At the Pitch CMO Summit 2022 held on Wednesday, a fireside chat was held between Nachiket Deole, Head of Sales – India, DoubleVerify; and Gazal Bajaj, Head - Media Management, Nestlé India. The topic of discussion was ‘reimagining ad measurement in a post-cookie world’.

Deole kick-started the conversation with the observation that many advertisers have been relying on third-party data for campaigns, but third-party cookies are at their fag end. While some browsers have already disabled them, some major ones will replicate them. "Then the option remains with the first-party data, which also comes with its own challenges - it can be expensive and require specific skill-sets to be built in between the teams and organisations. So, how do we tackle this problem?"

Elucidating how Nestle is looking into this space and trying to strategize the future for measuring the effectiveness of a campaign, Bajaj said, "Once cookies go away, there will be something or the other that enables your advertising. However, what that really tells you is there is going to be this consistent transition that happens in the environment and, hence, it is important for advertisers like us to be in direct contact with the consumer. And that is where one-on-one contact or CRMs come into the picture. And while we set up and gear up with the different data skill sets in each organisation, it is important to know what is the impact that you are getting out of these so-called CRMs and one-on-one contacts that you are planning on a scale, imagine for CPG organisations, where pretty much everyone is a TG, can I collect all of that data and interact on a one-on-one basis? No. So, while you think about CRMs and exchanges, it is important also to think about the measurement."

Moving on the lines of the measurement of a campaign Deole raised a pertinent issue - a campaign has certain objectives to it but the way we measure those objectives perhaps is not in line with how we should be doing so. Bajaj shared, "We have been discussing how media measurements at one point were hyped as the only thing that will help you figure out what went right or not and then suddenly there is this perception change that made all of us believe we don't have to look at them. But I think there needs to be a balanced view there. You need to know what is happening and the right way to do it is to measure your input against your output. The vanity matrices are somewhere in between and help you check if your input was correct. So, while it is vanity, what it means to me is that while you cannot chase them, you have to look at them."

Deole then touched upon the undeniable fact that today, everything is a game of attention. "Users are coming across thousands of ads every day - be it in the digital, print, radio or TV," he pointed out and asked how Nestle, as an organisation, is addressing that issue and trying to stand out in the crowd.

To this, Bajaj replied, "In this sphere, we are trying to move beyond what media can deliver. To also look at what content can deliver. When it comes to attention, yes, formats play a role, placements play a role but what also plays a role is whether your consumer insight is in place and hence, is your asset in place. Is your asset sitting at that intersection of where the consumer need is and what can the brand do for that need state? So, while it is a reality and when we look at our media landscapes also, the time spent on TV continues to be more than three hours and the time on digital platforms is shooting through the roof. So what that means, in reality, is that it is not TV eating into digital or vice-versa, the total time spent on casual viewing of entertainment is really going up. And with that, the clutter is obviously going up and the media alone can't solve that problem. This is where media and content need to join hands; this is where consumer insight is the gamechanger. The sweet spot between the need the consumer has and what your brand can solve is where it lies because from there you know, you want to run an influencer marketing campaign and hence, your asset as well as your placement changes. This is where truly the blend of consumer insights, media and content has to come into play. Media alone cannot solve it."