As consumer attention becomes increasingly fragmented across platforms, what emerging shifts in audience behaviour do you believe marketers are still underestimating?
Consumer attention is now fragmented across platforms and apps, and the underlying patterns of time spent are shifting faster than most marketers are planning for. Recent mobile app intelligence for India shows YouTube and Instagram command very high daily engagement and have grown strongly in usage since the TikTok ban, with major OTT apps steadily adding to this pool of video time. We’ve responded with heavy investment into YouTube and Instagram, but there’s still a major blind spot: connected‑TV and premium video platforms on larger screens remain under‑leveraged for top‑ and mid‑funnel campaigns, despite evidence that CTV can drive brand lift, mid‑funnel engagement, and even strong ROI. As audiences shift more of their “lean‑back” viewing into these environments, marketers who restrict video budgets to mobile‑only social risk missing both incremental reach and deeper storytelling opportunities.
In an era where agencies are often measured by impressions and reach, how do you define meaningful ROI, and has that definition evolved over the years?
For us at ThinkROI, meaningful ROI is the value we create for the client’s business, not just the volume of impressions we deliver. In creative services, ROI is whether an idea consistently changes behaviour and perception in the right direction: higher conversion or lead quality, better engagement with priority segments, and stronger brand preference versus a clear baseline. A piece of creative that reduces acquisition cost or improves lifetime value is more valuable than one that only drives vanity metrics.
In media services, ROI is cost per outcome, qualified lead, incremental sale, app user who actually retains, or proven brand lift, not cost per impression. Earlier, we optimised primarily on CPMs and CPCs; today the lens is a contribution to profitable growth and compound value over time.
So my definition has evolved from “did the campaign reach enough people at a good price?” to “did creative and media together improve the economics of demand and the strength of the brand, in a way we can measure and learn from?”
ThinkROI operates at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and business outcomes. How do you maintain the balance between bold storytelling and measurable impact for clients?
For us, storytelling and measurable impact are not competing ideas, they’re two sides of the same coin.
We start by being very clear on the business problem and the numbers that matter: what “success” looks like in revenue, demand quality, or brand strength. Then we give the creative team room to push for distinctive, memorable ideas, but every idea must ladder back to a sharp strategic insight and a defined action we want the user to take.
On the execution side, we design media and measurement around the story, not the other way around. That means: testing multiple creative territories, wiring journeys so we can see where the narrative is actually converting, and being ruthless about iterating or killing work that doesn’t move the right metrics, even if we personally love it.
In short: we protect creativity by anchoring it in a business context, and we protect performance by insisting that the work has a point of view, not just a CTA.
Indifeast marks a significant integrated launch for ThinkROI. When you approach building a brand from the ground up, what is the one strategic question you ask before any creative or media decisions are made?
The process doesn’t start with a presentation deck; it starts with a collaborative huddle. Before we even touch creative or media, we sit down with key stakeholders to understand the core vision behind the brand, the values the team truly believes in, and what they ultimately want to achieve. Out of that conversation, one question anchors everything: ‘What role must this brand play in people’s lives to be truly viable and valuable?’ Once we’re clear on that, every creative and media decision is simply an execution of that role
Looking ahead, what capabilities or mindset shifts will distinguish the next generation of agencies from those that continue to rely on traditional models?
While the core principles of marketing and semiotics remain foundational, the next wave of successful agencies will be defined by their mastery of audience behaviour and content consumption, moving far beyond basic channels and formats. They will operate with radical agility to build, test, and scale ideas, embedding data directly into the creative process rather than treating it as an afterthought. Across this entire ecosystem, AI will serve as a powerful accelerator, decoding signals faster, prototyping sharper creatives, and optimising media in real time, all while preserving the critical human intuition required to build lasting brands.
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