Mumbai: With six prestigious awards in various categories, Zee5 stole the show at the Promax Reinvent OTT Awards. The categories for which Zee5 won awards are female lead of the year, screenplay, social media or mobile-based promotional digital video content, sound design, and editing-in-house for its regional web series of the year.
On receiving the awards, Zee5 chief business officer Manish Kalra said, “It is heartening to get recognised at a prominent platform like Promax India Digital Reinvent for our projects across languages. At ZEE5, the vision has been to offer extraordinary entertainment, set new benchmarks, and revolutionise content creation and consumption through the digital medium. I am thankful to the team members, our partners, and our consumers, who have been our biggest allies in achieving the growth that we aimed for. It has been an enthralling journey as we continue to innovate, engage, and create a value-driven platform for our audiences.”
With titles from Tamil (Vilangu), Telugu (Gaalivaana), and Hindi (Mithya, Forensic) in the spotlight, Zee5’s success as a one-stop shop for top-notch content in all languages is amply demonstrated.
Zee5 claims it has always led the way in providing multilingual audiences with authentic, timely, and impactful stories across original and acquired content. The accolades the platform received at the event confirm the variety of content that is offered on Zee5 for its multilingual audience base around the world.
The awards list across categories is as follows:
Web Series of the Year – Regional
Silver Award – Vilangu
Best Female Lead of The Year
Gold Award – Huma Qureshi (Mithya)
Best Screenplay
Silver Award – Vilangu
Best Sound Design
Silver Award – Gaalivaana
Best Editing In-House
Silver Award – TVF on ZEE5 Library Launch- Happy Hours Promo claimed a silver award for
Social media or Mobile Based Promotional Digital Video Content
Mumabi: Online professional network LinkedIn has launched a new global C-level research study to show how flexibility and employee benefits introduced during the pandemic are now at risk due to the ongoing economic uncertainty. According to the research, nine out of every 10 business leaders in India say the current economic climate could threaten flexible working (91 per cent), while other areas of work life such as learning and development (90 per cent) and employee wellbeing (89 per cent) are most likely to be affected too.
In fact, more than two-fifths of India’s business leaders are looking to reduce employer learning and development budgets and opportunities (43 per cent), and nearly half (49 per cent) are looking to reduce flexible and hybrid working roles. Additionally, 71 per cent also prefer to work more frequently from the office as opposed to working from home. Despite this, 82 per cent of business leaders believe that hybrid working is here to stay for the long term.
This comes at a time when new analysis of remote job postings on LinkedIn shows that remote roles are in decline, although the applications to those roles exceed supply by nearly 2x in India. In September, 11.3 per cent of paid job postings in India offered a remote working option. However, remote working roles received 20.3 per cent of all job applications.
Employer-employee disconnect could demotivate professionals: The research highlights a growing disconnect between what professionals want and what employers are now offering, with the balance of power shifting back to employers as hiring slows.
LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report reveals that across India, the top priorities that job seekers value beyond compensation are advancement, upskilling, and work-life balance. In terms of advancement, the report finds that employees want growth and transformation in their careers. In India, an employee who has made an internal move is about 10 per cent more likely to stay at their company when compared to those who stay in the same role for two or three years.
But with companies reducing flexibility and growth opportunities, the C-level research shows that a majority (86 per cent) of business leaders in India are concerned that these cost-cutting measures will have a negative impact on employee motivation levels, which may also be why 84 per cent agree they aren’t able to find the right talent today.
LinkedIn India country manager Ashutosh Gupta said, “The sheer scale of the ongoing uncertainty is forcing many leaders to rethink what—and how much — they can offer to their employees today. While flexibility and learning are usually the first to go when times are tough, pulling back on these in the present situation could demotivate employees, widen the skills gap, and inflate retention rates. At a time when professionals are just as threatened by the age of uncertainty as businesses are, leaders must adopt a forward-thinking approach and continue to invest in their people. Empowering employees to upgrade their skills and allowing them to choose how they want to work can drive greater levels of employee satisfaction in these testing times. Ultimately, having a workforce that feels supported and fulfilled will be key to building resilient businesses that drive growth and outperform competitors despite macroeconomic challenges.”
