ITV

Category: Digital Agencies

  • The Minimalist wins social media duties for Sudarshan Chemicals

    The Minimalist wins social media duties for Sudarshan Chemicals

    MUMBAI: The Minimalist, a design and digital company, has been awarded the social media mandate for Sudarshan Chemicals Industries, a colour and effect pigment manufacturer with experience of over 60 years, post a multi-agency pitch. The Minimalist will create and implement innovative social media campaigns targeted at driving employee engagement, strengthening brand presence while aiming to attract fresh talent.

    The Minimalist will play a pivotal role in effectively using the company’s social media presence to help establish Sudarshan Chemicals as a digital focussed brand.

    Speaking on the win, The Minimalist co-founder Sahil Vaidya said, “Considered as an innovator and responsible for driving growth within the sector, Sudarshan Chemicals is one of India’s largest pigments manufacturer and fourth largest in the world. It is an honour for us to be associated with Sudarshan Chemicals as their social media partner. We will leverage the company’s social media presence to consolidate its position as a market leader while percolating its business and communications goals to various stakeholders and employees. We look forward to adding significant value to the company’s communication objectives and building a strong foundation for a long association.”

    Sudarshan Chemicals innovative and vibrant work culture, values, vision, mission and goals will be highlighted through clutter breaking digital strategy to strengthen its digital presence in India and globally.

    Sudarshan Chemicals Industries deputy general manager human resource Ranjeet Singh said, “We are excited to engage with The Minimalist as our social media partner. The strategy, energy and enthusiasm they bring on board is highly admired and unique. Social media is an important part of our overall communication strategy, and a means to engage with our existing employees, connect with stakeholders, and attract new talent. The Minimalist will hence play an important part by amplifying our reach and simultaneously help us communicate effectively. We are confident that their expertise and novel approach will add value to our business and look forward to working with them.”

    Recognized for their thought-provoking communication, ‘The Minimalist’ has been aiding brands across India enhance their social and digital presence through innovative and unique techniques.

  • Countering the industry-wide challenge of digital ad frauds

    Countering the industry-wide challenge of digital ad frauds

    Digital advertising has brought with it an array of unique benefits like precise targeting, measurable and trackable performance indicators, and the ability to provide extremely personalised customer experiences. Advertisers can now practically do things that they could only dream of earlier. However, it has also brought with it the menace of ad frauds. Advertisers are struggling with ad frauds since quite some time. All ad frauds can be loosely defined as any deceitful online activity meant to mislead the advertisers, making them pay for low-quality or fake traffic. Ad frauds wipe out huge chunks of advertising budgets, causing huge losses to the companies. This has created negative connotations about digital advertising solutions in the minds of businesses.

    A few years ago, the advertising industry witnessed two of the greatest ad frauds ever – Hyphbot and Methbot. They decimated gigantic volumes of ad dollars. Methbot churned out revenue of $3 to $5 million each day by targeting premium video advertising ecosystem. Hyphbot was 3-4 times the extent of Methbot and generated up to 1.5 billion ad requests each day. These figures speak for themselves about the urgency to address these problems.

    It is about time to fix this. But, unfortunately, it is easier said than done. As technology evolves, the nature and sophistication of ad frauds evolve with it. It is a game of whack-a-mole, between the industry and the fraudsters, wherein as soon as one problem is addressed, they continuously come up with new and different ways to continue the menace. In order to solve the problem, we first need to understand it well by getting into its nitty-gritty. So let’s take stock of the situation and have a look at the different types of ad frauds advertisers are facing.

    Bot Traffic/Non-Human Traffic (NHT)
    Ad consumption or other online traffic generated by bots or automated websites

    Click Farms
    These consist of a large group of human workers who view or click on the ads on behalf of a third-party, who gain economic benefits from those illegitimate clicks. To do this, these workers are given minimal compensation.

    Sourced Traffic
    It is a way by which publishers acquire more visitors to their sites through third-parties. It is basically artificially generated inorganic traffic.

    Domain Spoofing
    It facilitates passing off a low-quality website as a premium website. Thus, when a user clicks the link, the fraudsters get access to the ads, which are run on the illegitimate site.

