Philips moves to fully digital-first marketing strategy in India – Industry News

With digital screens growing in relevance, global major Philips has pulled its entire personal health media spend off traditional TV, moving to a fully digital-first strategy in India from 2025. This would be supported by targeted out-of-home and on-ground activations, Smit Shukla, consumer marketing lead, Philips Personal Health, ISC Zone, said.

“For us, the TV spends are zero,” Shukla told FE on the sidelines of the launch of a new Philips Avent electric breast-pump. “We did only one campaign in 2024 only to realise TV is not working.”

Shukla noted that attention, not traffic, will be the key currency in the future. “Anything that breaks the clutter is where the consumer’s attention will go,” he said, adding that the brand’s media planning is designed to engage the right consumers at scale while keeping spends efficient.

Platform-specific strategies by category

The company is tailoring its platform choices by category. For mother and childcare, YouTube is preferred as mothers seek in-depth, educational content. In beauty, Instagram delivers better exposure, while male grooming is being approached with a mix of channels.

“We’ve not made up our mind completely on this one, but a combination of ratios is something that we are right now tweaking and trying. We are not constrained to only these two platforms,” Shukla elaborated.

Shukla said the brand’s approach hinges on authenticity and relatability. “Unless you are ticking these two boxes, consumers are not consuming content significantly,” he said. Philips works selectively with creators who produce “authentic real-life content, not made-up content” that is relevant and relatable.

He added that wherever relevant, the brand will continue to engage with celebrity endorsers as well. He cited the example of cricketer Virat Kohli, who is the face of Philips’ men’s grooming range.

Integrating digital with out-of-home and on-ground engagement

Out-of-home advertising is also regaining importance. “There is enough data for us to look at (that says) Gen Zs are getting influenced by out of home,” Shukla said. Pop-up activations in high-impact locations and large-format hoardings are used alongside digital campaigns, particularly for categories such as consumer tech, edtech, personal care and auto.

For Philips, on-ground engagement works best when integrated with digital plans. In male grooming, college activations for the One Blade brand have driven strong engagement. In mother and childcare, visibility in maternity hospitals is coupled with video-led campaigns to support new mothers.

“Our partnership with Apollo Cradle is one of the examples where we will help new mothers by providing access to the right information and education in their lactation and motherhood journey,” Shukla said.

Philips has also built internal data capabilities to measure the impact of campaigns. This includes using synthetic control models, dark market testing and platform analytics to isolate incremental results. “We’re in the process of understanding data deep right now… it’s a lot of analytical work that we’ve started,” he added.

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