of interest and if employees inform their agencies about these after-work projects, they don’t see moonlighting as a problem or as an unethical practice. 

A former creative chief of a network agency, who wished not to be named, tells us, “Advertising agencies shouldn’t lecture on ethics and moonlighting. They are notorious for handling conflicting clients by creating sub-divisions. It’s a mess and everyone has made peace with it.”

Different shades of moonlighting

Recently, Wipro’s chairman Rishad Premji said the IT major discovered that 300 of its employees were working with the firm’s competitors. Wipro fired these employees for the "act of integrity violation". The news sparked intense debate on moonlighting, a practice that seems to have increased in a post-pandemic era as work-from-home became the norm and financial strain increased in a tough economic climate. 

In the past, global network ad companies have taken strict actions against their employees who were found working with other companies or on projects and side hustles. At a lot of independent agencies, however, the practice is encouraged to build transparency and trust. 

Santosh Padhi, chief creative officer of Wieden + Kennedy India, has always encouraged his younger colleagues to take up projects that will help them open their minds and enhance skills that they don’t pick up in their everyday agency life. 

“It’s important for senior creative executives to have conversations on matters of side-hustles. There is a sense of freedom that comes with side-projects. It’s not always about that extra money,” Padhi tells us.

Abbas Mirza, a senior creative professional, who has worked with agencies like The Glitch, Kinnect, BBDO India and MullenLowe Lintas Group, observes that adlanders need multiple activities to keep their creative juices flowing. Working with the same set of brands at an agency can get monotonous. That’s why many look for projects outside to take a break from the routine.

Restricting such activity can also end up hurting the agency, he points out. 

In advertising, if agencies start stopping their employees from moonlighting, they may start losing more talent, says Mirza. He adds, “This is one of the many reasons why creative folks are moving towards freelancing. It might not give them a steady income, but it gives them flexibility and the chance to work on the briefs they want to work on.”

Transparency is key

Advertising veteran and founder of Spatial Access, Meenakshi Menon has a different take. She thinks if an employee is bored with an account, he or she should go up to the creative director and look for a different project within the agency. 

“The idea of moonlighting is interesting but not at the cost of unethical practices…There are a lot of layers in an agency that talent can explore. However, transparency is key,” she says. 

Menon, who is the founder of Spatial Access and chairperson of icogz, wrote a post on a professional networking platform that sparked an intense discussion about moonlighting in advertising. It fetched varied points of view and also opened up a “guess who?” game for everyone. 

Sample this. Naresh Gupta, co-founder and CSO of Bang In The Middle, commented: “Advertising and moonlighting is at another level. There is a leader in a large network agency. He has global responsibility. He is also a celebrated song writer. And a story writer. He writes for movies. How would you see this? Moonlighting or use of free time? What if a brand takes the song he writes and created communication that competes with brand that his agency handles? Agencies are at pro level.” 

Amita M, a marketing professional, left this comment: “As long as we're discussing the (ahem) principle of things, how would you view this - A national-level client lead in a network agency is also on the board of an advertising start-up operated by said person's spouse.”

These examples, it seems, also indicate that moonlighting or some form of it, is not just a practice picked up by young advertising professionals. 

So what’s the final verdict on moonlighting in advertising? 

Suthan believes advertising is one of the most liberal industries in the world. So, agencies have to adapt and adjust to new-age practices. Also, for the industry to survive and thrive, it’s critical to get a variety of talent on board. 

However, the bottom line is that if agencies want to hire good people, they need to pay them well. “There aren’t so many writers or art directors in this country to handle the number of businesses which have come up. Which is why 95 percent of the work is mediocre,” says Suthan. 

The moment agencies add restrictions to their operations, talent will start migrating. 

Suthan adds, “Don’t forget that creative people are creatives who find creative ways of cheating.”

Moonlighting Debate: Advertising is a profession of many professions!

News18 India has done it again. With a 14.3% market share, the channel is again in the number one position in the HSM market in the Week 34-Week 37 period. The market share has also shown growth between Week 33 and Week 37. Between Week 33 and 36, News18 India had a market share of 14.1%.

Competition numbers are still way behind that of News18 India. TV9 Bharatvarsh, Aaj Tak, India TV and Republic Bharat clocked a market share of 11.7%, 11.4%, 11.1% and 10.5% respectively in Week 34-37. In fact, Aaj Tak and Republic Bharat also showed a drop in market share between Week 33-Week 37. 

