From storyboard to VR

ADVERTISERS ARE INCREASINGLY USING PROGRAMMATIC TOOLS AND AI TO REDUCE AD WASTAGE

- CHRISTINA MONIZ

TWO YEARS AGO Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) set up Lightbox, an in-house design and creative lab to drive creative campaigns for all its brands across various categories. Since then it has added a media planning platform called Media Allocation and Spends Harmonisation, or MASH, to roll out campaigns and cut costs, keeping sales objectives at the centre. It will soon add an AI lab and a content factory, launching first in South Africa before they are introduced in India. The idea is to invest its ad monies in a way that it reaches the maximum number of people at the lowest possible cost.

Not just GCPL. In an economy plagued by the challenges of tight money and geopolitical tumult, smart marketers are increasingly falling back on AI and programmatic tools to extract more bang for their advertising buck. Take HUL, which has deployed AI to transform its marketing and media strategies through a platform called Sangam that streamlines media planning and buying. At Ad:Tech Delhi this year, HUL's head of media and digital marketing Tejas Apte said the company uses Sangam to significantly reduce its media planning turnaround time from 25 days to just five.

These companies aren't just making decisions faster; the decisions themselves are bolder.