What Hareesh Tibrewala teaches about AI in marketing

So we are actually moving from an era of one story for a billion people to like a billion stories for a billion people. Hi Harish, Miram is your third entrepreneurial venture. Which were the first two and how has the journey been? My first venture was a management consultancy firm. I had just gotten back from the US sometime in 1987 and started this management consultancy business. Ran that for about 10 years. In 1997, myself and a friend of mine, we founded HomeIndia.com, which was India's first e-commerce website.

Those were the days we didn't have payment gateways and courier services and people willing to put up merchandise for sale on e-commerce. We exited HomeIndia in 2007. In 2009, we founded Social Wavelength. So Miram was founded as Social Wavelength as a social media agency in the very, very early days when Facebook and Twitter kind of just come to town. But we could see that every brand and every business would require to use social media.

We started a social media agency. One of our big learnings from the earlier venture was that we need to scale a business very fast. So we scaled the business very fast. In 2014, we at WPP bought by a stake into the company and the business got rebranded as Miram. And now today, 10 years down the line, Miram is like a full service digital solutions company. You know businesses are increasingly realizing the importance of data-driven digital marketing.

According to you, what are the benefits of successfully implementing a data-driven digital marketing strategy? Yes. So the word data is now being used by everybody. The finance minister in a speech also says data is like the new oil which really is the fact. You know. On digital, people are leaving so much footprint behind, so much information behind that it is possible for a brand to mine this information in a very ethical manner and create stuff which is relevant for the consumer.

You know. A consumer wants brands as much as the brand wants consumer. But if somebody gives us the right messages, the right content, the right information at the right time, that creates value. You know, mass communication could not do that. It was like one size fits all. So if I open a publication, I see so many ads. Maybe they are not even relevant for me. But I am looking for those brands, those relevant ads which can meet my requirements.

So data-driven marketing allows you to build a journey of a customer like a completely personalized journey in terms of understanding likes, preferences, what channel does the customer prefer, at what point of time does the customer want to watch the content. And you can bundle all of it and ensure that personalization can happen at scale to like a person of one at the same cost like a mass communication. So we are actually moving from an era of one story for a billion people to like a billion stories for a billion people.

Recent study said that despite implementing many digital solutions, marketers still do not understand, you know, how to harness technology to gain greater insights into the consumer journey. Do you agree? And if yes, then how can we reverse this scenario? No, I don't think I agree with this. This was probably true 10 years back. You know, 10 years back if you spoke to a CMO, the understanding of technology, understanding of digital was minimal.

Today when you speak to a CMO, a lot of CMOs are extremely smart. They understand digital, they understand technology, they understand AI like a back of their hand. I believe some of the best talent today actually sits at the brand side. So while in the brand side, we find all kinds of CMOs, people who are extremely evolved and there will be people who need to be evolved. I think we are seeing more and more understanding adoption happening within the corporate also.

So for us to go and sell a digital solution, a technology solution, an AI solution today is far easier than what it used to be 10 years back. Apart from data, if you had to cite like the corners to principles of running and sustaining a successful brand campaign, what would they be? I think creativity is very important. You know, while we keep talking of data, we seem to forget that data and creativity go hand in hand. A great creative idea sitting on top of technology and data is really the way to reach out to a consumer.

So we shouldn't undermine the importance of creativity in a data driven marketing. You know, creativity, technology and data, to me, will sit together to actually create a great story for a consumer and for the brand. So to me, creativity is as important. The last question, the rate at which technology is progressing, you know, it calls for swift changes within digital agencies. What are your thoughts on this? And how do you see digital agencies evolving in the near future?

So to start with, I think the word agency itself is now a misnomer. You know, I don't think digital agencies are agencies anymore. You know, digital really requires the right brain and the left brain to come together. Typically, agency was more of a creative thinking. The right brain kind of people sat in an agency and the left brain guy sat in a tech company.

But really, a digital solutions company needs to be able to bring the right and left brain together. They need to talk together. They need to come up with a great creative idea, sitting on top of data and technology to actually create brand value. So digital agencies need to quickly morph themselves in being able to bring this right brain, left brain marriage happening. And once that happens, we are able to create the best value for a client.

So digital agencies need to be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain. And we will be able to bring the right brain