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Indian alcohol brands’ digital marketing efforts, ET BrandEquity

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Indian alcohol brands' digital marketing efforts, ET BrandEquity

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Alcohol advertising may be banned in India, but marketers are still finding ways to leverage digital marketing to reach relevant audiences.

The Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules prohibited television channels from broadcasting any advertisement which directly or indirectly promotes the sale or consumption of liquor, wine, cigarettes and tobacco products. These Rules are a direct result of The Cable Television Network Act of 1995. The Rules permitted that alcohol brands could use surrogate means of advertising by using brand extensions (such as music CDs or packaged drinking water) in their advertisements.

However, in 2022, the government came out with a ban on surrogate advertising. A new clause was introduced under the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) guidelines titled ‘Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022’. This clause stated that –

No surrogate advertisement or indirect advertisement shall be made for goods or services whose advertising is otherwise prohibited or restricted by law, by circumventing such prohibition or restriction and portraying it to be an advertisement for other goods or services, the advertising of which is not prohibited or restricted by law.

However, alcohol brands are still free to leverage digital marketing in a bid to reach the right audiences. Digital marketing allows marketers to take a more targeted approach when it comes to designing and creating communications for their audiences. Brands also leverage on-ground associations with events in order to create familiarity and recall.

One of the ways that alcohol brands leverage digital marketing is by creating content on social media as well as collaborating with content creators. The brands we spoke to for the purpose of this article admitted that they shied away from using performance marketing to reach their audiences. Though there are no hard and fast rules prohibiting an alcohol brand from using digital marketing to reach their desired audiences, most brands want to err on the side of caution.

“While the world has moved to performance marketing, the alcohol industry is still in the late 2000s as far as digital marketing is concerned. The field we’re playing in is a fenced one – that’s the best way to describe it. For most companies – they begin with creating brand awareness, then it moves on to brand engagement and eventually sampling. Our business is still stuck in the brand awareness stage,” says Rohan Rehani, co-founder, Moonshine Meadery.

Moonshine Meadery is a brand that focuses on making alcoholic beverages (mead) from honey and it uses a combination of email marketing, offline events, social media content based on said offline events to appeal to its digital audience. Rehani mentions that the email marketing messages have good open rates and that the brand uses it to drive engagement and create awareness – both about the brand and the events that they host.

Grégoire Verdin – Head Of Marketing – Sula Vineyards says that the brand has never had to resort to using surrogate advertising. What works for the wine brand is collaborating with content creators on social media to create interest around the offline experience that the brand offers at their winery. The vineyards generally have restaurants and resorts where the patrons can stay, experience wine tastings, etc.

Moonshine Meadery’s work with influencers involves activities where tasting and sampling happens on an offline level and Sula Vineyards follows a similar playbook when it comes to their offline events.

Verdin explains that when it comes to wine, awareness levels are relatively low – because of which it is important to encourage sampling. He admits that it takes a rather experimentative type of person to try different wines and this is the audience they typically try to appeal to when they create content for different social media platforms.

An interesting insight that he shares is that the acceptance for wine and drinking alcohol has increased after the popularity of OTT content grew in India. Indian viewers now have access to content from around the world – in which a person drinking a glass of wine and relaxing with their partner after a long day at work has gained acceptance to a large extent.

For most alcohol brands – this is an important part of the puzzle. Connecting its offline presence with a digital one in such a way that it creates brand awareness and encourages trials. Sula offers curated events that sell a lifestyle to its participants. Moonshine Meadery organises ticketed events such as mead tastings and pub crawls. The brand also made an appearance on popular entrepreneurship show Shark Tank – after which Rehani claimed that brand awareness and trials went up significantly.

Beyond experiential events that are directly linked to alcohol sampling and consumption, an alcohol brand may also choose to associate with offline events. Anheuser-Busch InBev or AB InBev is one such brand that associates with a host of offline events.

Ankit Kataria, director – marketing at Anheuser-Busch InBev estimates that when it comes to Indian audiences – 30% consume alcohol and the rest 70% are what he calls an ‘abstaining’ audience – who don’t consume alcohol for whatever personal reasons. The beverage industry typically measures market share by the phrase ‘share of throat’.

Kataria estimates that at a pan-India level, beer has a 12-15% share of throat and in metro cities, beer has around 20% of share of throat. He adds that when it comes to alcohol brands, digital’s contribution in terms of a media vehicle is about one and a half times more compared to other FMCG brands. For beer, this number would be 2-3x more. So digital becomes the key media for one on one effective communication.

