In Moscow, the second industrial discussion was held at the Radisson Collection Hotel, organized by the Igronik Group of Companies and the Kommersant Publishing House "Post-Consumer Society. What do we believe in and do we believe at all? STATUS 2024".
The discussion was attended by Alexey Tolstogan, CEO of NRA, Robert Mirzoyan, Chief Executive Officer of the combined Wildberries and Russ company, Nikita Pipko, CEO of the Igronik Group of Companies, Alexey Giyazov, Director of Marketing, Design and Customer Engagement at Alfa-Bank, Elena Melikhova, Director of Marketing and Communications at NSPK JSC, General Director of Sales-EVEREST House Vladimir Babkov and Vasily Turovets, Managing Partner of SkyAlliance advertising Group. The moderators were Ekaterina Veselkova, CEO of GPM Reklama, and Peter Shepin, Commercial Director of Channel One.
In his welcoming speech, Nikita Pipko, CEO of the Igronik Group of Companies, thanked the Kommersant Publishing House for its support and explained that last year the discussion was organized as a one-time event - the spontaneous status of the market situation, but thanks to the sincere interest from the professional audience, it was decided to "release a second series." He stressed the importance of discussing the question of what marketers believe in today, which formed the basis of the topic of the entire discussion. Peter Shepin, co-moderator of the discussion, Commercial Director of Channel One, shared his opinion:
We must believe in the magic of numbers: we rely in our work on the research result of the effectiveness of our work or on the results of sales. Marketers are primarily focused on knowledge as a result of their effectiveness. Sellers rely on revenue as a result of their effectiveness. And they start swearing if something doesn't work out. The sellers say: You're not advertising us well. Marketers: you don't know how to sell. But basically, of course, we have to believe in numbers, in KPIs, in bonuses, in EBITDA - what else do we cynics believe in.
The discussion started with a discussion of changes in consumer behavior and the transformation of business strategies. Ekaterina Veselkova, co-moderator of the discussion, CEO of GPM Reklama, suggested reflecting on the risks and cited the example of the actively developing FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement abroad, in which the younger generation minimizes consumption:
They are not ready to spend money on brands, savings and investments are in focus. This model of anti-consumption is becoming a trend. In Russia, this is not yet perceived as a risk, since, on the contrary, we are at the peak of consumer activity. And advertising is a driver of consumption, fuel for business. But will it always be like this?
The experts shared their views on the contents and packaging, as well as the role of emotional and rational principles in consumer behavior.
Alexey Tolstogan, CEO of the NRA, stressed that packaging by itself cannot sell, no matter how beautiful it is, the meanings and values that the brand carries to the masses, their proximity and acceptance by the target audience are important.
Elena Melikhova, Director of Marketing and Communications at NSPK JSC, supported the thesis that packaging is not important without a product. And as an example of a difficult financial instrument to promote, she cited biometrics, a product that is very difficult for the audience to perceive and therefore slowly takes root, although it is very convenient and profitable for the consumer:
Creative efforts must be made to explain its value and mechanics.
Vladimir Babkov, CEO of Sales house EVEREST, noted that the buyer is often sure that he is guided by rational considerations, but in fact acts under the influence of an emotional attachment to the brand:
It is right to remember that advertising is primarily an art, and yes, emotions work! Consumers confirm this themselves. This year, at EVEREST, together with Tiburon Research, we conducted a study and asked a question about how emotional advertising affects the buyer. The answers did not surprise us: about half said that they remember emotional advertising better, and one in three confirmed that they made a purchase under the influence of emotional advertising. There is no wrapper without the candy itself: cool storytelling, vivid emotions will lead to a purchase, but, of course, the product itself will work for retention.
According to Vasily Turovets, managing partner of the SkyAlliance advertising Group, in the financial sector and retail, consumers make more rational than emotional choices. But in the luxury goods category, on the contrary, there is a strong emotional component and commitment to the brand – however, with a rational subtext in the form of free delivery and a personalized offer.
The central topic of discussion was the fastest growing segment of the Russian advertising market - e-com. Can a friend become a competitor and take over the budgets of other players?
All experts agreed that shopping on marketplaces has become a new popular format for entertainment and recreation, but at the same time neither e-com nor retail media can compete with television or other mainstream media, and a properly structured advertising campaign should contain a mix of everything where you can catch the customer's audience at the right moment.
