To create meaningful, personalised encounters and experiences, we will have to understand and trigger the right action, at right point, to a right user and this is where standard algorithms will be challenged, giving rise to the need for ma- chine learning and contextual artificial intelligence.
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Voice searches are on the rise. Google numbers shows that in India, there has been a 270 per cent year-on-year growth in voice searches. Gameskraft’s Senior Vice President for Marketing Harish Rawat also the only marketer from a gaming company to feature in BW India’s Top 50 Marketers, cites this fact to indicate how it fundamentally changes product and brand discovery for consumers. And also, to note that a voice search does not generate any click. “Product solutioning would need to evolve from visual to voice, and this will change how we interact with content and actions arising of same,” Rawat says in this chat with BW Businessworld.
Excerpts:
Does it bother you, especially given that you are from the digital sector essentially, when you see arguments that marketers still fail to truly leverage digital?
This statement would have been true three to four years back. But now I see many marketers, across industries, very tuned to the technological landscape. Digital has changed the way marketers consume and measure data. We already see examples and case studies of how brands such as McDonalds, Lenskart, Jio etc., are building an infrastructure to tap and create a seamless and connected experience for consumers. New age marketers need to go beyond data, digital and technology, as these have become hygiene. On the contrary, with ‘data abundance’, most of the marketers struggle to identify, define and measure the right metrics. Further, to excel in their job, they should additionally invest in product and design understanding, because that is already shaping up the brand experience today.
Everyone once in a while we come across terms such as marketing automation, marketing orchestration – any predictions on what next?
I feel that eventually all automation and orchestration will go for a toss, since marketing teams will implement all possible tools to measure the minutest of user interaction and we will have a problem of data abundance. To create meaningful, personalised encounters and experiences, we will have to understand and trigger the right action, at right point, to a right user and this is where standard algorithms will be challenged, giving rise to the need for ma- chine learning and contextual artificial intelligence.
What is your take on the fact that a marketer’s stint in a company is shortening?
The average lifespan of companies per se is reducing. Technological revolutions are the key factor. The faster tech changes also shorten product lifecycle thereby impacting the overall value chain. Brand values for technology companies now comes with an expiry period or it becomes obsolete eventually. One needs to constantly keep exploiting technology to maximise user connect and brand experiences, other- wise one is looking at shortening of a brand lifecycle as well.