Latest news with #ETBrandEquity
Time of India
23-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Trendies Awards 2025: Hyundai, Goibibo, The Singleton steal the show
The third edition of the Trendies Awards by ET Brand Equity celebrated brands and agencies who created viral moments, made content their main character, used digital strategies to drive business, collaborated with creators to build their stories, and everything in between. The Trendies Awards, held in Mumbai, recognized and celebrated excellence in influencer marketing and social media marketing . 91 winners were awarded across 70 categories. Hyundai India picked up three awards for its campaign titled 'Samarth'. The auto-major also took home the title of 'Influencer Marketing Brand of the Year'. The creative minds at Havas Play fueled the brand's success. Goibibo grabbed three awards for its campaign 'Goibibo' featuring Bollywood superstar Kareena Kapoor Khan aka Bebo in a nostalgic avatar. The brand also got the 'Social Media Brand of The Year' award. The Singleton from the house of Diageo won two awards - one for its social festive campaign 'Gifting with Shibani' and the other for the 'This Will Be Good' campaign in Industry Awards. The Singleton was also 'Social Media Brand of The Year' and 'Brand Community of the Year'. The creative force of Enormous Brands were behind these winning campaigns. Viraj Naik was the 'Influencer Of The Year'. Dolly Shah, who is a clinical cosmetologist and skincare creator, became the 'Mid-Tier Influencer' of the year. Among agencies and platforms, NOFILTR Social was selected as the 'Boutique Influencer Marketing Agency'; Sociohub was chosen as the 'Mid-Sized Influencer Marketing Agency'; Barcode Entertainment got the 'Large Influencer Marketing Agency' of the year title; KlugKlug was the winner of the 'Influencer Marketing Platform' of the year; Qoruz received the award for 'Influencer Marketing Technology' of the year; and ChtrSocial was named the 'Social Media Agency Of The Year - Rising Star'. Other leading brands that won were Maruti Suzuki, L'Oréal, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, Amazon India, Meta, Google, Asian Paints, Kia, HSBC, Nestle, Raymond, Thums Up, Puma, Bumble, Dabur, among others. The Trendies Awards were evaluated by 50 distinguished jury members who are India's top marketers, content specialists, and digital evangelists. For further details about the awards and the process visit:
Time of India
14-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
ICS 2025: Steering Reputation in a VUCA World
The 7th edition of the India Communication Summit ( ICS ), organised by ETBrandEquity, is set to take place on 15 May at The Leela Ambience, Gurugram. The event will feature over 50 speakers representing some of India's most admired and exciting corporate houses. The aim of ICS is to bring together the movers and shapers of corporate reputation and public relations under one roof, and to help shape the future of the industry. The event will feature engaging sessions on key communication trends and themes, along with unparalleled networking opportunities . This year, ICS will be inaugurated by Shri Dilip Kumar, Executive Director (Information & Publicity), Indian Railways, who will deliver the opening keynote address on 'Lessons in Crisis Communications from Indian Railways'. Arpana Kumar Ahuja, EVP & Head, Corporate Brand and Communications, Jindal Steel, will deliver a keynote address on 'Adapting Communications for a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) World'. The final keynote will be presented by Sanjeev Handa, Senior VP, PR & Communications, Maruti Suzuki, on the topic 'Shaping Go-To-Market Strategy: A Comms Leader's Perspective'. ICS 2025 will explore the key themes transforming the communications landscape, including AI and reputation management, purpose-driven communication, influencer-led narratives, navigating the trust deficit, crisis communications, advocacy, influencing key stakeholders and priming audiences. These themes will be addressed by seasoned practitioners from leading brands such as Nestlé India, Axis Max Life Insurance, Tata Consumer Products, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, MakeMyTrip, Hyundai Motor India, Reckitt, Colgate-Palmolive India, ITC, OYO, Myntra, Axis Bank, Panasonic India, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Apollo Hospitals, Paisabazaar, Zupee, Mars India (Petcare), BVLGARI, PepsiCo India, ASUS India, Tech Mahindra, Games24x7, RPG Group, Ericsson, GE HealthCare, CoinDCX, Lenovo, Cognizant India, Snap Inc., Deloitte, BCG, and many others. The penultimate session of the day-long conference will feature a fireside chat with Nikhil Taneja, Co-founder & Chief, Yuvaa, who will address the growing mental health crisis in the country. As the curtains draw to a close on ICS 2025, the excitement will peak with the Kaleido Awards 2025 , which will honour outstanding communication and public relations campaigns and the storytellers behind them. The nominations have been thoroughly evaluated by a distinguished jury panel led by esteemed jury chair Rohit Bansal, Group Head – Communications, Reliance Industries. This edition of ICS would not be possible without the support of 'Powered By' partner Kaizzen and 'Co-partners' AVIAN We. and Consocia Advisory. You can find the complete agenda for ICS 2025 at:
Time of India
06-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
"Seamless frontend demands a complex backend":HDFC Bank's Deepak Oram on the reality of Martech stacks
HighlightsHDFC Bank's Deepak Oram decodes the shift from Martech stack fatigue to stack fitness and effectiveness. Why Agentic AI should be seen as a revenue-generation engine, not just a cost-saving tool. The myth of 'simple stacks': Why complex backends power seamless customer experiences. Consent-led personalisation and the role of privacy-first strategies in modern Martech. How brands can future-proof their marketing infrastructure by building Gen AI-native Martech stacks. In an era where artificial intelligence is redefining the rules of engagement, building a high-performing Martech stack isn't about chasing perfection—it's about staying agile, integrated, and customer-obsessed. As Martech tools proliferate and tech capabilities deepen, the line between marketing , product, and customer experience continues to blur. In this candid interview with ETBrandEquity, Deepak Oram , Sr. VP – Growth Marketing & Martech at HDFC Bank , shares his perspective on stack fitness vs. fatigue, the rise of Agentic AI, and why consent-led personalisation and cross-functional ownership are key to Martech's evolution in