MUMBAI: India’s booming digital advertising market has “reached a tipping point” and is set for double-digit growth driven by global investment in the country and policy reforms under the new Narendra Modi administration, according to ad:tech head of EMEA & India James Drake-Brockman.
Led by mobile, social media and the emergence of new technologies, digital advertising spend in India is expected to increase by an impressive 35 per cent in 2015 and further growth is predicted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ policy enhances India’s internet infrastructure.
As global industry leaders prepare to gather in Gurgaon for ad:tech New Delhi conference on 19-20 March, Brockman feels that India’s burgeoning advertising technology sector is experiencing unprecedented investment as advertisers switch on to the growing need to allocate digital resource. “A strong digital presence is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – those who don’t will struggle to keep up with the ever evolving relationship between brand and consumer,” he said.
Last year’s ad:tech New Delhi happened at a time when India had reached a tipping point of investment. Rather than attendees using the event to gather information and understand what is out there, they were coming to the event and treating it as a marketplace with serious budgets to invest.
“The surge in number of brands sending groups of marketers to the event in 2015 reflects this trend and demonstrates the fact that India’s marketing community is serious about digital,” added Brockman.
The ‘Digital India’ policy and the prospect of getting India’s 1.3 billion people online has compounded interest in the sector: “Advertisers realise that increased internet access combined with changing consumer behaviour and spending have created a unique window of opportunity. They realise that they need the right digital advertising tools to capitalise and are turning to technology companies here in India and overseas for solutions and partners,” said ad:tech New Delhi head of content and marketing Vinish Joshi.
“All of this is good news for the advertising technology industry, good news for the economy and good news for India,” added Joshi.
Featuring a ‘Digital Ahead’ theme, over 5,000 people are expected to attend ad:tech New Delhi where industry leaders speaking include Unilever VP media for Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Russia Rahul Welde, Group M chief digital officer Rob Norman and Flipkart head of fashion Mukesh Bansal.
