In conversation with Nikhil Kumar, Vice President, India & SEA, Mediasmart

With the upcoming festive season and the imminent ICC World Cup, marketers are once again gearing up to explore CTV advertising, aiming to optimize their outreach and influence.

In order to gain insights into the present CTV landscape, the opportunities, and obstacles encountered by marketers, as well as, how they are reshaping their strategies to connect with their target audience during the festive season via CTV, we conducted an open and informative discussion with Nikhil Kumar, Vice President for India & Southeast Asia at Mediasmart.

Agency Reporter – The convergence of two major events such as the ICC Cricket World Cup and the festive season can present a unique set of challenges and opportunities. In your opinion, what are these key challenges and opportunities and how advertisers can navigate this complex landscape effectively?

October-December is the biggest quarter from the lens of consumer spending during the festive period, which in turn drives advertiser spending as well.This year, it’s a double bonanza with a marquee event like the cricket world cup coinciding with the festive season and I see this as a huge opportunity for marketers rather than challenges. Cricket as a sport enjoys massive fan following in India and is no less than a festival in itself! We expect greater enthusiasm among the industry players for this unique period with greater user engagement on CTV screens, more visibility for DOOH screens, and eventually more in-store purchases and user action on mobile. For advertisers to make the most of this opportunity it is important to integrate consumer journeys across screens to maximize impact and make it a cracker of a festive season!

Agency Reporter – Can you share insights on the factors or changes in consumer behavior that are driving the shift towards digital platforms for advertising?

Nikhil Kumar – Prior to the pandemic, we were already witnessing a gradual transformation in consumer behavior and India’s digital advertising landscape. A vast majority of consumers were increasingly using smartphones for mobile payments, content consumption, and eCommerce. The affordability of Smart TVs and improved internet accessibility also encouraged the adoption of Connected TV (CTV), providing a better streaming experience of OTT platforms. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transformation. Lockdowns and social distancing measures pushed consumers even further into the digital realm, where they worked, studied, shopped, and entertained themselves. The increased digital consumption encouraged advertisers to follow consumer eyeballs. Both digitally native app advertisers and legacy brands recognized the importance of reaching consumers where they spent their time – online.

Today, in the post-pandemic world, digital-first behaviors have cemented and changed the way consumers interact and engage with digital platforms. This has also given a surge in advertising across mobile and CTV as well as other new-age mediums like DOOH. With consumer behaviors continuing to evolve across demographics, income groups, and cities becoming digitally comfortable, we expect digital channels to continue to take a larger share of advertising wallets.

Agency Reporter – During the festive season, where do marketers typically allocate the major portion of their ad spending, and what trends have you noticed in recent years regarding this allocation?

NIkhil Kumar – Festive period is a time for celebrations and usually translates into bigger purchases centered around this period, whether that is traveling, shopping, buying consumer goods and automotives. Advertisers choose channels strategically during this time to make maximum impact for brand awareness, recall, and purchases. This can be either a bouquet of channel diversification, or a split between traditional and digital mediums. Diwali is a time when people visit high-catchment areas like commercial market streets. Advertisers can take advantage of the high footfall with multi-screen advertising and project ads on digital mediums. Festive advertising is not limited to TV, but in recent years many digitally native advertisers are choosing to spend higher on digital platforms across CTV, DOOH, and mobile. As digital channels continue to grow bigger and advertising options become more advanced, it is likely that we will see the trend of digital ad revenue surpassing traditional channels.

Agency Reporter – Connected TV (CTV) has also gained significant traction in recent years. How has the adoption of CTV by consumers impacted the strategies of advertisers during the festive season?

NIkhil Kumar – CTV’s rapid growth, driven by increased Smart TV usage and the declining popularity of traditional DTH services, has reshaped the advertising landscape. With approximately 18-20 million households in India now using CTV, more advertisers are including it in part of their media mix to reach these new audiences. CTV users encompass a diverse demographic from 18-65 year olds, as well as income groups. These users are evolved technology savvy audiences who are comfortable using the internet to stream television content. This diversity allows for flexible targeting and tailoring of our festive campaigns to various segments of the population.

What’s particularly noteworthy is the varied consumption patterns observed throughout the day. Different family members engage with CTV content at different times, providing us with opportunities to optimize ad placements based on these patterns. Furthermore, the expansive content ecosystem with more than 46 OTT platforms enhances the ability to deliver relevant and engaging festive messages to the audiences.

