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<ul><li>We bring to you a series of columns from industry experts, looking back at the last 10 years.</li><li>The columns will explore how the media, marketing and <keyword id="34612" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="advertising-industry">advertising industry</keyword> has transformed in the last decade.</li><li>Prabhakar Mundkur, Brand Advisor and Mentor, answers if 'creativity has declined in this decade' and pens down some profound trends that transformed the industry.</li></ul>As the current decade approaches a close, it is worth reminiscing how it started on January 1, 2010. The new decade brought with it some profound changes. The internet was beginning to change the way people live, read, do business, buy, and connect with other people. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. We learnt a new term called ‘social media’ with its advent. LinkedIn was launched earlier in 2003 and Twitter later in 2006. Facebook had 350 million users in Dec 2009. Now it has 1.6 billion daily users. That’s probably an indication of how much life has changed globally. Social media has become an intrinsic and inseparable part of our lives. We leave our digital footprints as we trod across the earth. According to the KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2018, the Indian OTT market is expected to grow 45%, to reach ₹138 billion by the end of fiscal 2023. According to a report by Ernst &amp; Young, the number of OTT users in the country will reach 500 million by 2020, making India the second-biggest market after the US. That surely is a threat to broadcast TV as we know it in India. In more developed markets like the US, some observers are predicting the death of broadcast TV in the next decade and cable networks as OTT usage completely replaces TV as we know it. Hotstar just crossed 400 million downloads and 63% of its consumption came from non-metro cities, defining the way for the next decade. At the turn of the last decade in 2009, digital media expenditure was just 5.4% of the total of Rs. 19,400 crores. Ten years later in 2019, digital media expenditure will be 21% of the total ad expenditure. While India is behind the curve in the US where digital media expenditure has overtaken traditional media, we are likely to be less than 10 years behind. So it is easy to see where we might be at the end of the next decade. Time spent with digital media vs traditional media in the US in minutes Source : statista.com Has Creativity Declined in this Decade? Advertising was considered an art form in the 20th Century. It has now been taken over by data scientists and engineers whose province is machines, algorithms, big data and artificial intelligence. Digital advertising might be the most potent force of our era, but I can’t help feeling that creative standards have taken a beating, and this phenomenon has peaked in the current decade. For some reason, I think the digital advertising industry assumes that measurement, behaviour and micro-targeting over-rides the need to stimulate consumers. The Volkswagen 1959 Ad Classic Ogilvy ad for Rolls Royce 1958 Dan Izbicki, creative excellence director at Unilever, a few years ago during the IPA awards is known to have said, “There’s an assumption [in our industry] at the moment that just because everybody has got a camera and access to a YouTube channel, suddenly everybody is a creative director – that’s clearly not true,” he said. “That’s why most advertising is terrible and most films are not very good. [Creativity] is a precious skill.” HSBC’s former head of marketing in EMEA Philip Mehl once said, “Marketing used to be a creative challenge but it’s a data challenge now.” The problem notably is that it is difficult to understand a consumer’s emotions with data. And consumer emotions is something that the advertising men of the last century understood well. There are two kinds of emotional responses. One is empathy, when a consumer empathises or feels close to the advertising. Here the brand acts like a mirror where you see yourself in the brand. Rational brands like detergents and toothpastes often try to elicit this kind of response. The other emotional response is when you feel that the brand is very imaginative and ahead of its game. The brand then acts like a badge which the consumer would like to wear for others to see. Apple, Nike and many others rely on this kind of emotional response. For some reason, digital advertising seems to fail on both counts of emotional responses. The emphasis seems to be to provide information rather than stimulation. Providing information masquerades under the all-encompassing word called ‘content’ which is bandied around both in advertising and entertainment. My argument is that almost everything is content; news is also content. But news is information. And advertising of any kind must certainly go beyond providing information. Life in the next decade “John Anderton you could use a Guinness right about now.” Advertising and Media is a function of how life will change in the next decade. Will we all have a super-computer in our pockets by the end of the decade? What about driverless cars? Will they be the norm rather than the exception? Will access to the internet become a basic right? Will we get our first robotic pharmacist? Will 90% of the people on earth have an online presence? Will we have an implantable phone on our arms as they show in the movies? One could go on. India will have 370 million Generation Z consumers who enter their prime earning years according to Bain report on Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Markets, India, World Economic Forum in January 2019. According to a UN forecast, India’s population will touch 1.5 billion by 2030, so Generation Z will be a quarter of our population. In a sense, they will replace the millennials. I can personally see digital media expenditure cross traditional media in the next decade. I also see the near death of broadcast TV as we know it with OTT platforms taking over. Hotstar downloads for example have already crossed 400 million and 40% of their content is already regional, according to the third edition of the India Watch Report. I see the following 5 trends emerge in the next decade. <ul><li>More automation</li><li>Extremely personalised</li><li>Immersive</li><li>Experiential</li><li>Highly Measurable</li></ul> We will move from demographics to psychographics. From persuasion to unconscious manipulation. From chatbots to adbots that create ads. The Emirates ads are a step in that direction. And most importantly, technological singularity will be dangerously near – the idea that technological progress particularly in artificial intelligence will reach a tipping point where machines are exponentially smarter than humans. And I can’t help feeling that we will be closer than ever to personalised advertising as depicted in the Minority Report that has most futurists salivating. When Tom Cruise walks through a mall and gets bombarded with ads that mention him by name. My personal favourite is the scene when the Lexus ad whispers to Tom Cruise, “The road you’re on, John Anderton, is the one less travelled.” The future is inevitable. We can only question how quickly it will collide with the present. 
 
