Is the mobile platform under-utilised by brands in India?

Smartphones are redefining the way brands can reach out to consumers. But a majority marketers in India feel that they are under-invested when it comes to advertising on smartphones. Around 89% of Indian marketers felt that they had under-invested in smartphone advertising in 2016, according to a recent Adobe Digital Insights 2017 report.

In smartphones video is the most popular choice for Indian consumers in consuming content. Indian consumers spend an average of 34% of their video viewing time on their mobile phones, and that is 41% for those between 18-34 years.

What is more Indian consumers do not find advertising on digital as intrusive. In fact, a majority of them feel that the ads on digital should be more personalised to them and are comfortable with brands using their personal data customised ads.

According to the report, 75% of Indian consumers prefer to see ads that are personalised. Besides this, 63% of them are comfortable with brands they use regularly using their personal data to customise website content, emails and advertising. It further said that 59% of Indian consumers find digital ads “more interesting and useful” than ads on channels such as TV and radio that cannot be personalised.

It seems that personalisation of ads to cater to a consumers needs is something that Indian consumers want and do not mind it coming at the cost of brands snooping into their personal data.

While 73% of consumers think that brands do a good job of showing them ads for products and services of interest to them, only 48% think advertisers have gotten better over the last two years at delivering compelling ads. This in comparison to 63% of marketers who think they have gotten better.

The report said that Indian consumers have showed stronger preferences for personalisation of ads than any other country they had surveyed.

Around 80% of those surveyed in India were millennials and said that they prefer to see personalisation of ads on smartphones. And 68% of the millennials found online ads more interesting and useful.

A majority of the consumers in India felt that online video ads need to be made more relevant to them.

Indian advertisers hope to solve this personalisation of ads through programmatic advertising. The report said that 25-38% of advertisers plan to spend more than half their budgets programmatically in any given channel. However, 38% of them said they would spend it on display and social advertising, with 31% saying they would spend it on mobile video advertising.

The reason why programmatic advertising is seen as the solution as it has more a targeted approach, mix allocation and transparency.

While customisation of ads online is what consumers want, are brands doing this in India?

Lavin Punjabi, Co-founder and CEO of mCanvas Media said, "No, brands are not doing enough. There are exceptions - like eCommerce and some travel brands. Most of the traditional FMCG, Auto, BFSI are not. In our process of evangelizing mobile ads, we find that there is a growing interest from brands with every passing year."

He further felt that while brands know that video consumption on mobile is growing not much brands spending on customised ads on the medium. "This is because brands are used to producing content for TV and repurposing on mobile. The typical one-tv-ad-reaches-all approach is not effective for the mobile generation. Ad content needs to be produced by brands dedicatedly for mobile. And it should be shot in vertical mode. It should also be short and snackable," he said.

Rohit Pabalkar, SEO-Head, Webmaffia, said “It should be taken in consideration in the process of providing quantity content to the users and the competitions ever growing in the market, the quality is been compromised in some or the other way. Due to this, there is a major disconnect between users and advertisers. However, this gap can be filled by understanding the user intent and providing them the most relevant options.”

Ashish Shah, CEO & Founder, Vertoz said, “Mobile remains the third largest mass medium for ad spends as personalized ad messages forms a big portion of consumer demand. The report also highlights the growth in programmatic advertising which can be a boon to the advertising industry as a whole. 63 % of the audience are comfortable with use of data for personalisation and it is a well-organised tool to deliver personalized ads to the customers. The automated technology strategy has truly come of age and hence we can expect its reach and adoption to grow dramatically by 25% this year. The audience has evidently moved to mobile, giving us a thumbs up for a bright future in mobile advertising in India.”