ITV

Category: Digital Agencies

  • Isobar wins website production mandate for IndiaFirst Life Insurance

    Isobar wins website production mandate for IndiaFirst Life Insurance

    MUMBAI: IndiaFirst Life Insurance has roped in Dentsu Aegis Network’s full service digital agency Isobar India to lead the revamp of their website indiafirstlife.com. Isobar bagged the digital mandate for IndiaFirst Life Insurance in a multi-agency pitch. 

     

    IndiaFirst Life Insurance chief marketing officer Mohit Rochlani said, “At IndiaFirst Life Insurance, we always try and keep customers ‘first’ in everything we do.The revamp of our existing website is part of our endeavour to help our consumers make an informed decision.”

     

    Isobar India managing director Shamsuddin Jasani added, “IndiaFirst Life Insurance is on the verge of revamping their online presence, and that too in a big way. It is always exciting to be associated with a project of this magnitude. I’m sure it’s going to be a mutually enriching experience and we’re looking forward to cementing a long term relationship.”

     

    IndiaFirst life Insurance is a joint venture between two of India’s public sector banks – Bank of Baroda (44 per cent) and Andhra Bank (30 per cent), and UK’s financial and investment company Legal & General (26 per cent).

  • Asia Pacific Digital unites its 5 digital firms under one brand

    Asia Pacific Digital unites its 5 digital firms under one brand

    MUMBAI: Asia Pacific Digital (APD) has united its five independent digital services subsidiaries across 10 offices in eight countries under the APD brand, forming an integrated 360-degree digital services firm that delivers growth to more than 1,000 clients.

     

    Asia Pacific Digital chairman Roger Sharp said, “We asked our stakeholders across the region what they want from a digital partner. The overwhelming response was that clients seek a partner who can simplify the digital landscape, who can see the whole picture rather than just a view of a single silo, and one who is accountable and transparent. That’s why today we are launching APD.”

     

    The new company is organised into four divisions, each representing specialist subject matter expertise: APD Interact (formerly Next Digital and @ccomplice) creating interactive customer experiences, APD Acquire (formerly dgm and Empowered) attracting and retaining customers via performance-based channels, APD Engage (formerly Jericho) engaging customers through sophisticated communication strategies and technology platforms, and APD Venture (formerly eCommerce) investing in risk and reward sharing eCommerce partnerships.

     

    As a unified brand with a focus on increasing customer value for clients, APD will be able to deliver its expertise uniformly across the region through its strong local relationships and capabilities. APD has established scale operations in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and the Peoples Republic of China, and is planning to build its presence in Indonesia. 

     

    Clients include Bayer, Budget, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Ecco, Expedia, Fonterra, Ford, GSK, Lend Lease, Lenovo, Maxis, Nestle, Panasonic, Qantas, Toshiba, Tumblr and Village Roadshow.

     

    Sharp added, “While our team spans different disciplines and geographies, we all hold the same values: collaboration, transparency, innovation and constant improvement. We aim to deliver complex solutions to our clients with simplicity, clarity and meaningful measurement.”

     

    Newton Smith has been appointed COO in addition to his role as CEO of APD Interact, while Peter Hynd has been appointed chief commercial officer. Shaun McNamara is CEO of APD Acquire, Paula Harrison is CEO of APD Engage and Sean Toohey is head of APD Venture, the group’s venture arm.

  • Culture Machine launches Intelligence Machine

    Culture Machine launches Intelligence Machine

    MUMBAI: Culture Machine, one of the fastest growing digital video networks in Asia, which has always stood by its promise of providing quality content backed by cutting edge technology, takes its commitment further with the launch of Intelligence Machine platform.

     

    Through its rich data driven insights, Intelligence Machine identifies the content recipe for brands and creators that resonates with their targeted audience and enables them to translate the insights into a reliable programming strategy. It indexes and analyzes over 1.5 billion videos across the digital universe on a daily basis.