 
 
 
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 - By Prabhakar Mundkur, Brand Advisor and Mentor

Looking back, looking forward

<ul><li>Ahead of our <keyword id="28240" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Independence-day">Independence Day</keyword>, we spoke to experts about what <keyword id="247986" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Brand-India">Brand India</keyword> stands for today, how it has evolved the years, and what would a pitch for Brand India look like today.</li><li>We try to answer a few of these questions with <keyword id="356571" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ambi-Parameswaran">Ambi Parameswaran</keyword>, Founder, Brand-Building.com, <keyword id="3194505" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prabhakar-Mundkur">Prabhakar Mundkur</keyword>, Brand Advisor and Mentor, <keyword id="244384" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lloyd-Mathias">Lloyd Mathias</keyword>, Business Strategist &amp; Angel Investor and the former Asia-Pacific Marketing Head of HP Inc, <keyword id="175362" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harish-Bijoor">Harish Bijoor</keyword>, Brand Guru &amp; Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc and <keyword id="247533" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Karthik-Srinivasan">Karthik Srinivasan</keyword>, Brand Consultant and Social Media Expert.</li></ul> On the occasion of our 74th Independence Day, we thought of sitting back and reflecting how far we have come as a nation in the last 74 years. A lot of work has gone behind building Brand India over the years into what it stands for today. However, the year 2020 has brought with it massive changes, not just in India but across the world. The pandemic has perhaps changed how we live our lives forever. The business landscape is changing too. For years now, our country’s population has made us a rather attractive market for many global players, with most of the biggest global brands trying to make inroads into India. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent clarion call for becoming ‘Vocal for Local’, has brought about a wave of enthusiasm to adopt local brands. And things are changing slowly. The ban on Chinese apps have further also given rise to numerous Indian players coming into the picture and wooing consumers with their innovative, differentiated offerings. So when we talk about the image of India as a brand, it is safe to say that it is ever-evolving. However, in our attempt to dive a little deeper and decode what Brand India stands for today, we caught up with some experts from the industry. They helped define Brand India for us, told us how it has evolved over the years and told where we stand in the global scheme of things, while also giving us a pitch for Brand India. <div type="image" title="Ambi" msid="77526854" hostid="261"></div> Ambi Parameswaran, Founder, Brand-Building.com Brand India has traversed a vast terrain in the last 74 years. From the days when the Western world gave us a few years to come apart at the seams, to becoming a basket case, economically, today we are the world’s largest functioning democracy. We have our problems and have not achieved a China-like miraculous rejuvenation, but we are not a country going out looking for aid. Brand India has emerged into a brand that stands for a number of things in the minds of the global citizens. On the one hand it is seen as the originator of Meditation, Yoga and nature-based cures. On the other end, we are seen as world leaders in Information Technology services. Our hospitality industry is widely recognized as among the best in the world. But there are pieces missing in all this. We are a poor country. While millions have been pulled out of severe poverty, almost 25% of Indian households live below the poverty line. Is GDP a good enough measure or should we look at a different measure? While arguments may rage over that question, we cannot have a large percentage of our population going hungry, without education, without healthcare, without a proper roof over their heads. So there is a lot of work to be done. Brand India, which was once set to become a global disappointment, is no longer in that corner. The world is wanting Brand India to come out shining. It is up to us to rise to this challenge and become a kind, spiritual, democratic world economic power. Happy Independence Day! <div type="image" title="Prabhakar." msid="77526858" hostid="261"></div> Prabhakar Mundkur, Brand Advisor and Mentor I think we have evolved from a colonial state into a country of our own. But over the years we have not come to mean one thing or a few things to people around the world. Yes of course mystics, spirituality, yoga, elephants, cows, ancient civilisation, world’s largest democracy and land of diversity all seem to stay with us. But as a country we need to mean much more. I remember in the old days we always associated ruggedness and quality with German products. We associated quality with British and American products and so on. When Japan first made an entry into the world market, we associated them with cheaper products. I bought my first National Panasonic two-in-one because it was cheaper than the rest. Some people told me it would work fine but wouldn’t last very long. I was OK with that. But it didn’t take them long to overcome that reputation. Most Japanese products I have bought last me longer than anything else. I know people who finally sell their Toyota Corolla after a good 10 years because they are almost disgusted that it won’t stop. Or the famous triad London-Paris-New York became the epitome of fashion. When China entered the world economy, they were in the same situation as Japan in the 70s. Cheap products. But again, China overcame that long ago. I look at my Apple charger in my MacBook Pro and see that it says it is produced in China. And I wonder why I still can’t fit an Indian 3 pin plug into my wall socket without holding it up with matchsticks or some other