Robert Mirzoyan, Chief Executive Officer of the combined Wildberries and Russ company, expressed confidence that the volume of media consumption does not change – some habits of consumers change, and media channels remain unchanged, only digital platforms and marketplaces have been added:
Globally, all media channels have shown their effectiveness, and they still show it today. There has always been a flow of budgets from one media to another, no one takes anything from anyone. At the same time, it should be noted that advertising budgets are growing. And today, digitalization, transparency and analytics are needed by consumers more than ever, and the more detailed and sophisticated this analytics is, the better. From our point of view, this is the evolution of the advertising market. Outdoor advertising as a media channel is working to build brand awareness. And in recent years, it has become a fairly effective tool in this regard. But after joining with Wildberries, we began to look at how brand knowledge affects the transaction, that is, the purchase of a particular product. In this sense, the most important advantage is that the combined Wildberries and Russ company has the resources of both a comprehensive media channel and a performance channel. In fact, Russ is a big showcase for all Wildberries in 145 cities of Russia. Over the past 2-3 months, we have been observing how outdoor advertising tools affect advertising within the platform. And in this sense, I am sure that this synergy will be a strong enough boost for customers and for Russian manufacturers in general.
Alexey Tolstogan, CEO of the NRA, confirmed that effective communication will be when you use everything that the consumer comes into contact with, and it is important to follow the whole path – from the first commercial you see to the purchase.
Elena Melikhova, Director of Marketing and Communications at NSPK JSC, noted that there is still some shift towards marketplaces and e-com. And this is happening at the expense of a part of the young audience that watches less traditional TV and goes into digital:
The budget is redistributed to where the return on contact, its cost and quality are more effective. But I would like to draw attention to the fact that TV does not cover everyone. Many paying segments are light TV viewers or don't watch TV at all. It is logical to look for them in digital, but the problem is that in digital up to 22% of people actively use one or more subscriptions, and a paradox turns out: they do not watch TV, they are in digital, but in digital they cannot be covered by advertising. In this regard, the value of media such as outdoor advertising and radio, which cannot be protected by subscription, and the growing marketplaces as new formats, where there is also no protective subscription, will increase.
"Is there a struggle for the audience? Yes, of course it is. What does the audience need? Content. And media holdings have a lot of this content, and there will be even more," confirms Vladimir Babkov, CEO of Sales House EVEREST: It is interesting to think in the direction of competition with context. I recently came across a study that the Z and alpha generations stopped using the word "google". It appeared in our language at some point, and now it is gradually disappearing - because in addition to traditional and familiar search methods, marketplaces have now become a new place where people go to look for information.
Nikita Pipko, CEO of the Igronik Group of Companies, drew attention to the importance of balance in the media mix and announced the integration of e-com into business processes in Igronik:
Will e-com kill traditional media or not? Balance is really important here. Besides the fact that we always check our position with the client first, we, of course, look at sellers. Alexey Tolstogan always urges us to keep a balance in all matters, and globally I agree with him. And, traditionally loving and understanding classical media, I am clearly aware that e-com is not just important, but archived - this is a new breakthrough inventory, it needs to be dealt with. We are investing in this area and considered it right for us to invite a person from another industry to join the team: Sasha Solonin, who was engaged in digital business at Megafon, Postbank, and Alfa-Bank, recently joined our team, so for us this is a matter of unconditional emphasis. But the balance must be absolutely accurate: if it happens, there will be balance, there will be success for our client, and for us this is the most important thing!
The experts also touched upon another important topic for the entire industry, which has been discussed for several years – the shortage of advertising equipment.
Alexey Giyazov, Director of Marketing, Design and Customer Engagement at Alfa-Bank, admitted that he sees a huge shortage of high-quality advertising equipment. This is due to the departure of YouTube, where advertisers gained access to a large segment of an interesting audience, the peculiarities of online consumption of TV content and fraud, as well as the lack of digital outdoor advertising outside major cities.
Any owner of a large audience is thinking about selling advertising. – Alexey thinks. - We at Alfa-Bank are actively developing advertising inventory. We have a Netmonet project. Every month, more than 2 million unique users leave tips through this platform. This is a cool audience – they not only go to restaurants and show off a growing check, they are generous. We are currently developing tools to integrate advertising there.