    Ad Injection
    It is the practice of inserting ads into any online inventory like a website or an app without the knowledge and consent of the publisher or the owner of that property.

    The ones mentioned above are only a few ways in which ad frauds are perpetrated. The field of digital advertising is highly dynamic. With the addition of new technologies each day it keeps evolving continuously. Fraudsters are constantly coming up with ingenious ways to adapt to these advancements and fulfill their objectives. As a result, brands have to be constantly alert and have to match the pace of technology, in order to be a step ahead of the curve. However, unsurprisingly, it becomes difficult for them to be constantly updated about everything.

    One of the ways to address this problem is to ensure that advertisers partner with the right kind of programmatic platform. A platform which provides a good level of security on-boarding fraud detection and fraud prevention partners, that helps to filter out fraudulent ads and illegitimate traffic in real-time. The platform must also follow the standards set by industry watchdogs like The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), etc.

    Next, brands must make sure that they measure the conversions and goals instead of measuring clicks.  Measuring clicks as an indicator of performance makes the brand more susceptible to bots and NHT. Also, they must work with publishers who have implemented ads.txt – IAB’s protocol designed to help keep ad frauds in check. It involves publishers hosting a text file on their web servers. This file lists all the authorised dealers of the publisher’s inventory. Also, publishers should be transparent with advertisers about the source of their traffic.

    Ad frauds are a problem not only for advertisers but they also harm publishers. Ad frauds devour a huge chunk of their revenues and also raise a question in the publishers’ credibility. Thus, ad frauds are affecting the entire ecosystem at large. Industry-wide standards are necessary to control this industry-wide challenge. It calls for all the entities across all parts of the advertising ecosystem to launch concerted efforts in fighting-off ad frauds.

    (The author is CEO and Founder, Vertoz. The views expressed here are his own and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them)  

  • Mindshare teams trained to be media neutral: Vinod Thadani

    Mindshare teams trained to be media neutral: Vinod Thadani

    MUMBAI: Excited about handling the complete integrated media directive for Hindustan Unilever Ltd , after the big digital mandate win in August last year, Mindshare Fulcrum is all pumped up about serving the best possible media solutions to the brand.

    Highlighting the key strategies behind handling HUL’s digital media presence, Mindshare chief digital officer, South Asia Vinod Thadani said, “The overall approach to digital investments for HUL shall entirely be based on the need of the brand. With the consumer and the brand ambitions at the centre, specific media neutral investment strategies will give shape to the overall digital presence for HUL.”

    Mindshare Fulcrum hopes to do some pioneering work across platforms and lead the industry in the evolution of digital media.

    Earlier, Mindshare India president, client leadership Amin Lakhani had revealed that the whole team at Mindshare Fulcrum underwent an extensive training program to run a successful integrated media campaign as per the unique requirements of HUL. Talking about the role of digital in the whole mix, Thadani noted, “The larger team at Mindshare managing the HUL media investments has already proved its capability in managing the broadcast media (TV, print, radio, etc); but, digital media due to its addressable nature has a different manner of planning, buying, and evaluation. Hence, it’s this addressable media skillset that has been the focus for the recent training. The teams at Mindshare now are media neutral and hence work across all forms of media. During the recent training, the focus on digital training has been primary.”

    On another note, Thadani also shared his thoughts on the impact of new TRAI tariff order on TV viewership saying that reaching onto any conclusion regarding this will be too early. He added, “The various scenarios are yet to play out and once there is clarity on the impact on TV distribution and viewership will we be able to take any calls on its impact on digital.”

  • Mindshare Fulcrum upgrades skillset for HUL’s integrated mandate

    Mindshare Fulcrum upgrades skillset for HUL’s integrated mandate

    MUMBAI: Handling the complete integrated media mandate for the largest advertiser in the country is surely something that most agencies aspire to achieve. Imagine the glory of WPP’s Mindshare Fulcrum  when it was awarded  the digital media mandate of Hindustan Unilever Ltd in August last year. From 1 January 2019, the agency has also become the integrated media buying partner for the company and has been working closely with HUL to leverage this in a mutually beneficial setup.

