YouTube bets on educational content and learning; What does this mean for the marketing community?

While educational content has been available on YouTube for several years, making it an open and free university of sorts; the platform's latest move to boost educational content will allow creators to provide viewers with a more comprehensive, structured learning experience. (Representational image: Siora18 via Unsplash)

Marketers today have the appetite for upskilling to stay relevant. This could result in more sign-ups for “YouTube University”

Meme Marketing 2023: How memes become weapons of virality in a brand’s marketing arsenal

Meme marketing, is an increasingly popular category that brands have begun to focus more on in the last couple of years as a result of the forced digitization due to the pandemic. In India, the number of internet users grew substantially during the lockdown. With nothing to do other than consume tons of content, memes gained immense traction and became a dependable source for marketing. (Representational image by Justin Lim via Unsplash)

With social media roles requiring meme creation as a necessary skill and with the growth of meme marketing agencies, can memes become a key mode of marketing communication for brands?

Simply Speaking: Loyalty – A mirage or a fountainhead?

Brands earn loyalty by distinguishing themselves with their actions. The decline and death of brands has been predicted with every disruption whether private labels, ecommerce or near perfect information availability. Instead we find top brands are strengthening their positions across industries. Loyalty is not dead, only the ability to create loyalists is wanting, writes our columnist in this week's Simply Speaking. (Representational image: Artem Beliaikin via Unsplash)

Marketers who can’t earn customer loyalty declare that it is dead.

L’Oreal’s global marketing boss Asmita Dubey shares career advice for women: All about “bets and balances”

Dubey has introduced new AR beauty services and virtual try-ons for hair and make-up as well as skin diagnosis through AI, with the latter attracting more than 100 million users in the past year.

Dubey shared highlights of her journey from India to China to Paris, and advice for women in the corporate world.

Biz Moves: Dentsu India, BBDO India, 1702 Digital, Verve Media and Brand Visage

Dentsu India has won the integrated media marketing mandate of Hero MotoCorp’s Vida, an emerging mobility brand Hero MotoCorp. The responsibilities of the network would include overseeing the brand's global full-funnel marketing, which includes performance and digital marketing. (Representative image: Sven Kucinic via Unsplash)

Keep up with all the key business wins and the account movements

Throwback: When Lalitaji shielded Surf from redundancy

The commercial was meant to be advertised on cinema screens. In the words of veteran ad man K S Chakravarthy, the 1984 Summer Olympics caught the eyes of Lintas’s client. Since airtime was already bought by the client, Surf’s Lalitaji debuted on the television screens in 1984, for Lintas didn’t have a backup commercial in hand. (Stills from the ads)

The 1984 commercial of Surf reinstated the brand’s position in the detergent market, which was threatened by Nirma. A large part of that credit goes to Lalitaji, an iconic character of Indian advertising, whose clutter cutter persona justified the price point of the brand due to the greater satisfaction derived by its use.

Big Tech’s ad business can be a monopolist threat: Standing Committee on Finance

The report said, “It should provide advertisers information on a daily basis, regarding price paid by the advertiser and the remuneration received by the publisher. It should provide advertisers and publishers with access to the performance measuring tools of the gatekeeper and the data necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of the advertisements inventory, including aggregated and non-aggregated data." (Representative Image: Aman Pal via Unsplash)

The committee also recommended that the government should consider and introduce a Digital Competition Act to ensure a fair, transparent and contestable digital ecosystem.

From waking up customers to delivering books in record time — How Indians used Dunzo in 2022

According to Dunzo, the sexual wellness category grew 2.5x, with condoms and lubes leading the category. Mumbai residents ordered three times the number of condoms and lubricants as Delhi residents. (Representatuve Image: @DunzoIt)

Dunzo, which offers a quick-commerce service called Dunzo Daily, stated that although lockdowns were done away by early 2022, ordering daily essentials online was the “single largest pandemic-triggered trend that is here to stay.”