How marketing intelligence Is an immunity booster for brands

How marketing intelligence Is an immunity booster for brands

As marketers our focus should be to provide cost effective alternative to MarTech stacks.

By Udit Joshi

Just 12 years ago, we were taught marketing based on the classic case studies by specialised lecturers from premier institutes and veterans in the industry. Today, there’s a radical change, the students learn through tools based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, social listening and more.

The evolution of Marketing took a time leap with technology

Marketing intelligence is synonymous to competitive intelligence and business intelligence. It is the time capsule that combines the past, present and future business environment offering a scientific and intelligent process as the decision-making support. As India will open up from the Covid slumber, growth opportunities will emerge across various regions and sectors of the economy. The India advantage is the reduced adoption-time over the period. People across India and across demographics are utilising technology so well.

We have all been living digital lives for the last five months now. As individuals we have been heavily dependent on the web. The fourth screen, the mobile has now become the primary screen. Imagine the amount of conversations that are happening in our virtual lives. Growth in the number of users makes India one of the most potent markets for marketing intelligence. It has been estimated that by the end of 2022 the number of internet users will be close to 700 million. While markets overall witnessed a negative growth, smartphones companies hardly spent over 10 minutes in an online flash sale. Even despite the recent nationalist sentiments. What are the successful brands doing well? How do they know the consumers so well?

Marketing intelligence as an immunity booster to brands, will equip the industry workforce to deal with futuristic technologies, drive innovation and lead the economy’s expansive structural transformation. According to a Hootsuite study, 90% of brands want to build brand awareness through social media. 77% of the brand managers use it to maintain brand reputation, while 71% of them use it for managing community engagement.

A boon for Agencies

There must be over 5,000 agencies in the organised marketing and PR sector in India. These must be servicing or pitching at least 20 clients on an average. This means that over a lakh monthly plans or pitches are being made by these consultancies! We also go by the word ‘brand advisories’, yet what’s the source of this advice? Unsubscribed Google trends or open social listening, marketing tools? Finding accurate information in a ‘false, lazy or generic report’ can be like playing jeopardy in our business.

By relying on top results in Google we are often mislead by commercial websites with big budgets and not every big budget website contains the right information. Haven’t we at times wondered about the sanctity of the survey and the primary research, unless it is from the way out of the budget big 4.

It simply means that accurate and genuine content is somewhere missing and we’ll have to step up our game. With marketing intelligence, brand managers, agencies and PR fraternity will be able to stay one step ahead of the game. This is what they’ll be able to do:

1. Understanding the customer

• Helps companies in understanding customer requirements and their minutest characteristics ~ Nicki Minaj pulling out of Saudi Arabia concert
• Gauge customer perception about the brand and reputation management ~ The great speech by Paytm founder on battling demonetisation

2. Monitor industry trends and competitive landscape

• Spot trends quickly and find the volume of attention metrics to know where the competitor is promoting the brand ~ The classic Burger King vs McDonald’s clash
• Track the macro to micro level topics, from market value to market share to consumer perception ~ TATA Nano being pitched as ‘the cheapest car’

3. Measure performance

• Measure the performance of the plan and strategies ~ From being No. 1 in India to being sold to Microsoft in 2014
• Responsive to both the active and passive customer desires regarding products and service ~ Dove: “Racist” Facebook Ad

Commoditising information

As marketers our focus should be to provide cost effective alternative to MarTech stacks. Data analytics technology and out-of-the-box analytics solutions will bring to the table intelligent operations and marketing ideas. Soon, the scale of it is going to be very demanding, especially for the thousands of agencies in India. It is to prepare for this time that we create affordable MarTech as a service, like a MPO – Marketing Process Outsourcing after BPOs and KPOs.

We envision a time when the brand managers dial a service similar to the Yellow Pages and ask in a very colloquial manner, “Bhaiya, please get me the last 6 months data of my competitors’ share of voice. And do put some sales insights and keyword maps along.”
As a consequence, it will enable marketers to use MarTech tools, insights and guidance for their strategic business decisions or tactical campaigns.

The author is an integrated marketing specialist at Topline Consulting Group.

Read Also: Why OTT platforms present a plethora of untapped potential for advertisers

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Published at Sat, 15 Aug 2020 11:26:15 +0000

These 4 Drugmakers Are Using AI to Improve Their Products. Does It Make Them Better Buys?

While the potential rewards in the pharmaceutical industry are high, so too is the rate of failure for companies trying to develop new drugs and therapies. But using artificial intelligence systems in the process can help improve those odds, and pharmaceutical companies are catching on. A Business Insider report in July said that as many as 214 companies focused on drug discovery are now deploying AI, up from 89 six years ago.