    As revealed by Mindshare India president, client leadership Amin Lakhani, the agency has been conducting intensive training programs for its teams at Mindshare Fulcrum for the past three months, equipping them with all the skillsets required to run a successful integrated media campaign. “Every person working at Fulcrum is going to contribute to this entire integrated media mandate. We did a mega talent program; right from acquiring specialists wherever we need one,” he said.

    Mindshare CEO South Asia, Africa, and MENA Prasanth Kumar added, “From the last 90 days, there has been a long, strenuous digital training, as well as, integrated training for our people is being organised. We have been looking at an integrated purpose and thus introduced a number of programs, intensified training, and brought in a perspective from HUL itself, along with best practices across the world. There has been a lot of learning we have taken from HUL. The team keeps a close look at all the activities we are taking up.”

    Mindshare Fulcrum senior vice president Premjeet Sodhi mentioned, “Right from the beginning, it was clear to us that whatever brand we are working with, we have to work in an integrated fashion. It was, in fact, the desire of the team. That was the outlook that we had and the whole training program had been designed according to that. We developed the digital aspect for the current team through rigorous training. That happened in two stages: first instilling a mindset into each employee that one can manage all parts of the media, and second developing the required skillsets, which was rather easier.”

    Highlighting the key aspects around which the training was scheduled, Amin noted the ever so important video, voice, and vernacular. He noted that it is not only digital that is at the core of Fulcrum’s future strategies towards HUL but the team is looking at providing the “best possible media solution” irrespective of the platform it will be put on.

    He added, “We followed bottoms-up approach, keeping the customer at the heart of everything. We decoded the consumer; we decoded the consumer behavior and patterns, and then developed the relevant skillsets. It was a phase of discovery for the whole team.”

    Speaking on HUL's perspective of the integrated planning, Unilever general manager- Media (South Asia) GauravJeet Singh said, “We are constantly looking at the key levers of what will drive our messaging rather than what will drive our business. First of all, we need to increasingly look at the effectiveness of media deployment. Secondly, data is becoming very critical. And with that happening, you need to have people who have deep skills in utilising this data effectively to drive brand growth.”

    Highlighting the changing paradigms of the media industry following events like demonetisation, GST, and the latest being the tariff regime, GauravJeet added, “The biggest learning for us has been that it is a highly evolving industry. You just can’t take things for granted in terms of media deployment. You need to be super agile, fine-tuning your efforts on a yearly and monthly basis. Every single medium is important to grow. Also, the consumer is evolving. We, at HUL, have quarterly been changing our parameters based on readings of what the consumer behaviour is at a particular moment of time and how it is changing.”

  • WATConsult focusses on purpose-driven marketing

    WATConsult focusses on purpose-driven marketing

    MUMBAI: When Rajiv Dingra started with WATConsult, which is today one of the prime agencies in India, digital media was nothing but a bud in the nascent stage that could very well have been nipped if not given the right ingredients to bloom. To give context, in his own words, social media giant Facebook was still available only for university students having a ‘.edu’ id, YouTube was even younger, and Instagram was not even born.

    It was the year 2007 and a certain marketing manager of a well-known bank, which Dingra refrains from naming, had looked the man straight into the eyes to say, ‘I don’t think digital media is going to be a big thing in the future'. Flash forward 12 years ahead, digital media is not only a ‘big thing’ but a substantial part of each brand’s marketing mix. And WATConsult has been one of the prime players to not only contribute to but also smartly leverage its massive success. The agency, which is a part of the well-known Dentsu Aegis Network, won several international accolades last year including a Grand Prix at the Prague International Festival, and a shortlist at Cannes Lions. The agency celebrates its 12-year anniversary on 10 January and Dingra looks all set to conquer the coming years in a grander way.

    Sitting in his comfortable cabin that has a wooden chess board placed right across his table and some cool action figures lining up the space behind that, Dingra comes across as a man who knows what he's up against. His eyes have a certain charm and glint, which speak volumes for his amiable personality. He is happy when he speaks about his and WATConsult’s success and has passion brimming in his words as he reflects on the way ahead.

