ETBWS 2025: The consumer funnel is collapsing; discovery and purchase are happening all at once

Time of India

19-07-2025

Consumer journeys are increasingly non-linear, and the boundaries between entertainment and commerce are dissolving by the day. Today, consumers stream, search and shop seamlessly across multiple platforms. For marketers, this presents new opportunities to influence purchase decisions and foster brand affinity at every touchpoint.
Neha Markanda
, head of industry, e-commerce, Google India, took the stage at the 7th edition of the
Brand World Summit
, organised by ETBrandEquity, to discuss this dynamic consumer landscape. Effectively engaging audiences, she noted, requires understanding how attention spans stretch and splinter across media channels.
Highlighting the meteoric rise of cricketer Vaibhav Suryavanshi after his IPL performance, Markanda said, 'Suryavanshi's rise turned into an overnight sensation, thanks to the internet rallying behind his achievements. Within hours, more than 25,000 pieces of content were created about him, amassing over a billion views. But the story does not end there. Today's unpredictable consumers are not confined to a single platform like live cricket or the IPL. They are constantly searching, streaming and scrolling, often simultaneously.'
Consumer engagement now extends far beyond the action of a live cricket match. To remain relevant, brands must meet audiences across a variety of touchpoints and moments. With attention spans shortening, it is particularly notable that
short-form video
content, once synonymous with mobile, is increasingly consumed on large television screens as well.
Short-form video has emerged as a powerful new-age tool for impact, particularly during the two to three high-value occasions each year when brands seek to be seen, heard and drive measurable outcomes. The traditional notion of the consumer journey as a linear funnel is rapidly collapsing. It is no longer a simple progression from awareness to purchase. Instead, the journey is fragmented, dynamic and ever-evolving, more like a map of influence than a funnel, challenging brands to identify where and how to create meaningful interactions that deliver results.
Today's consumers are not just passive viewers; content actively fuels their curiosity, prompting deeper and more frequent research into brands. Beyond the sheer volume of research, the nature of search itself is shifting. Queries are longer, more complex and often conversational.
'This transformation is powered in large part by AI,' Markanda emphasised. 'AI Overviews are now available in over 100 countries, with more than a billion global users each month tapping into them to explore, discover and make decisions in an intuitive, conversational manner.'
For Generation Z, search has become a critical touchpoint in the shopping journey, serving as a launchpad for new brands, price points and product line extensions. However, this shift poses a challenge: how can marketers keep pace with the sheer velocity of change in the digital ecosystem? Unlike physical retail, where a display window can be carefully curated, the online marketplace is a perpetually evolving environment with millions of products in a constantly updating feed.
Here, AI becomes a key enabler. Rather than deploying large teams to manually craft detailed product descriptions, AI can automate and optimise product listings, boosting both accuracy and efficiency.
'Once brands deploy
AI tools
, they can dramatically improve product discoverability. I encourage every marketer to explore how AI can be leveraged across three core objectives: relevance, measurement and creativity,' Markanda concluded.