Digital Marketing Ecosystem Will Grow In 2023: Ramneek Chadha, Xapads Media

Advertising and marketing are the key factors for any company to promote its brands and boost its sales. In the upcoming year, all the major brands are focusing on attracting customers to their new products with attractive deals and advertising.

Given India's continually increasing demand for localised content, there is a need for advertisers to consider creating regional advertising which goes beyond dubbed ads. With local content, brands expect to connect better with consumers of a certain cohort concentrated in a geographical area to get a higher return on investment (ROI).

Ramneek Chadha, COO of Xapads Media talks about how the year 2022 was for the advertising and marketing industry and the expectations from 2023.

Excerpts from the Interview:

Q. What were the major advertising trends in 2022?

2022 has been a good year for the advertisement industry on the whole, but especially for digital marketing industry as we saw most of the world opening post-pandemic, which pushed the demand globally.  Some of the major trends of 2022 were:

• Omnichannel - There has been a lot of debate on how to blur the lines between the offline and online to target the users on both worlds for better brand engagement, measurement and ROI. This year saw a lot of focus on this problem, and a few positive-looking solutions as well.
• Cookie less Future - Another trend for this year was about Cookieless future, as Google will depreciate third-party cookies in 2023, and a lot has been done to address this challenge, with brands, agencies and Ad-Tech platforms working together to address the challenge.
• Performance Marketing - With the weak outlook of the global economy, most of the brands shifted a big chunk of their branding / awareness ad spent towards performance marketing to achieve higher ROI.
• AI / ML - In this fast-paced Digital Ad Segment, where millions of users are building terabytes of data daily, AI / ML tools/algorithms became the need of the hour. Most of the big ad-Tech platforms are now fiddling with AI / ML tools in their product suite, so as to get higher ROI for the Brands.

Q. How the global recession of 2023 would affect the advertising industry?

With the global recession around the corner, there will surely be some correction in the advertisement industry on the whole, but I am sensing positive growth in the digital advertisement segment. The brands will have to shuffle the ad spending from ATL marketing to BTL marketing, whereby they can concentrate on the higher ROI channels like performance marketing.

With funding winter, there will be some cuts in the marketing activities of the start-ups, but traditional businesses will increase their ad-spent on digital advertisements in 2023 and in years to come, to increase their market share, and achieve higher ROI. So while there will be some re-shuffle across the ad-spent and marketing medium, overall there will be an uptick in the digital marketing ecosystem.

Q. How has the emergence of AI/ML shaped advertisements?

AI / ML is the present and future of digital advertisements and with terabytes of available data, it gets even more important to generate actionable information from the data sets, so as to run highly targeted ad campaigns. There was a time when this could have been done manually but now it's totally machine-dependent and that’s where AI / ML kicks in. 

Building AI / ML algorithms on top of the available data sets can greatly help the Ad-Tech platforms to run highly targeted, ROI-positive, scalable & long-term campaigns. Programmatic Digital Advertisements became the go-to medium for digital advertisements, both for branding / awareness and performance activities, with AI / ML being the most important factor for this shift.

Q. Moving beyond dubbed ads, how has vernacular advertising helped brands to engage customers?

In a diversified country like ours, it becomes very important for brands to reach out to their customers in their native language. For past many years, this was being approached by the means of dubbed ads, but the way India’s Tier 2 / 3 / 4 towns are seeing rapid growth economically, becoming one of the key customers for the brands, it became more important to communicate with them in their native language on their native platforms, instead of a broad targeting via dubbed ads.

We are seeing a huge push in vernacular content consumption, and we saw a spike in brand engagement when the brands' communication was in their native language. Now with the plethora of upcoming vernacular content on Websites, Apps and CTV / OTT platforms, this is becoming too crucial for the Brands and is bringing in a way better results.

Q. What do you foresee in the upcoming year?

While there will be some correction in the advertisement sector overall, I can safely say that the Digital Marketing ecosystem will grow in 2023. Like every year, we will see some challenges and opportunities, and if the brands, agencies and Ad-Tech partners focus on them closely, then it will surely be one of the good years for the digital ecosystem on the whole.

Higher mobile penetration, 5G Launches globally, Web 3.0 picking up and Adoption of Metaverse Platforms, AI / ML, etc. will be the key trends to see in the coming year.

Q. How will the upcoming budget of 2023 affect the advertising industry?

The government of India’s policies of the previous few years has affected the digital ecosystem greatly in a positive manner with more and more brands / users adopting a digital footprint. For the Advertisement Industry to grow in this difficult economic scenario, we are expecting a few favour in the upcoming budget of 2023, especially a lower rate of GST on advertisement spending. This will allow them to spend more on advertisements and get higher ROI, affecting everyone in the lifecycle of the product/services, and hence bringing in more liquidity.

Q. How has 2022 been a year for the sector?

2022 has been a great year for the advertisement sector on the whole, while there were some ups and downs throughout the year, there’s overall positive growth in the segment over this year, despite the weaker global cues, partial lock-downs, what and whatnot.

We saw the adoption of Web 3.0 & Metaverse Platforms this year, opening a completely new set of Advertisement mediums. We saw a huge push from the traditional nusinesses, building and growing their digital footprints, so as to reach their audiences in more meaningful ways, especially focusing on omnichannel solutions, so as to target the same user in both worlds. Travel and hospitality sectors with OTAs doubled or even tripled their ad spending during this year. 

All in all, it was a fruitful year for the Advertisement Sector and, the upcoming year will be even better.