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<ul><li>Due to the pandemic, as brands tightened their purse strings in 2020, advertising agencies had to resort to salary cuts and/or worse, layoffs.</li><li>In the midst of it all, the two-year-old Django Digital, a part of the Schbang Network, hit its $1 million revenue mark despite the pandemic and economic slowdown.</li><li>Django Digital is currently serving a wide range of clients across different categories, including FMCG, lifestyle, health and skincare, amongst others.</li><li>It has associated with brands such as Society Tea, Imagine Meats, skinnsi, toothsi, Bblunt, Nykaa, Jio Fiber, BookMyShow, Storia Foods, among others.</li><li>We speak to <keyword id="2719410" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="aashay-shah" source="Orion">Aashay Shah</keyword> and <keyword id="12600371" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shivang-shah" source="Orion">Shivang Shah</keyword>, <keyword id="12600372" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="founders-of-django-digital" source="Orion">Founders of Django Digital</keyword> on their journey so far, find out more about the factors that led to this quick growth during a global pandemic, and discuss their larger vision for the agency.</li></ul>The newest million dollar agency on the block is Django Digital. A part of <keyword id="12600376" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="schbang-network-company" source="Orion">Schbang Network Company</keyword>, this integrated digital solution provider was started by Shivang Shah and Aashay Shah out of their living room in August 2019 with a vision to grab a seat at the table with the bigger agencies in the industry. Shortly after its inception, the digital agency had to face its biggest challenge -- sail through a pandemic when the biggest advertising agencies of India were laying off their employees and cutting their salaries to half because brands had curtailed their marketing budgets. Django Digital not only survived the pandemic but also grew tenfold and has now hit the $1 million revenue mark. COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of digital marketing and pushed brands to reconsider their strategies and shift monnies where consumers are -- be it OTT or social media, screen time has increased and clients are following them. Digital marketing finally received its due recognition and credit last year, which worked well in Django Digital’s favour. We spoke to the founders, Shivang Shah and Aashay Shah, to find out their secret sauce, discuss the challenges that lie ahead and vision for the agency. Q. Can you walk us through your journey so far and share a few key milestones? The two of us have always been passionate about becoming entrepreneurs. So our dream venture Django Digital started off right in our living room as we both brainstormed nights on end. Within two months we started working out of a mezzanine floored office that used to be a repair shop. At this point, we were merely a team of five-to-six but creatively skilled individuals. Today, we are working out of a 2400 sq ft office in Lower Parel, Mumbai with a workforce of 60 people. We have a dedicated studio in the office for our photo and video-led content work. Our journey has been long and aspirational but let me tell you, we achieved so many of those aspirations. Since day one, we wanted to sign Society Tea as a client and exactly a year later, we got them onboard. As founders of a startup, both of us wore multiple hats and took up responsibilities of handling finance, accounts, recruitment, IT and administration. It was only after a year that we managed to hire an HR manager and an accountant. We learnt new skills, made quite a few mistakes but it was always a step in the right direction. Vivek Shah, our performance media lead, was working out of New York during the first year but still continued to work with Django, steadily managing around different time zones. Q. What does your clientele look like today? We remember when we started out, one of the conversations we had was we wanted to be known as 'two young kids around the block’, which did materialise. Within a year of Django being operational, we were sitting at the same table as all the other renowned agencies, managing a roster of 45+ clients. Over two years in, Django Digital is currently serving a wide range of clients across industries, including FMCG, lifestyle, health and skincare, amongst others. We’ve associated with both, young as well as well-established brands such as Society Tea, Imagine Meats, skinnsi, toothsi, Bblunt, Nykaa, Jio Fiber, BookMyShow, Storia Foods, and others. Catering to a multitude of clients across industries has expanded our portfolio, making us a 360-degree digital solutions provider. Q. Django started in 2019 and shortly in 2020, the business world had to face its biggest crisis ever of modern times. And you have not only survived through it but also grown tenfold! Tell us what kind of challenges you faced as a new business? In literal terms, Django Digital is a Covid baby. While others were adapting to the virtual ecosystem, we had to start from scratch in this environment. However, we managed to use this as an opportunity to meet rising demand for digital solutions. Certain challenges we faced across the way were creating and building virtual teams, coordinating and functioning in the entire work-from-home setup, pitching new ideas to clients and most importantly - providing our team members with necessary infrastructural essentials at their homes, especially the design team that is the backbone of our creative work. In spite of these challenges, we have successfully arrived at where we are today. This is just a learning for us that growth can happen in any environment, if you are dedicated and motivated enough. Q. You have hit the one million mark during a global pandemic. Just a few months ago, the advertising industry was struggling to survive. What has worked in your favour? Looking back, the two years of the pandemic have been the defining years for our agency. We quickly set in place a plan and we have stuck to it ever since - that of making difficult decisions early on and then accelerating out hard to take a rightful seat at the table with the bigger agencies in the industry. While mainline advertising was hit badly, we witnessed a surge in digital requirements. Traditional players rapidly adopted it without much knowledge, and as a desperate move to get business back on track. Many didn't see digital as a key channel earlier, but necessity drove them into it. They had to provide for their customers so as to retain them. But we started out purely as a digital agency with the experience to validate us and our work. Being part of this digital age and using it to our advantage is precisely what has worked best for us. Q. What do you think sets you apart? An industry that is booming with new agencies every day, what sets us apart is our approach towards business. We make it a point to associate with brands where we get to work directly with leadership teams so that our strategy and thoughts aren’t diluted in the process. The trifecta of social, influencers and performance media has enabled us to provide a holistic digital solution to all our clients. We’re a thriving agency with a young and dynamic workforce that is hungry for growth. We’re very specific about the talent we get aboard at Django. More than expertise, we value determination and that’s what sets us apart. As an organization, we believe in fostering a culture of creative freedom and minimal hierarchy. Q. You mentioned that you work with brands where the leadership team is equally involved. Can you tell me more about this approach? How different is this experience? How open are clients to being involved with their agency? We consciously make an effort to stay directly in touch with the founders of brands that we’re serving. The innovative ideas we have are not filtered in this route. Our expertise combined with our collective experience is the approach we have seen founders love and have in turn, grown to become more involved in the decision making process. By adapting this route, we get to deep dive into the brand and in return, brands get a better understanding of the digital marketing approach we suggest. We build a personal connection and a long-lasting relationship with brands that is beyond business. Q. Clients' needs are evolving rapidly. How are you keeping up with the pace? As a young digital agency, staying on our toes comes as second nature to us. We are constantly adapting to the latest trends. At times, we are the ones to notify the clients about the disrupting trends in the industry and how to leverage those. We cater to our clients’ needs and expectations, but we also put forth our informed opinion when the need arises. Our common objective is our clients’ growth and we do not shy away from stating our thoughts, even when they might contradict with the clients.’ Q. Which cities are you present in? Do you plan to expand further? At the moment, we are based out of Mumbai but we do handle clients pan India and in the USA as well as in Antwerp. We’re currently seeing the economy booming combined with changing demographic sentiments. We see a lot of potential within India for now, especially with the startup boom and therefore want to exploit that further. As years pass by, we will look at expanding outside India, however operations will always be from India itself. Q. You recently launched Djang-Gang, your influencer unit. What kind of response have you seen for the same? Djang Gang is a novel ‘by-invite’ club for content creators across genres, allowing them to showcase their talent and helping them build associations with suitable brands. We offer them an in-house studio set-up, post-production perks, commitment to handle all legal aspects and the youngest creative team to back the content being created. We’ve received an incredible response from over 300 creators who wanted to be a part of this initiative. However, we thoughtfully chose 14 talented and budding creators from the applications received. We’re progressing towards building a growing environment for the onboarded community of creators and are also on the lookout for dedicated creators wanting to make a mark in the industry. We would love to support and grow with them. Q. What are the challenges ahead and what kind of changes can we see at the agency in the next few months? We’re a 2.5-year-old agency that is growing at a rather fast rate for a pandemic baby, however, challenges are still an eminent part of what we do. The biggest challenge we are facing is scaling up at a sustainable pace. We’re learning how to drive our growth by building a resilient business model which balances sustainability with economic development and equitable growth. Apart from that, we face the challenges that every agency does - ensuring we work with the right clients, convincing them to execute out-of-box ideas with no past references and doing work that is worthy of the effort we put into it. While these challenges are constant, the most crucial one is hiring the right talent. At Django, we believe in hiring leadership talent that will shape the organization so finding the right people, especially virtually, and building our teams is a challenge we are working towards every day. Q. Finding good talent is something that people in our industry always complain about. Are you also facing a similar issue? The ongoing pandemic has made the process of finding great talent tougher but at the same time, allowed us to find innovative ways to get them onboard. As an agency that started out a little over 2 years ago with us two founders in our living rooms, we have scaled up and have grown our family to 60 young-blooded individuals. I can already tell you that you will see us grow to 100+ employees by August ‘22 and I’ll also explain how Django is doing this. We have got a very strong referral system within Django itself. I would say 50% of our hires are built through these referrals. Every employee here is helping the agency grow so they actively help spread the word and bring in like-minded people to us. Another fact is that hiring has been difficult across the industry, but what we realised early on is that this has opened several doors for us. As a Bombay-based agency, we aren’t limited to employees around us. The work-from-home virtual setup had us scouting great talent from across the country as well, leading us to grow to the strength we have today. Q. What is your larger vision for the agency? At Django Digital, we believe in awakening brands digitally - our larger vision is to inculcate this for a lot more brands. We don’t want to be the ‘agency of a brand’ but instead we want to be the storytellers of brands. We are on a strong mission to build Django Digital and its employees along with our clients. You can say that our larger vision is to do good work, inspiring work and work that impacts the world and businesses in a positive way. Q. What is your revenue goal for next fiscal? What do you think will be the main forces helping you reach there? Now that we have hit the $1 Million revenue mark, we are motivated to achieve a $1.5 M annual target. We’re expecting Django to progress at an even quicker rate now and our strategic imperatives will result in a stronger financial structure for us. We want to ensure a sustainable and profitable growth while increasing our revenue at higher gross margins over time. As a new-age digital startup agency, we bring the right edge to the table as well as a strong core team that will help us dominate the industry. We are focusing on segments that will allow profitable growth and at the same time staying engaged with our trusted existing clients that will help drive us towards our goal.

Exclusive: Schbang Network Company’s Django Digital hits $1 million revenue mark in two years; here’s what worked in its favour

<ul><li>Schbang has not just on-boarded new clients and hired 150+ people, but has also started two new divisions during this period.</li><li>Here is what their new divisions are all about. </li></ul>Lockdown inevitably brought in a set of challenges for all the companies and the economy at large. Schbang, an integrated marketing agency, onboarded 150 new hires during the period with zero layoffs and an increment for all members of its team on the back of some strong business wins and network growth plans. With the addition of new members, the team has grown to 500+, working across multiple locations and verticals, making Schbang one of the largest Independent Agencies. “We have been actively hiring new talent from across spectrums, including those who have faced lay-offs during the lockdown. This has been possible due to the faith new clients have bestowed on us during this time and the support of our existing clients even though they have faced challenges too. It's heartening to see Schbang as the partner of choice for large companies seeking category growth. Despite severe pressure on margins, the decision to award increments to all members of our team has to do with our proactive and people-first culture. A call we could take because of our structure as an Independent Entity," says <keyword id="1908306" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harshil-Karia">Harshil Karia</keyword>, Founder, Schbang. The decision to award increments to all its team members has shown a positive increase in morale. Their management and leadership have observed a boost in team spirit at large across the board. Along with the financial growth, the company has undertaken a host of engagement initiatives like 3-year career plans for every member of its team, psychological counselling services, workshops for skill development like calligraphy, art, music along with new avenues for physical and meditative growth through a partnership with Mindhouse. Schbang has on-boarded 10+ National clients across verticals with an average turnover of INR 500 Cr during the lockdown. ITC Nimwash, ASUS, Tata Communications, Olay's Middle East Business, Fiama, Dr. Vaidya's from RPSG to name a few. The list of new clients is steadily growing as Schbang continues to attract the best brands with their commitment to work and clients at large. The end to end execution of campaigns, from planning to launch to reporting has been integral to the growth of their clients. While the agency has been grappling for growth like the others in the industry too, Schbang has not just on-boarded new clients and hired 150+ people, but has also started two new divisions during this period. Schbang X is a division that focuses on experiments and collaborations, communicating ideas through art, music, and film. Bringing creators &amp; communities together towards creating a societal statement and invoke cultural action. The work on Rio Pads for PCOS month is a stand out for the team. And Schbang for Good is an impact communications wing of the agency, working with Foundations, Trusts, and companies that are taking the World towards Good. The team has done some noteworthy work for Mukul Madhav Foundation on Human Trafficking, and creating a first of its kind digital art museum on Instagram for the visually impaired with the #AddTheAlt campaign and more. The output of the work despite lockdown has stayed the same. Teams across different locations are now closer and collaborative than ever, all thanks to the digital &amp; remote working. Not only they have been collaborating &amp; conceptualizing virtually, and end-to-end implementation for numerous campaigns has been swift. With everything that has been happening on the business front, Schbang has rolled their dice more than just once. Many new divisions have come into the play during lockdown based on the requirements of the clients. The agency is set to make multiple significant announcements in the coming months in the product and service domain. With agility in the roots, every day, they are taking a step towards the goal of taking India to the World and bringing the World to India.

