Video, voice and vernacular - 3Vs to triumph digital: Google's Rajan Anandan

Google’s mantra for growth is clear, it is time companies cater to the 3Vs of the digital medium — voice, video and vernacular language.

The search giant asserted that access to technology and products in Indian languages are set to improve user experience, and data analysis, analytics, augmented reality and virtual reality, and data science are set to be the new technologies of the future of digital media.

Rajan Anandan, Vice-President, South East Asia and India, Google, said artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation are set to cuts across all of these, and every advertiser and corporate needs to focus on the 3V’s to further their business.

In a conversation with Vivek Bhargava, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network, Performance Group, late last evening in Mumbai, Anandan said given the many disruptions expected, it was time for skilled workforce to take centre stage.

“In this world of faster evolution cycles, smart people across industries want to learn, and to be governed or managed by really smart people. Skills are going to be critical,” he said

Noting that “the machine-human conflict has already begun, and that he has been a part of several discussions on “if the machines going to decide what am I going to do,” Anandan said: “The premium now is on learning. Learn very fast and keep re-learning or you are toast,” he said.

Noting that around 400 million users are online monthly, and corporate CEOs who do not understand digital are likely to fail, the Google VP spoke at length about the reach of the vernacular medium.

He said in order to harness the power of the world wide web and to reach out to non-English speaking web users, marketers would need to make ads in local languages.

“Today, there is a 50 per cent probability that if you are showing an English ad, the person who is watching it does not understand it,” he said.

What is also important is vernacular digital assets, he added. “The website, app, landing page or transaction page has to be in the local language to gain traction with the consumer. This is bound to double conversion rates,” he said.

According to a recent study, internet surfers in vernacular languages have grown from 42 million in 2011 to 234 million in 2016, highlighting that nearly 70 per cent of Indians consider local language digital content more engaging.

By 2021, it is estimated that over 201 million Hindi users — which form 38 per cent of the Indian internet user base — are expected to be online and nearly 90 per cent of them are more likely to respond to a digital advertisement in their local language as compared to English ads.

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