Mumbai: At an event on 9 May, Meta India vice president Sandhya Devanathan spoke about the launch of Meta’s new programme, #MadeOnReels which would act like a bridge between brands and creators.
She said, “India is the first country globally for Meta where we first watched Reels on the Watch Tab. As soon as Reels was launched in India, our worlds just exploded overnight, and we couldn’t stop scrolling through content which was on food, fitness, fashion, sports and even animal videos.”
“Globally we’ve seen that this has led to an increase in engagement on our platforms. Globally, we announced that we have seen a 24 per cent increase in engagement on Instagram since we launched Reels. Three years after we launched Reels in India, the momentum continues unabated. In our Earnings Report, we recently shared that people share Reels more than two billion times daily across our platforms. That’s a huge number, but what is more impressive is that the number has doubled over just the last six months,” she said, quoting numbers.
Devanathan added, “Reels has ended up redefining storytelling, expression, and entertainment for Indians. Reels have made entertainment more interactive. Many movies and content we watch on OTT largely depend on what we watch on Reels. The big fashion trends that drop, drop first on Reels. Some of the world’s biggest product launches are also beginning to happen on reels as well.
Reels have given a new meaning to genres such as comedy as well, which has exploded on our platform. Research done by Factworks shows that more than two-thirds of the people surveyed say that they like watching videos about comedy.”
She also spoke of the impact of Reels on business. “Amongst the biggest shifts that have happened in the last three years with Reels is that it has redefined how people actually engage and connect with businesses. The research says that 77 per cent, which is about four-fifths of the people we surveyed here in India, ended up purchasing a product or service after they watched Reels. That’s massive. In India, three of the four people that we surveyed, said that they messaged a business right after they had watched a reel.”
Devanathan goes on, “So far we have seen Reels generate massive engagement in the country. But we also believe that Reels are the format of the future when it comes to advertising and brand storytelling. Our conversation is not just with brands, but with the world’s largest creative agencies has helped us push a little deeper into the impact that short-form videos and Reels are having on brands and the creative ecosystem.
But most importantly, there are two trends that we have noticed. Firstly, we have seen a pretty strong adoption of Reels by brands and this happened almost as soon as Reels was launched. But this trend has only gained momentum – it has become stronger in the last couple of years. The second trend is the growing influence and relevance of creators for brands.”
She spoke about their association with various brands. “We worked with various brands – Meesho, Maruti Suzuki, Navi Technologies, Cadbury’s, Amazon Prime Video, L’Oreal Professionnel, and Tanishq and we have collaborated with 40 creators who created Reels ads for these brands to address their strategic marketing objectives. Consistently we saw across parameters such as ad recall, message association or campaign awareness – we saw Reels delivering really strong results for all these brands.”
Discussing #MadeOnReels, she pointed out, “We are confident that Reels would unlock immense value for brands and have encouraged us to create a programme that sits at the confluence of creators, brands and of Reels. And that is really tailored to help brands grow. A programme that will inspire both marketers and creators, and a programme that we feel will play a very pivotal role in redefining how storytelling happens in India.
Over the next few months, this programme will work with tens of brands across different verticals and multiple creators to create Reels that are not just engaging, fun-to-watch, and shareable but also ones that drive a business outcome that matters most to brands. And that is really important, especially in these times.
We all understand the impact of the global macroeconomic headwinds, and what it has meant for businesses of all sizes. It has also meant more than ever - businesses are focused on driving efficient growth. The results from these campaigns, really indicate to us that Reels Ads can be a tangible lever for growth for businesses. Our commitment today is that we continue to partner with brands to deliver on outcomes that matter the most to them.”
She added further, “As part of #MadeOnReels, we are now inviting briefs from brands across the country, to be a part of this programme. And if selected, the brands will get creative and programme support from us as well as the opportunity to work with three creators each, with the creator costs that will be fully managed by all of us at Meta.”