150 new hires, 10+ new clients, zero layoffs, and an increment for everybody: Here's Schbang’s lockdown story

<ul><li>With Father’s Day around the corner, we decided to look at how the <keyword id="9427183" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="indian-agency-network">Indian agency network</keyword> is slowly moving towards building an equal space for both men and women at work by offering <keyword id="1759407" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="paternity-leaves">paternity leaves</keyword>. </li><li>We observe when these policies were added into their system to understand how long it took them to realise that new fathers also deserve paid leaves to be able to share the load equally at home. </li><li>The agencies we reached out offer paternity leave for 1-2 weeks. </li></ul>For the longest time, paternity leave wasn’t a concept in India. It was mothers who took care of the household chores and new-born kid(s). Fathers, on the other hand, either did not have an option to take leaves or they did not feel comfortable availing paternity leave in the fear of losing their job role to someone else in that short period of time. In India, paternity leaves are usually offered for one or two weeks, as opposed to 26 weeks or 182 days for new mothers. This wide gap, according to <a href="https://feminisminindia.com/2020/01/23/paternity-leaves-sexist-gap-parental-policies/">Feminism in India</a>, exists because new mothers need more time to physically heal and secondly, because of the bias that fathers do not need to stay home as much as mothers since they take on the child-rearing responsibilities for a longer time. India is still 90 out of the 187 countries in the world with no national policies to ensure that fathers get enough paid time off with their infants and wives, when they need them the most. Zomato and Novartis are the only two companies in our country that offer a 26-week-long paternity leave. With Father’s Day around the corner, we decided to collate a list of <keyword id="2398193" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-agencies">Indian agencies</keyword> who do offer paternity leave, for how long and look back at the year they added it to reflect on India’s progress in shaping gender equality. The Glitch <div type="image" title="Glitch logo 4_3" msid="76459389" hostid="261"></div> Highest amongst all, The Glitch offers a paternal leave upto 15 days which can be extended to 30 days/one month if requested by the employee. <keyword id="6368370" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="dentsu-aegis-network">Dentsu Aegis Network</keyword>: <div type="image" title="DAN logo" msid="76459373" hostid="261"></div> The paternity leave offered at DAN is of 15 days, which a father can avail within the first three months of the newborn. According to Sunil Seth, Head HR Business Partner- South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network, the paternal care policy was added since the network’s inception. FCB India: <div type="image" title="fcb logo 4_3" msid="76459400" hostid="261"></div> Added on April 01, 2017, FCB India offers its new fathers a two-week leave. A male employee who legally adopts a child below the age of three months is also entitled to paternity leave of two weeks. MullenLowe Lintas: <div type="image" title="Mullen logo 4_3" msid="76460676" hostid="261"></div> This agency grants 15 working days as paternity leave, within the first three months after the delivery of the child. Tonic Worldwide: <div type="image" title="Tonic logo 4_3" msid="76459440" hostid="261"></div> 15 days of leave, offered since 2017 for both biological and adoptee parents. Expectant parents have no cap on work-from-home. They can operate from home for as many days as they want. Schbang <div type="image" title="Schbang logo 4_3 (1)" msid="76467531" hostid="261"></div> Placed since its inception, Schbang offers a paternity leave for 15 days along with flexible working hours and work from home options that are made available to the new parent. Kinnect <div type="image" title="Kinnect logo 4_3" msid="76459475" hostid="261"></div> Offers a paternity leave of 15 days and is happy to accommodate requests for extended leaves. White Rivers Media: <div type="image" title="White Rivers Media 4_3" msid="76509971" hostid="261"></div> Biological/Adoptee Fathers are given 15 days of paid leave and upto 3 additional weeks of optional work from home. The above leaves can be availed within the first 6 months of the birth of the baby. The Womb: <div type="image" title="The Womb logo 4_3" msid="76459502" hostid="261"></div> Time-off as per what employees need. Usually offers two weeks. VMLY&amp;R India: <div type="image" title="vmlyr logo 4_3" msid="76459510" hostid="261"></div> All male full-time employees are entitled to 10 days of Paternity leave, which can be combined with planned or sick leave. DDB Mudra: <div type="image" title="ddb logo 4_3" msid="76459542" hostid="261"></div> DDB Mudra Group has had a paternity leave policy in place since 2011 and offers a upto 5 days of paid Paternity Leave immediately post the birth of the child and another 5 days within 6 months of the birth of the child. The 120 Media Collective: <div type="image" title="120MC logo" msid="76509890" hostid="261"></div> The 120 Media Collective has had paternity leave policy in place since 2012. It offers the new parent (biological/adoptive) a paid leave of 10 working days which can be extended and combined with regular leaves. It also has flexible working hours and a work from home option to help the new parent ease themselves into their new way of life. Wunderman Thompson <div type="image" title="Wunderman logo 4_3" msid="76460264" hostid="261"></div> Its Paternity Leave Policy offers 5 working days off immediately after the birth of the baby, which is applicable in the case of adoption as well as surrogacy. This policy has been around for around 5 years at Wunderman Thompson. It has also launched a group initiative called 'Safe Room' where working fathers will be given space to candidly share and discuss the unique challenges that come with being a working dad. Gozoop: <div type="image" title="Gozoop logo 4_3" msid="76459558" hostid="261"></div> Any employee who is entitled to paternity benefits gets 5 days of leave before or after the child is born. Employee also gets the option of dividing his working hours by spending four hours at the office and the rest at home for the duration of 15 days. Here is hoping that more companies and agencies join the list and adopt the 26-week paid leave policy for new fathers. Disclaimer: We reached out to as many Indian agencies as we could. If we missed adding your agency here, email us the details at <a href="mailto:karuna@timesbridge.com">karuna@timesbridge.com</a>

A look at Indian agencies and their paternity leave policies

<ul><li>Over the years, the professional networking site <keyword id="28120" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="linkedin" source="Orion">LinkedIn</keyword> has managed to carve a niche for itself in the business-to-business segment.</li><li>This popular marketing tool is also the most expensive digital advertising platform on the internet.</li><li>We speak to digital advertising agencies to find out why it is expensive if it is worth it and how can advertisers make the most of it on a small budget.</li></ul>If you've ever tried running advertisements on the professional networking site LinkedIn, then you probably will have noticed that they generally cost a lot more per click and per 1000 impressions (CPM) than Google Ads and Facebook Ads. It is the most expensive digital advertising platform of them all in India. For example, we tried boosting an article on Facebook and LinkedIn with a similar allocated budget of ₹2,000. Facebook’s average Cost Per Click (CPC) was as low as ₹0.51 but LinkedIn cost us around ₹20. <div type="image" title="Linked vs Facebook" msid="91623702" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Linked vs Facebook advertising cost&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Why is LinkedIn advertising more expensive than other platforms?" text="Why is LinkedIn advertising more expensive than other platforms?">Why is LinkedIn advertising more expensive than other platforms?