Leading through uncertainty
As companies navigate uncertainty, one area of agreement is clear: creative thinking and problem-solving are critical. These are the top soft skills Indian leaders identified as necessary to get through this time, followed by communication, adaptability, and transparency. In fact, soft skills such as problem-solving, communication, and strategy were featured in 78 per cent of jobs posted globally on LinkedIn over the last three months. Rather than leaving their teams in the dark about the tough decisions ahead, leaders need to build bridges with their employees and bring them on the journey with them.
LinkedIn’s advice for leaders to navigate uncertainty
Take an adaptive leadership approach: leaders must be transparent about the current state of affairs and adapt to what lies ahead, while also providing employees with clarity on short-term business priorities. They should see this period as an opportunity to iterate and adjust, which will stand them in good stead when the cycle ends.
Maintain workforce connection and trust
Today, half of Indian employers (51 per cent) encourage employee collaboration and knowledge sharing. By helping employees build connections with their colleagues, employers can energise their teams and strengthen their company culture. Furthermore, returning to command and control styles of leadership and dictating that employees must be in the office will quickly erode trust.
Focus on skills
The skill sets needed for jobs have changed by around 29 per cent since 2015, and this number is expected to grow to 50 per cent by 2025. By understanding the skills your employees have today and the skills your company needs in the future, companies can hire or redeploy talent into growth areas.
LinkedIn has made a number of LinkedIn Learning courses available for free until December 31 to help leaders navigate uncertainty, including courses on “How to Future-Proof Your Organization and Become a Multiplier of Wellbeing in Your Organization.” LinkedIn has also published its Global Talent Trends report, which provides leaders with insight into how labour market trends are affecting employees and workplaces.
Mumbai: Meghna Mittal is GSharp Media’s co-founder and chief marketing officer; the company has two brands under its umbrella: Songfest India and Hoopr. Songfest focuses on giving musicians the creative freedom to explore new sonic avenues; Hoopr is India’s first music licensing marketplace that intends to offer cutting-edge solutions to both musicians and content creators alike.
Ever since its inception, GSharp Media has been focused on building creator-centric products. Mittal has led these initiatives and focuses extensively on crafting innovative marketing strategies while also playing a key role in scaling up products. Her strengths lie in staying close to the consumer, understanding the market requirements, and creating the right product that solves the customer’s pain point. She was pivotal in steering several viral marketing campaigns for Songfest, which accumulated more than 100 million views for its YouTube channel.
Her latest venture is Hoopr.ai, a music licensing marketplace that offers cutting-edge viral solutions to brands and video creators in collaboration with some of the most popular artists. The idea behind it is to offer a multitude of songs, background scores, and sound effects to creators regardless of the kind of content they create and showcase some innovative music from India’s best musicians and composers. Mittal and her team aim to help the creator economy reach new heights in India and around the globe with the platform.
Prior to joining GSharp Media, Mittal led the marketing initiatives for Hubilo and YesssWorks for more than seven years. A music lover herself and a people person, her interests include designing and building consumer-centric products, creating exciting content, and crafting unique music solutions for brands. She also has a huge, self-cultivated network of influencers across the country and believes that every creator deserves to have the best tools at their disposal for creating invigorating content.
On the personal front, she is extremely passionate about cooking and loves feeding her guests different delicacies. Indiantelevision.com caught up with Mittal to find out the growth strategy of the company.
Excerpts:
On Hoopr.ai
Most founders create products that solve a certain pain point they themselves have experienced and for which there is a large market but no clear solution. A few months into the pandemic, Gaurav Dagaonkar (GSharp Media founder) and I were running the content production studio Songfest and realised that costs and means of video production had come down heavily due to the lockdown. Most clients of Songfest and Songfest itself heavily use stock video & music to complete productions and save costs. It was at this stage that we realised how limited the availability of Indian stock music was.
It was this particular project for which we needed a Hindi hip-hop, street rap kind of track, and we couldn’t find even one across all platforms in the world. The international music licensing platforms didn’t carry Indian music, and we didn’t have any of our own. I mean, we’re talking about a country with a combined value of $15 billion if you put together the film, television, advertising, and music industries, and strangely, not one music licensing marketplace existed before Hoopr. We ultimately had to get the track created, which cost us a lot more time and money than the budget permitted.
