The Mobile Marketing Association India (MMA India), a leading global mobile trade body, in collaboration with GroupM, a media investment group, launched the third edition of ‘Mobile Marketing Ecosystem Report 2020’.
This year’s theme for the report revolves around how mobile is a bigger platform than digital platforms. The report also delves deep into various trends impacting consumers and marketers, and highlights reasons why it’s necessary to go beyond the traditional realms of digital marketing to drive business and brand outcomes. It analyses where mobile marketing stands today, what has led us here and what the future holds. Marketing to a generation of mobile users in the most effective way is only possible with a true understanding of these users and the platforms they so ubiquitously utilise.
For the first time, the report incorporates POV (point of view) articles from industry experts like Sandeep Bhushan, Director & Head, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook; Madhubanti Banerjee, Director, Marketing Effectiveness, Nielsen Media, South Asia; Gulshan Verma, SVP & Head, Client & Agency, Hotstar; Sameer Singh, Vice President, Monetization, TikTok India; Niraj Ruparel, Head – Mobile, Mindshare; Amit Relan, Co-founder & Director, mFilterIt; and Rohit Sharma, Founder & CEO, Pokkt Mobile ads. From metrics evaluation, brand safety, mobile entertainment to gaming and voice/audio marketing, these opinion pieces from industry leaders will help marketers to understand the gaps in content, measurement and brand safety, which are widely acknowledged as key industry challenges.
Speaking on the announcement, Moneka Khurana, Country Head, MMA India said, “Considering the importance that mobile marketing holds for brands, marketers must be armed with the information on the trends and changes in the landscape and leverage the opportunities they provide. With the ecosystem report, our aim is to highlight these trends and opportunities, some of which have already become active in 2019 and will likely form vital elements of mobile marketing campaigns in the coming years. It is our hope that this report acts as a guide for marketers, highlighting the key focus areas, their challenges, and helping them to decipher what they must expect from this ever-changing mobile ecosystem”.
Prasanth Kumar, CEO, GroupM South Asia commented, “India will continue to witness an upward trend in the growth of mobile ad spends this year. Cheaper data tariffs, the exponential growth of entertainment on mobiles and a variety of smartphones have led to the emergence of ‘mobile-first consumption’ users in the country.”
“India is a diverse and mobile-first country, and this will further boost the growth of mobile advertising compared to digital. The availability of content in regional Indian languages is driving consumption of the mobile internet in India. We have also witnessed the use of e-commerce apps on mobile phones growing in the last few years. With a mix of utilities, mobile is going to be bigger and better in the country.” he added.
Key highlights from the report:
Ephemeral Content: Ephemeral content is a rich media format which disappears after a short duration. Due to its temporal nature, ephemeral content forces creator to be more spontaneous and thus increases the likelihood of the content being authentic.
AI: About 80 % of large corporate giants have adopted some or the other form of machine learning in building new competent systems, complementing their core business.
E-Wallets: India’s local UPI (Unified Payments Interface) platform crossed the 1000 million user mark in October 2019, making it one of the fastest adopted payment gateways in the world, leading to a massive rise in social commerce.
Gaming: There are approximately 250 million mobile gamers in India, spending about 60 minutes every day playing mobile games.
OTT: With more than 30 OTT players and 10 music streaming apps in existence catering to various entertainment and media demands, Indians are prone to consuming content across an array of digital formats and platforms.
Original Content on OTT: OTT players are estimated to make hefty investments of approximately INR 2.5 billion for content creation as well as distribution.
Influencer Driven Content: Marketers believe that influencer marketing helps them engage with customer in an interactive way and thus 80% of them would increase ad spend next year.
Video: With attention spans of consumers being short, short-format advertising content is key. Currently, India is the sixth largest market in consumption of video ads.
Vernacular: 90% of new internet users over the next five years are expected to prefer regional languages to access the internet.
Voice: 25% of search queries in India are through voice commands. 38% of consumers who have engaged with voice ads find it less interfering as compared to other forms of advertising.
MarTech: CRM to programmatic ad buying, automation and artificial intelligence are making the advertising process more efficient. Nearly 80% of large corporates have adopted machine learning in some form; 30% of new-gen start-ups
Measurement Metrics: The key metrics that matter to business are output metrics, Brand and Sales metric. Very often, advertisers measure input metrics as a way to quantify or metricize their advertising efforts. While these metrics are important to ensure hygiene and efficiency of campaign input, these are not output metrics that ultimately matter to business growth.
Current mobile landscape statistics:
· India has active user base of 451Mn while the internet penetration hovers over 36%
· Currently, across both rural and urban areas in India, 99% of users are using the internet on their mobile phones
· Along with cheaper data plans, smart phones have also become more affordable, allowing wider access
· Out of a population of 1.3-1.4 billion, India has 1.16 billion mobile subscribers, comprising 700 million unique mobile subscribers
· With the increase in number of mobile phones, time spent on mobile also grew to 3.7 hours per day which is a 25% jump as compared to 2017 data
· Currently, data in India is priced at USD 0.26 for 1 GB, as compared to the global average of USD 8.53 per GB
· In the third quarter of 2019, the smartphone market in India shipped a whopping 46.6 million units, fuelled by launches of new models, online sales and price corrections
· In 2019, consumers downloaded a record 204B apps worldwide, spending close to $120B which is 2x of 2016 spending
· Among all active mobile internet users in India, which stands at approximately 451 million, entertainment is the purpose for a whopping 84%