DCMN has officially launched operations in India and things are moving fast! We sat down with Bindu, Country Head India, for a quick chat about why India is the perfect place for DCMN’s first Asian hub.
We’ve hired a great team, set up our first office in Bangalore and we’re now looking at a second office in Gurgaon. Bindu Balakrishnan, a business development expert with more than 10 years’ experience both in India and abroad, heads up our India operations. We sat down with Bindu for a quick chat about why India is the perfect place for DCMN’s first Asian hub.
Congrats on the launch! First up, why is DCMN opening in India?
Thank you! There are a number of reasons why India was the ideal place for us to kick off operations in Asia. Firstly, competition is very high among digital companies in India. There are a lot of similar brands and each one is trying to stand out and grab the consumer’s attention. Secondly, India is also experiencing a huge boom in e-commerce. Indians have adapted very quickly to e-commerce compared to Europe, where fashion and retail are still more brick-and-mortar. So for a marketing company focused on digital brands, India has a buoyant startup ecosystem to tap into.
The Indian population, particularly youth, has proved to be very tech-savvy. Does this make the country more appealing to marketers?
Definitely. 60% of Indian internet users are on mobile. You can buy a smartphone for $70-80. The combination of low-cost smartphones along with very low data tariffs has made it possible for consumers from smaller towns to order products online which were earlier inaccessible to them. With mobile internet booming in India, many people are leapfrogging over fixed broadband access and going straight to mobile. It is an exciting time to enter this market.
How is the Indian market different to others you have worked with?
The biggest difference is the diversity. For example, there are 22 officially recognised languages and hundreds of dialects. This makes the media landscape incredibly varied. You should compare India to all of Europe, rather than any one country like France, Germany or the UK.
What does DCMN bring to the market that other companies don’t yet offer?
Our TV attribution tool is very unique in the market. Many companies are spending big on TV campaigns but there’s often no analysis afterwards. These days, marketing is all data driven and measurement is key to optimizing campaigns. For Indian start ups, it’s all about ROI. Our tech tool allows us to analyze how much to spend, at what time, and on which channels. This way, we can optimize TV campaigns around the customer’s KPIs. This measurability factor is where I think we can really make a difference in India.
Thanks Bindu! Happy to have you on the team