So we started thinking about the millions of Indian vloggers, podcasters, live streamers, and digital content creators, including startups, who create daily video content for their Indian audiences and would be requiring relevant Indian music. On the one hand, using music without a licence results in a copyright or content ID claim, which takes away a creator’s monetisation rights for that video, while on the other, there is hardly any Indian music available to licence. That got us to start thinking seriously about building Hoopr.
But the final catalyst in this decision turned out to be a unique one. Anushka Sen is an Indian influencer with over 35 million followers on Instagram and two million on YouTube. She received a copyright claim for using a song belonging to Songfest and asked for a micro licence that could be purchased. I remember this one day when we came across a report that projected India having more than 100 million content creators by 2025, and Sen also wanted to buy a micro licence from us. We started building Hoopr from that day on.
On Hoopr.ai’ revenue model
We offer subscriptions to individual creators and businesses. Apart from that, we also offer custom plans for enterprises.
On the growth
We’re proud of the fact that we have received traction from customers all over India. It’s a testament to the power of the creator economy that we’ve seen traction from not only individual creators but also interest from brands and businesses across India.
On the challenges for monetisation of content including music
Let’s look at the content—music and video—separately. YouTube is currently the most important source of content monetization, at least for Indian creators.However, in order for this monetization to begin on YouTube, one must have more than 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. Post that too, it requires millions of views to make a reasonable amount of income. Typically, if YouTube pays 2-3 paisa per view in India, a typical YouTuber ends up earning somewhere close to 15 to 30 thousand for a million views.
But the million views are hard to get, so the challenge for the Indian content creator is to be regular, attract a large audience, and create content in a sustained manner. Also, a small fraction of video creators end up making substantial money from platforms such as YouTube. A lot of the other short-form platforms do not allow monetization similar to YouTube, although it is likely that this may change in the future. Aside from this, content creators face a number of other challenges that limit their ability to monetize. Sometimes there could be licensing issues, creators may end up using music tracks that might get muted, or there could be a copyright claim or a takedown.
For musicians, it can be relatively easier as one can create music tracks and distribute them to multiple streaming platforms, and typically there is a pay-out associated with each stream. However, the challenge in this case is to get discovered, heard, and seen when the competition is cutthroat and there are thousands of tracks uploaded every single day.
On how covid impacted this area
The covid pandemic fuelled the digital revolution and accelerated the growth of content creators, social media community engagers, and even curators. During this time, both Dagaonkar and I realised that our agency and brand clients were actively looking to licence Indian music but were not able to find relevant content. We experienced this difficulty while creating promos and marketing videos for Songfest. But the turning point came when one of India’s leading content creators, Anushka Sen, got a content ID claim on YouTube and called me to buy a licence. A subsequent deep dive into the numbers of the creator economy revealed that millions of creators in India require music for their content and are willing to buy licences to avoid copyright claims.
Having launched the platform now, the industry envisages Hoopr as a potential go-to platform to find the right music for video content.
On the products like Songfest that GSharp Media operates
GSharp Media is a music tech and content company, and the idea has been to create and operate brands and products in the music domain that are interconnected and have synergies with one another. With Songfest and Hoopr, we have these synergies. Songfest is a brand that creates customised brand solutions. We create branded content, such as music videos, television commercials, and so on. Songfest also operates a YouTube channel with over half a million subscribers. The biggest asset of the company is the network of 3000+ music creators that we have.
On the latest campaign
We have launched a new campaign called “#HarGharCreator” with an ad to celebrate and empower creators across India. Hoopr.ai is solving a billion-dollar problem faced by content creators and businesses every day: that of discovering and licensing the right music for their videos. India’s 80 million+ creator community comprises vloggers, podcasters, gamers, filmmakers, live-streamers, and influencers who create audio-visual content on a variety of topics. With over 25,000 tracks and sound effects, Hoopr.ai is not only enabling these creators to get specific music for their needs but also helping them avoid copyright strikes and legal issues.
