Marketing In The Era Of Technological Disruption

With the rise of advanced technologies such as AI, big data analytics, social media, and automation, marketers now have significant tools to reach and engage their target audiences in innovative ways. In an era of technological disruption, adopting digital platforms, leveraging data-driven insights, and embracing agile marketing tactics have become essential.

With the theme of ‘Reimagining purpose in a tech-enabled world’, Pitch CMO Summit presented an insightful session on ‘Marketing in the era of technological disruption’ with a diverse panel of industry experts such as Ashish Tiwari, Chief Marketing Officer, Home Credit India; Charu Malhotra Bhatia, Vice President of Marketing, Hindware Limited; Gaurav Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer, Noise; Mukesh Ghuraiya, Chief Marketing Officer, Modi Naturals; Sachin Vashishtha, Chief Marketing Officer, Paisabazaar.com, and moderated by Avik Chattopadhyay, Co-founder & Partner, Expereal. 

Chattopadhyay raises a valid question on how the term ‘technological disruption’ is seen in the workspace, to which, Tiwari said, “With the advent of technology, it is only increasing in its speed, by the hour. Today, marketers have a numerical perspective on their strategies. In the simplistic term, marketing fundamentals are the same, the only thing is that the depth of understanding marketing fundamentals today is to create an impact because the channel of communication, channel of connect and channel of engagement have gone multifold. Secondly, the consumer journey which was linear earlier has gone cubical today. The third important thing technological disruption has done is made the world truly a global village. For a marketer in a workspace, it is about being present, rational, and being an individual to connect to other individuals are some trends coming out with technological disruption”.

Talking about the various connotation of the term ‘technological disruption’, Chattopadhyay states, “Since disruption gives a negative connotation, I use it as technological facilitations or technological enablements, and these enablements can actually come from within one’s organisation. They can come from a function as the function of marketing is seeing more technological enablements happening, could be in the areas of retention, acquisition, measurement and so on.”

Speaking about the key enablements, Mehta stated, “Noise is a product company that follows an omni-channel approach. A large part of our sales comes from marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, and more. We have our own D2C channels and we also sell offline. I think marketing is the most dynamic function of all business functions being more intense and scrutinised, doing the whole spectrum today”

In terms of how technology can help to improve conversions, Vashishtha comments, “For me, the role of a marketer hasn’t changed. From x ads, 20 years ago to now conversational AI, we have come a long way but the role of a marketer is to be present at the right time and the right place with the right message. Since we are online-based, we, at Paisabazaar are trying to find the best offer for the consumer. We have built a model called ‘chances of approval’ on our website, basis the data signals we get, credit scores from the other activities you do, and from alternate data, and we, with a very high accuracy tell you that these are the banks that the chances of approval are the highest rather than applying to multiple options.” Concluding upon playing the role of a facilitator, grappling to the challenge of higher conversion, “we are giving the power of choice in the hand of the consumer", he further added. 

On the discussion of bridging the gap between the screen and the showroom, Bhatia spoke, “The way this whole tech-led marketing environment is changing has also changed the consumer mapping journey. Today, as marketers there are a lot of tech-led data-led interventions that are required at relevant places. I come from a manufacturer-led industry, it is still the same but now the way we communicate with the consumer has undergone a transformation. Hindware, the legacy brand that it is has gone through an immense transformation over the last couple of years, right from the initial stages of communication. You now want to communicate to the consumer via AI tools, chatbots, and a lot more integration happening on voice as well as visual. We try to make ads and content so that you are optimising them where ever the consumer is present. Today consumers are closely involved in the purchase they make. Interestingly, while Hindware is a brick-and-mortar industry where in the end the consumer wants to feel the product at the showroom, they still want to make the choices online. Not just that, they are also wanting to have a visualiser and an immersive experience of the product and so we are using both AR and VR tools to provide them with that experience where they are able to see how it will look at their own home and bathroom spaces.” She further added, “It's an entire journey where you have to hand pull the consumers right to the conversion funnel and that’s when probably the consumer will walk in the store to make the final purchase. That’s how we are trying to bridge the gap between the first search of consumers online to them physically visiting the store.”

On the use of technology as an enabler to reach out to customers and retain them, Ghuraiya said, “Interestingly, the technological disruption for the FMCG industry would be two folds. One part is as a marketer, as a team how we use the technology internally to optimise our work and manage our time frame. As professionals, any technology, any tool that saves our time and makes it more efficient is an interesting technology disruption for us. The second part is the consumer interface, we go where the consumer is. Under FMCG, grocery as a category, one big disruption that has happened after the pandemic is the emergence of e-commerce as a medium. Hence now it's important for the marketers to understand the technological tools, techniques, and platforms that the consumer is using and be present there.”

The panel discussion also addressed various takes on OTT becoming a platform for brands, the skillset marketers have to learn and unlearn in the tech era, skill enhancements demonstrated to people at the workplace as well as the adoption of tech for marketers such as ChatGPT and Generative AI. 

The panel discussion was held at the Pitch CMO Summit on 14th June, 2023 at Gurugram.