Alexey Tolstogan supported Alexey Giyazov in his position regarding the need and value of high-quality inventory for both broadcasters and advertisers, and added that advertising formats should be as native and convenient as possible, since, for example, Generation Z consumers are very sensitive in this regard, advertising should be well and natively integrated into their daily lives and to become a habit for them:
The number of high-quality inventory is falling all over the world, and this trend will continue. At the same time, for those who want to build something in time - brand, knowledge, trust - there is good news: you have a few more years to do it. Because inventory will be globally reduced and the effectiveness of communications will decrease. Then it will become even more expensive and even more difficult. But where to get the inventory? Broadcasting holdings are actively producing and purchasing more and more content to retain and surprise the viewer, and they will be doing this for many more years. The main inventory that is currently presented in the NRA is inventory, traditionally calculated according to the programmed broadcast grid. At the same time, there is a large audience that we, as an industry, cannot count. 30% of viewers watch television in a delayed format, and 50% of the traffic of audiovisual services broadcasting television channels falls on the top twenty TV channels. And we at the NRA have not taken a single ruble for this yet! Some of the new, delayed viewing needs to be counted, we will spend the next few years on this, and I hope we will have a good result.
Robert Mirzoyan, Chief Executive Officer of the combined Wildberries and Russ company, believes that e-com may well compete with search engines in terms of advertising inventory:
Every year advertisers face the issue of finding a transparent and understandable inventory. I am glad that television is still finding opportunities for the volume of high-quality inventory to grow. As for outdoor advertising and inventory on the digital platform, there is no risk of inventory loss in outdoor advertising. If we talk about the Russ Group, we are increasing not only our geographical presence, but also digitizing the acquired inventory, investing a lot of money in this, launching new products, introducing measurements. The indicator of media inflation is directly related to the amount of available inventory. Increasing the volume of inventory helps to contain this inflation. As for the inventory in e-com, we are entering into competition with traditional search engines. And it is important that today Russ expertise allows you to attract external customers to the marketplace. The inventory of the combined company will grow both qualitatively and quantitatively – and we will strive to curb the pace of media inflation.
In the final part of the discussion, the speakers discussed the future of consumption in a visionary way. The tone was set by the commercial director of Channel One Peter Shepin, summarizing that the future has come and turned out to be completely different from what it seemed:
The Strugatskys have the term "oversan" – the jump of a ship from the starting point A to the end point B at extreme speeds, on a trajectory where the Sun is located. The reality of 2024 for the advertising industry, with its tectonic changes in the world, in consumer behavior, in the e-com boom, and in the growth of the key interest rate, requires us to Overdo it. The willingness of market participants to do it became a topic of discussion.
Alexey Giyazov agreed that the industry has been in the process of making this leap for a long time, and although the focus of consumption is shifting from the material to the intangible, the demand for consumption itself is not decreasing.
Vladimir Babkov stressed that behind the desire to know what will happen in the future, it is important not to devalue the present and what we can do here and now. On the part of media holdings, it is important to continue doing what people have been doing for centuries: telling interesting stories.
The most unexpected angle on the topic of future consumption was offered by the first deputy CEO of the Igronik Group of Companies, Alexander Kulikov:
Everyone is arguing about which technologies – artificial intelligence, lasers, 3D printing – will change our lives. According to futurologist experts, the next breakthroughs will be in the field of medicine. We have all heard about the drugs Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro – their use for non-medical purposes has led to a decrease in consumption. That is, proper marketing of medicines has led to a global decrease in consumption. Walmart in the USA records a decrease in average receipts, this is changing the global economy. We are at the stage of a social turning point, when people, thanks to marketing, limit themselves.
Investor and former co-founder of OKKO Ekaterina Lapshina has further expanded her visionary view of the future of the industry:
The ways of consumption invented by marketing and various media platforms have led to the creation of a huge offer in areas where it did not exist before. For example, education – how wide is the mentoring market now. Thanks to the era of consumption, new markets were created, and a customer appeared in them. Now meanings are gaining predominant importance: "Why, how is it better, but is it necessary?", questions of personal trust. And most importantly, who will we trust: a car or a person? We have a very interesting world ahead of us.