It is Tiku Talsania vs termites in new advert for CenturyDoors

From the Omicron wave and lockdown earlier in the year, to the Russia-Ukraine war, inflation and the global economic slowdown, 2022 has not been a good year for everyone in the marketing and media world.

Many see the year as the first “normal” year post-pandemic, with business and consumer sentiment returning to pre-Covid levels. It’s been a year of testing the performance of brands that have boomed during the pandemic. Marketing strategies have evolved rapidly in 2022. Brands gravitated toward influencer marketing, placing more trust in content creators than celebrity endorsers. The massive swings kept marketers on their toes.

e4m reached out to some of the top marketers in the industry and asked how they will remember 2022 and which platform they think can deliver the maximum ROI in this day and age. Look what they said.

Rajiv Dubey, Head Media, Dabur India Ltd

After two years of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions, it was hoped this year would bring some relief. But that didn’t really happen as the year started with omicron in January followed by the Ukraine war in February. The war led to inflation, resulting in reduced demand for certain categories. The holiday season was mild and it is hoped that volume growth will settle into the high single digits over the coming months as inflation eases. But people from the automotive, travel, airline and hotel industries laughed their way through to the bank.

Equally negative was viewership growth in the television industry. In 2022, television consumption has decreased compared to the two previous years. Bad news for TV meant digital advertising skyrocketed, up nearly 90% year over year. As more money poured into the performance side of the business, you’re seeing a slowdown/rationalization of spending in app-based companies, e-com, edutech, and the demise of the crypto-economies. However, the digital business should continue to grow in the low double-digit range next year.

Platform with the best ROI: Influencer marketing has seen massive growth over the past few years, and it’s likely to grow even more. While it’s difficult to predict what will work better in terms of ROI, I sincerely hope that sports will start to show a better ROI.

Dipali Patwa, Group Leader, Brand, Digital and Community, Fabindia

This year was the year of the customer who is the creator. More than ever, content marketing is being driven by the consumer. The business of advertising and marketing was and is more diverse, inclusive and connected to real customer needs. Marketing has moved beyond branding and advertising, and brands are adapting to create great customer experiences and win them over to their longer-term loyalty. Post-pandemic, 2022 has transformed consumer behavior and attitudes, turning brands’ marketing strategies and plans upside down.

There are five key disruptive changes that have impacted consumer attitudes, engagement and behavior: digital and mobile shopping, marketing localization, experiential retail and personalization at scale, live and conversational commerce, social responsibility and sustainability, and the rise of the crib Economy.

Platform for best ROI: Seamless customer experience from initial interest to post-sale customer service, a customer-centric culture throughout the customer journey; A company that provides a quality experience across all channels is more likely to achieve ROI. Put simply, focus on “word of mouth” and “real-life customer service,” but leverage digital tools and data to engage consumers and solve their needs in more meaningful ways. Just right!

Maneesh Krishnamurthy, Head of Marketing, Ophthalmology Division, Titan Company

This year it was brand love again. In 2022, branding and storytelling made a comeback. Marketers’ main concerns were the rising cost of new customer acquisition and the over-indexing of performance marketing. Brand budgets returned after a two-year hiatus and the conversation about building successful moats through brand love became acceptable again.

Also, brand endorsers this year weren’t just celebs. The trend of founders and consumers in advertising has made a big leap.

Platforms with the best ROI: Affiliate channels (PhonePe, Paytm, Jio and GooglePay) trumped social media (Google and Facebook) in new consumer efficiencies. We were also surprised by the continued effectiveness of SMS over WhatsApp in retaining customers.

Naveen Murali, Head of Marketing, Pepperfry

Online advertising has grown rapidly in the last two years. The rise of influencer content, short-form video, and conversational commerce has paved the way for unlimited opportunities for brands to explore new formats and engage with audiences almost anytime, anywhere.

At Pepperfry this year we have reached our consumers through different channels, be it TV, outdoor, digital, audio streaming platforms or others depending on the campaign. Our 2022 Pepperfry Meme Superstars Diwali campaign, featuring brand ambassadors Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan, was a unique 360-degree campaign where we celebrate this merging of the online and offline worlds through a ‘MemeVerse’ concept.

Best ROI Platform: Digital should continue its uptrend as returns are more visible and ROI is generally higher. Also in the digital space, it would be interesting to see how brands capitalize beyond the regular SEM and shopping channels. Influencer-led advertising is also expected to grow larger while taking better shape as the norms come into effect. It would also hopefully be the year we figure out how to better capitalize and monetize the newer channels, like Metaverse. The surprise, I think, could be that traditional formats reinvent themselves and offer better tracking and therefore better ROI.

Pragya Bijalwan – Chief Marketing Officer, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals

The year was challenging and exciting at the same time. After two years, people left their homes, celebrations returned to pre-Covid-19 times and life returned to normal. However, the war in Ukraine, inflation and the global economic slowdown are weighing on general business sentiment. Nonetheless, as an organization we remain committed to investing in branding initiatives across all of our key categories.

We have been active on Impact properties in India; IPL as well as top channels on TV in major genres across India during key summer season. We have significantly increased our spend on digital platforms, knowing that more than 80% of information searches take place online, while a large proportion of sales may still be made through traditional channels.

In the digital area, we have significantly expanded our presence on high-reach platforms such as YouTube, Google search and social media in order to increase awareness.

Platform with the best ROI: Smart TV and OTT users now exceed 1 billion. With this, the role of connected devices is increasing and advertisers will make good use of them to target relevant consumers with curated content. Data suggests that streamers spend 66 hours a week watching video content, and 64% pay the most attention to advertising on streaming services (more than triple the attention garnered by video advertising on social networks and websites ). With higher engagement on streaming platforms, the role of CTV will increase and marketers will tend to see higher ROI with the right content.

Tanveer Khan, GM, Brand Marketing, Dunzo

This has been a year of firsts for us when it comes to national campaigns. Previously we focused on growing the brand and building the Q-Commerce category through digital channels and targeting, a strong content strategy and brand communication on selected channels and social media. In 2022 we decide to go one step further and participate in national events like IPL.

The year also gave us the opportunity to experiment and learn with campaigns like Fridgesh Coolkarni, QR Code TVC and Bored Games, which achieved success and lots of brand love, helping us grow the category and business. Through other campaigns such as Dunzo Wali Diwali and city-specific campaigns, we learned about consumer preferences, shopping behaviors and intentions that we will definitely be replicating and scaling across India in the coming year.

Platform with the best ROI: There is huge potential in the regional and HSM (Hindi Speaking Market) space that is gaining a lot of attention and traction across all age groups and will certainly be a prospect for years to come.

The other trend is sports. While cricket is still a very popular sport in our country, other sporting events such as kabaddi, badminton and soccer are seeing a newfound interest from spectators. These new avenues will open new doors for marketers to find new niches.