Some of the brands in AB-In Bev’s portfolio include Budweiser, Corona, Hoegaarden etc. The brand uses a combination of content on digital platforms as well as on ground activations to appeal to audiences. Kataria tells us that the brand uses digital marketing to address the top of the funnel metrics in terms of driving awareness. During events, the brand addresses the bottom of the funnel, which is driving trials.

It takes around 6-8 trials for a person to get used to one brand and to become loyal to it. Events, sponsorships and on-ground activations help people try the brand many times. It also has the right environment for people to consume the product and build memory structures.

“For example, if a user is listening to his favourite artist in a high energy environment with his friends or loved ones and he has a glass of Budweiser in his hand. It creates a memory structure you create, he’ll remember for a long time to come. Even in our social content, we try to capture the same essence,” he says.

The 70% alcohol abstaining audience also likes to be a part of high energy occasions such as watching a football game, going to a music festival, etc. To cater to these audiences, AB-InBev has a portfolio of non-alcoholic products.

“The marketer’s first task is to get into the consumer’s consideration set and this means attending to last mile factors such as availability, offers etc. So the first step is to drive awareness and consideration and then to close the loop, make sure that in the last mile, your product is present,” he concludes.

  • Published On Sep 4, 2023 at 07:28 AM IST

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Snap On How It Empowered Women’s With AR Storytellling

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Snap On How It Empowered Women’s With AR Storytellling

Snapchat has won the AR/VR category at The Drum Awards for Creativity. Here is the award-winning case study.

In France, like many western countries, public space lacks monuments honouring women. What about empowering Women’s Legacy through Augmented Reality? As a storytelling company, Snap knows that stories have the power to change hearts, minds, and behaviors. Stories create empathy, which can inspire behavior change across Snap and the broader industry. And although our industry is data-driven, we understand numbers are not a substitute for lived experience. The differing lived experience of underrepresented groups can reduce feelings of belonging, which in turn reduces opportunity to realize potential. Snap’s goal in inspiring empathy is to create a shared culture of belonging for all.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023, Snap’s AR Studio has been honouring 8 emblematic women in 8 major French cities (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nantes) through a unique augmented reality experience: “March 8, 8 women”. “March 8, 8 women” has been a unique opportunity to demonstrate Augmented Reality’s impact in supporting Great National Cause (French president Emmanuel Macron has declared Equity a priority for 2023), while showcasing Snap’s creative and technologic leadership in AR.

While as many women as men have marked the course of history, the vast majority of sculptures in the urban space in France (squares, gardens and streets) honour male characters. Snap’s AR Studio has thus imagined augmented reality statues of women who have left their mark on history in the fields of politics, arts and letters or resistance. These augmented reality statues are installed next to the physical statues of their male counterparts – hence creating a silent dialogue between two historical figures, a male & a female, a physical & a virtual, both having lived in the same era, walked similar fields, achieved close successes.

Each of these 8 virtual statues honours the achievements of the following 8 great women in history and helps to commemorate their contributions to French society:

Simone Veil: Champion of women’s rights, emblem of the 1975 law that legalized abortion, and the first female president of the European Parliament. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of General Charles de Gaulle on the Champs-Elysées roundabout in Paris.

Simone de Beauvoir: An acclaimed writer and philosopher of the existentialist movement. As an anti-conformist, she advocated for the emancipation of women in her writings, such as her 1949 book The Second Sex, and became one of the pioneers of French feminism in the 20th century. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of 20th century poet and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, at Place Bellecour in Lyon.

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1783 and the official painter to Marie Antoinette, she achieved critical and popular success in the artistic world despite the many obstacles facing female artists of her time. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of 18th century artist Pierre Puget, in the Parc Borély in Marseille.

Françoise de Graffigny: One of the most emblematic female figures of 18th century French literature, best known for her philosophical essay Letters from a Peruvian Woman published in 1747. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of renown philosopher Montesquieu, at Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux.

Manon Tardon: Figure of the French Resistance and Free France, she was present on May 8, 1945, in Berlin when the surrender of Nazi Germany was signed. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of World War 2 hero Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, at Square Amiral Halgan in Nantes.