</cmsannotation> After boosting our articles on both these platforms, we found that Facebook uses demographic and interest-based targeting that directly targets consumers, while LinkedIn focuses more on professional targeting. So, LinkedIn is more suited for B2B commerce and Facebook is generally better for B2C targetting. While the cost and objectives vary from brand to brand, Aashka Mehta, media lead at advertising agency Schbang, says, “The cost to advertise on LinkedIn is almost 15-20X more expensive than on Facebook.” “LinkedIn’s level of targeting is very different from other platforms. It is niche and hence the additional cost for the same,” adds Mehta. LinkedIn makes it easy for a brand to segment its audience and reach one like-minded set of people at a time. It offers rich demographic data points such as job function, seniority, company name, geography, industry, interest-based targeting group membership, skills, etc. Telling us when are LinkedIn ads commonly used by a brand, Shradha Agarwal, ceo and co-founder of digital agency Grapes, says, “LinkedIn Ads campaigns are usually being used for job recruitment ads, service and product sales, lead generation, promoting content, increasing visibility, and reaching for a new company location. And if we have to compare getting relevant traffic to the website, Linkedin is at least 5X of Facebook and 2X of Twitter. However, conversions are way better.” For N Chandramouli, ceo of TRA Research, which is a brand intelligence and data insights company, LinkedIn has become ‘official WhatsApp’ of sorts. He gave us an example of how expensive LinkedIn’s lead generation can be, which is considered to be its most effective form of marketing on the networking site. “Per lead could be a person, a company or anything that I'm seeking. If you were to advertise, this could go up to about ₹1300 per lead, which is a very expensive lead generation point. But if you use the platform intelligently, not wildly spend like Facebook -- from over a few lakhs of rupees, you can get it down to ₹200 per lead. The amount of spends can go from as low as $1,000 or even lesser per month to maybe $10,000 or even higher per month. So, it all depends on how active you really want your campaign to be.” <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Is LinkedIn gaining more attention from advertisers now?" text="Is LinkedIn gaining more attention from advertisers now?">Is LinkedIn gaining more attention from advertisers now?</cmsannotation> After the advent of social media and the internet, marketing trailblazers have started chasing return on investment (ROI) on their marketing strategies. They have shifted their focus away from monthly reports to taking insight-based decisions. To understand what ROI on LinkedIn means, as an example, let’s say you spent $5,000 on LinkedIn ads and it generated $10,000 in revenue from those ads. Here’s how you can track your ROI: Marketing ROI (%) = [($10,000 - $5,000) / $5,000] * 100 Marketing ROI (%) = 100% While LinkedIn is not a low-cost medium, it is known to yield a positive marketing ROI and marketers say it is worth it. “It has a promising conversion rate of 6-8%! At $5.26, LinkedIn has the highest CPC compared to other social media platforms. However, this doesn’t mean that LinkedIn’s ads are overpriced. Rather, it just shows how highly ‘clicks’ are valued on this platform,” says Shrenik Gandhi co-founder and CEO of digital advertising agency White Rivers Media. For its ability to deliver targetted audience and concrete ROI, Rajni Daswani, director of digital marketing at advertising agency SoCheers, also says expensive advertising on LinkedIn is worth it. “There is no other platform that gives you a direct audience with the educated, working-class, bread earners in the family kind of people. A lot of brands are seeking this data and are willing to pay the expensive rates that come with it.” <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="LinkedIn’s growth story and what lies ahead" text="LinkedIn’s growth story and what lies ahead">LinkedIn’s growth story and what lies ahead</cmsannotation> LinkedIn has seen massive growth in its users after the pandemic. As per research and analytics platform NapoleonCat, LinkedIn had an audience reach of 89 million people in India in April 2022, which accounted for 6.3% of its entire userbase. On the other hand, <keyword id="6384676" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-media-platform" source="Orion">social media platform</keyword> Facebook’s <a href="https://napoleoncat.com/stats/facebook-users-in-india/2022/04/">user </a>base in India in April 2022 was 400 million. Currently, India is the second-largest market for LinkedIn. Around the time when the coronavirus outbreak started blanketing the globe, LinkedIn’s user base in India was recorded at 67 million in April 2020. <div type="image" title="LinkedIn-users" msid="91623756" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;LinkedIn&amp;#39;s user growth&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> With 810 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has become the backbone of the global business community. For any working professional, it is a platform that allows you to make a first impression on your prospective employers, help you build your community and amp up your skills. Advertisers are using LinkedIn to avoid shouting into a void. This professional networking platform gives them targetted B2B audience. So, it is also increasingly taking up more of brands’ budgets. LinkedIn’s ad revenue exceeded <a href="https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://c.s-microsoft.com/en-us/CMSFiles/SlidesFY22Q2.pptx?version=4a9117e1-04ff-5143-12a0-1ecfc041aa59">$1 billion in 2021</a> and its overall revenue grew by 37%. Sharing the reason behind the recent influx of B2B advertisers, Sachin Sharma, Director, LinkedIn Enterprise Marketing Solutions India, says, “As we emerge from the pandemic, building a community has never been more important. Our 88 million member strong professional community in India of customers, marketers, advertisers are all turning to LinkedIn at this time to learn, connect, and share information and knowledge — and LinkedIn has been uniquely positioned to foster this community. We are a top 3 player in B2B digital advertising today, and our community is the backbone of this record-breaking growth. With our targeting features, they are better able to reach the right, and highly engaged, professional audience so they can be more precise with the ads they show. We're also making the right investments by training our bidding models to be smarter in how we bid, which is improving ROI for our customers and bringing them more value for their campaign spends and driving more conversions.” <div type="image" title="LinkedIn-users.2" msid="91623773" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Advertising revenue generated by LinkedIn year-on-year&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> According to LinkedIn, f<a href="https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/cx/17/06/advertise-on-linkedin?trk=sem_lms_gaw&amp;src=go-pa&amp;veh=LMS_NAMER_Core_USCA_Search_Google-Brand_DR-PRS_Broad_HeadTerms-Beta_All_English_Core_378907683579__%2Blinkedin%20%2Badvertising_c__aud-925775953436:kwd-23182566377_6458957180&amp;mcid=6612464045041733652&amp;cname=LMS_NAMER_Core_USCA_Search_Google-Brand_DR-PRS_Broad_HeadTerms-Beta_All_English_Core&amp;camid=6458957180&amp;asid=77594820616&amp;targetid=aud-925775953436:kwd-23182566377&amp;crid=378907683579&amp;placement=&amp;dev=c&amp;ends=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwjuqDBhAGEiwAdX2cj2lTVNqgugdLVkw4pjQ_HT9U7ndYyuYl0_1wUsTKKBlHFvOgBieIqxoCsVEQAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">our out of five </a>of its users have the power to impact business decisions. These movers and shakers also have <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/cx/17/06/advertise-on-linkedin?trk=sem_lms_gaw&amp;src=go-pa&amp;veh=LMS_NAMER_Core_USCA_Search_Google-Brand_DR-PRS_Broad_HeadTerms-Beta_All_English_Core_378907683579__%2Blinkedin%20%2Badvertising_c__aud-925775953436:kwd-23182566377_6458957180&amp;mcid=6612464045041733652&amp;cname=LMS_NAMER_Core_USCA_Search_Google-Brand_DR-PRS_Broad_HeadTerms-Beta_All_English_Core&amp;camid=6458957180&amp;asid=77594820616&amp;targetid=aud-925775953436:kwd-23182566377&amp;crid=378907683579&amp;placement=&amp;dev=c&amp;ends=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwjuqDBhAGEiwAdX2cj2lTVNqgugdLVkw4pjQ_HT9U7ndYyuYl0_1wUsTKKBlHFvOgBieIqxoCsVEQAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">2x the buying power</a> of typical online audiences. While Facebook has more users than LinkedIn across the world, some advertisers find LinkedIn more lucrative than other networking platforms. Gandhi explains why LinkedIn gets more preference in the brandverse. “LinkedIn’s competitive advantage is that it is a professional networking site. While Facebook boasts over 2 billion people, LinkedIn has 600+ million professionals - In digital advertising, quality reigns supreme over quantity! Compared to other social media platforms, LinkedIn advertising is more expensive but it is certainly not overpriced for the value it provides.” As per Pranav Ahuja, co-founder and CEO of digital ad agency Xeno, LinkedIn typically allows you to choose from four different kinds of ad formats: sponsored content, sponsored messaging, lead generation forms, and text and dynamic ads. The initial 2-4 weeks of advertising on LinkedIn are typically considered a learning experience for brands and media buyers to figure out what works (or doesn’t). To begin with, LinkedIn recommends a daily budget of at least $100 or a monthly budget of $5,000. To get the most bang for your bucks, make sure you end your LinkedIn ad with a clear call to action (CTA).

LinkedIn is the most expensive digital advertising platform but is it worth it?