<img src="https://images.storyboard18.com/storyboard18/WhatsApp-Image-2022-09-22-at-12.12.19-PM.jpeg" alt="" width="412" height="341" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2198" />

 In the 1800-2400hrs, TG 15+ HSM (Week 37, All days) market, News18 had a 14.8% market share. The others in the top five in order of rankings were TV Bharatvarsh, Republic Bharat, India TV and Aaj Tak. The channels had market shares of 12.1%, 11.7%, 11.7% and 11.5% respectively. 

<img src="https://images.storyboard18.com/storyboard18/WhatsApp-Image-2022-09-22-at-12.12.19-PM-1.jpeg" alt="" width="931" height="477" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2200" />

 In terms of cumulative reach too, News18 India topped the charts. In the HSM- Urban + Rural, the channel’s reach touched 88447000, way above the second ranking channel TV9 Bharatvarsh that stood at 67914000.Aaj Tak, India TV and Republic Bharat were the other channels in the top five list.

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The return of ratings has been a big relief for the industry, experts said.

“It always helps to have the measurement mechanism for decision making. Ratings form the basis on which decisions on channel selection and spends are made,” said Amol Dighe, CEO, Investments and Business Development, Madison Media, in a separate interview with Storyboard18 as part of our Media Mavens series.

Dighe says they saw a change in the pecking order of news channels with the return of the ratings in the genre. “ Some channels dropped in ratings while some channels saw an increase in their ratings. We are still seeing a fluctuation. As buyers, this needs to be keenly watched and deals will be dynamic till this settles down,” he adds.

News18 India leads the show yet again

In 2021, when Aditi Anand, a marketing professional, switched jobs and was looking for ways to break the ice and connect with her co-workers in a work-from-home world, she chose LinkedIn. She got active on the network designed for working professionals to express her thoughts on working remotely, write about trends that caught her attention and gather views on what the marketing community was really thinking at large. 

From 1,500 followers to more than 27,000 followers now, Anand was picked as one of the LinkedIn Top Voices of 2022. “I got appreciation from former co-workers, colleagues who I never met in my new job, peers and others from my network. I wouldn’t have got the exposure I have if I wasn’t on a platform like LinkedIn,” admits Anand. She adds that as a marketer who has worked with some of the top consumer brands like Coca-Cola, Airtel, Nokia and Flipkart, posting and daily engagement on LinkedIn has helped her simplify her creative process. It has helped her express her points of view during brainstorming sessions with much more confidence and clarity. Anand has also been getting speaking opportunities at industry events and jury invitations for advertising award shows.

Move over, influencers of yore. Anand is one among many who found LinkedIn to be a means to express themselves. The network may have been launched in 2003 as a way to connect jobseekers with recruiters, and to widen professional networks. It has 830 million users globally who generate about 8 million posts and comments every day. 

But over the last few years, LinkedIn has changed its algorithm, introducing newsfeed-like features. This has not gone down well with everybody, with some saying it is trying to be like other social platforms rather than a professional platform. 

“LinkedIn is slowly becoming like Instagram where you see videos of people dancing in suits, workation photos and creatives on leadership lessons that no one in particular is seeking,” says the chief marketing officer (CMO) of a multinational company on condition of anonymity. 

The trends are similar on microblogging site Twitter. The increasing habit of “oversharing” has led to many in corporate India and adland to open up and enhance their personal brands. But is it all getting too much? Is the pursuit to build personal brands and the race for clout clouding platforms? 

Building personal brands

Today, a set of creators who are hyperactive and catching a lot of attention on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram happen to be entrepreneurs. In fact, this year image consultants and influencer management agencies are actively getting requests from CXOs, startup founders and even digital marketing agency chiefs to handle their personal accounts on social media and digital platforms.

These companies get paid anywhere from Rs 10,000 to Rs 2 lakh to manage these personal profiles. This includes creating content banks, pushing promoted posts to garner more followers and crisis management, if required.

Viraj Sheth, CEO and co-founder of Monk Entertainment, says entrepreneurs, especially the younger ones, have a different unabashed kind of energy. 