    “These 12 years have been a long-winding journey. In fact, in hindsight we did not think that it will take this long for digital media to come where it is today (smiles). But we are glad that it has reached where it has in these 12 years,” says Dingra recounting WATConsult’s steps in the industry. “I think in our initial years in the industry, from 2007 to 2011, we were focused on being a social media specialist agency. In the next three years we transformed into a full-service digital agency. From 2015 onwards, we have invested into a lot of technology, data, and ORM. This prowess has only been increased from then."

    He adds, “I think, the last year has been our biggest high, as we finally broken the glass ceiling. Our work has been noticed worldwide. As a digital agency very few, in fact, none in India can boast about the sort of achievements that we got in 2018. I believe nobody has been awarded, in the same year, a London International Award, a Prague International Award, and a nomination at Cannes. It’s a very illustrious list.”

    WATConsult surely had a stupendous 2018, but unlike many would believe, it wasn’t a fluke or something that just happened overnight. Dingra and his team had been working towards it since the past three years at least. He shares, “We have been investing in creative trainings for our team and upgrading them to suit the needs of all media, be it mobile, e-commerce, technology, or video. We have also been increasing our staff strength and are now a strong family of 377 members. It not only makes us the largest digital media agency within DAN network but also one of the larger agencies in the country.”

    The agency also bagged some big clients like Riso and Domino’s. “We worked across several different aspects of digital right from e-commerce to mobile, to technology-enabled work and a lot of video content. We must have made at least 150 digital films, which were more than a minute long. We saw a growth of 30 to 35 per cent. That’s what kept us in good step as an agency, he says.

    And obviously the laurels followed. On being asked if the agency is working towards winning awards only or is also seeking creative satisfaction, he says that awards can’t come without a person actually being satisfied with one’s work. “In fact, it is important to emphasise that how difficult it is to win at international platforms. It is extremely difficult to even reach to that level and compete. It requires great focus and great effort, which goes beyond your regular campaigns, to create something that wins there. It means you not only have to be satisfied with what you have done but you have to feel that you have done something pathbreaking,” Dingra quips.

    He adds, “You do not participate in such competitions for the sake of vanity. It has unimaginable positive impact beyond just getting fame or new businesses. The biggest impact is on internal team members who suddenly start to push the bar and work harder towards innovating new content.”

    Highlighting what remains the prime focus for him and his team while working on such campaigns, Dingra shares, “At the international award shows ‘impact’ always performs better. Be it impact on society or people; things that improve the behaviour of people and change lives for better perform better. They might look purpose-driven on the outside, but inside they just highlight what the brand’s purpose is.”

    He revealed that at WATConsult their aim is to involve the brands in the creative purpose. "We are creating campaigns that are around experience and technology. For us it is not performance-driven but purpose-driven marketing," he says excitedly.

    WATConsult has had a fabulous upward growth trajectory till now and digital media is growing in parallel. That means the competition is increasing and so is the trust of brands on such agencies. Dingra himself shares that in the coming two years, digital will amount to one-fourth of the total ad-spends made by any brand. So, how is he planning to maintain the stead?

    “I think 2019 is going to be a key year for us. We want to push further on the path that we are already on, which is the path of creative excellence. We don’t want 2018 to be a one-off year here we performed good at the global awards. We definitely want to up that benchmark in 2019. We believe that we are going to do a lot of interesting work in form of good video content and reach age social platforms—leveraging gaming platform like PubG, or video platform Tik Tok. We will experiment with new platforms, new technologies, and in general a new way of communicating on digital media,” Dingra mentions.

    Dingra is certainly proud of WATConsult’s illustrious journey and is looking forward to an amazing year and beyond.

  • Dentsu Webchutney with UN Women launch #DrawALine campaign

    Dentsu Webchutney with UN Women launch #DrawALine campaign

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Webchutney, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has announced its partnership with UN Women with its new campaign #DrawALine through a short film ‘Lakeer’ that takes the viewers through a series of traumatic events in the life of a woman living in rural India. The campaign is aimed at raising awareness about the gender violence that goes unnoticed and spreading a message in a very clear yet powerful manner.