CTV’s broad reach, diverse user base, and dynamic content consumption patterns have made it an essential component of any planning exercise for festive season and beyond.

Agency Reporter – What unique advantages does CTV offer to advertisers during these high-profile seasons, and how can brands make the most of this platform to maximize their reach and impact?

Nikhil Kumar – CTV offers many unique advantages to advertisers who want to explore the space of engaging storytelling related to television advertising and also want to enjoy the benefits of digital programmatic technology. With a vast user base, CTV has become a medium of choice both for bespoke luxury brands as well as affordable everyday brands across FMCG, consumer goods and electronics, fashion and lifestyle – all of which are typically shopped for during festive season. Interestingly, the understanding of a CTV user also helps to understand the overall affluence levels of the household and target them accordingly.

The multiplicity of targeting, advanced measurement, along with interactivity and full-funnel impact made possible by niche technologies such as Household Sync, Engagement Sync, Creative Sync, and Offline Sync, attract advertisers to launch CTV campaigns to specific audiences in the same household, measure results, and even drive them to the nearest store or take actions on websites / apps.

This has huge benefits for brands to connect the offline and online worlds and allow ROI to be tracked through the entire user journey from discovery on TV to action on connected devices via app downloads, in-app purchases, or even track the impact in the offline world through footfall measurement. Over the years, with our expertise of running campaigns on CTV and using our proprietary Household Sync technology we have been able to measure the impact CTV ads have on various aspects of brand lift, from ad recall, message association, brand awareness, and purchase intent.

Agency Reporter – Given the unique challenges of limited attention spans during live sporting events, what strategies have you seen brands use to capture and retain audience engagement effectively?

Nikhil Kumar – A sporting event like the cricket world cup has highly engaged audiences who have eyeballs glued to the screens. This has the potential to attract advertisers to reach a wider audience on CTV that is spread across demographics, age, and interests. Every kind of advertiser, from every industry, can target their potential customers with CTV’s unique advantages and popularity of sporting events. It is key to create advertising that is engaging, interactive and concise to effectively capture viewers’ attention in a live environment. With so many advertisers wanting to be a part of the cricket advertising ecosystem, it tends to become a blindspot for consumers. This can be a tough position for any brand to gain a user’s attention. With CTV, the environment for advertising is more dynamic to create interesting ad creatives that can minimize this struggle. Brands can use features such as engagement sync to encourage users to engage with ads through QR codes. Advertisers should also carefully choose the ad lengths, where we are seeing that shorter ads in commercial breaks continue to be the norm in the range of 6-15 second shutter ads.

Agency Reporter – What are some key performance indicators (KPIs) that advertisers should pay attention to when evaluating the success of their campaigns during high-profile events, and how have these KPIs evolved over time?

Nikhil Kumar – It’s important for any brand to understand what they’re looking to derive from any advertising campaign, especially in the digital realm. There’s no generic KPI that can work for advertisers across categories. Any advertiser who invests in advertising, do it for the ROI they get. This ROI can be in different forms depending on the brand’s end goals. We have seen various advertisers where key indicators have been from brand awareness to video completion rate, to engagement within a website or social page.

Post-Covid, we have also observed that advertisers have become more digital savvy and there’s greater understanding of attribution towards digital mediums like CTV for high impact brand storytelling, amplified engagement on CTV exposed audience on mobile, and drive conversions.

Agency Reporter – Considering the rapid evolution of consumer behavior and technology, what innovative advertising channels or formats do you believe will emerge as game-changers in the next decade, and how should advertisers prepare for their integration into seasonal campaigns?

Nikhil Kumar – Advertising has indeed evolved significantly over time, moving from traditional print to television and outdoor advertising. However, it’s important to recognize that the rapid evolution of consumer behavior and technology continues to drive the emergence of innovative advertising channels and formats.

In recent years, influencer marketing emerged as an integral part of the media mix. CTV is the only other popular advertising channel that encapsulates a brand’s media planning today. As we look ahead to the next decade, advertisers should look at multi-screen impact and unified reach for their seasonal campaigns. CTV’s promise to integrate multiple screens like mobile and DOOH holds immense potential in this regard. With CTV, we’re not only reaching individuals but entire families who are increasingly watching content on this platform. It’s become a shared experience, where everyone is tuned in, creating a unique opportunity for advertisers to connect with a wide and engaged audience. As technology on CTV advertising evolves, we’re likely to see more brands incorporating CTV advertising with a focus on integrating consumer journeys.