     

    Commenting on the launch, Culture Machine CEO and co-founder Sameer Pitalwalla said, “Social Platforms are the new cable operators; YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all video platforms, and knowing what content to create, and to create that content at scale, across platforms, is at the heart of building a successful brand online. Intelligence Machine helps solve this problem and understand audiences and their taste preferences using cutting edge technology”.  

     

     “We at Culture Machine believe in the power of technology, which will be the key differentiator for success in the digital marketplace. Intelligence Machine provides unmatched insights on the best content type and format’s that resonates with the targeted audience for a given brand or product and enables the user to translate that insight into concrete actions. Think of it as a “moneyball” for content for brands & publishers”, added Culture Machine COO/CTO & co-founder Venkat Prasad.

     

    Intelligence Machine’s key features include:-

     

    ·         Identifying a brand’s share of voice across video platforms, in different geographies and online communities across earned and owned media.

     

    ·         Benchmarking the brand against its industry on digital media and giving them a recipe to improve its standing.

     

    ·         Discovering successful content formats for an audience segment in a given industry and topical trends in relation to them.

     

    Founded in 2013 by Sameer Pitalwalla and Venkat Prasad, Culture Machine is a Digital Media Company that creates entertainment for the Internet generation by combining cutting edge technology with great content.

     

    Culture Machine’s engineering team includes senior data scientists and some of the best software architects in the industry.

     

    Culture Machine has offices and studio facilities in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Chennai and is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Aleph Group, Singapore. 

  • WPP’s Data Alliance partners Facebook to activate data

    WPP’s Data Alliance partners Facebook to activate data

    MUMBAI: WPP’s Data Alliance and Facebook have deepened a global partnership giving marketers access to new data-driven solutions that deliver personalization at scale on Facebook. This multi-year partnership is centered on bringing new audience building and measurement tools to market.

     

    For the first time, marketers can activate WPP’s proprietary data assets within Facebook. Data assets from GroupM, Kantar and Wunderman’s KBM Group will be connected and activated on Facebook, in a way that respects consumer privacy. WPP’s marketers, planners and buyers will have access to unique combinations of WPP and Facebook data assets, enhanced insights, and new audience building solutions. This will help WPP clients effectively create campaigns across all Facebook ad formats, including video, photo, and link ads on both mobile and desktop. Enabling tools that let marketers reach real people across all devices allows marketers to more effectively draw connections between online marketing and real business outcomes.

     

    WPP companies will also work with Facebook to pilot new data-driven solutions to better measure effectiveness with online and offline sales impact in multiple countries, enhance mix modeling and deepen Facebook Insights.

     

    Lastly, there will be joint research and thought leadership on new metrics, services and solutions that help brands better leverage Facebook to reach consumers.

     

    “We gather insights on millions of consumers each year on what people buy and why, including product assortment, retail strategy, brand health, copy testing, campaign effectiveness, media measurement, earned media monitoring and purchase data. Now we can leverage those learnings for our clients and make them actionable on Facebook,” said Kantar CEO Eric Salama.

     

     

    “Facebook and WPP companies work well together. It was only natural we would want to find more ways to work smarter together. As strategic partners, we want to bridge the measurement gap for brands and help clients develop more meaningful relationships with consumers. This partnership allows us to do that through collaboration, innovation and data activation,” said GroupM chief data officer Harvey Goldhersz.

     

    “KBM Group cultivates data that allows marketers to paint rich pictures of consumers. Of equal importance is helping brands interact with consumers in ways that will delight the consumer. This partnership with Facebook provides a very meaningful way to help clients connect with consumers in highly-relevant ways, even in emerging markets,” said KBM Group CEO Gary S. Laben and Wunderman global chief data officer.

     

    “We are committed to deepening our partnerships with the agency ecosystem across technology, media, and data. This global data partnership lays the foundation to provide WPP clients choice in the data they use for media solutions and the proper tools to effectively measure tangible business results on Facebook,” added Facebook director, global agency development Patrick Harris.

