Brands need to analyse carefully and assist with the preferences of their target audience.

By Guruprasad Kamath

The changing dynamics of the internet have made brands carefully curate, invent and distribute their content to enhance consumer engagement, drive traffic and generate leads. What is more important here is customer experience; a brand must interface with the customer. In one-way Digital world should be exposed to the customer. With many advancements in technologies, companies have offered more personalised, accessible products with human experience across various channels. And with the data collected, it has been able to understand the consumer requirements easily.  From static strategies, brands have shifted to interactive technology to keep consumers engaged and loyal. This interactive technology includes gamification, social media, augmented reality, virtual reality, polls, and surveys, interactive chatbots etc. Many brands are investing heavily in this technology as it provides high lead generation, increases sales, increases consumer engagement, and maintains brand loyalty.

Certain examples of brands successfully adapting interactive technologies for their campaigns:

1. Tanishq, a fashion jewellery brand, uses AR at airport kiosks to virtually experience their products. The AR kiosks set up at Bangalore and Delhi airports allow the consumer to virtually wear any jewellery and move along to find if it is suitable. With airports being a high point of traffic and a wait time of up to 45 minutes, customers were given an opportunity to virtual try-on. If they liked the product, Tanishq directed consumers to the nearest store at their destination. Many such jewellery brands like Kalyan Jewellers, Amrapali Jewels have started providing AR experience to their customers, keeping them engaged and taking advantage of the pandemic.
2. Lenskart, an e-commerce portal for eyewear, offers its digital users a 3D view and a virtual try-on of their optical for the shape, size, colour of their face on the go. Using DITTO technology, Lenskart offering this feature has acquired more customers in recent times. It has experienced a growth rate of 30% every year and currently is at a $10 million market. 
3. Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce platform, used gamification and virtual reality with sound recognition to engage its consumers during its Big Billion Days sales. They promoted the sale campaign in connection with the auspiciousness of the full moon. This campaign was launched when there was no full moon and using augmented reality, the consumers were asked to find the moon on the device by moving it around and had to blow the clouds to find out the reward. This campaign saw a clickthrough rate of 2%, which is ten times the 0.2% industry average for mobile banners.

Risk of Cyberattacks:

While cyberattacks have always been a part of online life, they spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, in some cases increasing by more than 3x month-to-month. Much of the world moved to remote work; online shopping and delivery services saw surging demand, and online streaming services became the go-to source for entertainment. These entry points gave cyber offenders more room to find susceptible targets. Cybersecurity spending hit an all-time high in 2020, garnering a whopping $11.4B — a near 50% increase from 2018. Organisations are expected to increase spending on cybersecurity measures and train employees to deal with these situations.

 Although the Indian market has always been a challenge for new changes, it has been the fastest-growing market for digital consumers. Brands need to analyse carefully and assist with the preferences of their target audience. Many brands and consumers have adapted to it during this pandemic. The challenge has been to adapt to cutting edge technology to stand out in the market. Internet of Things (IoT), SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), big data, omnichannel adaption, VR, AR, AI are growing tech trends in the Indian market. Indian brands are at a constant pace with changes in technology in all possible fields. Keeping their consumers engaged with their brands has now become a provocation. 

However, investment in interactive technology is steadily growing as consumer engagement has become an essential part of a successful business. The technological medium of interaction is subtle, flexible, pertinent, and persuasive. So, brands have become more indulged in targeting their market segment digitally and are investing heavily as it pays off with brand awareness, consumer loyalty, and an increase in sales revenue

The author is VP and SBU head of Manipal Technologies. Views expressed are personal.

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