Innovative storytelling key to building brands in the digital age: VCCircle Summit

Innovative storytelling is key to building brands in the digital age, said panellists at the News Corp VCCircle Consumer Investment Summit which was held in Mumbai on Tuesday. 

The day-long event saw participation from some of the top enterpreneurs and investors in the consumer space. 

The closing session on building brands featured Revant Bhate, partner at seed fund Kstart; Manan Gupta, display lead-optimisation practice at Google; and Vaseem Edroos, executive director-new media at Lowe Lintas. The session was moderated by Agilio co-founder and chief executive officer Sanjay Tripathy. 

The panellists pointed out some digital trends in consumer purchases, with Gupta arguing that the notion of the present generation having shorter attention spans is nothing but a myth. He said that brands need to raise the bar to grab attention. 

"The current generation spends a lot of time watching videos and has become a great medium to attract millennials,” said Gupta.

With regard to integrated marketing strategies, Gupta said that brand strategy today is changing as it takes into account the plethora of consumer-generated data available that helps driving sales and brand awareness. 

Brand favourability can be measured through metrics available digitally, he added.  

Drawing from his experiences working with food startups Faasos and Behrouz Biryani, Kstart's Revant Bhate said brands essentially need to have someone involved from end-to-end to foster brand loyalty. 

He said that innovative techniques such as Instagram stories should be used to nudge buyers.

Lowe Lintas' Edroos said there are three pillars crucial for a brand to succeed in India - data, artificial intelligence and social consciousness. 

While data analytics and artificial intelligence provides simplified understanding and enhances consumer behaviour, he said, social consciousness helps brands build an emotional connect through branded content.

The panellists also said that user-generated content and brand transparency was key to building consumer trust.

The trio also discussed some cardinal sins in branding. While Gupta said checking basics such as related content and quicker loading times at business websites was essential, Revant advised against starting with limited resources to avoid coming to an eventual standstill.   

On the brand personalisation front, the pannelists advocated micro-targeting, wherein brands need to focus on individual demographics including vernacular languages and regional over-the-top services. 

"Digital is no longer an English-only media,” Bhate said.