The seventh edition of MOBEXX Summit and Awards 2023 featured an insightful panel discussion on ‘The Future of Mobile Video Advertising’ on December 12, 2023. Chaired by Raghav Maheshwari, Chief Business Officer, Mobavenue Media, the session brought together industry experts to explore the evolving landscape of mobile video advertising:

Archana Aggarwal, VP - Media, Airtel
Mohit Shukla, Digital Lead, Bikanerwala
Nisha Madan, VP - Marketing, Max Life
Santosh Kumar, COO, Innocean
Shitiz Dogra, Digital Marketing Leader, Indigo
Commencing the session, Raghav Maheshwari highlighted the intriguing nature of the discussion on the future of mobile video advertising. He acknowledged the dual role of the audience as both consumers and decision-makers, emphasising the significant impact that they have on shaping the content they encounter.

He spoke about evolution of mobile advertising, transitioning from random video ads on streaming services to a phase where content evaluation, personalisation, and analytics play pivotal roles.

“Mobile advertising has come a long way, from randomly running video ads on streaming services to now, where we are evaluating what the content is, what personalisation we are doing, what analytics we are doing,” Maheshwari added.

Shitiz Dogra shared insights into the organic success achieved through YouTube Shorts. “We have gained explosive growth, attributing a 40x increase in the YouTube channel’s viewership over nine months to strategic content placement. The significance of YouTube Shorts indicates a trend towards the enduring appeal of minimalism. YouTube Shorts has exploded like anything. Shorts was one of the pivotal reasons for us to skyrocket our growth on the YouTube channel,” Dogra added.

Santosh Kumar spoke about the transformative journey from a traditional auto-heavy advertising environment to a digital approach. He said, “There is a shift from treating TVCs as the primary mode to embracing digital channels, highlighting the importance of context in content creation.” Kumar credited generative AI for aiding in understanding context and shaping the structure and persona of TVCs.

“Content is the king, I’d say context is the queen. Generative AI has been a very helpful factor in understanding the context and evaluating how the TVC is going to structure and what persona it will create,” he added.

Nisha Madan turned the spotlight on the evolution of video formats, recognising the diversity of audience preferences. She emphasised on the balance between long-format videos and shorter Reels, acknowledging the significant time users spend on their mobile phones.

“There is a certain audience that actually likes the long-format videos, but we also never want to stay behind. For the generations to come, we are also working on Reels and Shorts.” she added.

Archana Aggarwal stressed on the need for creative adaptability, sharing insights from experiments that led to innovative communication strategies, especially considering the trend of watching videos on mute. “The concern is building a stronger connect with the consumer. If we are putting some content out there, but there are no viewers, then it is of no use. We are turning into creating such videos so that consumers can actually consume the video in the right manner,” she said.

Mohit Shukla highlighted the need for content to be not just visually appealing, but also relevant and shareable to the consumers. He also spoke about the role of emotional connection in capturing consumer interest within a brief span.

“In today’s digital era, digital currency is important, whether your content is relevant and shareable to the consumers, that’s what really matters. How we are going to make an emotional connect with consumers in 5 seconds is going to work for us now,” Shukla said.