Meet your jury for Digi 100 APAC. Vineet Kumar is the Senior Director of Marketing at SAP. He is responsible for building brand, thought leadership, demand generation and customer advocacy across traditional, digital and social media. Prior to joining SAP in 2012, Vineet worked on Global and Indian brands like Canon, HSBC, VISA, Wipro, ShopperStop, Reliance Communications etc. to develop brand, launch new products, build strategic partnerships and expand business across geographies. He is a recognized marketing thought leader and speaker at industry forums and events.
What are the top three traits that a Futurist Digital Marketer must have?
The future marketer has to really be one with the disruptive mindset. They should be able to question status quo before others i.e. their competitors do it.
The second is that they need to befriend technology. Technology must be their best friend, whether it is Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, chatbots etc., the way technologies are making inroads are beneficial to marketers if they harness the power.
Thirdly, which has not changed, and I believe will never change is the fact that you need to have a deep understanding of the business.
What according to you is one trend that is defining the digital landscape in the APAC region?
I would say it is the customer experience, we are moving towards an experience economy. Asia-Pacific is becoming the epicenter of all things digital; we are the largest online population and represent the biggest digital ad spends across the globe. Customers are always connected to the brand and their devices, this impacts the way customers consume content and engage with brands. We as marketers need to have customer centricity at the core of our programs and look at mobility as the primary way of engaging with our audience. Think “Mobile First”.
With access to too much data what do you think is the biggest challenge that digital marketers are facing today?
The problem is not too much data, but what we do with the data, marketers should to be able to comb through the data and derive business insights and act on it real time. For example, on a recent flight to Singapore, the in-flight entertainment system of a very reputed airline didn’t work, and few passengers posted complaints on social media, soon as the flight landed, the airlines shared an apology and gave away a goody bag for each passenger as a goodwill gesture that they care for their customers feedback. What does this mean? That the social media team was alert and listening, and their timely intervention turned the situation around from complains to customer advocacy. Organizations also need to be able to have a single view of their customer. They should be able to bring together the transactional and experience data. This way the experience for the customer across platforms is seamless.
As a jury for Digi 100 APAC, what is your advice to people applying to be on the list for top 100 digital marketers in the APAC?
It’s really simple, as a member of the jury I’m looking for one thing in particular: the business value. Their application should clearly indicate the business value in their campaigns.
The second is that, what is the insight that drove the campaign? What made you believe in the campaign?
The third factor is the innovative use of media. Digital is your medium but where did the creativity come in and how much impact did it have?