  • psLive records 50 per cent growth in clientele from Jan – Mar

    psLive records 50 per cent growth in clientele from Jan – Mar

    MUMBAI: Perception has it that when it comes to India, traditional media platforms still rule the roost. Consequently, be it television or print (the biggest chunk in the traditional media slab), traditional continues to take away the greatest slice from the advertisers’ marketing budget pie.

     

    Now, even as the above theory stands to be true, there is a steady change taking place in the advertiser’s budget room.

     

    psLive, the experiential marketing division from the Dentsu Aegis Network, has bagged as many as 52 clients in the past three months (January-March). These include brands such as Microsoft, Mahindra Insurance Brokers, Reebok, Philips, Nestle, Samsung, Reliance Digital, Brick Eagle – Housing Finance Company, Bausch&Lomb, Nvidia, Ranbaxy, TVS, Pan Parag and Cyberpark.

       

    Interestingly, the wins tend to also suggest a unique swing wherein brands that otherwise would not look at spending on non-traditional media are changing course.

     

    An apt example of this would be Mother Dairy, a traditional media spender, which associated with the Bollywood movie Kick and Mary Kom through in-film integrations that instantly connect it with its target consumers. The integration also gave the brand a bigger shelf life and higher recall value.

     

    For psLive, the new wins have fuelled as much as a 50 per cent growth in the agency’s client kitty when compared to what it had held in the previous three months (October-December). Consequently, with these new additions, psLive now boasts of more than 200 clients.

     

    Some of the new clients that have come on board are Meiji, Century Ply, JSW, SCA, Reliance Digital, Anchor, Mother Dairy, Future Lifestyle Fashion, Reebok, Philips, SC Johnson, Logitech, Bayer Crop Science, Nestle and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India. The clients primarily sought/seek services in activations, branded entertainment and sports marketing, rural marketing and public relations. Herein, the attempt is to offer clients smart solutions that go beyond the common media usage and stay relevant to the consumers for a longer time period.

     

    psLive vice president Sidharth Ghosh said, “There is an interesting shift happening in the advertiser’s preference when it comes to traditional media (including digital) versus non-traditional media usage. Until five years ago, the non-traditional media platforms that included event, outdoor and activation wasn’t that huge and remarkable. However now, the category has been steadily witnessing substantial growth.”

     

    For the record, an Ernst & Young report published by Event & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), estimates that the BTL industry is growing at a rate of 25-30 per cent year on year.

     

    “The sector is rapidly attracting more advertisers on board to bring forth exponential growth in the next 10 years. Advertisers are constantly seeking effective ROI. Simultaneously, they are also discovering that their non-traditional media expenditure is helping them reach out to consumers with greater impact at much lesser costs. Now as this discovery continues, the platform’s appeal in the advertiser’s media plan is only expected to further thicken with time,” added Ghosh.

     

    “Experiential marketing is perhaps the fastest growing part of the off-line business of any agency. Activation is growing at twice the rate of traditional (ATL) advertising. psLive has found the right area of operation in activation, branded entertainment/sports and rural marketing to provide our clients with integrated marketing solutions like no one else can,” said Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO, South Asia Ashish Bhasin.

     

  • Tonic Media bags digital media duties of ItzCash

    Tonic Media bags digital media duties of ItzCash

    MUMBAI: Independent digital marketing solutions Tonic Media has added another client to its roster of brands as it won the digital media duties of holistic payments solutions company, ItzCash.

     

    The mandate comprises managing the company’s presence on digital and social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Website Management and SEO. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch.

     

    “This win establishes our foothold in the e-solutions industry and also creatively challenges us to work towards building the brand. As a digital partner, it will be our aim to create strong brand equity for ItzCash in the online space and promote the unique product features of ItzCash. With a robust integrated digital strategy, we have great aspirations for this brand,” said Tonic Media co-founder Chetan Asher.

