August 2020

Influencer Marketing Social networking sites like Instagram, #YouTube, #FaceBook, #Vigo Video, offer a highly interactive and visually rich experience to users. Hence these sites have acquired immense popularity for product promotion. Influencers are the key drivers of this ecosystem. Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘influencer’ as “a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media”.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (“IAB”) defines ‘brand safety’ as “keeping a brand’s reputation safe when it advertises online“. The objective of brand safety is to ensure that the placement of advertisements is such that they are protected against surrounding content that is universally considered to be unsavory. It is intended to prevent potential negative associations with the brand due to particular types of ‘harmful’ content in the vicinity of the ad. For instance, an advertisement for a product such as Bournvita (promoted as a children or family based product), affixed on or displayed in the midst of pornographic content, would work to the disadvantage of the image of the brand. Substantial time and investment is made by brands on projecting a particular type of image, and when their ads are placed in the wrong context, it can damage their image in no time. It takes the consumer mere seconds to make up his/her mind about the brand just by the content it is being associated with, rendering the brandguilty by association. Hence, years of cultivating the “right” image can vanish in the blink of an eye.

(1) E-commerce of food items and groceriesElectronics, books and garments have been the most popular items in the e-commerce segment among Indian consumers. However, COVID-19 seemed to have altered this situation, as e-groceries have taken the centre stage, ever since the pandemic (and the panic shopping!) started in February 2020. As per a press release by Razorpay, one of the largest payment gateways in India, online grocery shopping in India grew by 9% for the first time in just one month.1 The Indian e-grocery stores, such as BigBasket, Grofers and Amazon India Pantry were allowed to continue supplying groceries, and have seen a skyrocketing rise of their app downloads and new customers in each of last months, as per MoEngage, an AI-based customer engagement platform.2 Their businesses are bound to shoot up and this is when their operations have not been smooth due to the lock-down and their sites are consistently slow due to high traffic.A large percent of consumers who now finds online grocery shopping easier, convenient and, more than that, safer, is most likely to continue shopping groceries online post the pandemic situation. This consumer behaviour would lead more businesses to digitise their business operations, especially in the food and beverages industry.

With the world facing trying times due to the coronavirus outbreak and several countries coming to a stand-still. It is apparent for most brands to avoid a hit on their business due to the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic situation. Brands in the aviation, hospitality, travel, oil and gas, restaurants, and the retail sectors appear to have been impacted the most. However, there are a few names in some industries that have witnessed a substantial surge or at least consistency, in the demand and supply of their offerings since the beginning of the pandemic, besides the obvious ones like the food and the healthcare sectors.