The future consumer engagement model will see brands engaging on issues of society using technology, D Shivakumar, Group Executive President, Aditya Birla Group, said here. “The model I see going forward is BEST – Brand Engagement based on topics that matter to Society through Technology. This will be the future consumer engagement model,” he said while delivering the inaugural edition of the R K Swamy Memorial Lecture organised jointly by the Madras Management Association and Advertising Club Madras.

“The BEST model will involve authentic and personalised contents, while seeking response and recommendation of brands by the consumers. Earlier, brands acquired consumers and tried to retain them. Now they acquire, retain and ask them to recommend,” he said.

Shivakumar said every customer engagement now is data-driven unlike in the past when the data sources were few and outdated along with a limited budget. While data-driven model help companies address customers’ various requirements effectively, it has some negative side also with too many pesky calls bothering the people. “Pesky calls are nothing but as a result of monetisation of somebody’s data by selling it to others,” he added.

In the past, brands had to use sales and segmentation data for consumer engagement, today consumer conversation data is used for engagement in an effective manner. Referring to online engagement, he said today’s consumers express their emotions online and tracking them is the most important measure now. Explaining engagement on social media, he said while it offered some benefits, there were also pent-up anger or hatred views on social media, which is a concern.

Other speakers recalled the contributions of R K Swamy, one of the early Icons of Indian Advertising, and their associations with him. He was instrumental in placing Madras on the Advertising radar with his visionary approach and ability to convince Public Sector Organisations to embrace advertising in a big way.

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