Mindful MarTech
– Prof. S Ramesh Kumar (Former IIMB Faculty) & S Swaminathan, Founder of ContraMinds
Brands using MarTech must balance AI-driven tools with human emotion to avoid losing their essence. Examples include AI-generated ads, automated calls, and misdirected personalization. Effective digital marketing requires fusing customer journeys with mindsets and combining conventional strategies with modern technology while maintaining the brand’s soul.

In one of the recent commercials aired by Coca-Cola, which was a reimagining of the iconic âHolidays are Comingâ 1995 campaign, there was a massive backlash and debate as it was an AI- generated television commercial. The consumers complained that the AI-generated TVC took away the âreal people and the cheer out of holidaysâ, and some of them also felt it was less festive and âfeltâ like more creepy holidays.
This may not be the case of every brand using AI but underscores the importance of using the human emotion with Martech . Brands are all about human minds and Martech in isolation is likely to take away the very soul out of brands.
The challenge for marketers is not just the widespread use of AI but also other innumerable MarTech platforms like sales automation, campaign management platforms, social media management tools, digital
experience platforms, performance marketing platforms, digital analytics tools, CRM platforms, influencer marketing platforms, etc. Marketing increasingly feels like a âcookie cutterâ approach, which
marketing for brands can ill-afford to be.
Many of us as consumers would have encountered a sense of brand apathy when it comes to this kind of hyper-automation marketing which marketers deploy for brands like:
Lopsided Martech?
- Birthday and Anniversary Greetings:Â At any count, most consumers today, in light of the integration of marketing automation platforms, receive many such messages. Most consumers are now becoming indifferent to these messages as they are aware, that neither the brand cares nor they really mean it, as it is the automation platforms that send the message. There is no âcustomer empathyâ involved.
- Automated Voice-based Tele-calling: These are widely used in India, where consumers are called, and an automated voice informs the customer about some offers or special promotions. Widely used by many BFSI firms today, indeed, the costs are much lower, and productivity is high. But imagine the âpainâ the consumer goes through listening to randomly generated voice messages that brands unleash without enough thought and a plan. Ironically, consumers who already own and use the brand get calls to become customers!
- Personalization becoming counterproductive: Personalization, no doubt, makes marketing campaigns memorable. MarTech allows personalization to scale like never before. However, when personalization is done without thought and adequate due diligence, it creates brand indifference and apathy. Amazonâs famous baby registry email mistake, even though consumers did not have a baby registry, is a case in point.
- âNoveltyâ and hype creation – Brands use digital and performance marketing, widely used through platforms like YouTube, Meta, etc. The traditional television medium had defined ad-break time slots, though these may be âforced interruptionsâ during television programming. However, the ad slots/interruptions in mediums like YouTube, Google, Meta, etc., are done randomly in the middle when consumers are searching or watching content, and automated ad-serving technology platforms serve these ads at scale.
Neuromarketing, predicted by marketing to be the next revolution comes with its red signals. A 2019 HBR article quoting the joint paper in Journal of Business Ethics not only warns marketers of ethical
considerations of neuromarketing ; it makes an important point that the science of neuromarketing can never ever predict in isolation the causal effect between brain signals and a final purchase act. There are several considerations for a purchase that cannot be captured by neuromarketing . This means appropriate usage of the science will yield results.
Digital marketing, Performance marketing and Brand building: A 2023 HBR article on the togetherness of brand building and performance marketing highlights the need for a brandâs positioning to include functional, emotional, and experiential aspects of a brandâs purpose (beyond profits) and suggests development of activation levers as a means by which the brand lives by its positioning choices. MarTech deployment methodologies must take this into consideration, and it can serve as a mirror for MarTech implementation and impact measurement.
Digital marketing and Customer Experience: A HBR article published in 2024 quotes a study that takes into account the perception of senior managers drawn from several diverse and leading companies. The study reports overclaims of senior managers in organizations with respect to successful implementation of digital marketing initiatives and accomplishment of customer experience. The article makes the simple
but often ignored role of the experience of employees within the organization on customer experience. The anchor of the age old holistic marketing (taking into several aspects of the organization linked with
marketing) has to hold the initiatives of digital marketing . The glamour f digital marketing will fizzle out if proper organizational home work is not done.
Fusing Journeys with Mindsets
Most MarTech platforms map customer journeys very well, and the assumption is that well-mapped customer journeys are enough. Hence, most automation campaigns become transactional. However, the vital question is how to creatively fuse this with where the consumers are in their buying phase and their mindset during this stage.
For example, there may be an âawarenessâ phase of a customer journey; multiple customer mindset cohorts need to be creatively addressed to appeal to their hearts and not just the stage of the customer journey. Customer journey has several strands of insights that needs to be captured through a dedicated application of digital marketing and behavioral insights.
Combining conventional thinking with contemporary developments
âHamara Bajaj.â, âFevicol – Sticks Anythingâ, Amul Girl and âCadbury Girl on the Fieldâ touched millions of customers’ hearts. We are in an era, where memorable ad campaigns in isolation may not sell the brand.
Brand managers need to combine digital marketing / performance marketing, with conventional factors associated with several aspects of brand equity.
For example, though brand awareness and brand recognition are useful concepts, a brand which is well into digital marketing is likely to benefit from developing metrics on the impact of digital visual search on
awareness and recognition with conversion as the ultimate outcome. A paradigm shift, in applying conventional concepts to brands is inevitable.
Scaling up on performance marketing without the soul of the brand is likely to be an exercise in self- deception; martech is certainly not for marring brands.
Source: ETâs Brand Equity