Speaking on the content creator economy and space, Devenathan said, “India is said to have the largest base of social media content creators in the world, with that figure expected to touch 100 million this year. Many of them come from non-metro geographies. And the explosive rise of Reels, has provided a strong thrust to an already expanding creator economy In India. So, we think that with the combination of Reels and creators, we have actually identified a sweet spot for brands as it lets them use the authentic voice of the creators in the most engaging format across all our apps. The other advantage that brands get is that they get to collaborate with creators from across verticals, passion areas and reach their consumers that much more effectively.
Devanathan wrapped up, “Reels have truly democratized expression. And as we move forward, Reels has the same potential to democratize business growth for brands. I believe that what we are witnessing now, is really the growth of short-form videos and creators and this will go down as a pivotal moment.”
This was followed by a panel discussion moderated by director & head – Ads business for Meta India Arun Srinivas, Leo Burnett Chief Creative Officer and CEO, Leo Burnett, SouthAsia, India & Chairman, Creative Council, Publicis Groupe - South Asia Raj Deepak Das, Maruti executive officer marketing Ram Suresh Akella, Navi Technologies Ltd. head of growth Assem Sharma, content creator Niharika and content creator Viraj. The panel discussion talked about brands telling stories through reels.
The discussion began when moderator Srinivas gave a brief introduction of the topic “How brands are using reels” and how in the present era where platforms want to bring brands and content creators together as its the new how stories are getting told. He asked Das about how he saw it all from his point and said, “ I will break this down into three parts. One's creators. Second is the consumers and third is the brands. There is a massive difference in the short form of content vs reels. Entertainment is the last thing, it's about information and that is what short-form content is about. Today the reels have changed entirely thanks to the creators. Now it's all about entertainment and then comes the brand part where you love it at the same time, you tell the story in a fun way and not much information.”
Sharma added, “We are into financial services and we have three broad categories i.e loans, insurance and mutual funds recently we did a campaign for our investment category which is mutual funds. The perception of most of the influencer-led campaigns is it delivers the brand side but we are a heavily performance-based organisation. What was more shocking is that it delivered really great results on our performance campaigns but at the same time it delivered at the brand side as well.”
Akella too shared on his recent brand campaign, “The results are really encouraging. One of the creators made a catchy song track. I think it was really engaging for the younger audience that we could reach and the results are amazing.”
Srinivas asked Niharika about brand collaborations and she answered, “For most creators actually it's difficult to not be ourselves for brand collabs. When you are spending so much money on brands, the creators also love the views and it's not like they are giving money we will do whatever we want.”
Viraj too commented on the same, “I too 100 per cent agree with Niharika because brands come to us for our engagement for whatever we bring to the table. So they have to trust us.”
In a short conversation with Saumitra Chaubey on Meesho being one of the topmost fashion brands now, what was the idea of getting into reels and social media. Are you the first mover and did you get the advantage of it?
Replying to the question, Meesho associate director - brand marketing Soumitra Choubey said, “Yes we did in way back in 2020-21 when covid hit, a lot of the discovery of fashion was happening on social media and it still does and what we have pioneered is creating a stream of content with many creators at scale on both YouTube as well as Meta channels and that has given us disproportionate returns. Early in the game, we were collaborating with a lot of creators on different types of scale models, paid models, market knowledge, affiliate models and that kind of content when it went out at scale over months, creating this vast repository of fashion content for us and the channels. There's a lot of goodness that we tap into in terms of organic traffic coming from these platforms.”
Talking about the target audience Choubey said, “So, our target audience has always been value maximisers. It’s what we like to say. People who are looking at the right equation of price and quality and with some convenience. Freshness of variety is also one thing that we actively look at. Largely, our consumer base is where the utility's very competitive pricing and the value that you provide has come from 60-70% of our consumers are from Tier 3/4".
He further added, ”What you realise is that, this is a corporate term that we have created. What we see is, there are people who love getting value at the right price, even if it is unbranded. They don’t care so much about the brand. For example, we sold directly from the sellers and we ship it to their houses we probably never get involved with touching the product. So we save a lot of efficiency there. Also all these efficiencies are eventually passed on to the customer.