Furthermore, what’s also changing is the mindset with regard to content creation, with more people embracing it as a career choice. And that is exactly what the ad captures. In the ad, a young college student can be seen telling his strict father that he doesn’t want to be an engineer but rather a content creator. The reaction of the father makes the ad a must-watch for all content creators and their families.
A creator is now emerging in nearly every home across India, and we want to help them find phenomenal Indian music for their videos. Apart from individual creators, the music on Hoopr is also being used by brands, enterprises, and OTT platforms, as it is cleared for use and free from any copyright strikes or takedowns.
On trends being seen when it comes to music tech
There are a lot of developments happening in music technology. Right from production to distribution and consumption, to areas like licensing, building communities, and fan funding of collectibles, music tech has seen a lot of developments and interesting start-ups over the last couple of years. When it comes to music production, we are seeing tools that allow people to collaborate. There are multiple music distribution services that have evolved over the last four to five years that allow artists to distribute music across different streaming platforms. We are also in an era where the majority of music is consumed through streaming platforms. As a result, apps such as Spotify are continuously evolving their algorithms and recommendation engines to contribute to a better user experience. We have also seen the emergence of licensing platforms that have opened up new doors of income for musicians.
Two areas that are still in their nascent stage but will only continue to grow are AI-generated music and the ability of artists to create and distribute NFTs. These could unlock new doors as far as the music industry is concerned and could bring with them new opportunities for artists, new sources of funding, etc., all on the back of technological development.
On the future of the podcast format in India
Any kind of individualised content creation is here to stay, whether the creator makes a living out of it or does it out of passion and knowledge sharing. Any kind of content creation is going to grow from here, mainly because there are so many new tools that are coming up that help creators create content. In the case of podcasts, it’s a bit easier, as one can create podcasts in the comfort of their homes. They are able to record using microphones, which have become cheaper using workstations. Distributing podcasts has become easier too. The biggest driver is the fact that people want to share their knowledge, experience, and learnings, in addition to the huge appetite of the digital audience to consume this content.
India still has the potential to grow multifold in the domain of podcasts and some related fields too. Companies like Pocket FM do well in India, along with regional companies like Kuku FM, which are also producing a large number of audio books. Very soon, it will translate into individuals creating systematic podcasts. The future of podcasts in India is promising, and one of the biggest drivers will be regional content or regional podcasts, as 70 per cent of India’s population consumes regional content
Mumbai: OTT platform Netflix has announced that comedian, writer, director and actor Chris Rock will be the first artist to perform live on Netflix for the company’s first-ever live, global streaming event. The comedy special is set to stream in early 2023. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
“Rock is one of the most iconic and important comedic voices of our generation. We’re thrilled the entire world will be able to experience a live Chris Rock comedy event and be a part of Netflix history. This will be an unforgettable moment and we’re so honored that Rock is carrying this torch” said Netflix vice president stand-up and comedy formats Robbie Praw.
This is Rock’s second Netflix stand-up special. His first, Chris Rock: Tamborine, debuted in February 2018.
The live event builds on Netflix’s live comedy slate. It said that Netflix is a Joke: The Festival was the biggest live, in-person event in Netflix history, taking place in Spring 2022. The unprecedented event sold more than 260,000 tickets, featuring more than 330 comedians performing 295 shows across more than 35 venues in Los Angeles. The festival also featured the first ever stand-up show at Dodger Stadium.
Netflix says that it is the definitive home for all things comedy. Live events are one facet of Netflix’s unmatched ecosystem for comedic talent, as the entertainment company continues to invest in scripted comedy for TV and film, stand-up, sketch, comedy formats, and animation.
Mumbai: ConsCent.ai has introduced an e-reader solution. It is a future system that combines intelligence, engagement, retention and payments, enabling publishers to increase their subscription business by utilising their e-papers and e-magazines.
ConsCent’s e-reader solution aims to restore publishers’ control over their data, and enable them to improve subscription conversions and lifetime value of users using ConsCent’s suite of paywalling, recommendation and engagement suite, bridging the innovation gap in e-publishing services currently used for publishing e-papers.
The product is launched with a goal to reduce cost and increase productivity for publishers by providing them with a full stack solution for all their content offerings in which data is unified, visualisation is simplified, and decision making is faster.
