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Category: Media Agencies

  • Global TV advertising to decline by 17.6% in 2020: GroupM mid-year forecast

    Global TV advertising to decline by 17.6% in 2020: GroupM mid-year forecast

    NEW DELHI:  Several mid-size or larger markets are expected to witness a decline of more than 20 per cent in the advertising economy this year, including India, Brazil, Spain, and the MENA region, reveals the GroupM TYNY Global Mid-Year Forecast. It adds that the global advertising economy will fall by 11.8 per cent, excluding the effects of increased political advertising in the US, a sharp decline from the 6.2 per cent growth rate of 2019. 

    The report further reads, “Including U.S. political advertising, we estimate global advertising will decline by 9.9 per cent in 2020. The median market should decline by more, or 12.2 per cent, which in part reflects that declines are less pronounced in the world’s top two advertising markets, the U.S. (expected to fall 7.5 per cent including political advertising) and China (expected to fall 2.8 per cent).” 

    The only multi-billion-dollar market, expecting growth this year, is Indonesia, where expectations are for 5.8 per cent growth. Argentina is the only other market expected to grow in nominal terms, although it should decline on an inflation-adjusted basis. 

    This decline can still be considered “modest” given the scale of the impact of the pandemic on global GDP, which will fall much more significantly than it did in the 2009 global financial crisis. In that year, when GDP declined by one per cent, GroupM estimates indicate that global advertising fell by 11.2 per cent.

    “However, we do see positive news on the horizon as we expect global advertising to grow in 2021 by double digits for half of the top 10 markets and by single digits for the other half,” the forecast highlights. 

    As per the findings, it is estimated that, in 2020, digital extensions of TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising should equate to $31 billion, or 13 per cent of total advertising activity. The figure is seven per cent up from $22 billion of five years ago.  

    Digital extensions are most pronounced in the outdoor sector, where they account for $9 billion this year, or 31 per cent  of the total outdoor sector’s activities. Digital extensions of traditional television equate to $12 billion this year, nine per cent of that medium’s total.

    Despite this, digital advertising is expected to decline by 2.3 per cent in 2020. This follows nearly a decade of double-digit growth, with many years exceeding 20 per cent at a global level.

    During 2020, digital advertising will have a 52 per cent share of media captured, up from 48 per cent in 2019 and 44 per cent in 2018. Share growth should abate somewhat going forward, adding one to two per cent each year. 

    “Our new estimates also break out search from non-search digital advertising, with search accounting for $109 billion in revenue during 2020, falling 2.6 per cent. Other forms of digital advertising that account for $172 billion (excluding digital extensions of traditional media) will fall by less, or 0.6 per cent this year,” pitches the report. 

    Additionally, television advertising is expected to decline by 17.6 per cent in 2020, ex-US political advertising, before rebounding slightly to grow 5.9 per cent next year.

    Digital extensions and related media, including advertising associated with traditional media owners’ streaming activities, as well as Hulu, Roku, etc., will fare much better, with growth of +3.7 per cent this year and +11.3 per cent the next year – around nine per cent of total TV spending this year.

    Also, OOH advertising is expected to decline by 25.0 per cent, including digital out-of-home media. A partial rebound with 14.9 per cent growth is expected the next year.

    The report notes, “Beyond 2021, we expect outdoor advertising to grow by low or mid-single digits and generally lose share of total advertising, although we do expect larger brands to generally increase their allocations of budgets to the medium.”

  • MSME sector under the yoke of COVID-19 lockdown; agencies bear the brunt

    MSME sector under the yoke of COVID-19 lockdown; agencies bear the brunt

    NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: India, just like the rest of the world, is staring at a bleak economic future on account of the nationwide lockdown caused by COVID-19. Already its GDP growth is at a decadal low. Adding to the cup of woes, productions are now being shut and many businesses are expecting a substantial dipping of numbers in their cash registers. The fear of an extension of the ongoing 21-day lockdown is making things worse.

    The MSME sector, which has been bearing the brunt of dipping demands for the past couple of quarters, has found itself in a dark spot.

    SBICap Securities institutional equity research head Rajiv Sharma notes that leveraged SMEs with outstanding debts will be vulnerable. Because of current projects getting delayed or cancelled, a payment crunch is expected.

    Sharma, however, notes that smaller agencies can be smarter to leverage the digital side. “Small agencies can still find some business on the digital side if they have made that transition,” he says. The recently-released BARC data shows that digital viewership is spurting because of the lockdown with the first week showing smartphone time spent up by 6.2 per cent.

    With its own prospects impacted, these businesses are pushing their agency partners over the edge as well. Many independent agencies have been complaining about delayed payments and closing of ongoing projects because of the lockdown, putting great pressure on their businesses.

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Chaudhary admits that business loss across the spectrum is inevitable, especially for services-based companies where manpower is low. He, too, is expecting at least two months worth of turnover loss, as the agency is experiencing a stretch in its payment cycles.

    Founder-director of Punjab-based OOH agency, Kanhiya Advertisers, Deepak Singla feels that business is almost shut these days. “All ongoing campaigns have been dropped with the announcement of the curfew and lockdown and payments have either been cancelled or delayed indefinitely,” he tells Indiantelevision.com.

    Singla says that he can’t calculate the loss right now, but is expecting that bigger problems will arise once the market reopens. “Lots of business houses will wipe out. Indian Outdoor Advertising Association is working on arranging a meeting with government officials regarding some relaxations as we don’t fall under the purview of any benefits announced by the finance minister,” he adds.

    CIDROY and Dronsena co-founder AMJ Ramaraju, who has been developing an AI-tech for billboards that can make OOH advertising similar to digital with targeting and counting of reach and impressions, says, “We were all set with the working prototype for showing demos and getting leads, but then things turned out not as we thought due to COVID-19.”

