Orient Electric CMO: Digital spends tripled, set to hit 60% of marketing budget in 2 years

Orient Electric’s Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Anika Agarwal says the brand is now a heavy user of AI tools in content creation, with over half of its creatives involving some form of AI intervention whether AI-enhanced human work or AI-generated designs refined by designers. Retail media too has emerged as a key lever, now accounting for about 15% of ad spends, with clear short-term impact on platform conversions and long-term influence on the overall consumer journey.

While platforms like Amazon and Flipkart drive performance, the dominance of Google and Meta continues to raise challenges around pricing and transparency in media planning. Agarwal says despite the frustrations with tools like Google’s PMAX, where marketers have limited visibility into buyer behavior, there’s little choice and that “80% of the work now happens behind the scenes” due to AI, leaving CMOs to adapt to an evolving, less transparent ecosystem.

On the influencer front, Orient is seeing strong traction despite being a functional category. The brand currently works with creators across three buckets: top-tier influencers for brand storytelling (as seen in the Kusha Kapila and Madan Gowri campaign), macro creators like interior designers and stand-up comedians for home and lifestyle relevance, and micro influencers and product reviewers for conversion-led goals.

Anika Agarwal, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer shared these insights into the brand's evolving media and content strategies, including their significant adoption of AI and focus on retail media, during a recent conversation with Storyboard18.

Edited excerpts:

Given the fragmentation of audiences across platforms, how do you decide the balance between brand storytelling and performance-led digital placements? How are you measuring ROI compared to traditional TV?

There is a clear allocation of spends that we do right at the beginning of the year between full-funnel objectives and our conversional in-market audience objectives. That gives us clarity in terms of which channels to use and how much money to deploy in each.

When it comes to metrics and channels — channels may sometimes overlap, but we define metrics separately. For full-funnel advertising, where awareness is the objective, we look at: Brand search query growth, Cost-per-view on video assets, Engagement rates on social

For performance marketing, where awareness has already been built, our primary metrics are ROAS and COA across platforms — whether that’s Amazon, Flipkart, or others.

Currently, what percentage of your marketing budget goes toward digital media, and how has that evolved over the past two to three years?

Almost 40% of our budget now goes to digital. That number has grown almost 3x in the last two to three years. The scale-up has been fast for a few reasons:

For many of our categories, the customer decision journey begins digitally. We’ve heavily invested in large e-commerce platforms. Audiences across demographics are now present across digital channels. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio flips to 60:40 (digital:traditional) in the next two years.

Within digital, how much are you investing in CTV? What’s the outlook for Orient’s advertising and media spends in 2025?

CTV is not an always-on strategy for us. It’s part of our impact buys. For example, during large campaigns aligned with big CTV events like IPL, we deploy a significant amount of spend. For the current campaign, almost half our spends are on CTV. But that’s not the case year-round — it’s specific and impact-led.

You’ll see about 20–25% growth in our ad spends. That’s because we’re building new categories — while we’re known for fans, we’re also focusing on lighting and smaller appliance categories that do very well on quick commerce and e-commerce.

Which product categories are driving the highest marketing ROI for Orient?

In a mature category like fans, where we’ve already invested hundreds of crores, conversion percentages are naturally higher — consumers know and trust the brand.

In nascent categories where we’re currently building growth, conversions are lower, so our objective is reach. There, we measure cost per reach, not ROAS. So ROI metrics depend on the category maturity and objective.

Where are you seeing the most demand — tier 2/3 towns or premium urban buyers?

Both. We’ve seen a significant shift in e-commerce — platforms like Flipkart and Amazon show increasing traction from tier 2 towns. Even in general trade, tier 2 growth is real, and our penetration is strong.

In top 20 urban cities, we’re targeting modern, young households — typically first-time homebuyers in their early 30s. Here, we see premiumization and interest in smart, energy-efficient products. So both segments are growth engines for us.

What’s worked best for your category, especially since it’s traditionally not influencer-heavy?

Surprisingly, yes, influencer marketing is working for us. While we aren’t a fashion or FMCG brand, we’re using influencers differently, in three buckets:

Brand conversations e.g., our latest campaign with Kusha Kapila and Madan Gowri. These drive engaging, organic conversations rather than product-led messaging in a functional category.

Macro influencers specifically interior designers and lifestyle influencers, since we’re part of the home conversation. We’re also engaging stand-up comedians and younger creators because our target consumers — 32 to 35-year-olds — do a lot of research and are highly digital.

Micro influencers and product reviewers primarily for conversions, not brand building.

Given recent backlash and trolling (like with Kunal Kamra or Ranveer), isn’t that a risky space right now?

We’re not associating with comedians from a brand association point of view. That’s where we’re more careful.

But when it comes to macro influencers driving product-level engagement, we have a little more control over content. We always vet thoroughly. In today’s world, where conversations are organic, you can’t be a brand that’s overly risk-averse. There has to be a balance. If you want to engage Young India, you need to be a little bold.

Has AI changed how Orient uses data for ad targeting and campaign optimization? What’s hype and what’s real?

There are three parts to this, all at different stages of evolution.

Content creation — This is real and scaled. More than half our creatives now have some form of AI intervention — whether AI-enhanced human work or AI-generated designs refined by our designers. A year ago, we were experimenting. Today, we are heavy users.

Campaign targeting and media optimization — This is still experimental. We’re testing how media allocations shift with AI, but most of this is still done manually.

Dashboard and analytics — This is showing early success. We’re using AI to derive real-time insights, and in 6–9 months, it may become day-to-day, like content creation has.

Would you say the dominance of platforms like Google and Meta creates a challenge for pricing, transparency, and media planning?

It does. But we don’t have many choices. It’s a global issue. As CMOs and planners, we can complain — but this is the world we live in.

That said, I think platforms are evolving. For example, when PMAX was launched on Google, we were all frustrated — we didn’t know who was buying or why. As a data-led marketer, that felt uncomfortable.

But now, even with AI, 80% of the work is happening behind the scenes. It's not transparent either. So it’s part of the evolution. We would love more transparency, of course.

What’s Orient’s learning curve been like there? How much are you investing in quick commerce, and what’s the budget allocation?

Retail media started as display advertising for us. But we realized it influences the entire consumer journey. Today, about 15% of our ad spends go toward retail media. Some of that shows immediate impact — for example, using retail media on Amazon improves our search conversion. But beyond that, it’s a key platform for us, and I expect the spend to stay in the 10–20% range.

Read More:Inside CTV's explosion: How brands are leveraging immersive storytelling and data

Read More:BSC's Shantanu Deshpande on betting big on "Make in India" for sustainable grooming's future