In India, at present e-papers account for about 80 per cent of all digital subscriptions sold, which makes it vital for the digital reader revenue strategy. With these figures, the tool is quite relevant for the upcoming times.
The tool reduces the time required to publish, organise, and maintain e-papers and e-magazines by uploading PDF pages with a single click. It also controls sharing and minimises leaks. It lets the user segment readers, retarget them and connect with them. Other key features of this solution include using information derived from a centralised dashboard and diversifying revenue streams, select, customising and implementing various paywalls (hybrid, dynamic). The tool ensures that users have a pleasurable experience.
For an understanding, 50+ news publishers and OTT platforms in India use ConsCent to maximise user revenue. India Today Group (India Today, Cosmopolitan, and Business Today), Outlook India Group (Outlook India and Outlook Business), MidDay, Jagran News Media, Amar Ujala, Udayavani, Amar Chitra Katha, EPIC On, Tinkle Comics, and are amongst some of the company’s key partners.
ConsCent has surpassed seven lakh users who can access premium content on ConsCent’s partners without creating multiple logins and can unlock premium content with a single click. The firm’s partners have not only increased their paying user base 10X in a year, but have also assisted publishers in making their premium content more discoverable through recommendations, engaging with users through audience segmentation-based targeting, and even retaining them through a host of marketing tools – all through one single dashboard.
ConsCent co-founder and CEO Sunny Sen shared, “Newspapers are the most valuable and editorially rich content produced by publishers. However, if it is limited to print, it loses the ability to develop, maximise brand recognition and truly monetise its content. As readers and advertisers rapidly migrate online and to mobile devices, publishers have little choice, but to adapt.”
However, a digital presence is not sufficient. A publisher must be able to effectively monetise their valuable editorial content, which is essentially a result of how well they can understand their audience and use the information about their preferences, reading habits, reading behaviour, propensity to pay, etc. to deliver them with a personalised experience.
“The option to consume anything at any time with the choice of what time of day you would like to consume your content has made capturing user data an essential requirement for publishers in the internet age. Existing E-publishing software gives publishers little to no control over user behaviour understanding, resulting in a significant loss of user comprehension,” he concluded.
Mumbai: Hoopr, a music licencing company, will feature artists from diverse backgrounds, professions, and other walks of life through Hoopr Originals. The idea is to help discover undiscovered talent in India.
Hoopr will also provide the artists with an additional chance to unlock revenue through sync. Their original tunes, which will be on Hoopr, will be accessible for users to licence and use in their videos, vlogs, and other content. In addition to helping them spread their music globally, the site will also help them get discovered.
Hoopr CEO & co-founder Gaurav Dagaonkar said, ” With Hoopr and Songfest, we have worked with numerous celebrities over the past few years, such as Shaan, Divya Kumar, Ash King, Monali Thakur, Mame Khan, Shamali Kholgade, and several large influencers too. However, as we have been building Hoopr over the last eight to nine months, we’ve seen incredible depth and diversity in terms of new songwriters, composers, music creators, and producers across India.
“So, we felt that Hoopr must be a platform that helps project this talent and gets these amazing artists discovered. Hoopr Originals is that platform, which will help new artists who are creating tracks for Hoopr get exposure in the industry. These artists are creating songs that encompass many languages and bring with them a unique blend of musical influences. An example of us doing this recently includes the song, Kyun main Kahoon by Abhinav Singh. Abhinav is a great singer songwriter, but he also holds an important role in the corporate world. There are many such talented individuals across the country, and we’re excited to produce their music and get it out there.”
In addition to releasing songs by Abhinav Singh, Hoopr has also released songs featuring artists such as Anirudh Bhola and Adarsh Shinde and paved the way for up-and-coming artists to collaborate with established names in the industry such as Mame Khan. Furthermore, Hoopr will be releasing songs that feature artists as diverse as Rupinn Pahwa, Shubhangi Tewari, Rishi Pathak, and Fuzzculture in the near future.
Dagaonkar adds, “We have worked on creating music videos with Hoopr originals artistes and will continue to do so. Additionally, we’re also excited about distributing these tracks worldwide.”
