What Navin Khemka teaches about brand purpose

Branded content is really becoming very big in this country thanks to the explosion of the video content in the country. Indian advertising is still very much TV dominated, TV focused. So do you think that digital could ever be the mainstay for brands? Last year globally, digital was a tipping point. I think globally digital spends actually almost became 47% of the total global adx which means it actually surpassed television for the first time ever. Right. That was global level and in India also you know what is happening is digital is growing

exponentially. Right. If you see the growth rate that we are projecting in India for digital almost 30% this year. Yeah. We are about 17% of the adx right now as digital. It is expected to go up to about 20% by end of 2019. Out of 80,000 crores just imagine if 20% is digital which is about almost about 16 to 17,000 crores. We are talking about a significant chunk of money. So the digital is also growing at the expense of I would say where print is slowing down. Right.

Print as a media is slowing down and I expect digital to actually overtake print first and digital will eventually overtake television in the next 4 to 5 years that will become the tipping point for digital in India. So since this medium is growing at such a fast pace what kind of an ROI do you expect for your clients. The best thing about digital I would say is that A it is measurable. Yeah. It is measurable totally till the last mile till the last click whatever. The last penny spent. Till the last penny spent.

You know exactly you know exactly what happened to your impression. Right. If there was a click, if there was a sale, if there was a call to action, if there was a form to be filled up. So whatever has happened you know exactly the amount of cost that you have paid and so on and so forth. A. Second key thing about digital I would say it is you can optimize the campaign real time. Right. So that is the case in the case of the other media where you actually have to rely on the data that comes up almost 5 to 7 days or 10 days after the campaign. Right.

Then go back to your brand manager, go back to your clients saying this is what I did right, this is what I did wrong, this is what we could do better next time. So digital is lifetime you could. It is lifetime and yeah and it is extremely accountable because of that. So you said that it could be measured better as compared to other mediums but there is no central measurement currency right now for digital. So do you think that it is hurting the growth of the industry? You know I don't, you know while yes and no, yes because as an industry we would want

all the data to be in one place. Yeah. Ideally, no because today there are enough and more serving tools that are available in the market which actually help us serve through third party tools and we be aware of exactly where the ad is getting served. So therefore we are assured of brand safety, viewability and you know all those metrics that are becoming so talk of the town nowadays. Right. So I think the industry is moving towards that and if digital needs to grow, if needs to become 30, 40,000 in the country. Right.

It needs to ensure that it has a mechanism built in which are absolutely brand safe and where both advertisers and media agencies are absolutely comfortable. So Naveen when you see say news versus entertainment content which is the one that gets maximum advertiser attention. So I would say news is very topical. Right. News is therefore if there is some big burning issue which is like the elections or like you know the IPL is happening or some controversy has happened then obviously there are eyeballs that move towards the news network. Right.

Otherwise I would say India is still a very entertainment driven country. People get on to digital platform, people get on to television platforms more for entertainment. Not as much for news. Not as much for news. Entertainment gets more interest from advertisers. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. The scale is there, the ratings are there, the eyeballs are there, the viewership is there. Right. Therefore the money is also there. The money is also there. So when you talk about digital growth, what kind of a growth do you see for branded content

native advertising? For most brands branded content was just a tick mark. That yes we need to do something on branded content. We do one article here and there. That's right one article here or there. But if you see the branded content is really becoming very big in this country thanks to the explosion of the video content in the country. Because the video content is exploding so fast and there is so much of video content that is available today. Brands are realizing that yes branded content A can be seamlessly integrated into the story

is very cost effective. You know they have a longer time to tell the story. You can have an army of advocates who are actually propagating or selling your brand on your behalf. So I would say branded content is here to stay and it will only go up and more and more we are getting briefs from clients who actually wanting us to invest there. We see native advertising growing but it is growing more on the entertainment side not as much on the news side. So do you think that the news channel would also get some benefit of this growth?

Actually the way you need to approach it is different. Currently it is very serious. If you look at the news space it is extremely serious. You need to make it slightly more informative. You need to make it slightly more entertaining. You need to make it slightly more inclusive with the audience rather than giving out just information. Because today you know the audience is very smart. Even if you are doing some native stuff they see through the advertising. So therefore if you are able to weave in with the story well then audience will see a lot

of benefit there. But then do brands understand this? Because a lot of time they will come and they will make it in ad copy. I know what you are saying. You know brand managers have this obsession about on your face advertising. But yes I think more and more what we are seeing that the subtleness of the advertising, the subtleness of the content which is integrated into the media is really working very well. So I think very soon you will start getting briefs wherein you will say I do not want to be on the face. I do not want to be right up there.

Just integrate me very subtly into the film. We are hoping that day comes. So Naveen running a media agency could be an exhausting business. How do you unwind after work? So yeah it is not easy. However you have to enjoy your day as it goes. Also I am a very outdoor person. So whenever I get the time I try to go for long walks. That unwinds me. Weekends I try to spend with family. And I would say I also like to sketch a bit. So I sometimes sketch just helps me concentrate better. And just unwind from my daily chores of unending client calls.