Josephine Baker: An American-born singer, actress, feminist, showgirl, and French resistance fighter, Josephine Baker was a spy for the Free French Forces, an emblem of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, and an influential figure in the fight against racial segregation. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of resistant fighter Jean Moulin, at Gare Centrale in Metz.

Olympe de Gouges: Principal author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen published in 1791, she is considered one of the French pioneers of feminism. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of French Revolution leader Jean-Baptiste Kléber, at Place Kléber in Strasbourg.

Hubertine Auclert: Journalist, feminist activist, and founder of the society Le droit des femmes in 1876, she advocated for women’s economic independence, the right to education, and equality in marriage and divorce. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of early 20th-century activist Léon Trulin, at Place du Théâtre (not far from the Lille Opera).

“Through this innovative experience installed in 8 cities in France, we want to pay tribute to 8 women who have changed French history and society through their actions, their writings, or their positions. Thanks to Snap’s augmented reality technologies, we were able to celebrate those 8 women by building their statues in the public space by placing them alongside statues of men. By establishing a silent dialogue between these historical figures, our wish is to raise public awareness of the fight for women’s rights.” — Donatien Bozon, AR Studio Director.

To design this outstanding augmented reality experience, AR Studio Paris teamed up with French Women’s Rights advocate and influencer Aude Gogny-Goubert, drew inspiration from academic essays (Women & cities, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2004), and requested the patronage of SnapWomen EMEA, a Snap’s Employee Representative Group supporting Equity. An all-female panel vetted the 8 female historical figures (and their male counterpart), from more than twenty curated candidates.

It took AR Studio Paris and its partners a total of 3 months, from ideation to launch, to create true virtual monument as close to physical ones as possible. 3D artists and producers scrutinized the physical statues in order to develop a virtual counterpart replicating sculpting techniques and materials. AR engineers exploited Snap Inc. proprietary technologies (Location AR, Environment mapping, Surface Tracking…) to bring this augmented reality experience to life.

The AR experience “March 8, 8 Women” has been available since March 8, 2023, sharing, with Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nantes citizen and visitors, 8 permanent virtual monument exclusively available on Snapchat… thus building momentum to advocate Equity across France.

Snap believes that augmented reality—digital content overlaid over the real world—represents the next major shift in computing. Like ephemeral messaging and vertical video, Snap also pioneered augmented reality. Today Snap is leading in AR, from a technology, scale, and creator perspective. Snap’s vision for AR is rooted in innovation and stems from our desire to solve problems for our community in a creative way through human-centric design, and the desire to create a more positive reality rather than escape the problems our society faces. As it turns out, Snapchatters love the world around them and the friends and family they share it with, so why not use technology to enhance it for the better?

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An Overview of the Evolving Data Landscape Powering AI, VR, and More [Infographic]

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An Overview of the Evolving Data Landscape Powering AI, VR, and More [Infographic]

While AI and large language models (LLMs) become more commonplace, it’s worth considering the amount of computational power, and data storage, that these systems require to operate. 

Demand for high-grade GPUs, for example, is still exceeding demand, as more tech companies and investors look to muscle in, while the big players continue to build on their data center capacity, in order to beat smaller systems out of the market.

That, inevitably, means that control over many of these new processes will eventually fall to those with the most money, and even if you have concerns about next-level computational power being governed by CEOs and corporations, there’s not a heap that you can do about it, as they need an established holding to even get in.

Well, unless a government steps in and seeks to build its own infrastructure in order to facilitate AI development, though that seems unlikely.

And it’s not just AI, with crypto processes, complex analysis, and advanced scientific discovery now largely reliant on a few key providers that have available capacity.

It’s a concern, but essentially, you can expect to see a lot more investment in big data centers and processing facilities over the coming years.

This new overview from Visual Capitalist (for Hive Digital) provides some additional context. Here, the VC team have broken down the current data center landscape, and what we’re going to need to facilitate next-level AI, VR, the metaverse, and more.

It’s an eye-opening summary. You can check out Visual Capitalists’ full overview here.

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30 Quick Ways to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate [Infographic]

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30 Quick Ways to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate [Infographic]

Looking to drive more direct conversions from your website listings this holiday season?

The team from Red Website Design share 30 ways to improve your website conversion rate in this infographic.

Here’s the top five from the list:

  • Include as few fields as possible on forms
  • Use testimonials
  • Clearly state product/service benefits
  • Include subscriber and social media follower counts
  • Write clear, compelling copy

Check out the infographic for more detail.

A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.

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