By using predictive algorithms that allow computers to learn from performing repetitive tasks, AI systems can trim the time it takes to develop new drugs. In biologics, they can help predict how complex large molecules will behave, cutting down on the need for testing.

At large pharmaceutical companies, where research may be spread out across large teams and thousands of scientists, AI systems can improve collaboration by helping collate data in ways that make it more usable and accessible.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES

Here are four companies that have jumped into that strategy headfirst. It’s hard to put a solid monetary value on artificial intelligence systems as an asset — drug companies obviously can’t list them as producing specific portions of their revenue streams. However, those that are pursuing AI in earnest are thinking long-term about cutting costs and becoming more productive, and that’s definitely a good thing.

AstraZeneca uses AI to get a handle on genomics, costs

AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) is looking to analyze 2 million genome sequences over the course of the next six years to help it locate the parts of genes that cause diseases, and to identify which parts are more likely to respond to treatment. This, the company says, will help it find new drug targets. To do that, it plans on using artificial intelligence.

Another big way AstraZeneca is using AI is to design better clinical studies, finding the correct patients to include in trials by combing through electronic health records and by analyzing data from successful trials to build the best control groups. Within those trials, AstraZeneca is using AI to analyze data from wearable devices to more quickly gauge the effectiveness of treatments.

The company is one of the leaders in the industry in terms of using AI. It has multiple ongoing collaborations, including one with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), regarding AI and machine learning. AstraZeneca even has a vice president of data science, AI, and research and development.

The focus on AI certainly isn’t hurting the company. AstraZeneca’s shares are up nearly 30% over the past year and its new medicines are already paying off, accounting for half of the company’s revenue through the first two quarters of 2020.

GlaxoSmithKline is serious about AI

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) has been quite open about its desire to boost its AI use. Three years ago, it entered into a $43 million agreement with Scottish AI company Exscientia, and in December, it told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian that it plans to add 80 AI specialists by the end of this year.

Late last month, the company entered into another AI agreement, this time with InveniAI of Guilford, Conn. When announcing that deal, Michael Keane, GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer healthcare director for research and evaluation, said artificial intelligence has already has had a big impact:

“The data that we accumulate is large, broad, and complex. AI has helped us look at tasks that are datacentric across technology road-mapping, search and evaluation, and identifying and understanding new science. AI and ML [machine learning] have helped create efficiencies that shave four to five years off the innovation cycle, as well as eliminate human biases in identifying innovation.”

That impact may not be showing up yet in the company’s share price, which is only up 6% in the past year. However, in its second-quarter 2020 report, GlaxoSmithKline pointed out that it has identified 30 therapeutic targets from its collaboration with 23andMe by using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Lilly brings AI to bear in the fight against COVID-19

Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) gave a great real-world example of how its AI efforts are paying off when it worked with BenevolentAI to crunch data from its clinical trials to determine that its rheumatoid arthritis drug Olumiant (baricitinib) might be useful for COVID-19 patients because of its anti-inflammatory effects.

In June, the company began a phase 3 clinical trial with 400 hospitalized COVID-19 patients to see whether the Olumiant reduced their mortality rates and their need for artificial ventilation.

Lilly’s revenues are up 6% for the first half of the year and its shares are up more than 38% over the past year, so it’s definitely doing something right.

Novartis has big partners in AI

In October, Novartis (NYSE:NVS) signed a five-year agreement with Microsoft to bring its AI technology to the drug-development process. Then in December, it inked a multiyear deal through which Amazon Web Services will deploy AI and related technologies to improve its supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution.

It’s a bit early to measure the impact of Novartis’ recent AI partnerships on its business, but in its second-quarter presentation, it specifically mentions how analytical data has helped it in its compliance efforts.

For the year, Novartis’ shares are down more than 14%; the company cited COVID-19 concerns when it announced last month that its second-quarter sales were down 4% year over year. If there was a silver lining, it was that core operating income grew 1% due to lower spending and improved gross margins — areas where AI can make a quick impact.

Going with the right company

According to one report, the pharmaceutical industry’s spending on AI in drug discovery is expected to grow from $465 million this year to $2 billion by 2026.

Among the four companies discussed above, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly are showing the most evident successes from their AI strategies, though GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis are also seeing results. Of the group, I think GlaxoSmithKline has the most room to grow, but in the short run, AstraZeneca seems the best bet because its huge pipeline is starting to pay off.

Published at Sat, 15 Aug 2020 11:03:45 +0000