从盲点到亮点：印度首席营销官如何重拾清晰度

Blind spots to bright spots:How Indian CMOs arereclaiming clarity Analyst’s Take:The CMO’sVisibility Gap Yet for many Indian marketers,that visibility still stops shortof what matters most: knowingexactly who is watching, where,and what impact it’s driving. Ground controlto CMO:Stopflying blind withfragmented data Commentary by AndrewMilroy, Founder andPrincipal Analyst atVeqtor8, specialising indigital transformation andmarketing effectivenessacross Asia-Pacific. “Advertisers are spendingmillions of dollars and theyneed that kind of transparent,third-party, validated data,”says Hemant Kewalya,Executive Director of AudienceMeasurement at Nielsen India.“The core problem IndianCMOs are wrestling with isfragmented measurementcaused by siloed platforms,which causes confidence gaps When the Indian PremierLeague—the world’s biggestcricket spectacle collideswith India’s fastest-growingmedia market, somethingextraordinary happens—billionsof impressions, millions of addollars, and one defining truth:visibility is everything. Major Challenge:Every CMO is expectedto prove ROI in financialterms, yet their datais fragmented acrossplatforms that do notalign. You can’t optimisewhat you can’t see. “The core problem Indian CMOsare wrestling with is fragmentedmeasurement caused by siloed platforms,which causes confidence gaps betweenwhat’s reported and what’s real.” Streaming and SocialDisruption:Streaming,short-form video andsocial commerce havebroken the traditionalcustomer journey.Media and transactionsnow happen in thesame feed, but legacymeasurement treatsthem separately. between what’s reported andwhat’s real.” But a new wave of cross-mediameasurement is bringing clarityand powering a smarter, moreconnected era of marketing inIndia. At the centre of that shiftisNielsen ONE Ads: a unifiedcross-media measurementsolution enabling marketers to seeaudience reach and ROI acrossTV, digital, and mobile in one view. Need for Unified View:A unified cross-platformview provides clarityand control. It not onlyexplains past results,but it directs futureinvestment to where thenext dollar will deliverthe highest return. Hemant KewalyaExecutive DirectorNielsen India Confidence to clarity gap and the explosion of newformats and innovations in adexposure and engagement. According toNielsen’sMarketing ROI Blueprint 2025, “India being a mobile-firstmarket adds to the excitement,since personalised targeting andmessaging can be curated foreach individual. But while digitalis growing, advertisers don’thave a single view of campaignperformance across mediums.This includes deduplicationacross mediums like TV anddigital and overlaps by gender,age, and platform.” 85% of marketers saythey are confident inmeasuring return oninvestment Yet only32% “That restricts them from makingbetter campaign decisions interms of reach optimisationand costs. Hence, the call forcross-media measurement hasgrown in recent times, along withgreater demand for attributionand other tools to betterunderstand audience profiles.” actually measureROI holistically Kewalya says this has madetransparency critically important.If anything, it has madetransparency the new baselinefor credibility. In India, where digitaladvertising continues to surgealongside TV and mobile,that gap widens. With OTTviewership soaring to 54.7crore (547 million viewers)in 2024 and mobile ad spendprojected to grow steadilythrough 2028, marketersare under immense pressureto prove performanceacross a rapidly diversifyingecosystem. “With digital growing rapidlyand spending increasing, thereis a critical need for a robustmeasurement system that istruly independent,” he adds.“A third-party solution likeNielsen ONE Ads becomesthe ideal foundation, offeringstandardised metrics andsaving time by unifyingdashboards and comparisons.” This is reflected in itsexpanding share of ad spend measurement system for digitalsports and entertainment,powered by Nielsen ONE Ads.This collaboration addressed theindustry’s need for transparent,people-level deduplicatedinsights into the massive digitalviewership of live sports, enablingadvertisers to compare reachaccurately across platforms. IPL test case:measuring at scale The fragmentation of data—and the massive opportunity tounify it—is most apparent in livesports coverage. “IPL is one of the most sought-after properties in India,and one of the top leaguesglobally,” Kewalya says. “It’sbroadcast live, and creativesare dynamic for each cohortthey address. That makes livecontent creative managementand measurement bothcomplex and challenging, whichis why IPL has become theultimate testbed for audienceengagement solutions”. In April alone, nearly5 bil. impressionswere measured He adds that the format itselfmagnifies engagement patterns. using Nielsen ONE Ads onJioStar— averaging aroundone billion per week, with morethan three billion of those fromlive sports. “While not all fans stick forthe entire duration of a match,engagement is higher thanmo