Hoopr is a music licencing platform that provides music that can be used across a wide variety of content, including videos and vlogs by individual creators, professional ads, TV series, movies, live game streaming, etc. The Mumbai-based company provides music that has all the appropriate licences, so anyone who uses it doesn’t have to worry about royalties, copyright issues, etc. Crucially, this means that using music from Hoopr helps users avoid takedowns and lawsuits.
The platform features a variety of music, from contemporary Indian pop to traditional Indian classical, from electronica to music that is unique to the various rich cultures that exist across India. Subscribers to Hoopr can access 25,000 music tracks and 3,000 sound effects from artists all over India. The music on Hoopr is also completely exclusive to the platform.
It is noteworthy to mention that many of the films that recently won awards at the India Film Project used songs from Hoopr. The artists of these songs got their due credit and recognition, which might not have happened if they weren’t on the platform.
Dagaonkar, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, and Meghna Mittal, formerly of Hubilo and Yessworks, launched the company in 2021, which raised $1.5 million in its seed round in December 2021.
Hoopr added that it is seeing 100 per cent month-on-month growth in the number of users since its launch, and these users include content creators, filmmakers, enterprises, and brands across India. Some of its users include content creators such as Ashish Vidyarthi and Tanya Khanijow, along with brands such as New Jagran Media.
Mumbai: For many decades, we have relied on traditional media outlets like television, radio, and print for our information and entertainment, consuming content created and curated by a few major media houses based on the preferences and requirements of the masses. The advent of the internet and web 2.0 brought a significant shift in how we consumed information by decentralising content communication, creation, and distribution. Thanks to the opportunity offered by social media, we found ordinary people like ourselves writing, filming, and creating niche as well as mass content that resonated with people worldwide.
And as a result of this, people moved away from traditional media sources. They started surfing the internet to consume content and connect with people who shared similar interests and experiences. Over time, people learned to market their skills, hobbies, and interests online. This resulted in the rise of a new economy built by millions of independent content creators, curators, and community builders, marking the beginning of the “creator economy.”
Today, the creator economy is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, and it includes everyone who is a part of the web economy, such as social media, blogs, videos, software tools, and tech platforms like Hypothesis designed to help them grow and monetise.
More than 50 million people worldwide identify as “creators,” with two million or more earning a living from their passion through platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, and others. According to a survey, YouTube content creators contributed a whopping Rs 6,800 crore to the Indian economy in 2020.
The evolution of the creator economy
● The birth of social media platforms
Towards the end of the 2000s, we witnessed the birth of many social and content channels like YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Medium, Linkedin, and more. The rise of the creator economy has relied heavily on the development of these platforms. We wouldn’t have creators if you didn’t have platforms on which they could create. It was due to social media sharing that content distribution became normalised. Today, creators are no longer at the mercy of large production companies, as these platforms have equipped them well to solve their distribution problems.
● The emergence of influencer marketing
Brands began to see the value in investing in creators to promote their products and services to their large on-platform audiences as they began to build a dedicated audience engaging with their content due to their skills and personalities. This proved a very successful marketing strategy, aka “influencer marketing,” as it allowed brands to tap into a new market and advertise to a niche audience more likely to be interested in the brand’s product during their moment of consumption.
Brand sponsors began paying creators on platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok in exchange for their reach to an audience gained through the platforms.
● Covid impact
As social media platforms proliferated, people found themselves increasingly attracted to screens, both as creators and consumers. What many believed would be a passing phase, like the dot-com era, soon became a compulsion.
With the onset of the pandemic, millennials and gen-z turned towards social and subscription based platforms either out of boredom or to supplement their income due to the economic slump. Because of the nationwide lockdown, everyone was forced to use online health, education, shopping, and entertainment resources.
This has led to the growing dominance of content creators in mainstream media who are willing to pay for tools that help them grow their content reach and maximise their revenue.
● Creators are brands within themselves
With the constant influx of influencers, competition for branded collaborations is becoming increasingly fierce, prompting influencers to seek alternative revenue streams.
