It’s almost time to bid adieu to the year 2020 that has impacted the lives of people globally. There are a plethora of lessons that marketers and advertisers have learnt in the course of the pandemic. There are a lot of changes that have come in the public and advertising domain as well, from consumer behaviour to ad spend allocation. Digital has become a bigger, safer bet. Offline advertising is grappling to find its relevant place in this new churn and TV advertising is getting redefined as there is greater attention on brand safety than before. Expert panellists discussed this and more on the e4m webinar in collaboration with the Advertising Club Madras on the topic “2021: Resetting advertiser and advertising expectations”. The panellists who joined the discussion were BK Shankaranayaran - Chief Executive Officer, Viveks; Meera Iyer - Business Head, Dr. Vaidyas; Rajesh Ramaswamy - Co-Founder, The Script Room; Samyukta Ganesh Iyer - Head of Marketing, Baskin Robbins India; Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, 82.5 Communications and Vishwajeet Parashar - Chief Marketing Officer, Bajaj Capital. The session chair was Ruhail Amin, Senior Editor, exchange4media. Opening the session with insights on the major changes that the pandemic has induced in the marketing landscape, Parashar said “Brands are doing everything in an escalated mode. E-commerce and digital advertising will continue to grow. In-mobile advertising and connected TV are gaining traction. These are new trends that are going to stay. The consumer expectations have changed and 2021 will be positive from a marketing perspective. The marketing budget and profitability will be high.”

Taking the discussion further and shedding light on the consumer sentiments and challenges faced on-ground, Shankaaranarayan added, “We are in electronic retail, and when people are doing everything from home, electronics become essential for them. We faced challenges, not from the demand front but the supply chain due to the migrant labour crisis, import- export regulations, etc. However, we have observed that there is a higher average selling price point since people are now looking at branded goods.” Elaborating on the changing brand-agency dynamics and communication practices, Chattopadhyay said, “We created a book of commandments for the way we craft communications during Covid. While sensitivity and empathy take the centre-stage in how we develop our messages, we also had to pick up some textbook skills. Everything we do now has to keep in focus the ROI, the number of conversions, and how the sales will boost.” Giving impetus to the fundamentals of digital advertising, as it has gained traction in the post-Covid era, Meera Iyer added, “We need to work with brands to develop memorable digital footprints. It is important to understand what works and what doesn’t on digital.” While commenting on the changing dynamic of how agencies function, Samyukta Iyer added, “Everyone has learnt to question everything with utmost sincerity and that’s how the dynamics are going to be even at work. Marketers and brands both have questions and that is going to be so even when there is a vaccine.” Ramaswamy, while wrapping up the discussion, gave utmost importance to the basics of communication practices and elaborated, “The fear is not of the lack of budget, it is of the lack of clarity. Clarity can bring a lot of change in the way we craft communication and brand messages.”