By Abhinav Banerjee
Kolkata : One of the speakers who talked about the transformation of communication into the conversation in branding, on the second day of #MediaNext 2020 that focussed on Digital advertising and Communication was Karl Gomes, Chief Fanatic of Fanatics
After spending 25 years in design, digital, advertising and marketing roles and winner of multiple local and international awards such as Abby’s, Effies, Webbys, Adfest and Cannes, he believes it’s getting even more difficult to make people want things. So he’s restarted Fanatics to make things people want. Karl believes good, aware, conscious and sustainable businesses can achieve exponential growth using purpose, experience, data, agile marketing and lean business models.
#MediaNext 2020 is being organised by the Kolkata based Adamas University in association with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Lok Samvad Sansthan, exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal. The mega conclave is being organised over a period of 10 days from June 1, 2020, to June 10, 2020. Each day of the Conclave focuses on one specialised domain of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry and the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on that specific domain.
Karl Gomes shared his opinions on Digital advertising and brand communication in post COVID era, as people are ignoring advertisements by taking subscriptions and changing channels in digital, print, radio and television respectively.
He stated that “Today everything has been reduced to essentials and a lot of businesses are wondering if advertising and brand communications is an essential or a luxury”.
Karl said that before Corona, the times were when advertisements were bombarded on the people’s digital space, print, newspaper, television or radio. People were turning it off or switching their channels or taking subscriptions in digital space to avoid advertisements. He questioned the attendees in the webinar” does that mean advertisements are luxury? Or is that necessary?” He added his point in the question that an advertisement is a luxury but if we do it in a different way then it is converted into a necessity.
Companies are making a lot of essentials for the people, now the big brand companies are changing themselves into essential commodity manufacturers to interact with the consumers and understand their needs. Advertising is there to tell people that the company exists, making aware of the consumers and making new customers. According to Karl word of mouth is the strongest form of advertisements. It is the people who promote things to other people about the brand. People experience the products and tell others about the products.
In his words ‘Transform the word advertising and make it experience’. Make conversations interactive, change communication into a conversation. In the late 19th century there was a term called VUCA which was used in the wars, now it is used in the advertising sector too.
He further explained that “Nobody really knows about the world”. So, the same formula is now used. VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertainty, Complex and Ambiguous. The Brands which help humans and understand them in this situation will only stand in this volatile situation. To understand the world, the business needs data to know the uncertainty of the situation. Complex in the term represents the personalise interaction of brands with consumers; he took the example of ‘Netflix’ that uses data to personalise the experience for the people.
Karl further added that it is all about what people love and how they engage with the brand. He mentioned that Banking and financial institutions were the pioneers to start interactive conversations with the customers rather than be more functional. He emphasised not to sell the product to the people but make the product their part of life. He also added that it is not at all the brand’s journey rather it is customer’s journey with the brand.
For the current times he added “Corona did not kill the system but it exposed the system”. He advised to be relevant, honest and truthful to the customers. He shared his experience about the “Jaago Re” campaign which was there to make people aware of what they were buying. He urged to create messages for the people and not to sell the brand but to make them aware.
He iterated that the “framework of VUCA can be used in the funnel of the people, where brands will dump the people into the top of the funnel and minimize the context, interact with them from the funnel and segregate them from thousands and hundreds”.
Karl said that all those businesses not engaging with their customers may get affected after post COVID. He identified people into two categories; who find advertisements as luxury and those as necessities. He added that the people who do not have interaction with the brand for them it is luxury, on the other hand those who are having regular interaction for them it is a necessity.
Understanding the needs of customers. Customer interaction is the key for small businesses and start-ups not mere advertisement. Lastly, Karl said that technology, logistics, consulting, storytelling all are equally important and everyone needs to evolve, working together is essential.
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