We won’t be surprised if Facebook’s transformation from a fun social network to an advertising and marketing mass media tool, will be treated as a big chapter in B-school and MBA textbooks around the world soon. In an exclusive interview with IMPACT, Kirthiga Reddy, Head-Facebook India, talks to Sneha Ullal about this transformation, along with setting up India operations and the company’s continuous efforts in educating both brands and agencies about the innovations on offer
Q] You joined Facebook india in 2010 as its first employee. What made you take up this post and shift base from Us to here?
There are three things that attracted me to this company. Firstly, its mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected — it’s inspiring and bold, and it’s a key part of what drives me and every Facebook-er to give our best every day. Secondly, it’s India. To set up Facebook and build the business here is a big deal. Lastly, it’s the people I’ve met so far. Every single person I interacted through the interview process and currently work with, is the best at what they do. I have a Facebook album that says, ‘Each week is the best week yet’, and I truly believe that.
Q] For most brands in india, having a strong digital presence means being active on a social platform like Facebook. What advice would you give to brands on effectively using this to communicate with their potential consumers?
In terms of the need for education to marketers, there is a long way to go. Brands need to realise that Facebook is not social media, but mass media. What you get is prime time, all the time. With the kind of reach and presence we have on mobile, marketers should be thinking of Facebook as the first platform to get their word out for any of their marketing objectives, whether it’s awareness, consideration, purchase, loyalty, etc. They no longer have to depend on prime-time channels to reach large scale audiences.
The future of brand building is in targeted reach. Marketers have to think about using Facebook effectively for reach, not just fans. Fans are valuable — studies show how they have greater loyalty and purchase more than non-fans. But they are a very small percentage of your total target audience. So while it’s important to think about them, brands shouldn’t forget the majority when they’re thinking of their marketing strategy.
An advertiser that used us effectively recently was Coca-Cola. They were launching Coke Studio Season 3, and used Facebook in order to get the word out at scale. On one single day, they reached over 17 million people, which is a much wider reach than through other conventional platforms like newspapers. They had 1.4 million video plays. Their whole goal was raising awareness around the signature property launch, and the success of the programme shows the impact of the advertising done.
Q] In your opinion, how can Facebook be used as an innovative medium for brands? What features or ad units have rarely been explored by Indian brands and marketers?
Anyone can go to Facebook.com/ad/create to create their ads. It’s quite a simple process — it’ll ask you about your business objective (whether its fans or awareness or anything else) and also lets you pick the audience you want to reach out to. Also, Newsfeed is the primary way of delivering the message. In terms of placements and where these units go, it’s the newsfeed on the mobile, and on the desktop, its’ the newsfeed again, the right-hand side of the homepage and also the logout page. Imagine you have opened a newspaper, and you see only the ads that are relevant to you and your interests. With Facebook, you have the ability to personalise. For example, Samsung for the launch of Note 3, had an ad unit on the logout page, using different creatives for men and women.
Q] Facebook has been a popular platform for those who have minimum to zero ad budgets, with so many indie businesses using it as a platform to retail or even talk about causes important to them. How do you plan to support them better?
Facebook lets you create a page for free, and you can advertise spending as little as US$ 5. We do see a growing slew of small business on the site and are committed to serve them. One of my favourites is Pigtails And Ponys, started by these college kids who saw a viable business opportunity and used Facebook to kick-start and promote their business. We also see cases like the Gurgaon Traffic Police — it’s hard not to miss the big sign right out Gurgaon’s toll plaza that says ‘Gurgaon Police is now on Facebook’.
While a lot of what we do is applicable across business models, our constant effort is to simplify the process for SMEs. Recently, we went through an ad simplification process, about making it simpler for someone who’s new to this or just launching. There’s Page Insights too, which is free for anyone, to see who their audience is and where they are coming from, what messages are resonating with them and what post they can boost. You don’t need to ever interact at someone at Facebook to get your mesage out. And all of this can be done on the mobile too, when you’re on the go.