<ul><li>Once a hub to Millennials and GenZ, Facebook is now perceived as a ‘boomer network’ by young internet users.</li><li>Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has reiterated time and again that he wants to ‘cater more towards young people.’</li><li>It has even replicated Instagram’s success model by launching video editing tools and Reels, but can it ever entice young people in India? We speak to social media experts, GenZ internet users and GenZ Content Creators to find out.</li></ul>In its July-September 2021 quarterly earnings conference, Meta’s cofounder Mark Zuckerberg seemed a little worried. He was vocal about it, too. He wants to see a shift. A shift that would take years. “We are retooling our teams to make serving young adults their North Star rather than optimising for the larger number of older people,” Zuckerberg <a href="https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/FB-Q3-2021-Earnings-Call-Transcript.pdf">said</a>. Meta’s social media firm Facebook is losing its popularity among teens and young adult users across its key markets, according to numerous studies. They are jumping to other social media platforms. This slow departure of young users, increasing data privacy concerns and rising cost per impression threaten <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/news/facebook-google-digital-ad-market-share-drops-amazon-climbs/">Facebook’s advertising business</a>, as it could lose its grip on social media ad spend. Business Insider India spoke to content creators and young internet users born between 1997 and 2012, who are also known as Generation Z, and social media experts, who believe Facebook has lost its fame to the perception war and might not see a revival. To pique the young audience’s interest again, Facebook has replicated various social media formats that have worked for other platforms. It is almost like Joey from popular sitcom Friends believing that he can pass for 19 by simply replicating what young people wear. <div type="image" title="Friends meme for Facebook story" msid="90206584" hostid="261"></div> Facebook’s 360-degree photo format was allegedly derived from YouTube, Facebook Stories was apparently inspired by Social Media Platform Snapchat and its most recent feature Reels is from its sister platform Instagram, which is seemingly a Short-form Video Platform, TikTok’s clone. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion 10 years ago to stay ahead of the game, for the exact same reason. From adding Reels to introducing virtual reality, does the recent revamp speak to Zuckerberg's concerns about the company losing its popularity among young consumers? Well, the fear of a major technology company losing its young users has already spread internally. A <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/facebook-files-show-growth-struggles-as-young-users-in-u-s-decline">whistleblower’s Securities and Exchange Commission </a>(SEC) complaint had revealed last year that the time spent for U.S. teenagers on Facebook was down 16% year-on-year and that young adults in the U.S. were also spending 5% less time on the social network. Another report by Statista says that <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/309166/boomer-senior-social-networks/">Facebook has been overrun by Baby Boomers</a>, people born between 1946 and 1964. Market research company eMarketer has also downgraded its estimates for Facebook's young user growth in France and Germany. It said that the percentage of teenagers on Facebook in Germany will <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/content/facebook-losing-younger-users-in-germany-and-france">drop </a>to just more than one-third compared to 2019, with usage among ages 34 and younger declining through 2023. It goes on to say that teenagers using Facebook in France will drop to 27.9 million by 2023. The story is similar in India, which is Facebook’s biggest market in terms of size with 340 million monthly active users (MAUs). It has lost 2.7% of GenZ users and 1.9% millennials in 2022 than 2018 and added more older users. As per Napoleon Cat, a research firm for social media analytics, Facebook had 36% GenZ users in 2018 and it has come down to 33.3% in February 2022. It has been on a steady decline. Just a month ago, Zuckerberg had announced that Facebook witnessed its first-ever decline in users across the world. The daily active users (DAUs) on Facebook were down to 1.92 billion between Oct-Dec, Q4 of 2021 from 1.93 billion in Q3 2021. App store optimization tool and analytics firm AppTweak also reported that GenZ prefers Instagram over Facebook. <div type="image" title="age-distribution2 (1)" msid="90206593" hostid="261"></div> Karan Lakhwani, head of business development in India for AppTweak says, “Retention data on Facebook suggests that it retains over 70% of its new users for over 0 days. On the other hand, Instagram retains 82% of its users for over 30 days. These metrics suggest a high engagement and low churn on Instagram. While over 70% retention is amazing, Facebook loses to Instagram on retention of new users in India.” <div type="image" title="historical-retention (1)" msid="90206618" hostid="261"></div> Other social media platforms are winning the attention war Teens, GenZ and the cohort after them, Millennials make up about <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/751005/india-share-of-internet-users-by-age-group/#:~:text=Around%2054%20percent%20of%20the,the%20total%20internet%20user%20base.">65%</a> of the total internet user base and the platforms and brands that these people choose are considered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/oct/10/mondaymediasection9">‘cool</a>, aspirational and desirable’ by other age groups. As per Consulting firm Deloitte, GenZ and Millennials are also the largest <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/about-deloitte/in-deloitte-millennial-survey-2021-India-report-noexp.pdf">demographic </a>groups in India and they hold high levels of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-17/gen-z-has-360-billion-to-spend-trick-is-getting-them-to-buy">disposable </a>income globally. So Zuckerberg's concern to stop this slow leak of young users is not really a surprise. Despite the company’s efforts to stay relevant, GenZ internet users interviewed by Business Insider India gave a variety of reasons for rejecting Facebook, including its outdated user interface and the platform’s increasingly older demographic. Shraddha Khaire, a 23-year-old from Mumbai, says she only uses Facebook to share work-related updates and says that Facebook “shouldn’t try to win back GenZ at all.” “But if they [Facebook] really want to – they can leverage newer trends and work with young brands. Facebook has now become just another social media platform that we have an account on – much like LinkedIn. I only use Facebook if I have a work-related update to post or a life update for that matter. I believe the reason why Genz audience is spending less and less time on Facebook, is because they want more – more ways to socialise, share posts, photos, messages, etc, and just like you move on from one thing to the other, I gradually moved on from Facebook to Snapchat and Instagram and more.” GenZ internet user, Pranav Krishnan, head of culture, communications and corporate social responsibility at advertising agency Schbang, has significantly decreased his time spent on Facebook. He prefers other networking platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram. “I believe Facebook doesn’t have much of a chance to bring GenZ back to the application unless they integrate the same with Instagram and drive all the content through one application. The other way around would be to pivot the application in the virtual world of the Metaverse which may bring back the GenZ users. Users directly join Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn rather than Facebook, which used to be the thing earlier. GenZ is quite energetic, they prefer anything that helps with convenience, adds value/a unique perspective to their lives and Instagram and Snapchat have been able to do just that,” says Krishnan. Urvi Dalmia, account manager at digital marketing agency 22Feet Tribal Worldwide, says Facebook had its time and it is Instagram’s time now. She is on Facebook because her job requires her to be active there. “We don't ask people if they'll switch back to CDs/DVDs to watch movies instead of streaming them on Netflix. For me, it's about the relevance of the app. Facebook is not adding any value to my life, I'd rather not go back. I still have the Facebook app only because I'm in digital marketing and I require it for professional reasons. I would've left the app long ago otherwise. Also, Facebook doesn't have content that interests me anymore. It's just old videos/news/old listicle links, etc. I think one of the reasons we left Facebook was also our parent's involvement in our social media lives. We did not want their interference so we moved to apps that were new and young.” Can Facebook woo young content creators? Whether it is Facebook’s recent addition of Instagram’s short-form video format Reels onto its platform or investing over $1 <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/07/investing-1-billion-dollars-in-creators/">billion </a>in creator programs, it is clear that Facebook is trying to build its own influencer community and trying to leverage on the boom in the creator economy. However, is it late to the game? “Facebook for a while, if I talk in the sense of fashion, became something like the 2000s’ low waist jeans. Something everyone knows about, but no one is actively trying it out,” says Tarini Shah, a GenZ digital content creator. She believes that there’s still hope. “I think Facebook can get Genz onboard because the early Genz was on Facebook for a while before Instagram became ‘the thing.’ Facebook is perceived as a platform where parents post updates about their grandchildren and random things, which we really aren’t interested in. GenZ chases quality content; something to keep their minds engaged or escape from reality,” adds Tarini. She suggests that Facebook can attract GenZ creators and new audiences through exclusive content series like YouTube Originals. “It can get the audience to at least open the app and then further convince them it isn’t just some place where you go to get your ‘throwback Thursday’ photos.” For Dev Raiyani, an Indian GenZ digital content creator based in the US, Facebook was the first social media app he ever used, but he grew out of it slowly as TikTok and Instagram came into the picture. He found it more easily accessible and usable. He said that more focus on artificial intelligence (AI) can get Facebook more attention from young users. “I wouldn’t lie, Facebook is perceived as a ‘boomer network’ by young people. But the switch to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/facebook-is-changing-its-name-to-meta/articleshow/87346459.cms">Meta </a>really changed my perspective on it. Our generation is super into cryptocurrency, NFTs [non-fungible tokens], games and seeking all those in the metaverse is amazing,” says Raiyani. Urjita Wani, a 23-year-old comedian and script writer based in Mumbai, spends three to four hours a day on Instagram and uses Facebook once in a blue moon. She describes her relationship with Facebook as, “It has become like my house’s door now; doesn’t get too many visitors and I can only answer it when it rings.” “As a comedian with a public profile on Instagram, I don't think I can really control who checks out my content. But I joined Instagram when it had launched because it was a new, interesting platform. And back then, I had the mental space and time to try out new social platforms unlike now (sorry, Clubhouse). Of course, one of the many reasons why I stopped using Facebook was because my relatives would inundate my feed with their likes, comments and tags. Also, I didn't want them to pry into my social life,” shares Wani. The only way, Wani says, Facebook will entice her back into the platform is if it recognises Instagram's shortcomings and updates itself accordingly. Digital advertising agency SoCheers’ founder and director of operations, Siddharth Devnani, also said he prefers Instagram because he can be “edgy there.” To woo young consumers, Devnani said, the platform will have to change its perception. “I am a grown up and I still try to be much more parent-friendly on Facebook than on Instagram. That’s how the platform is positioned. Even if my parents follow me on Instagram, I would be okay to do a little edgier stuff on Instagram than on Facebook. But it is not like Instagram is the answer. Your content depends on your network; who is going to see it. Teenagers do much edgier stuff on Snapchat too. Facebook has also struggled with misinformation campaigns, it is pretty heavy on news and religious content is higher there -- and that perception is going to be very hard to break,” Devnani says. “Facebook will not see a revival, regardless of what Meta throws at it, inspired by Instagram,” says Karthik Srinivasan, a social media expert and communications consultant. “I don't think teens or GenZ may be going to what Meta believes is the next-big-thing. To some extent, Meta has already lost the perception war to TikTok. To some extent, I feel Meta may have internalised this too given how much more Instagram is now like Facebook in terms of traction among the most important user base. I also think that Meta has been consistently making future-looking bets to manage the dwindling interest in the social products it launches – Instagram was a hedge against Facebook, and Metaverse is a hedge against Instagram, and so on.” The reason why he thinks the older audience is still on Facebook is because of familiarity and ease of use. “I believe Gen-X and Boomers are using Facebook (as also WhatsApp) more out of habit than any conscious interest. This is because all the people they know and interact with frequently are on those platforms. If another platform brings people together and gains traction (the way TikTok did in the US), the GenX may still stay on their Facebooks [sic] because of their friend circle. But this won't be seen as growth by Meta that constantly wants the younger bunch to actively use their platforms and buy things through them.” Following the publication of internal documents, Facebook has been weathering a series of scandals and has been working on fixing its brand image. By the time it fixes its loopholes, there will be another social media app in the market that GenZ will declare as its new ‘low waist jeans.’