Instead of chasing revenue through generic clickbait content, influencers are becoming the new brands. Today, creators have gained enough loyalty from their audiences to be able to sell any product better than the traditional brands. Creators are launching their brands without investing millions of dollars in a team and resources, instead relying on a combination of audience and reach, good branding, and a distinct point of view with their product.
Today, many brands consider working with creators an essential part of their brand and marketing strategy. But it remains a largely unorganised space, with discovering the right talent to work with and measuring success depending on how each brand structures its efforts. The creator economy needs a unified platform to connect brands with customers through the right influencers and manage the entire campaign pipeline. At the same time, it requires a platform for creators to engage with their audience and build meaningful relationships with brands.
That’s where “influencer marketing software services” step in, allowing agencies and brands to discover the right creator, conduct outreach, set up campaigns, and track performance on one platform. On the supply side of the ecosystem, it empowers creators and influencers to reach their audiences by understanding their content performance and audience affinity and collaborating with brands and agencies.
The author of this article is Hypothesis senior VP product and analytics Himani Agrawal.
Mumbai: Streaming service, Prime Video, amps up the excitement around the Indian cricket team’s tour of New Zealand beginning 18 November, with a series of announcements. In a first for Prime Video India, the service will show advertisements during live cricket matches. It has signed up Airtel Xstream Fiber as the presenting sponsor, and MPL, Nescafé, Noise, OLX Autos, and Vida have come on board as associate sponsors. Meanwhile, brands including AMFI and DBS join as advertisers.
This move will help brands reach Prime Video’s premium base of highly engaged customers spread across the country.
India and New Zealand both reached the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia but lost their matches. They will now play a limited-overs series consisting of three T20s and three ODIs between 18 and 30 November. Prime Video is the official India territory rights holder to exclusively stream all men’s and women’s cricket matches played in New Zealand.
Prime Video India director of SVoD business Sushant Sreeram said, “There are many things that are heterogeneous about the delightfully diverse India when it comes to entertainment—be it choice of language, genres of shows and movies, devices that customers prefer watching their favourite entertainment on, and so much more. But there is one absolute unifier that everyone across the country is unanimously passionate about, and that’s cricket! With our slate of compelling shows and movies over the last six years, we have strived to super-serve our customers, and they have emphatically picked Prime Video as their most loved entertainment destination. Now, with live cricket made immersive and accessible through multi-language feeds, fantastic studio programming, and a superb set of commentators to guide us through the series, we are confident that we will not only deliver a superior experience for the country’s legions of cricket fans, but also make Prime Video the first choice of entertainment for everyone.”
“India and New Zealand have both been at the top of their white ball games in the recent past, and we expect some explosive cricket in the coming weeks from two of the best teams in the world as the cricketing action now moves from Australia to New Zealand,” he added.
Prime Video will deliver live commentary and match-programming in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu. Fans will also be treated to graphics in these languages. Former captains and cricketers like Ravi Shastri, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Gundappa Viswanath, Anjum Chopra, and Venkatpathy Raju, among others, will be bringing the matches alive with their insightful commentary in different languages as India tries to set the record straight against New Zealand. The BlackCaps knocked the Men in Blue out of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and also defeated India in the inaugural World Test Championship final in 2021.
The full slate of commentators for the series includes the following names:
English: Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle, Anjum Chopra, Simon Doull, and Murali Kartik. Gaurav Kapoor will be the presenter.
Hindi: Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Ajay Jadeja, Mohammad Kaif, and Ajit Agarkar.
Tamil: WV Raman, Hemang Badani, L Sivaramakrishnan, and S Sriram.
Kannada: Gundappa Viswanath, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shankar Prakash, Venkatesh Prasad, and K Jeshwant.
Telugu: Venkatpathy Raju, Sunitha Anand, Sudhir Malwvedi, and Vijay Malwvedi.
The cricket experience for the fans doesn’t stop here. Prime Video will also offer an English-language live one-hour pre-show before each game. The mid-innings break will feature a 15-minute show that will be a recap of the first inning and a preview of the second. The live programming also involves a 30-minute post-match presentation and analysis by Prime Video’s stable of cricket experts.