“They’re not low-key, they’re not building in stealth. They don’t want to hide things or keep anything discreet. They want to be open about their progress and failures. They want to share their updates with their community. They understand the importance of having reach and followers on social media. Even if the founder has 5,000 followers on a social media platform, that’s 5000 people he can introduce his product or service to. That’s 5,000 less people he has to spend his marketing money on,” he says.

Bharat Chugh, former Judge and advocate Supreme Court of India, has similar views: “An employee influencer is not the average social media influencer on Instagram. They are employees who are also brand advocates. The soft brand influencing by the employees themselves is common and effective online. Employee influencers bring a personal touch. They attract like-minded individuals who are interested in either the product/service or employment in the company they work for. Consumers also trust brands and companies who use their own employees as advocates.”

However, they do have a different set of rules to follow, a checklist they have to go through before hitting that publish button.

Perils of being vocal

Recently, a creative director of an advertising agency called out the founder of a Mumbai-based digital creative shop on LinkedIn for claiming a famous philosopher’s quote as his own. The founder quietly took the post down and moved on to his next content piece on creativity, advertising and everything in between.
 
“It’s ironic that some professionals who give creative advice to brands have plagiarised content on their timelines. All of this just for likes and shares,” says the creative head.

A marketing head of a tech startup has of late been seeing promoted posts without any disclaimer from a former colleague, who now leads a homegrown BFSI company’s branding. 

“Building personal branding needs subtle strategies. The more aggressive you are with your content approach, the more people will stay away from engaging with you,” says the creative head quoted above. Another CMO tells Storyboard18 that several former marketers are moving to a heavy personal branding push. She observes, “It looks like they are using desperate ways to draw attention. You cannot bombard your community with weekly wisdoms and WhatsApp videos with captions that don’t make sense. Some of them have truly forgotten the basics of marketing. Be authentic. That’s about it.”

Mitesh Kothari, co-founder and CCO of independent digital agency White Rivers Media, believes personal branding is more important now than ever before. He says, “It helps build credibility and strengthens your networks, leading to client retention and more syndication opportunities. As a brand’s backbone, C-suite executives must be vocal and establish themselves as thought leaders in their niche. Understanding that your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re in the room is essential. The best thing about that is you can make them think whatever you want by actively creating any environmental perception.”

Having said that, there are founders who stretch the point. Not so long ago, Shantanu Deshpande, CEO of Bombay Shaving Company, sparked a furore with a post advising youngsters to work 18-hour days in the formative years of their careers. Facing a severe backlash and trolling, he first apologised to the people who disagreed with him, and logged off from LinkedIn. But he returned in a couple of days to declare that the episode created over Rs 20 crore worth of PR for the company. Deshpande thanked all the people who sent him hate. A former marketer says, “This episode is a classic case of why consumers have trust issues with influencers. You signed off a platform and returned in no time. So was this all a part of a plan?”

Planned strategy or organic, founders who represent their brand and the company’s culture also need to be conscious of what and how they communicate to their online communities.

The rulebook

There are several founders who are creators. They give a shout-out to brands that they like to support in the business community with no returns. However, many brands are targeting vocal employees and entrepreneurs whose opinions matter. Many popular marketing heads on LinkedIn that Storyboard18 spoke to indicate that they were offered brand collaborations from categories like BFSI, consumer durables, recruitment firms and others. All of them have been politely refusing the offers due to contractual issues with their employees.

Chugh says that in recent times, many companies have even launched employee influencer policies. Some of these companies have been tailoring contracts for certain employees who have enrolled in such programmes, he says. According to him, it is advisable that the social media profile of the influencer is a professional or business account. “Be that as it may, in any event, all such brand-related content by employee influencers must strictly carry a disclosure,” he adds.

As per the Advertising Standards Council of India’s influencer guidelines, all advertisements published by social media influencers or their representatives on such influencers’ accounts must carry a disclosure label that clearly identifies it as an advertisement. A disclosure is required if there is a material connection between the advertiser and the influencer. Material connection includes employment relationships.Experts believe even entrepreneurs and employee influencers should strictly follow these rules too.

“At times, employees also moonlight as influencers. In such cases, it is not advisable for the employer to control the employees’ use of their personal social media accounts. However, it may also be advisable for employment contracts (with such influencers) to clearly mention that such employer shall not undertake any activity that may harm or bring disrepute to the employer and/or the brand,” concludes Chugh.