    UN Women programme analyst Salina Wilson said, “This is a short film we made with all our hearts – a cloud of despair, lined with the ray of hope that women, children, and just as importantly, men across the world, will find the courage to listen and speak about gender violence.” 

    Highlighting the idea behind the campaign, Dentsu Webchutney said, “Gender violence is a harsh reality that we can no longer ignore, and there will never be a better time to speak up, than now. The issue has been plaguing our society for way too long, and despite the country’s rapid rate of development, stories of domestic violence and physical abuse are repeatedly witnessed across different facets of society – be it urban or rural, high net income or below poverty line households.”

    Dentsu Webchutney chief creative officer and co-founder Sudesh Samaria added, “Violence against women and girls is something we all need to overcome, and as responsible individuals, it is time we come together to #DrawALine once and for all. Despite the film’s harsh visuals and narrative, we felt that this is a story that needs to be told."

    Dentsu Webchutney executive vice president Anil Kumar said, “This campaign aims at creating something simple, yet audio-visually powerful that stays with the people. As a cause, it is one we adamantly stand for, and we truly relished the opportunity to work with UN Women, and support the mission in the best way we can.”

  • Langoor partners The Younion

    Langoor partners The Younion

    MUMBAI: Langoor, a full-service digital-first agency, and marketing company The Younion have announced a strategic partnership to help blue chip brands consolidate and strengthen their positions in India.

    With this partnership, Langoor and The Younion have invested to create a focussed offering for organisations who are trying to win in India – by means of traditional and digital marketing, using data.

    Speaking on this partnership, Langoor CEO Venugopal Ganganna said, “This partnership comes as a breakthrough in the industry when so much is being spoken about the amalgamation of traditional and digital marketing. Over the last decade, the team at The Younion has been rightly using data to create direct marketing experiences for products/services of blue-chip companies. This union aims to enhance those experiences by the consolidation of digital marketing with traditional.”

    The Younion Founder-CEO Shajesh Menon stated “The world of marketing, especially the B2B landscape is going through a paradigm shift in attitude and approach. Engagements have moved from mere tactics to a more integrated, purposeful and comprehensive framework. This announcement comes at a juncture when brands are seeking partnerships not just for delivery, but for strategic and objective goals. Langoor’s stellar track record and their proven service capabilities tie in perfectly with the core fabric of The Younion. It was a matter of time for two like-minded and customer-centric organizations to come together, and lend a holistic marketing edge to brands. This exciting arrangement will feed over respective sensibilities and differentiators. Importantly, this partnership is designed to bring the amalgamated best of all platforms to the centre.”

  • Isobar launches India’s first ever UGC-led Voice Mobile Banner

    Isobar launches India’s first ever UGC-led Voice Mobile Banner

    MUMBAI: Isobar India, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has partnered with Forevermark Diamonds to launch India’s first User Generated Content led Voice Mobile Banner. The banner has been created to initiate the Forevermark ‘Half Carat Diamond’ campaign under the theme – ‘The Better Half Within Me’, a film that portrays women protagonists pursuing their dreams and passions.

    As per Isobar, the campaign is based on the insight that women generally tend to keep their passions to themselves even as they continue to focus more on their family needs. Hence, through this campaign, the brand intends to give its users a unique platform to share their hobbies and talents through an immersive experience. 

    For that Isobar has created an interactive banner across relevant apps used by women, which focus on areas like cooking, fitness, beauty, lifestyle, amongst others. Women are asked to engage with the banner by speaking about their passion into their mobile microphones and then led to the final frame with Forevermark’s video and a customised message containing the keyed-in passion. The results can be shared via WhatsApp and Facebook.

    Isobar India executive vice president Shekhar Mhaskar said, “The innovation resonates aptly with the brand’s message of celebrating the better half within a woman. Literally and figuratively, this mobile innovation gives women a platform to [voice] their passions and have them heard. We would love to take this thought forward with Forevermark to drive a movement for women where they can make their passions come alive.”

