Digital marketing: The Bangladesh scenario

Let us look at local outlook too. Sharing a recent experience from Bangladesh, ran one TV commercial in April 2016 targeted to age group of 20-35 years who are interested about any form of teas, in Youtube and Facebook where we got these results: Facebook (total view - 1.7 million; full view - 275.4 thousand which is 16.20 per cent of total view); Youtube (total view - 0.939 million; full view - 19.73 thousand  which is 2.10 per cent of total view.  [Source: Mediacom Limited]
As a marketer, should we be happy with these? Facebook is showing total view at 1.7 million (as they count 3-second view is total view) where full view of the TVC was only 16.20per cent. Or, Youtube's total view was 0.939 million (as they count 30-second view is total view let alone the video is 60 seconds or 300 seconds) whereas full view is only 2.10 per cent. So, how effective are they? There is 'a place' for online advertising, of course, "but we really don't know what it is yet",
Twitter as a social medium is not a mentionable tool in Bangladesh. In a recent report, we saw Twitter itself is suffering with own business model and actively searching for buyers who can take over and help them. Instagram is somehow manageable from Facebook account/adverts but has not proven as an effective marketing platform. Comparatively Youtube advertisements are popular and interesting. But how effective is pre-roll adverts are? Are web surfers compelled to watch those or must watch those? We don't think so.
Apple, advertising veteran Bob Hoffman mentions, is a big spender on traditional advertising. "They do television commercials, they do billboards, they do magazines. It's remarkable. Here is the most successful technology company in the world and for their advertising, they're using almost exclusively traditional methods."
TRENDY DIGITAL MARKETING:  Bob Hoffman, the author of a blog called the Ad Contrarian spent 41 years working in the US industry. Since retiring, he has enlivened industry events by talking bluntly about the 'delusions' which, he says, have afflicted his profession. Brand love, online advertising and social media were some of these delusions. He mentions, overconfidence, and sometimes blind faith in the merits of online advertising are behind these delusions.
 "You are probably skimming this article. I was once told, paper is for the heart, the screen is for the head. The way people consume information has evolved - folks want information quick and easy; infographics, videos, pictures, you name it. Multimodality and omni-channel is the name of the game; people simply don't have the time (or the desire) to consume information that requires a hefty time investment. Quick bursts that effectively summarize a topic get a message across far more effectively than a lengthy document", says Hank Ostholthoff, CEO, MAbbly in his blog.
They say, in the Western world, content marketing is a hit and effective tool of digital marketing. But in Bangladesh does anybody read content? Who does care to read lines and pages in fact?
DIGITAL OVERLOAD: In today's digital world everyone suffers from attention overload, particularly when it comes to digital advertising. The average digital display ad is glanced at for just over 2 seconds, and the average online video is viewed for 12 seconds. And we cannot assume that digital marketing will have a positive effect on the brand. Millward Brown's Brand Lift Insight studies find that the best digital campaigns have a measurable and significant positive effect on brand equity but equally many have the opposite effect, undermining brand equity, not building it. Poorly executed content, excess frequency, stalker-like retargeting and poor placement all threaten online effectiveness (Source: millwardbrown.com).
People tend to distrust online ads because everyone at any point of time at least once is or was bombarded with 'click now' ads; and experienced virus, explicit contents, malware etc. 'Click now' online ads are a descendant sort of 'what we used to call junk mail'. They attract, blink, wink and results in nuisance and disappointment. Gradually this started changing; still people distrust a lot.
If we separate digital marketing into online marketing tools and social media marketing, then it gives a better choice. Online marketing tools and channels apparently are more effective than social media marketing. Because in social media people have their own agenda; they talk more and listen less. They are not even in a mood to be engaged. Those who are getting engaged with likes, comments, reviews and shares how effective and important they are.
Digital came to us readily fragmented and it continues to splinter. Brands have responded by using ad networks, addressability and retargeting to pursue their consumers across the web. Content owners chasing revenue growth have added more ad space and offered more intrusive ad formats. As a result, people are increasingly turning to ad blockers to clean up their digital experience. The ability to reach people with a pre-determined message is being undermined.
