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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>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>In this new year, we want to crystal gaze into what the year has in store for the industry.</li><li>With the <keyword id="169310" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-advertising">digital advertising</keyword> industry changing at a rapid pace, throwing a new set of challenges every day, experts are optimistic that 2021 will be a game-changer that will help them redefine a lot of rules in advertising, with smarter marketing techniques. </li><li>We spoke to a few industry experts to identify opportunities that 2021 will bring forth for the industry as we move forward and here is what they had to say. </li></ul>Over the past few years, the world has increasingly been moving towards digital and 2020 became the year when the digital ecosystem acquired many new users, thereby making digital advertising perhaps one of the most effective mediums to reach out to people locked inside their houses and stuck to their phone and tablet screens. It was an interesting year for digital marketers as the nation-wide lockdown gave a push to augmented reality, mobile marketing, digital animation, video content, voice search and influencer marketing. Despite the initial setbacks during the lockdown, consumers opened up to experimenting with digital formats, trading brand loyalties for availability of stock and performance marketing came into the picture. Digital eventually became a dominant medium as marketers pivoted their monies from OOH, print and event marketing to virtual platforms. India is now at the cusp of a massive revolution with digital making inroads and brands looking to go beyond urban markets. While we saw <keyword id="618493" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-marketing">digital marketing</keyword> taking the center stage, the economic slowdown and uncertainty affected market sentiment, and naturally, the industry. However, during this volatile period, the industry tried to throw out the inefficiencies to make themselves more productive. According to Statista, ad spending in the Digital Advertising market is projected to reach US$398,762m in 2021 and the market's largest segment is Search Advertising with a projected market volume of US$171,641m in 2021. In FY2020, the revenue generated by digital advertising across India was valued at around Rs 199 billion. In India, the digital ad revenue in the country will be worth almost Rs 540 billion by fiscal year 2024, while the television and print ad revenues were projected to reach about Rs 455 billion and Rs 276 billion rupees respectively. These numbers clearly show that India is heading towards a digital advertising future. We reached out to experts to find out how 2020 disrupted the digital ecosystem and understand their expectations from 2021. Here is what they said: <h3 style="line-height:1.3846153846153844;background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:14pt;margin-bottom:0pt;padding:0pt 0pt 4pt 0pt;">Unny Radhakrishnan, CEO, Digitas India:</h3><div type="image" title="Unny Radhakrishnan, CEO, Digitas India." msid="80216690" hostid="261"></div> One thing I see is that Brand Building and Creating Loyalty will become far more tougher and marketers will find themselves in trying to juggle multiple things. The reason I feel so is that the factors that influence consumer choices are getting wider and complex. First, there is this vast sea of online media – with regular cluttered media, platforms as sharply targeted media, e-com channels as media, and influencers (democratised media); second, the availability of vast amounts of information, product reviews &amp; feedback; third, the customer/user experience at all touch points (online &amp; offline); and fourth, the availability of products on various channels, irrespective of your geography (from e-com to the neighbourhood store on Whatsapp). Then, finally at a larger level, there is also a blurring of line between categories which are vying for the same share of wallet. So, there is so much 'to-do' in a marketer’s plate to ensure awareness, availability and great experience. The underlying marketing operations will be complex and will need breadth and depth of skill sets and the ability to string it together. Prasad Shejale, Founder &amp; CEO, Logicserve Digital: <div type="image" title="Prasad, Logicserve, Horizontal" msid="80216730" hostid="261"></div> Integrated Digital Marketing approach will be a game changer for brands rather than being just a nice-to-have strategy. While the post-COVID world has leapfrogged the digital growth across industries and consumers are making digital a first choice now, brands need to evolve further and implement truly integrated methods for catering to customers’ needs at every touchpoint of the customer journey. This involves a holistic strategy across Media, Creative, Data &amp; Insights as well as Technology. That is how brands can make an impact and continue to delight the new-age customers. Harshil Karia, Founder, Schbang: <div type="image" title="Harshil Karia Schbang" msid="80216747" hostid="261"></div> A big trend that will take shape in 2021 is the process of centralization of data and the creation of database. The digital departments will move beyond marketing to create centralized business data with the know-how, skills, and associations they possess. With good quality creative execution, the smart digital business professionals will pave the way to move the business table and deliver further with greater efficiency. Chetan Asher, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Tonic Worldwide: <div type="image" title="Chetan Asher" msid="80216769" hostid="261"></div> 2020 has been a year of pivots for the digital industry. Consumer habits and digital platforms are disrupting rapidly. Hence 2021 will be the year of customer experience reinvention. Traditional fulfilment channels are moving to digital, social media is a serious e-commerce platform now with platforms like Instagram moving beyond just discovery platforms, Influencer led commerce has also evolved. Hyper-personalisation both pre and post purchase journeys will become norm. The biggest trend we will see is how all these parts come together for reinvention of the customer experience and push the industry to evolve. For businesses that are adapting to digital and the ones that have matured in their digital journey, both will have to shift their lens to prepare themselves in how their consumers interact across multiple touchpoints. Amyn Ghadiali, Vice President- Business &amp; Strategy, Gozoop: <div type="image" title="Amyn Gozoop" msid="80216799" hostid="261"></div> You know while there are many trends like voice search, local SEO, data science, social, etc., and each one will be a great driver for the industry – I believe that the one trend which will drive all the above trends is that brands &amp; clients will be asking a lot more from their agencies, digital in specific. The pandemic has made brands realize, even those that didn’t believe in it first - the power of digital marketing. This power is not appreciated because it was through digital that we connected in 2020; it is appreciated because it proved it can be a serious driver for business. This innate and interconnected ability of the space has got many CEOs/CFOs/CMOs interested to understand it more, and eventually harness what it has to offer. This also means that integrated solutions under one roof would be preferred, and most brands would, thus, turn to their digital agencies for support to make it happen. This trend, or rather a behavior shift, I believe, would be a great driver for the digital industry, creativity, and business in every way. Prashant Puri, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, AdLift: <div type="image" title="Prashant Puri, adlift" msid="80216817" hostid="261"></div> A couple of digital marketing trends that will increase and/or take shape in 2021. More than half of smartphone users are engaging in voice search – we see that number further growing in the next year with an emphasis on visuals (within ecommerce segment) will make SEO even more important. Google Lens is carving the path here. Influencer marketing will grow to about 15% of overall digital media budgets. 68% of consumers (based on a survey) have said that they’d like to learn about new products via short video. With video consumption is surging – we foresee advertisers (both big and small) investing in thumb stopping videos to marketing to their customer base via Instagram, Roposo, FB and YouTube. All in all, the creation of content (and content marketing) – whether long form text or video is going to become the cornerstone of all digital marketing campaign.

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