    Isobar India senior director mobile Priyanka Shah said, “Voice is clearly the future. As per a report by Mind Mold and Statistica, we will witness 200 billion voice searches per month by 2020 and there will be 1.83 billion consumers worldwide using AI voice assistants by 2021. Hence we thought of an idea that could deliver the creative message by tactically using the voice platform. The campaign idea brought forward the beautiful concept of embracing your ‘better half’, which lies within you, by prompting the user to voice out their passions. It’s a small step towards Voice revolution and the response rates have made this innovation a stronger case study for deeper future engagements.”

    Forevermark India marketing director Toranj Mehta said, “The Forevermark Half Carat campaign is based on the insight that women, whilst taking care of their family, like to pursue their own passions and follow their dreams. We are encouraging women to let this half of theirs shine. This innovation fits the objective perfectly and allows women to voice out their passions. The numbers we have seen from this innovation are very encouraging and we will look at more such voice activated units in the future.”

    Isobar has also revealed that of the 22,000 women engaged with the communication, 71 per cent were open to sharing their passion points with the brand. The overall campaign reach until now is more than 1 million, with an engagement rate of over 2 per cent.

  • iProspect India launches initiative to empower women

    iProspect India launches initiative to empower women

    MUMBAI: iProspect India, the digital performance agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has announced its Women@iProspect initiative that will focus on safety, gender diversity, and leadership for its female employees. The initiative is a part of its Women@Dan programme.

    Women@iProspect will see women leaders discuss issues affecting women at work, challenges faced, how to create a work-life balance among others. The initiative, a regular feature every quarter, will be led by iProspect India CEO Rubeena Singh.

    The initiative comprises four parts including a women’s network wherein the employees will exchange ideas on how they can grow in their career; a connecting minds initiative that will help the females in the company get an external POV from a successful women leader from other industry or company through an interactive session; a therapy day on which women can (anonymously) talk to a counsellor/therapist on how to create a successful work-life balance and regarding other issues impacting their personal and professional growth; and identify the mentor initiative through which the senior leadership team will identify 2-3 women employees and put them on a fast-track mode wherein they will be mentored for a year to reach the next level in their career graph.

    Talking about the initiative, Singh said, “iProspect has always believed in enriching and helping its employees grow. Through this initiative, we want to empower diversity as well as help women reach senior roles with much more confidence. It is sad to see that while women form almost half of India’s population, their representation at workforce is very little and it further shrinks at senior levels. At iProspect, we want to change that.”

    The first session, held on 10 December 2018, saw ICICI Bank’s deputy general manager – marketing and communications Azmat Habibulla share her story. “It is a great initiative undertaken by iProspect and I believe we need such initiatives across boards to help women rise to become leaders of tomorrow. At ICICI too have various initiatives to help women employees overcome challenges that many of them face at certain life stages.”  

    The company believes in equal opportunities for all and hence, the initiative, titled Women@iProspect, will even see men participating.

  • Madison’s Hiveminds wins Google Premier Partner Awards 2018

    Madison’s Hiveminds wins Google Premier Partner Awards 2018

    MUMBAI: Hiveminds, the newly acquired search specialist, digital agency of Madison World, has announced that it has won the Search Innovation Award for its work on Curefit, at the second edition of the Google Premier Partner Awards 2018, India.

    Hiveminds founder and CEO Jyothirmayee JT said, “HiveMinds is arguably one of the strongest performance marketing agencies out of India. Winning this award from Google in the core category of search innovation is very encouraging for us. What's more special, is the award was for our work with another ambitious startup, growing multifold every month and are destined to be an industry leader like many of our clients whom we have engaged at an early stage.”

    The Google Premier Partner Awards honours innovation in digital marketing across search, mobile, video, display, shopping, and growing businesses online. Google Premier partner awards in search innovation is awarded for expertise and innovation with Google search ads. Examples include creative uses of auto-bidding or optimising beyond the last click to help clients achieve their goals online. Out of 300+ Google Premier Partners in India, only six agencies were shortlisted for the award.