Apart from this, if SMEs need help they can go to Facebook.com/help or also visit the Facebook For Business site, which has lots of material and case studies. We had partnered with FICCI, specifically for small and medium businesses. We did workshops around the country and gave each participant a coupon to help them get started on Facebook.
Q] A lot of Indian brands still invest only about 5 to 20% of their total marketing budget on digital media. Do you believe this percentile will increase soon?
Something important happened in 2013 worldwide — for the first time, people are spending more time on digital than on television. The last time such a crossover happened was between television and radio back in the 50s. Within digital too, people are spending a lot of their time on mobile, and it’s the fastest growing component. To me, it’s important to realise that people are shifting to digital, and marketing dollars need to follow accordingly.
It’s also about realising that Facebook, as a mass media, can solve business objectives of brands. We also invest a lot on measurement capabilities to help marketers understand the results. We have a partnership with Nielsen, and we can do brand-effect studies including measuring people’s reactions to a message, ad recall and so on.
Q] What extra efforts are you taking to connect better with advertisers and agencies?
We spend a lot of time meeting with the largest advertisers and agencies in the country. The most common question they have is 'how can we help them make the most of this medium?' For agencies, we have a lot of online tools, like the StudioEdge certification programme, where they can get to know how they can make the best use of this the platform. Apart from that, we also do CMO dinners and build case studies.
Q] Facebook has transformed from being a mere ‘connecting with long-lost friends’ platform to a network that gives you news first-hand and also helps build communities and bring them together, be it for social causes or for brands they believe in. What’s the biggest challenge for Facebook and what’s in store for the future?
Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. Globally, there are more than 2 billion people connected to the Internet. But there’s another 5 billion who aren’t on it yet. In India too, there’s a large percentage that isn’t online. So we think a lot about how we can enable these people with the Internet and connected to Facebook too. We recently launched a global initiative called Internet.org, which is about the Internet being for everyone, and I think it is applicable so much in India now. We’re working on this, with a whole eco-system of partners, including carriers and device manufacturers who can help reduce costs of devices.
We have this poster across our global offices, which reads ‘Our journey is 1% done’. In India, we are just getting started. On the advertisers’ side, too, we’re just getting started — it’s about helping them meet their business objectives and reach out to their target audience at scale. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.
Q] Since digital media is growing fast as an advertising medium in India, are you worried about clutter and fierce competition from other platforms like Twitter?
We don’t focus on competition. We focus on people and advertisers, and how we can best serve them. On the advertisers side, the kind of innovation we’re delivering is staggering, especially with ad simplification. Our mobile app install is another very effective solution. But then we got feedback that while this was amazing, how can it be used for targeted reach? Also what if after the install they never use it again? So we recently introduced our next phase of enhancements to the mobile app install which helps make the interface seamless; for instance, within the ad unit, you can add an offer that can be claimed with a click. Also, we’re based on ‘real name identity’. When you think of targeted reach, that’s important, because if you don’t have real likes or interests, how do you judge or measure your data? It’s a key power of what we provide to brands on this platform — there’s nothing like us on the web.
FACEBOOK’S MANY NUMBERS
• Globally, there were 1.19 billion monthly active users (MAUs), as of September 30, 2013. Mobile MAUs were at 874 million.
• There are 82 million MAUs and 62 million mobile MAUs in India, as of June 2013.
• One out of every five minutes on the Internet is spent on Facebook.
• More time is spent on Facebook in India than on any other site, with India users spending 3.25 hours on Facebook per month.
ABOUT KIRTHIGA
Kirthiga, Head of Facebook India, leads the company’s Global Marketing Solutions teams in India and plays a key role in building and maintaining strategic relationships with regional agencies and clients. Since she joined the company in July 2010, she set up the India operations in Hyderabad, supporting the company’s growing number of users, advertisers and developers worldwide. Prior to Facebook, Kirthiga was VP and GM of SaaSbased Consumer Security business unit and India operations at Phoenix Technologies. She is also the Vice Chairman of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
Feedback: sneha.ullal@exchange4media.com