Facebook wants to bring back young adults on its platform but they say there’s nothing much it can do to win them

<ul><li>Cookies have come under fire from privacy campaigners for using consumer data for marketing purposes time and again. </li><li>On March 03, Google confirmed that it is aiming to make <a href="https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-path-towards.html">third-party cookies obsolete</a> by 2022. </li><li>We speak to digital experts to understand what is the problem with retargeting, some of the challenges that marketers might face in adjusting to the new way of digital advertising and the overall impact on Indian advertising industry. </li></ul>What do digital marketers and us have in common? We both love cookies. They have been thriving on cookies to track their users, improve their experience and target ads to the right audience. However, on March 03, Google confirmed that it will phase out third-party cookies by 2022, which could dramatically alter digital marketing. The search giant has also confirmed that it will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in its products. Google’s blog post explains why it is charting a course towards a more privacy-first web, “It’s difficult to conceive of the internet we know today — with information on every topic, in every language, at the fingertips of billions of people — without advertising as its economic foundation. But as our industry has strived to deliver relevant ads to consumers across the web, it has created a proliferation of individual user data across thousands of companies, typically gathered through third-party cookies. This has led to an erosion of trust: In fact, 72% of people feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms or other companies, and 81% say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits, according to a study by Pew Research Center. If digital advertising doesn't evolve to address the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used, we risk the future of the free and open web.” Firefox and Safari have already phased out the third-party cookie and Google will get there in a year. So, we will all live in a cookie-less (digital) world by the end of 2022. According to Statista, as of January 2021, Google’s Chrome for Android accounted for 35.27 percent of the global web browser market share. In 2019, Google had a hold of more than 56% of the web browser market. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/268254/market-share-of-internet-browsers-worldwide-since-2009/">Firefox and Internet Explorer have experienced massively reduced market share in recent years</a> as Chrome’s influence has expanded and new competitors have entered the market. In a cookie-less world, digital advertisers won’t be able to offer personalised content and measure their campaign’s performance as effectively. Marketers will have to rely on first-party data and they will have to work extra hard to analyse the data at hand and get to know their users personally. They will have to invest more time and labour in building new customer data platforms and finding similarities between different cohorts. However, as Google’s blog post read, “People shouldn’t have to accept being tracked across the web in order to get the benefits of relevant advertising. And advertisers don't need to track individual consumers across the web to get the performance benefits of digital advertising.” While many marketers have been expecting this, it will take our industry some time getting used to it and to figure out the best ways to use first-party data effectively. So, we reached out to digital experts to understand how a cookieless web will impact the future of Indian advertising industry. Here is what they had to say: Sir Martin Sorrell, Executive Chairman &amp; Founder of S4 Capital: CMOs should take note that this reiterates, once again, the importance of first-party data and how consumer trust and privacy are moving to the forefront of marketing. In the coming years, digital consumer relationships will be earned by customer experience and value exchange. With <keyword id="182214" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google-Chrome">Google Chrome</keyword> removing support for third-party cookies by 2022, the time for marketers to start investing in the future is now. S4Capital is guided by our belief that first-party data is the holy grail – and already has its sights on the critical next phase for marketers, where digital identity is in the hands of the brands themselves. In 2020, we merged with leading cookieless measurement company Brightblue and readied brands like Mondelēz to leverage first-party consumer data to plan, personalize, and optimize their digital media and content. As one of our most respected clients said - Google’s decision reinforces again the importance of first party data and that we are entering into a world of at least 25 big walled gardens. It’s a natural evolution of the privacy debate. Gautam Mehra, Chief Data &amp; Product Officer- dentsu Asia Pacific (APAC) &amp; CEO - dentsu Programmatic - South Asia: This was an expected announcement. Google had earlier indicated its intention to move away from individual tracking to FLoCs, a kind of cohort-based tracking that would be privacy safe and yet allow for advertisers to track the effectiveness of their campaigns and also be able to retain attributes that matter to advertisers such as the interests/profile of their consumers albeit at a "crowd" level. However, this coupled with the expected deprecation of third-party cookie support in 2022, will be challenging for the ad-tech industry in general. Large publishers will begin to force users to sign-in to consume their content. Advertisers will have to invest largely in managing their first-party data efficiently and extracting maximum value from it, rather than relying on external signals. All in all, it is early times and we expect to see a lot more announcements in this space by various other platforms such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, TradeDesk, Adobe and MediaMath. Harshil Karia, Founder, Schbang: I believe this is a part of an expected move as one sees the depreciation of the cookie coming in place. It only increases the emphasis of first party data and therefore I see more data management conducted by companies &amp; more measures to store data of consumers who visit platforms. I think it will see a rise of dams &amp; a rise of more first party farming by companies so that they can still continue to implement precision based targetting to the right audiences. Varun Duggirala, Founder, The Glitch: The move by Google is something that many of us have been anticipating for a while. The conversation around data privacy and usage globally is at a point where many consumers want clarity on how and how much of their data is being used. This move will only bring transparency from a consumer pov for the future and from a marketing standpoint point it’ll move us towards a more transparent data culture in how we market and target consumers and also further deepen our focus on content marketing . So from a macro point of view, it’s going to lead to a lot more growth for all. Rohan Mehta, CEO, Kinnect: As global concerns over user privacy &amp; data collection by adtech companies grow, it is imperative that the industry moves towards more efficient methods of anonymised &amp; aggregated ad targeting. While alternative ID-based identifying methods were being worked out by other players in the industry, it is quite possible that these may not have stood the regulatory scrutiny or met consumer expectations for privacy. So, Google's move seems to be a step in the right direction. However, it is important that Google works in concensus with all stakeholders in the digital ecosystem, so as to ensure a level playing field for all the players involved. As for FLoC or any other replacement systems, rigourous testing &amp; opimisation must be carried out ensure that the efficacy of future digital marketing remains par for a median advertiser. Ahmed Aftab Naqvi, CEO &amp; Co-Founder, Gozoop: Much needed and much welcomed. As marketers are goal is not just sell, but sell responsibly and a <keyword id="10869480" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="cookie-less-world">cookie less world</keyword> is certainly more responsibile. The only cookie we should enjoy is a chocolate chip one. Even though Google's FLoC technology promises near about 95% of conversions per dollar spend that we tend to get with cookie based advertising but these are just assumptions and will have to be explored and validated further. However as a marketer I feel that we are very well equipped to meet opportunities and overcome challenges by other sources of responsible data like zero party data or second party data for advertising. Moreover, the consumer demand of better privacy must be addressed in a ECR approach i.e - Education, Consent and reassurance of the data given by the user. We have gained momentum on the consent end but a long way towards educating and reassuring users. Preetika Ghosh, Media Director, FoxyMoron: Thanks to the adoption of digital, there has been a paradigm shift in consumer behaviour. Over the last decade, content consumption, e-commerce and networking technologies have witnessed a dynamic transformation. Before we get into the ramifications of the announcement by Google, one must understand that media efficiency is essentially driven by audience behaviour and interests. It can be tracked at an individual user-level (using cookies) or a group level (using cluster-based solutions like FLoC). By creating these clusters, media targeting will now be based on what group or cohort the consumer falls into. While advertisers might be sceptical, I believe the new approach will keep data at its core, thereby increasing its' affluence. Advertisers will still get the same interest-based audiences, but instead of cookie-based tracking, one will have to direct the messaging to specific cohorts. The most important difference is that data tracking will now be less intrusive