     

    ITZ Cash Cards VP head of marketing and corporate communications Mudit Bhatnagar added, “ItzCash has been a pioneer in payment solutions in the country using electronic and digital platforms and has been continuously innovating to offer its customers, products and services in the most convenient and seamless manner. Our association with Tonic Media would strengthen our digital initiatives and take them to the next level.”

     

    Tonic will work towards creating and executing content revolving around the central belief of the company of delivering robust technology-driven service and delivery platforms to provide world-class prepaid payment solutions for the future. It will also create product-specific content for their unique offerings under the payment solution category in order to utilize the ever-growing populace of the digital space.

  • Brands enhance ROI with TO THE NEW Digital’s Social Media Analytics

    Brands enhance ROI with TO THE NEW Digital’s Social Media Analytics

    MUMBAI: The ICC Cricket World Cup has been the most talked about event on digital platforms recently, with most official broadcasters providing live online and mobile streaming and users consuming digital content on the go.

     

    TO THE NEW Digital, a Social, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Knowledge (SMACK) player and an internet solutions company across Asia, has derived Social Media Analytics on trends and real time conversation taking place amongst users across all social media channels.

     

    One of the key aspects tracked by them is: how brands have used different social media channels to capitalize on this World Cup. For millennial population, who are born in the 21st century, the social media has emerged as the most preferred channel to consume cricket content and therefore brands leveraged this event to a great extent.

     

    A lot of them have launched some innovative campaigns on social media channels, spent a lot on these campaigns and engaged many social users especially the millennial, but at the same time it is important for them to measure the impact of the Buzz about their brand.

     

    TO THE NEW Digital’s Social Media Impact Index served as an effective framework for brands to derive hardcore insights on their social media campaigns and suggestive future course of action. This innovative framework combines the insights from the number of social media mentions and impressions along with net sentiment to arrive at a holistic metric called Social Impact Index.

     

    For brands, unlike TRPs, it is not right to measure the effectiveness of social media campaigns on the basis of a single metric like total number of views of World Cup videos on YouTube channels, number of tweets, re-tweets, mentions and impressions generated. However, with the advent of Social Media Monitoring and Analytics, Social Media Sentiments have become an important metric to gauge the true reflection of how the audience reacts offline.

     

    On the basis of these analytics, TO THE NEW digital CEO Deepak Mittal gave his recommendation on social media strategies for brands. He said, “For brands who’ve managed to capture low media sentiments, should invest in Online Reputation Management exercise and brands who have got low Social Media Mentions should invest heavily in improving outreach by investing in Paid Social Media campaigns and seeding their content to relevant Target Groups. The Brands who haven’t received favourable response both on social mentions and social sentiment front should engage in Online Reputation Management exercise to improve their Net Sentiment as well as paid social media campaigns to improve their outreach. They can also think about evaluating their campaign further and move to a new positioning for their brand on social media front.”

  • Kohli, De Villiers, Gayle, Dhoni & McCullum are Top 5 batsmen on social media: TO THE NEW

    Kohli, De Villiers, Gayle, Dhoni & McCullum are Top 5 batsmen on social media: TO THE NEW

    MUMBAI: Off late the ICC Cricket World Cup has been the most talked about event on digital platforms, with most official broadcasters providing live online and mobile streaming and users consuming digital content on the go.

     

    For millennial population, who have been born in 21st century, social media has emerged as the most preferred channel to consume cricket content.

     

    According to TO THE NEW Digital’s holistic metric called Social Impact Index, the top five batsmen on social media have been Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, MS Dhoni, Chris Gayle and Brendan McCullum. 

     

    Kohli got 44 per cent of his positive mentions for his century against Pakistan on 15 February, 2015. His negative mentions saw another spike around 3 March, 2015 on his abusive remarks to the journalist. His Net Sentiment Score is +6 per cent, which would have been better if not for this incident. Kohli has lost his mentions mostly to the other performers in the batting lineup namely Shikhar Dhawan, who has won some hearts on social media with his mentions increasing 1,224 times on 22 February, 2015.