The rise and perils of employee influencers and founder brands

After a buoyant 2021 driven largely by revenge spending, the stage is set for this year’s festive season which has already kickstarted with Onam and Ganesh Chaturthi. Brands across categories have started rolling out their festive marketing campaigns, offers and promotions as consumer sentiment remains positive.

Advertising industry executives estimate that there will be a 15 to 20 percent jump in festive advertising spends over 2021. This will largely be driven by television, print and digital platforms.

“Typically second half of the year (H2) is much larger than H1 owing to the festive season that brings in a lot of media money. This year we expect it to be over 20 percent. Fashion, FMCG, automobile and e-commerce categories to drive these spends. There is also certainty among consumers about jobs and the economy which is going to drive purchases,” says a senior media buyer on the condition of anonymity.

Harsha Razdan, partner and head, consumer markets and internet business, KPMG India notes that the festive season will definitely be similar to last year and better than 2020 as well as 2019 in terms of consumer spending. 

"I’m yet to analyse the data because 2021 was all about revenge spending having come out of 2020. I’m not sure whether like-to-like is going to be more. It will be interesting to see data from categories such as apparel and electronics,” he notes.

Upbeat consumer sentiment

Almost everything is open now and people have started going out, meeting friends and family, attending functions and celebrating festivals. This would obviously lead to an upswing in the demand for multiple categories including fashion.

TCNS Clothing Co. Ltd, which sells women's apparels and accessories under two brands W and Aurelia, says that it has mounted two big festive campaigns. For W, the campaign ‘Be the Same or Be W’ and Aurelia’s ‘Be Compliment Ready’ featuring Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt respectively, showcases the brand’s 2022 festive collection. 

Noting that the retail business is back just like the pre-Covid days, Puneet Sewra, chief marketing officer, TCNS Clothing Co. Ltd says that the company is witnessing a spike in sales at both offline and online channels.

“We are expecting this festive season to be a big one. We are already seeing a surge in the east market where the festivities of Durga Puja have begun, and with other festivities around the corner, a similar trend is expected across other regions too,” he notes.

Sewra says that the company has planned a big 360 degree campaign around both the brands with strategic interventions across all consumer touch points.

“Keeping the audience in mind, the campaigns are digital-first with social media, influencers, OTT leading the plan and cinema, print, OOH and retail creating surround to amplify the reach,” he adds.

Offers, new launches planned

Beauty and wellness e-commerce platform, Nykaa is gearing up to roll out a host of shopping experiences and campaigns starting with Navratri, Diwali, and its annual flagship event 'Pink Friday'. On Nykaa Fashion, the company is set to launch new brands and updated curations with the ‘A Million Nakhras’ campaign. 

“We're set to offer shoppers the biggest and most relevant assortment in beauty, fashion, and home, with new and exciting launches. In beauty, categories such as skincare, makeup, hair care, bath and body, and fragrances are expected to be in the spotlight. And in fashion, occasion-wear, party couture, accessories, home decor, and gifting options are expected to be driving the buzz,” says a Nykaa spokesperson.

“Nykaa's Hot Pink Sale, from earlier this year, is a good indicator of the shifting consumer sentiment, where we observed a very positive response to the event with categories like makeup witnessing close to a seven-fold jump,” the spokesperson adds.

Pullbacks by certain categories

While the consumer sentiment seems high, experts also talk about negative global cues and pull backs which cannot be ignored.

Jai Lala, CEO, Zenith, a media agency owned by Publicis Worldwide says that there are pull backs which are happening on two fronts. 

According to him there are certain inflationary measures which are happening with commodity pricing etc going up and that is impacting the FMCG players who are seeing a ripple effect of that. This is holding them from spending the kind of money we expected they’d spend around the season.

"Secondly, a lot of VC funding has been restricted. Unlike the beginning of the year or the last year where we saw a lot of new companies putting in a lot of money on advertising and celebrities, we are seeing a little pullback. So, coming back to the festive season, there will definitely be growth in spending if we compare it to the previous months but my personal prediction is that we won't see a boom like last year. However, there is no denying that brands especially in some categories like automobiles who have launches lined up during the season will be spending on impact,” he concludes.

With inputs from Tasmayee Laha Roy

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