Vasuta Agarwal, InMobi, shares insights on mobile marketing & standing out in cluttered social network

In a conversation with Social Samosa, Vasuta Agarwal from InMobi shares insights into their recent campaign along with the approach to formulating their social media strategy and her discernment of marketing in today's age.

Vasuta Agarwal, SVP & GM - Consumer Platform Advertising, InMobi, shares insights into the brand's latest marketing campaign, mobile marketing, advertising avenues on screen-zero, and more.

The consumer internet company and an unconsolidated subsidiary of InMobi Group, Glance delivers personalized content on smartphone lock screens using AI & ML. Vasuta Agarwal from InMobi shares insights on the brand's social media blueprint and the latest campaign, along with learnings on brand safety, data X storytelling, and marketing to the contemporary consumer.

Glance Live Fest

Glance Live Fest was a three-day interactive festival that could be experienced on the lock screen, the Roposo app, and select Smart TVs. The festival presented a blend of interactive, entertaining, and transactional content presented to over 70 Mn users, bringing celebrities, creators, game streamers, and brands together.

The festival was lined-up with shopping hauls from local markets and brands, gaming tournaments, celebrity interactions, and live performances, fusing content with commerce on users' lock screens. The festival featured celebrities, sports personalities, and music artists such as Kareena Kapoor Khan, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Jasleen Royal, and Akasa Singh.

Ab India LIVE Karega

Rajkumar Rao was the campaign endorser, promoting GLF through a series of short-form videos, static and motion posts such as memes, and social media creatives, as a part of the campaign. The objective was to create FOMO among the Glance users, shown through the eyes of Rajkummar Rao. The campaign was conceptualized and written in-house by Glance’s own creative, design and marketing teams. The brand worked with the production house Snowball Studio and director Aatish Dabral for creating the campaign films and assets.

Also Read: Hello Sunshine: How Reese Witherspoon propelled female-oriented narratives with one great idea

Mobile Marketing In Today's Age

Given the extent to which all marketing efforts are driven on digital channels, most marketers now agree that digital marketing is the modern avatar of marketing, says Vausta.

She reckons that consumers spend 4-5 hours on an average on mobile by has redefined the marketing mix that any marketer needs to build. "Modern marketing is all about creating and delivering customer experience on the foundation of the internet and digital technologies."

Standing out on social media and having an engaged community is the most significant factor of mobile marketing. "Not being able to break the clutter and not delivering an engaging experience through the channel and format of choice of the consumer, means being out of sync with them, shares Vasuta."

Discussing the balance between product integration and engaging content, Vasuta states
maintaining a fine balance between marketing objectives and creating a unique experience for users needs to be at the core of every brand, and consumer insight should be kept at the center of the product, marketing, and communication.

"Product integration is relevant and should be done. We also keep a keen eye for trends and moments in the ecosystem so that we continue to deliver engaging content", she adds.

Mobile Marketing At Glance

Glance serves personalized advertising on lock screens of their 173+ Mn users. Personalized campaigns can be tailored as per the time of the day, user location, and more, and various narratives and visual storytelling can be customized for each ad in the campaign. The campaigns can drive one-click app installs from first-time users on screen-zero (lock screen).

Sharing an example of a campaign, Vasuta mentions, Swiggy recently ran a campaign on Glance to drive app installs from first-time users. The campaign leveraged the data insights into creative storytelling to deliver a personalized user experience.

The campaign displayed ads before mealtime with hyperlocal breakfast, lunch, and dinner delicacies. As a result, Swiggy acquired a high-intent consumer base with an increase in month-on-month orders and a decrease in cost per new user.

Marketing Insights

Vasuta shares her learnings and insights on marketing to the contemporary consumer, maintaining brand safety, and fusing data with storytelling for effective campaigns:

Brand Safety

Brand safety is an element that has become of significant concern for brands marketing on social media, one post appearing next to a detrimental trend or controversial content can substantially harm the brand image. Vasuta shares the tips and practices for brands to advertise in a safe environment.

• User-generated Content (UGC) platforms such as social media are often exposed to the risk of brand safety.
• Sharing learnings from practices set at Glance, steps to maintain brand safety include various levels of completely manual checks and moderation from the brand, OEM (smartphone manufacturers), and the in-house ads teams. She shares that these practices helped Glance offer 100% brand safety.
• Full-screen visuals without any overlapping content results in a brand ad not being be visible next to mature content, violent or disturbing imagery

Marketing To The Contemporary Consumer

Trends are constantly acquired and discarded on a daily basis, the period for which a trend lasts has also significantly reduced, and consumer inclinations are constantly changing and evolving. Here are a few takeaways for marketing to the contemporary consumer.

• The 4Ps of marketing – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, have transformed into 4Es of marketing – Experience, Exchange, Everyplace, and Evangelism
• No marketing campaign today is designed to achieve a single objective
• Brands are getting their consumers’ attention fewer times and for briefer spans
• Every marketing campaign needs to be personalized and achieve multiple objectives at the same time

Data X Storytelling

Data and statistics are the foundation of any campaign, but communication is only effective when it is fused with powerful storytelling. Here are tips from Vasuta to ace his practice.

• Brands and agencies need to stop looking at data as mere statistics but more as a voice of their consumers.
• Begin by focussing on the right and contextual data that can be the soul of the story
• Once the right data has been handpicked, the other two pillars of creative storytelling – narrative and visuals.