making it a positive step in direction of protecting consumer privacy. It will start enabling the creation of a more user-safe environment and by extension, a more brand-safe ecosystem. Shradha Agarwal, COO and Strategy Head, Grapes Digital: Offline targeting has always been based on affinity and interest, it's with the evolution of digital, we went down to the model of cookie-based targeting. But are we really spending a lot on remarketing today? Most of our ads are either targeted towards Affinity-based users or in-market users. We do remarket but our total spends on remarketing is not beyond 20%. It's only in the case of performance campaigns like e-commerce, apps, etc where cookie-based marketing becomes really important. As per recent research, more than 70% of the users because of their minimal knowledge about "adtech" think that remarketing are creepy ads following them and don't outweigh the benefit of customised targeting. Given, the GDPI Rules and Consumer sentiment, I think the recent move is a step in the right direction because advertisers, can still easily continue with the in-market audiences or interest-based audiences. Google will still allow us to target third-party data through Api. So in totality, we would not lose on much. Sameer Makani, Co-founder and Managing Director, Makani Creatives: Privacy on the internet is one of the major concerns for users. Since the announcement that third-party data will be phased out, several brands have begun to develop their data infrastructure in order to maximize the use of first-party data. Google’s move will help in formalizing the privacy norms and maintain autonomy. Although Google's move to remove third-party cookies and alternative identifiers is intended to protect users' privacy, it will ultimately intensify the problem of ad fraud. The elimination of third-party cookies and other identifiers makes it much easier for ad fraud to masquerade as legitimate human traffic, which will cost companies that rely on ads a lot of money. With less accountability, ad fraud will almost certainly thrive, exacerbating already-existing attribution and optimization issues.

How will Google’s new privacy policy impact digital advertising

<ul><li>A recent study by Deloitte found that India ranks highest among 18 countries in terms of anxiety during the second wave of the pandemic.</li><li>We are constantly living with the fear that someone close to us or someone we know might succumb to the virus.</li><li>A lot of agencies have upgraded their policies to help their <keyword id="6357081" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="employees">employees</keyword> navigate through this tough period and to push them to take care of their <keyword id="6354774" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mental-health">mental health</keyword>.</li><li>From switching to 4 work days a week to hiring full-time, in-house counselors, here’s how they are helping their employees tackle burnout and take care of their mental health.</li></ul>Do you also feel your heart racing when you receive a call from a relative you haven’t spoken to in a while? Or when a friend, who usually texts, suddenly calls you now? You are not alone. We are all either grieving someone’s loss or feeling anxious that we might have to, soon. It is no secret that the second wave of COVID-19 has had a severe impact on our collective mental health. We are feeling dejected or overwhelmed with the huge spike in cases everyday. As of today, there are 2.33 crore active cases in India. And people who are clinically diagnosed with mental illness such as Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, depression, autism, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have found their struggles quadrupled. Many COVID survivors, who do have the privilege to find an ICU bed and pay for oxygen cylinders, are facing survivors' <a href="https://theswaddle.com/survivors-guilt-is-hitting-covid19-survivors-in-india-complicating-their-grieving/">guilt</a>. A recent survey by Deloitte titled Global Consumer Tracker’ found that India ranks highest among 18 countries in terms of anxiety during the second wave of the pandemic with 21% of consumers in India anxious, followed by Chile at 16%. The ad industry has also been impacted severely. This week, we lost a young star from the advertising world, Syed Mohammed Talha Nazim, to COVID. Social media is still flooded with pleas for oxygen and ICU beds. At such a time, it is becoming increasingly challenging to focus on work and continue leading normal lives inside our houses. Ergo, there is an urgent need for improved, empathetic and caring HR policies and counselling sessions at the workplace. It is critical to prioritise employees’ mental well-being rather than seeking updates on their daily tasks. Advertising agencies bear the additional responsibility of coming up with optimistic campaigns that drive change and raise awareness. Despite facing the blues of working in isolation and pressure to overperform in a dismal atmosphere, ad agencies are increasingly pushing their boundaries to come up with empathetic campaigns to help our country. Lately, thanks to #<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/detoxwork/">Detoxwork</a>, many agencies have been called out on LinkedIn for forcing their employees to be available 24*7 and meet deadlines. While it is extremely saddening to read those stories, it is no surprise that we continue to sustain our toxic culture. Over the years, the advertising industry has normalised inhuman working hours. In 2017, Tadashi Ishii, CEO, DAN Japan, had to resign after the suicide of an overworked junior employee. It did raise some questions back then but the topic was brushed under the carpet as always. This time, in India, we have lost two lives to advertising's work stress. They were<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/ad-agencies/news/cheil-india-comes-under-criticism-for-allegedly-asking-employees-to-work-from-office/articleshow/82308605.cms"> forced to come to office</a> as India observed a national lockdown. Even those who are working from home -- are overworked, constantly in-between calls, they do not have the time for their families even if they sit right next to each other. However, there are a few agencies that are prioritising their employees’ wellbeing. We reached out to a few digital and creative agencies to find out what measures they have taken to help their employees look after their mental health and asked to share a few tips on what we need to do as an industry to make sure we don't forget our teams' mental health amidst a crisis, and here is what they said: <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Virat Tandon – Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group:" text="Virat Tandon – Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group:">Virat Tandon – Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group:</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Virat Tondon lintas" msid="82574512" hostid="261"></div> Health and wellbeing of our people is the need of the hour and our priority. A COVID war-room with all the leadership across the agency and different offices, HR and Admin teams, has been created to keep a lookout for providing help – with a hospital bed or oxygen or any other assistance. Employees well-being and recovery is tracked by the HR team. Our Panel doctor is available for any assistance and has conducted sessions for employees giving guidelines on prevention and the first response to be taken. The Lintas Employees Welfare Trust released a Covid Care package in September 2020 that included financial assistance and counsellor support for employees who need to cope with stress or have mental illness issues. Our focus has been to let people take care of their health, their loved ones, without feeling the pressure of work deliveries. People spend a very large part of their lives with the organisation they work for. It Is their second home and it’s natural to have that level of compassion for them and do the most you can do. Their health and wellbeing directly impact not only the quality of their lives but also impacts the quality of their work and output. Everyone knows that in theory and should attempt to put it into practice. Leaders need to take the necessary steps and put this belief into action. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Aditya Kanthy, CEO and MD, DDB Mudra Group:" text="Aditya Kanthy, CEO and MD, DDB Mudra Group:">Aditya Kanthy, CEO and MD, DDB Mudra Group:</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Aditya Kanthy" msid="82574492" hostid="261"></div> The first thing we have to do is normalise the conversation around mental health. And the pandemic may well be a tipping point, where people have realised the importance and seriousness of this challenge. Mental and emotional support is crucial in these times. We started on our journey before the pandemic in early 2019 by bringing on board India’s leading Employee Assistance Provider. In this program, licensed counsellors champion mental health recovery through awareness, education, and empowerment of our people. This was perhaps one of the industry’s first such initiatives. Not only us but DDB as a network globally has also done meaningful work on this subject. So, we have learnt a lot from their experiences as well. It guides our approach – which is to take as full a view as possible. We understand that while counselling helps, we have to do more to make a serious dent. In a situation where many of us have friends and family who are going through the worst phase of the pandemic, on-ground support resources for those who have contracted COVID-19 can alleviate a great deal of anxiety. This includes quick and verified access to medical help, comprehensive insurance, flexible leave policies, and better balance of work and life. On an industry level, at the cost of sounding repetitive, our first step is to acknowledge the problem and talk openly about it. When C-suite leaders champion the cause, it makes the conversation accessible, real, and addresses the stigma attached to mental health issues to a large degree. Peer support plays a huge support too. At the DDB Mudra Group, we make a visible effort to do so with our #justask meets, where anyone in the company can talk to me candidly and anonymously if they feel so, about any issue that’s affecting their work life. Secondly, we also have to be cognizant that a person’s quality of life beyond work, is directly linked to their mental health. So, let’s respect boundaries between work and home and acknowledge people’s lives outside the workplace. One way we do that at the Group is by valuing empathetic leadership and using that as a performance indicator. Each business leader is responsible for ‘people’ metrics just as much as Human Resources is. Everyone with a responsibility for other people is involved in this process. Finally, it also helps to bring clients into the conversation. They too are looking to work with partners who are dealing with this issue as progressively as possible and there is much to learn from them too. And that partnership is crucial to making progress on this subject. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Gautam Reghunath, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu Webchutney:" text="Gautam Reghunath, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu Webchutney:">Gautam Reghunath, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu Webchutney:</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Gautam Reghunath" msid="82574485" hostid="261"></div> As agencies, we attempt to maintain reputations as fun, dynamic places to work, but beneath the surface, it’s obvious that many of us are often grappling with various cultural and personnel issues including burnout, overwork and more. People need to know it is ok to be vulnerable and that having trouble with your mental wellbeing does not mean someone cannot do their job capably. It is in the interest of the workplace for every office to provide policies or through their actions show that it is okay for people to speak their truth. Our key aim over the last few years has been to normalise conversations around mental health and one of the first steps was to include it as a permanent official part of the agenda at all our executive committee and quarterly leadership meetings. It starts from the top and sets the tone for all decisions through the year. As our primary actionable measure, we’ve engaged with the Hank Nunn Institute (HNI) as our partner for mental health support services for around two years now. HNI’s trained professionals are available to all employees who can schedule their time anonymously, for free and without the office’s intervention, to discuss either personal or professional aspects of their life. Some weeks are packed, some are not, but what’s important for us is for everyone here to know that it’s okay to seek out someone to talk to if you feel the need to. The teams at Webchutney have also been experimenting with a few employee-sourced ideas on how we can be better to ourselves around areas of mental health &amp; work pressure. Along with planned down-times, we recently piloted our first ever winter break last December where the entire agency with the support of our clients shut shop for two whole weeks. It’s obvious that work-load management has a direct impact on how happy and satisfied we are at work. We’ve tried to turn timesheets, often loathed at agencies, into a tool to have open honest conversations around work timings and over-work. All team leaders who have colleagues clocking over 50+ hours a week have to mandatorily schedule discussions around reasons for this overtime with the CEO every fortnight. Outlier weeks are normal, but we’ve seen a drastic improvement in workload management purely because we’re all discussing this honestly &amp; frequently. Our industry is built around deadlines &amp; deliverables. It’s full of talented people who know what it’s like to find themselves at the intersection where moments of magic meet the point of serious stress. Our learnings with all these measures have been many and the focus on mental health resources aside, for creativity to really thrive, our need to adapt and change has never been more obvious. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Akshay Gurnani, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Schbang:" text="Akshay Gurnani, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Schbang:">Akshay Gurnani, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Schbang:</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Akshay gurnani" msid="82574545" hostid="261"></div> It's empathy that is the need of the hour - from our employers to our clients. It's important for us to listen, acknowledge &amp; act upon what an individual may be going through in these trying times. It's important to also understand how we as an organization can help our team members better. We have an in-house therapist who is accessible to aid our employees, free of cost for as many sessions as they would want. Whether it be automating processes that help in increasing the efficiency of work for all our teams to sending out automated monthly reports, we have been pushing our teams to not take up any work on weekends. Mental health is a priority thus 2 mental health leaves have been assigned to teams to avail anytime in the year. We have ramped up hiring to reduce workload and ease out hiring gaps across teams. We have aligned our clients with the situation at hand and aligned them on how we can create better synergies in these difficult times. Our leaders need to be able to ask the right questions to the clients to comprehend briefs better &amp; reduce the number of reworks. It's imperative to have honest conversations with clients and push back on timelines, owing to the fact that currently our teams are facing resource crunches due to either them or their families being affected by COVID19. We have sent out emails to our clients informing them to expect delays and this has been received quite positively. Digital Marketing is not a "life or death" industry. One less or a delayed post will not affect anything, this is something that clients need to realise and accept. Using the reach of the brand pages, we would like to talk about a message that's more important than selling a product under these times. It's important to come together as a community to urge people to register for vaccination, adopt double-masking, staying indoors, etc. This is the time to show more empathy towards agency partners as well. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Roopa Badrinath, Chief Talent Officer, Wunderman Thompson, South Asia:" text="Roopa Badrinath, Chief Talent Officer, Wunderman Thompson, South Asia:">Roopa Badrinath, Chief Talent Officer, Wunderman Thompson, South Asia:</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="roopa badrinath" msid="82574562" hostid="261"></div> At Wunderman Thompson, we recognized the importance of mental health from the time WHO declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic. As a company we have been communicating openly about the importance of mental health to ensure that the stigma attached with it is addressed with honesty. Mental Health has a deep impact on how we think, feel and act and impacts our relationships with our family members, friends and colleagues. It impacts our mood and our general behaviour. Behavioural changes is a natural reaction to the stress, fear and anxiety that people are feeling as a reaction to the threat posed by COVID-19. It is important to acknowledge that it is normal to feel that way and focus on ways to reduce the stress inducers. The pandemic has created a lot of anxiety around personal health, family health, children’s education and relevance of skills in a changed world to name a few. One of the critical things that we realized early on is the need for empathy and trust driven leadership style. Leaders were constantly reminded about empathy and kindness and were encouraged to have regular check-ins with their team members. Once the initial euphoria of WFH evaporated and the lines between home and work started getting blurred, we constantly and consistently reminded our people to set up a routine and stick to it; draw boundaries for themselves; take breaks in a normal work day just the way they would while in a physical space. We encouraged all our team leads to ensure that their team members took time off from work even if they were going nowhere. As is evident from all the global reports, women have borne the maximum brunt due to the pandemic. Their care giving, household and online schooling responsibilities multiplied manifold. Teams were sensitized to be mindful of this and have flexible options for setting up meetings. We launched an all-women Employee Resource Group (ERG) which will be run for the women and by the women of Wunderman Thompson. This group has taken upon itself to launch several initiatives in the next couple weeks to help women navigate the additional challenges thrown at them. As a company we recognized that sexual harassment can be a reality even in a virtual workplace and ran workshops on sensitizing employees about virtual sexual harassment; how to recognize and report the same. To ensure that employees seek help we are constantly reminding them about the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) where they can reach out to trained counsellors in the strictest of confidence to address their mental well-being issues. This service is available even to the family members of employees. We are confident that all the curated health and wellness programs like compassion meditation, mindfulness hacks – dealing with anxiety, building meaningful connections, staying positive, harnessing the power of sleep that were offered to employees last year will hold them in good stead to deal with the current situation. Currently all employees have access to a COVID stress management program which offers Meditation, Yoga, Breathing Exercises, self-care, Gratitude Session to name a few.

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