In conversation with Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk, India

The Trade Desk, a technology company that empowers buyers of advertising, in association with Kantar, a data, insight and analytics company, recently launched an industry-first report, ‘Gateway to the Open Internet.’ The report provides insights on the Indian media ecosystem and how consumers engage with different digital media channels. To understand more about the report, Agency Reporter reached out to Tejinder Gill, General Manager, The Trade Desk – India for an exclusive interaction.

Agency Reporter – Can you tell us more about the Gateway to the Open Internet report and what inspired The Trade Desk to conduct this research?

Tejinder Gill – The Trade Desk partners with most major players in the open internet. We know from our conversations with these partners that embracing the open internet has become an integral part of consumers’ digital life and premium content is what drives consumers to the open internet.

But when we spoke with advertisers and agencies, we saw low awareness about the open internet. Many brand marketers are aware of social media and UCG platforms, but they lack understanding of the different ad opportunities available across different channels on the open internet. They are unaware of how they can utilize these channels to form an impactful ad campaign. This report sets out to map consumers’ journey on the open internet – how; when; why – and highlights the immense ad opportunities on the thriving open internet for brands.

Agency Reporter – The report highlights the disconnect between consumers’ time spent and ad spends on the open internet. Why do you think there is this discrepancy, and what can be done to address it?

Tejinder Gill – Contrary to what most believe, the report reveals that consumers in India are not just spending their digital time on social media and user-generated platforms. Today, they are spending half of their online time (52%) on the open internet.

The discrepancy between consumers’ time spent and ad spend on the open internet can be attributed to marketers’ reluctance to move away from tried and tested approach. Majority of digital advertisers in India are more familiar with traditional advertising platforms like TV and social media. They are hence hesitant to shift their budgets to relatively newer yet fast-growing channels such as CTV/OTT and music streaming.

This is why we embarked on this industry-first research with Kantar. The ‘Gateway to the Open Internet’ report offers brands and marketers a good understanding of how consumers are behaving on the different channels on the open internet. This helps marketers to develop a strong understanding of the open internet and outlines how the open internet provides for more effective media buying strategies, beyond social media and user-generated platforms that they are familiar with.

Agency Reporter – The report notes that despite the open internet accounting for over half of the average consumer’s time spent on digital media, walled gardens continue to take the lion’s share of digital ad expenditure. Why do you think this is the case?

Tejinder Gill – The findings of our report reveal that even though consumers spend half of their digital time on the open internet, marketers in India are spending 5.4 times more ad dollars on walled gardens such as YouTube and Facebook.

This disparity can be attributed to the scale and reach of walled gardens. However, marketers who focus solely on these platforms due to their size are missing out on other touchpoints on the open internet, where consumers are more engaged, open to advertising, and trusting of brands. It is important for marketers to diversify their media investments and develop a well-thought-out media strategy that incorporates both walled gardens and the open internet to leverage the benefits of both ecosystems in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape.

Agency Reporter – The open internet reaches almost 600 million consumers in India, which is around 62 million more than the closed ecosystems of the walled gardens. Can you speak to the potential benefits for brands that advertise on the open internet?

Tejinder Gill – The research shows that brands that advertise on the open internet drive better ad recall, are considered more premium, and are likely to drive more sales, compared to social media and user-generated platforms. Here are the related findings:

With premium content (on the open internet), comes greater brand impact:

Consumers are 33% more likely to view ads on OTT/CTV as more premium, compared to YouTube
Consumers are 17% more likely to purchase products advertised on news/websites, compared to social media
Users are more engaged on the open internet, enabling reach with better impact

They are 22% more likely to recall ads on OTT/CTV, compared to YouTube
They are 19% more likely to find ads on news/websites less intrusive, compared to social media

Agency Reporter – How can advertisers benefit from the fact that 19% of consumers find ads on news websites and blogs less intrusive than on social media, and that morning activity on news and general interest sites is 72% higher than average?

Tejinder Gill – On average, people in Delhi reportedly spend 57 minutes for a one-way commute to work, during which they browse news and other websites. As a result, between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m., activity on news and other websites exceeded the average usage across all channels by 72 percent. Such ‘me time’ periods generate a more immersive ad experience where consumers find ads less intrusive, compared to social media.