Curating a new viewing experience for live sports, Prime Video will offer customers new features like an in-game language selector and “Rapid Recap.” The in-game language selector will allow customers to change languages (e.g., from English to Hindi) seamlessly without exiting the player. Customers joining a game in progress can catch-up on impactful game highlights using the “Rapid Recap” feature before transitioning to the live stream automatically.
To watch the matches, consumers can go to the Prime Video app on their respective devices, where they will be able to find the live match featured on the home page. On Android and Smart TV devices, they can select the Cricket tab in the top navigation. The Cricket section’s landing page will include live matches as well as full replays of previous matches. Consumers can choose a language stream of their choice to enjoy the match. The page will also feature the key highlights of the matches—Super Sixes and short highlights—for a quick catch-up. Fans can stream these matches online through their web browser, mobile devices, internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes, Fire TV sticks, and other compatible devices.
Mumbai: AI-based OTT recommendation and content discovery platform OTTplay has announced a free trial for its ‘starter pack,’ which includes seven OTTs. The platform has achieved over 17,600 signups for its ‘starter pack’ subscription plan. Viewers can choose from romance, sci-fi, thrillers, and documentaries on OTT platforms such as Hallmark Now, Dust Sci-Fi, Docubay, Tastemede+, Shorts TV, Fuse+, and Curiosity Stream that are available to the Indian audience for the first time. With the latest AI-powered technology, the platform aspires to democratise the content offered across OTT platforms, thus empowering the users to discover the content they most likely enjoy.
OTTplay provides users with content from its extensive library, which includes over 65,000 web series, movies, and shows spanning 18 different genres and multiple languages. The platform has integrated cutting-edge AI software to provide users with insightful suggestions and built the feature independently.
OTTplay co-founder & CEO Avinash Mudaliar said, “The promotion of our unique offer is vital to elevating connection with the audience. OTTplay has today disrupted the entertainment industry with phenomenal content that brings the best of entertainment to audiences worldwide. Given the growing popularity of OTT platforms, we wanted to ensure that OTTplay was available to a wider audience so that they could fulfil their wish to watch all the world’s content. As a brand, we strive to provide premium content to viewers worldwide, and we look forward to contributing to the audience and offering it a platform to reach the pinnacle of success.”
OTTplay is a streaming platform that allows audiences to access their favourite content from 12 different OTT platforms with a single subscription. At the same time, it serves as a one-stop content discovery portal for 55+ OTTs producing incredible content across genres and languages.
Mumbai: Tata Capital has unveiled its integrated marketing campaign “Palak jhapkao, loan paao!” to promote its various loan offerings. The campaign has a series of short films themed around the digital, seamless, and quick loans offered by Tata Capital. The campaign went live on 9 November.
Designed by VISCOMM, the integrated marketing campaign will run across television, social media, and other digital media platforms.
The “Palak jhapkao, loan paao!” campaign is based on the insight of today’s fast-paced world, ever-evolving customer needs, and the expectation that these needs be met spontaneously and seamlessly. Customers can quickly obtain personal loans, home loans, business loans, and vehicle loans from Tata Capital, as the name implies. These loans are enabled on all channels and can be accessed in a paperless format in minutes.
In “Palak jhapkao, loan paao!” series of advertisements, each film showcases a humorous situation where the protagonist is faced with a situation which requires a quick solution. Each film portrays how the protagonists’ needs are met within blink of an eye by availing Tata Capital’s quick loans offering a hassle free and seamless experience.
Speaking about the campaign, Tata Capital chief digital and marketing officer Abonty Banerjee said, “Tata Capital’s latest campaign aims to resonate with our customers’ ever-increasing needs for immediate solutions. Quick loans give our customers the opportunity to fulfil their needs for loans simply and swiftly. This campaign reinforces our customers’ belief that they can always #CountOnUs to fulfil their aspirations.”
Talking about the creative side, VISCOMM director Ritika Grover said, “We live in a time of instant and urgent! The campaign line “Palak Jhapkao, Loan Pao” captures the spirit of quick loans offered by Tata Capital. In the films, the protagonist’s real and urgent needs combined with the play of slow motion versus real-time action is what we hope makes them attention grabbing. Our young team led by director Shachi Malhotra explored techniques to make the films creatively and visually unique.”