packing. I wish we made plugs that would fit perfectly. Again, China is just the world’s supply hub for everything. And they can make batteries but they can make Boeings as well. In this context I would like India to mean something. I know that we are known for software but I am disappointed that we are known to be the cheaper software engineers around the world (code coolies) who are capable of working long hours. I also often wonder why the software that Indian engineers are producing is making the developing countries more developed. Why is that technology not available in India? India needs to be a value-added manufacturer of goods and services in the world economy. It’s not the samething as being an exporter. An exporter rarely dominates the world market. We have the chance to be the world’s supply hub. We have an advantage of being democratic, trustworthy and honest. But let us please leave our pride of jugaad behind. It’s only a low-cost ingenious solution that can work in India and nowhere else in the world. <div type="image" title="Lloyd" msid="77526869" hostid="261"></div> Lloyd Mathias, Business Strategist &amp; Angel Investor and the former Asia-Pacific Marketing Head of HP Inc. As India enters into its 74th year as a free nation, it’s interesting to look at how we’re perceived by the world and where we clearly need to get to.As far as perceptions go, while we’ve dusted off the colonial legacy of maharajah’s and elephants, we’re still steeped into tradition, and seen as a nation that takes two steps back for every step forward. While nations younger than us have moved ahead and given their citizens a better livelihood, we still find ourselves battling age old disputes, debating reservations, struggling to get basics right – education and healthcare for all; clean drinking water and functional infrastructure. A word-cloud of business related attributes on India would have terms like | poor infrastructure | dysfunctional legal system | unresponsive bureaucracy | corrupt policy makers | archaic labour laws |in short a difficult environment for business. On the positive side, India remains the world’s most vibrant – if sometimes floundering – democracy, with diversity that would make most continents seem homogeneous, in comparison. It’s vast and growing middle class and dramatic growth of the internet and digital services, offers a world of opportunity that Jio platforms cleverly used to woo global tech majors and some of the world’s premier funds. Then of course, we have the shining stars that still make India so alluring – Yoga, Bollywood; world class management talent; tech and software geeks running the world’s back end; an emerging hub for startups; a deep culture of service and the ability to get the impossible done surmounting the odds. Going forward we need brand India to build a strong culture of trust and reliability; speed, efficiency and quality, while still keeping our multicultural ethos.The lumbering elephant needs to trot… The world is waiting. <div type="image" title="harish bijoor 1" msid="77526874" hostid="261"></div> Harish Bijoor, Brand Guru &amp; Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. From a state of food shortage, to one of disease and death (a very high rate of infant mortality included), a very low level of literacy and a very deep degree of poverty, Brand India has traversed many, many miles. And yes, there are ‘miles to go before we sleep’ for sure! India today is a robust brand in the roster of nations. Our second largest population number makes us a market for many from every nation. Additionally, higher prosperity indices make for a robust domestic consumption market itself. A strong government at the centre, a host of very positive reforms that relate to health and education in particular will lead us to the dreams that India aspires for. It is clear that India does not lack for positive policy initiatives. If at all there is a lack and lag, it is in the implementation. As India evolves, we need to tackle the key issue of jobs for all. And that is the only red flag for now in our brand progress. Brand India today represents numbers for a start. The 1.3 billion plus population number is a number no nation can ignore. The important aspect of Brand India is the fact that we are a vibrant and strong democracy. A democracy that fought for its freedom, went through early tumult of a nation in the making, and has emerged over the years as a strong force to contend with. A strong democratic force. The diversity of India is its other appeal. A diversity woven into a seamless unity under the nation and its positive governance structure. Yes there are differences and noises of dissent and fight of every kind, and that is indeed the true nature of India. Each and every voice of dissent is a positive voice that seeks the same goal: a strong, mature and prosperous India. That indeed is the beauty I see in the political dissent we witness today. No one is right and no one is wrong right now. Time, debate and dissent will cobble together the future for this great land of ours. That's the beauty of brand India for me. <div type="image" title="Karthik sri 4_3" msid="77526877" hostid="261"></div> Karthik Srinivasan, Brand Consultant and Social Media Expert The pitching of Brand India depends on who it is being pitched to. For instance, if it is being pitched to voters in India, the narrative would be very different, compared to Brand India being pitched to overseas investors. If it were a generic pitch to no specific group in particular, I'd perhaps pitch Brand India in the following manner: India is all about largeness. Largeness in emotions Largeness in meaning Largeness in faith Largeness in consumption Largeness in giving Largeness in living There is good and bad in the largeness - it denotes excesses, history (largeness in time), population, loudness among others. But that unique combination makes it larger than the sum of its parts. India is greater than the sum of its parts.

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