India's digital-first economy. Edited Excerpts: Given the pace at which Martech is evolving, is the concept of a "perfect stack" achievable, or is it more of a moving target? There is no such thing as a perfect Martech stack. A Martech stack is like a garden—you have to periodically water the plants, prune the excess, and use manure to rejuvenate growth. What I'm trying to say is that it's always evolving because customer behaviour keeps changing, channel preferences shift, and the rules and regulations keep evolving. This is the ecosystem in which Martech operates. From Stack Fatigue to Stack Fitness—what does an optimised Martech ecosystem really look like today? Stack fatigue is when people get bored of the old systems and want something new—for better agility, faster turnaround times, less data manipulation, and so on. That said, stack fitness is not just about speed. It's not about how fast or easy things are—that's a common misconception. Stack fitness is about how effectively you can perform a task. Sometimes, with fitter stacks where you don't need to manipulate data, you actually have to work harder. Ultimately, this is about customer experience—and faster is not always better. Stack fitness is all about effectiveness with the customer at the centre, whereas stack fatigue is something every marketer experiences. Does that essentially mean having fewer tools and more usability? You can definitely have fewer tools, but we're in an age where people will create their own tools—AI has made coding easy. People will build their own wrappers and hacks. However, the stack won't become simpler; in fact, it will stay complex. I think it's a misnomer that a simpler stack is always a better one. Imagine guests coming over and you cook something simple like Maggi noodles—will it impress them? Whether it's the customer service department or marketing, the backend will always remain complex. It's the complexity behind the scenes that ensures a seamless experience at the front end. Martech tools promise simplicity but often add complexity. What have been your key lessons in simplifying integrations and ensuring seamless data flow across the stack? I think many folks take their organisation's needs too seriously and end up customising way too much. Think of any vendor—they often serve 100, 200, or even 300 customers across India and abroad. They're constantly refining what suits marketers best based on tests across hundreds of organisations. These solution providers are very knowledgeable. It's not always the marketer who knows the most—we need to be humble about that. First, leverage what the vendor offers before customising. It's the customisations that become a headache five years later. Have AI Agents begun to change the very architecture of the Martech stack? Let's start with value and put the customer at the centre. For any Martech tool, the customer is the marketer. What does the marketer want? Globally and in India, one of the main goals is to reduce cost—cost of acquisition, cost of service, cost of communication, etc. Now look at a marketer's KRAs: have you grown customer revenue, customer satisfaction, the topline? That's the lens through which we must view Agentic AI. A lot of the chatter today is around using AI for workflows like image generation—but is that solving the biggest organisational problem? We should look at Agentic AI not just as a cost-saving tool but as a revenue-generating one. For instance, humans don't iterate very well—we don't consistently change subject lines or A/B test landing pages. Every CMO sees iteration as a challenge. Imagine an AI agent constantly optimising subject lines or reducing bounce rates on landing pages. That's value creation beyond cost savings. How do you ensure your Martech stack balances hyper-personalisation demands with the increasing importance of customer privacy? Customer privacy is 100% paramount—regardless of industry. If you breach customer privacy and they find out, your brand reputation is irreparably damaged. You cannot take shortcuts for short-term revenue or experience goals. And it's not just about regulatory compliance—it's also about common sense. Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you when you're in the customer's shoes. Then, how do you balance the hyper-personalisation goals? Very simple—take consent. There will always be customers willing to provide access to some data for personalised offerings. Many people wrongly believe that privacy and marketing can't coexist. But look at cookie data—60% to 80% of users give consent. They understand that if they want an Amazon-like experience with relevant product recommendations, they need to share data. They love it when those recommendations are accurate. Customers appreciate receiving a call that directly addresses their query. Once you get consent, what's also critical is how you store, encrypt, and ensure regulatory compliance for that data. In an age of platform proliferation, who should own Martech orchestration—Marketing, Tech, or Product? Orchestration is essentially how an organisation defines its customer treatment. Let's set marketing aside and consider a call centre: is it defined by Product, the Call Centre Manager, the Regulator, the CEO, CFO, or CIO? The answer is—it's defined by all of them. The regulator says don't call without consent. The CFO says don't make too many calls—there's a cost. The CIO says use tech like VoIP for efficiency. So, Martech today is no longer just about marketing. It's a technology that drives customer experience. And customer experience is a cross-functional mandate. Hence, Martech orchestration cannot be owned by a single function. It must be co-owned across the organisation. If you were to build a Martech stack from scratch today, what's the first capability you'd invest in—and what would you consciously leave out? Let me give you an example. We've had several tech revolutions, and one of them was mobile. Yet, even 10 years into the mobile boom, many large brands had websites that weren't responsive. That's how difficult it is to change technology. A similar revolution is now underway with Gen AI. But everyone is asking—how do I mount Gen AI on top of my marketing stack, my call centre, or my app? That's not the ideal approach. Why can't we integrate Gen AI from the bottom—at the API level? Think about it—what I show on my app already comes through an API. We're entering a space where stacks will be Gen AI-native, just like we once had to become mobile-native. It'll take time because legacy systems don't support this immediately. But if you're coding a new website today—make sure it's Gen AI-native from the start.
