The rules of creativity and measurement are changing: Saugato Bhowmik of Meta

The 8th edition of SMLive by Social Samosa unfolded on World Social Media Day. The virtual event featured some of the top minds from the industry discussing social media. The line-up featured expert sessions on brand building, the battle between long-form and short-form video formats, the creator economy, and more.

The first session featured Saugato Bhowmik, Director, CPG D2C Auto vertical in India at Meta engaging in an intriguing conversation with Hitesh Rajwani, Founder & CEO, Social Samosa Netwok.    

Bhowmik began the conversation by remarking, “The principles of building brands have not changed; what's changed is the consumer and their habits. The most fundamental habit today in our lives is scrolling all day.”

He listed three brand-building principles that remain relevant, i.e. saliency, differentiation, and meaningfulness. 

Bhowmik revealed that television penetration in urban India has collapsed–more rapidly among the Gen Z population.  

The Director of CPG D2C Auto at Meta noted that we have gone past the phase of actively searching for products online. Nowadays, people are discovering products through social media rather than actively searching for them.

“The rules of brand building will shift. We are spending more time discovering. Products and services are discovering people and not the other way around. The rules of creativity and measurement are changing,” he remarked. 

When asked about the potential clutter arising as more brands resort to digital, Bhowmik said that cluttering might not be an issue as each user on social media has their unique feed, which makes their experience individual-specific. He advised brands to build content curated with a medium in mind. He emphasised that repurposing TVCs for digital might not be a lucrative idea as every medium has its specific requirements. He also advised brands to leverage Meta’s AI tools in content creation and dissemination. The usage of Gen AI could lead to a reduction in production costs and an incremental increase in reach. 

Giving additional advice to brands on how to adapt to digital, Bhowmik said that measurement has become a crucial element for brands. He noted that earlier methods of measurement and metrics might have become redundant when it comes to social media. Instead, the focus should be on assessing ad recall, intent to buy, and awareness. He said that brands should measure every campaign when it comes to social media to assess what works and what doesn’t.   

Sharing advice for D2C brands in Meta, Bhowmik said that with early adopters, brands can find the initial set of customers even without brand building. After that, the focus can be shifted to brand building. Subsequently, brand comprehension, benefit understanding, proposition understanding, etc, can be built through mid-funnel marketing. After that comes the top-funnel approach where a brand stands a chance to compete with top players in that market segment. 

In the final rapid-fire round, Bhowmik mentioned that his favourite Instagram feature is Reels. On what would be the one marketing feature he wished he had as a young marketer, Bhowmik said it would be the Gen AI creative feature. 

Sharing tips for budding marketers, Bhowmik said, “Build for the medium. It’s a ‘Do. Learn. Do’ world. If anyone says they have a playbook and they’ve worked everything out, they are lying.”