Sir Martin Sorrell believes, "Brands are becoming increasingly cautious and that a focus on costs is driving short-termism."  He explained how the declining length of tenure of CEOs, CFOs and CMOs is a result of short-term thinking brought about by factors including tech disruption, zero-based budgeters and activist investors. "Sometimes CMOs want to create frenzy ideas to show off and to prove how different they are. Once David Ogilvy said there are two kinds of enemies of a brand: one is a new CMO/Marketing Head and a new agency. Both want to put their mark. Digital marketing has fuelled them this opportunity to be trendy, creative and ideabaaj (person with ideas). Some of them may try not to be 'traditionalist' only.
In brand marketing metrics, brand awareness and associations are the core issues which usually are gauged over time to see deviations in brand equity over a period. Building 'right' positioning reach and frequency in right media is needed along with the right message. Positioning helps build distinctive brand over time. It needs 'consistency, consistency and consistency' of powerful insights/differentiators and powerful mass media tools. Once positioning is built using TV and other media, Facebook and online advertising may suffice additionally.
Some FMCG brands plan to reach 5+ times, some Telcobrands plan to reach 10+ times within a campaign period to convince wider audience and try to persuade consumers to register brand names and memories so that in the moments of truth, they can recall the brand easily. These are actually done better through mass media, TV and radio. It will not be applicable in the same way or in the same degree for everyone; it depends. For example, major medium of online e-commerce sites like pickaboo.com, bikroy.com, amazon.com; is online and it will remain so.
We are writing all these because reading articles and attending seminars and workshops, we have found people are invariably positive about digital marketing where some of them rarely study further and develop them or hardly help reduce their confusions. Sometime, people have got trendy gurus nowadays to whom we consult them, we follow them but rarely study further. "What's key is that the right message is placed at the right time on the right channel, which is why insight and data is so important. As with all channels we, as marketers, need to look at the return and decide if Facebook is a good fit."
ILLUSIONS AND DELUSIONS: In marketing or any business field people tend towards new happening or buzz ideas. Like other field, currently marketing world's new buzz words/topics are: Content Marketing, Social Media, Digital Marketing, Big Data, Predictive Analytics, and Cloud Computing, Startups, Storytelling etc. "If you go back ten or 12 years ago, we were told that people would want to interact with advertising. This has turned out to be complete fantasy," Bob Hoffman notes. Social media marketing, too, has proven a festival of cringe, rooted in a 'fantasy of brand love' in which consumers will jump to 'join the conversation' about every two-bit product. But 'no one in right mind' wants to engage with advertising, he mentions. These are delusions.
Digital space is always an illusion. Today something is very correct and tomorrow it has got no value at all. People tend to believe less in digital contents. Like human psychology, we are fickle-minded and so do our online activities. Digital impressions are very transient.
Recently an internal study at Unilever Global found out 92 per cent of marketing team members had done training on digital marketing and 8 per cent did not complete those. Indicating this, Unilever chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed, in the Festival of Marketing 2016, urged 'a lost generation' of marketing leaders to tool up for digital or risk getting left behind. He mentioned, "We have three versions of people. On one side, we have digital natives who have been born and bred in a digital world. On the other side, we have people like himself in his  50s who have children in their 20s and if he didn't engage with them on digital platforms he wouldn't have a relationship with his children. "In the middle we have the 'lost generation', people in their late 30s and early 40s who don't yet have grown-up children who are digital natives and weren't digital natives themselves. These are the very people who are leading so many of our brands and businesses, and they're bluffing too much about digital." Who knows Keith Weed is not in fear to be marked 'traditionalist'? Digital marketing needs to be more mainstreamed, he added and suggested to do marketing in a digital world rather than digital marketing. He did not mention anything regarding digital marketing's effectiveness. In global markets, digital marketing is still running like infant industry where people are learning things by doing every day.
CONCLUSION, BUT NOT YET CONCLUSIVE: Facebook ads are good for mass and precision targeting. In Bangladesh, online literacy rate and consumer behaviour are yet to be shaped. In course of time we shall experience a matured digital space. What is good is that digital marketing is growing fast and getting effective and the bad is, it demonstrates the challenges that still remain. For mass brands and FMCG products getting in front of as many consumers as possible is the key. So, mass advertising and mass media are appropriate. Kevin McNair, BritVic GB Marketing Director, says that tight audience targeting is right for some brands but less so for FMCG companies. Brands will ultimately have to find right balance. Marketers need to consider platform, context and content to successfully communicate to their desired audience. In that case, digital marketing is just a channel choice. No conclusion still will be conclusive.
The writer is Manager, Brand
Marketing, M. M. Ispahani Limited.
didarulhasan@gmail.com