     

    About 56 per cent of the mentions can be owed to AB De Villiers’ fiery innings of 162 against West Indies on 27 February,  2015. De Villiers has the Highest Net Sentiment Score of +42 per cent amongst all the players till now in CWC15.

     

    Gayle’s stand out performance of the first ever Double ton in CWC15 was very well greeted by the social media audience. Gaylestorm received a whopping 78.56 per cent of his positive mentions for the innings on 24 February, 2015. Gayle has continued to impress his followers with his witty tweets and fierce batting attributing to a Net Sentiment score of +37 per cent.

     

    Dhoni has been Social Media’s favorite throughout CWC 15 and unlike others who received mentions basis their performances, Dhoni was the most talked about captain on the day of Cricket World Cup 2015 opening ceremony. Dhoni has also received good mentions during all the India matches and a Net Sentiment score of +8 per cent that can be attributed to his excellent captaincy throughout CWC15.

     

    McCullum has been the most impactful player in the tournament for New Zealand with his brief but thunderous contributions with the bat which is quite evident from his Net Sentiment score of +12 per cent.

  • Isobar bags digital mandate for Barbeque Nation

    Isobar bags digital mandate for Barbeque Nation

    MUMBAI: Barbeque Nation has roped in Isobar, Dentsu Aegis Network’s full service digital agency, to reach out to the active and fast growing social communities in India with skilful communication strategies.

     

    This partnership is in line with the restaurant chain’s ethos that stresses on innovation and creativity to satiate food lovers in India, who are becoming more adventurous and yet love traditional fare.

    Barbeque Nation hospitality head – marketing Vikram Vikas Varma said, “New media is going to play a key role to build the Barbeque Nation brand, increase supporter base and deepen engagement. We are confident that with Isobar partnering us, we will be successful in increasing brand relevance and stature.”

     

    Isobar India managing director Shamsuddin Jasani added, “We’re privileged to work with Barbeque Nation India. This win is a testament to the fact that we strive to provide innovative solutions to our clients. It enhances our credentials as the leading full service digital agency in India.”

  • Triton launches digital agency – Digimo; Rohit Kaul to head

    Triton launches digital agency – Digimo; Rohit Kaul to head

    MUMBAI: With interactive and digital technologies fast becoming an integral mix of marketing communication, Triton Communications has launched its digital agency Digimo. 

     

    Contrary to existing practices, the planning teams of both digital and mainline will co-author the brand and communication strategy from inception. This approach will help clients reach their TG with the optimum mix of their content consumption platforms. Whilst the brand proposition is broadcasted via mainline. A return path on digital will ensure consumer interactivity in a bi-directional mode on various digital and mobile platforms. Thereby enabling marketers maximize their ROI.

     

    Triton India has appointed Rohit Kaul as a CEO, to head their 360 degree equipped digital mobile arm Digimo. Kaul moves in from Mobilox Innovations, where he spent the last three years as COO. Prior to Mobilox, he worked in leadership positions across Netcore Solutions, HT Media, Star India and Zee Television.

     

    Triton director Ali Merchant said, “The continued, symbiotic evolution of technology and consumer expectations is fuelling on-demand marketing. Hence digital marketing is entering more unchartered and challenging territories. And with digital marketing becoming integral to our clients’ marketing mix, we decided to enter this domain not with a baby step but with a giant leap. I welcome Rohit on board and am sure given his overall rich multimedia experience of being a business leader, especially on digital, Rohit will make this venture a great success.”

     

    Kaul added, “The industry and era that we are in respects innovation and not tradition. This is a critical time to be digital plus and provide optimum solutions to marketers’ for maximum ROI. As technology evolves, we will have to be a step ahead with distinctive solutions to our clients. Digimo will ensure holistic digital and mobile strategy solutions to enable brands connect with consumers in their respective digital worlds.”