These immersive ad experiences on the open internet give marketers more cost-efficient ways to improve overall campaign effectiveness. As such, marketers can tap into such contexts exclusive to the open internet. Furthermore, omnichannel activation strategies aligned with the ebb and flow of consumers’ media usage will gain importance in increasingly crowded advertising environments.

Agency Reporter – The research highlights a clear preference for Hindi and local language content, with 77% choosing Hindi among OTT and CTV viewers. What opportunities do you see for brands to reach these audiences through advertising on the open internet?

Tejinder Gill – The research shows that there is a strong inclination towards Hindi and local language content among CTV/OTT viewers, with 77% of them opting for Hindi. This serves as an excellent opportunity for brands to connect with these audiences through advertising on the open internet. By creating ads that resonate with local culture and language, brands can effectively capture the attention of their target audience and drive higher engagement.

Additionally, given the popularity of regional content on OTT and music streaming platforms, brands and marketers can explore the use of regional languages and cultural cues in their advertising campaigns to further enhance their reach and effectiveness. To give you an example, Zee5 is planning to release 16 original Telugu series in 2023, while a vast majority (85%) of Gaana’s users listen to Hindi film and pop music. Hence, there is a significant potential for brands to leverage the trend towards local language content consumption and connect with audiences through tailored advertising on the open internet.

Agency Reporter – The research suggests that marketing heads and CMOs in India are struggling to measure the performance of their advertising spend within walled gardens. Can you speak to the challenges they face, and how The Trade Desk can help address these challenges?

Tejinder Gill – Unlike the open internet, closed ecosystems of the walled gardens lack transparency and objectivity, making it difficult for marketers to effectively measure their campaigns’ performance and make informed decisions. This lack of access to measurement, attribution, and reporting data across channels can be frustrating for marketers, who often struggle to understand what is working and what isn’t at a granular level.

The Trade Desk provides marketers with access to a wealth of data and analytics that can help them measure the performance of their campaigns with utmost precision. Our commitment to the open internet and transparency in digital advertising has led us to develop solutions that address these challenges, enabling marketers to make more informed decisions and drive better ROI. By leveraging our platform, marketers can gain greater control and transparency over their campaigns and improve their ability to measure performance with the right tools and insights they need to drive more effective outcomes.

Agency Reporter – With third-party cookies set to be phased out, what impact do you think this will have on advertising on the open internet, and how is The Trade Desk preparing for this shift?

Tejinder Gill – With the impending deprecation of cookies, forward-thinking marketers are already exploring alternatives on the open internet. Today, many of the open internet channels operate in a cookieless environment including advertising on OTT, CTV, music streaming, and mobile in-apps just to name a few.

With advertisers embracing a wide range of digital ad channels, there is a growing need for contemporary identity solutions that can serve as a new common currency of the open internet. The Trade Desk pioneered a new approach to identity known as Unified ID 2.0 (UID2). This is a privacy-conscious, open-source identity framework that provides advertisers with a more transparent and secure way to identify users across channels and devices. This will address marketers’ need to objectively measure across all advertising channels, drive more precision in ad targeting, and manage ad frequency across channels and devices.

Agency Reporter – Looking to the future, what opportunities do you see for advertisers on the open internet, and how is The Trade Desk positioning itself to take advantage of these opportunities?

Tejinder Gill – The open internet has an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. Given that Indian consumers are spending half of their online hours on the open internet, it’s the centerpiece of the media table. Advertisers can stay competitive by understanding how consumers behave across the open internet and making budget decisions based on a holistic picture of online media consumption patterns, rather than relying on their engagement within a single platform. This approach can lead to more comprehensive conclusions about advertising costs, reach, and attention – insights that individual platforms (such as walled gardens) cannot achieve, no matter how large their user bases are.

Through The Trade Desk’s omnichannel media buying platform, marketers can leverage these exciting ad opportunities on the open internet, while providing the transparency needed to measure their campaign performance effectively. By helping advertisers apply data to every ad impression, The Trade Desk is optimising media campaigns in ways that are simply not possible in the traditional, analogue guessing-game of marketing.

By partnering with The Trade Desk, brands can leverage these fast-growing ad opportunities to reach millions of consumers. The Trade Desk’s omnichannel platform offers access to premium inventory from top local and regional publishers, allowing advertisers to activate and manage all their campaigns in one place.