    He was in touch with many small agencies in Goa and pan-media aggregator The Media Ant as well, but with the current hiccup, he is now expecting a loss of Rs 2-3 lakh in March-April. If the situation continues, the month of May might see an additional loss of around Rs 8-10 lakh.

    Another freelancer and founder of a small-time agency in New Delhi, on condition of anonymity, admitted that many clients have stopped payments causing great stress on the business.

    Elaborating on the sales cycle, Sharma notes, “Every month contributes to eight to nine per cent of sales. This 21-day lockdown is about six to seven per cent of sales. If you are a seasonal business or a cyclical business, there will be a gradual loss. We are talking about at least 10 per cent revenue pressure.”  

    Reviewing the situation, Elara Capital VP – research analyst (media) Karan Taurani feels that smaller agencies might be shutting shops by the end of the lockdown.

    “The amount of support in the market, liquidity and advertising condition is very poor. So, the advertising industry is going to be highly competitive. The larger ones have the scale and they can definitely give a tough competition to smaller ones. Whenever there is a liquidity crunch and poor ad spend, the competition intensifies. You will see a smaller player having a more negative impact. So, there will be some small players with niche offerings who will survive but the larger portion will wind up,” points out Taurani.

    Sharma agrees with this viewpoint. “India may have one to two bad quarters, not more. If the lockdown extends, more businesses will collapse and that will lead to layoffs, direct and indirect,” he says grimly.

    There is one glimmer of hope though. “I don’t see any kind of layoff in the near term for at least the next three to six months. They will save other costs and protect employee interest,” says Taurani.

    Chaudhary supports the prediction as he notes, “If the situation improves by April end, most of the agencies with sound fundamentals will recover. However, if the lockdown goes beyond April we will be forced to downsize or cut costs.”

    SBICap’s Sharma is hopeful that the government will announce relief measures for SMEs in the coming days. With the government’s relief package for banks and EMI payments, it can serve as a temporary fix for agencies and employees.

    An extension of the lockdown might offer a big blow to the smaller agencies, which form the core of extensive regional and targeted marketing. Only time will tell, how will they fare in adversities, but they are expecting some government initiatives to rescue them.

  • Mindshare wins ‘Media Network of the Year’ award at Cannes 2019

    Mindshare wins ‘Media Network of the Year’ award at Cannes 2019

    MUMBAI: Mindshare, the media agency network and part of WPP, recently got awarded ‘Media Network of the Year’ at one of the most coveted festival of creativity, Cannes Lions 2019. The agency won a Silver in the Media Lions category for HUL Lifebuoy’s ‘Infection Alert System’ and a Bronze in the Creative Data Lions category for the same campaign.

    79 per cent of rural consumers use the basic ‘Feature Phone’ which has no internet connectivity. This medium has 6 times higher reach than any other medium in rural areas. The solution was to create a data-led Infection Alert System that would act as a lighthouse to alert the rural consumers when they were most vulnerable to fatal diseases. This was done by leveraging data and the reach of mobile phones in traditionally media dark geographies. Over 64 million Outbound Dialler (OBD) calls were made over a period of 8 weeks to warn the locals on the outbreak of a particular communicable disease in their area and the necessary preventive measures that should be taken.

    The Infection Alert System (IAS) also known as ‘Adaptive Data Lighthouse’ was created by Mindshare and used Government of India data on disease outbreaks which was collected from 34,000 rural community health centres across 822 sub-districts/villages of Uttar Pradesh & Bihar. The challenges with this data were that it was unstructured, maintained in paper-forms, in local languages with no metadata standards. Old paper records were digitised and then algorithms used to read and load data into a structured database of 21 communicable diseases. Historical disease incidence was modelled to arrive at predictive incidence rates at a village level, using time series models. If predicted severity of disease incidence for villages were above a certain threshold then warning calls would be activated for those villages only and not the entire state.

    The insight behind the campaign was that most Indians eat and feed food using their hands and wash hands without soap. This practice is rampant in rural areas in India which make them susceptible to various communicable diseases. Mindshare’s campaign is a bright example of purpose-driven marketing.  The driving force behind the Lifebuoy brand is an inspiring vision for more hygienic, healthier environment and to create vital communities which the campaign embodied. MA Parthasarathy (MAPS) said, “Reaching out to rural consumers has always been a challenge for brands. 70 per cent of Lifebuoy’s sales come from rural India. Building on Lifebuoy’s identity of being a purpose-driven brand, we utilised two of Mindshare’s core pillars- data and technology to create an innovation which made scalable difference. Awards like these motivate teams who were heavily invested in making this a success and also assure us that we are doing some great work.”

    “The Lifebuoy “Infection Alert System” brings together some really sharp brand insight with deep media expertise to deliver relevant messaging in a precise fashion to the target audience. The collaboration across various teams on the brand side, media agency and extended partners who helped us land this at a tremendous scale is truly noteworthy.  And, the impact along with the recognition is the true testimony of the power of the idea and the validation of the flawless execution by the teams. The Cannes wins make the winning streak of Lifebuoy “Infection Alert System” even more special.” said Hindustan Unilever Limited general manager – media (South Asia) Gaurav Jeet Singh.

    “It’s a proud moment for HUL and Mindshare on the recent Cannes Lions wins for the Lifebuoy Infection Alert System.  A fine realisation of data-driven marketing, the campaign made the best use of unstructured data on disease outbreaks and institutionalise an infection alert system in the hinterland. This warning system would alert consumers most at risk of life-threatening diseases through an automatic calling system. Being contextual to the prevalent disease in their village, consumer receptivity was high resulting in high recall,” commented Hindustan Unilever Limited executive director, beauty and personal care Sandeep Kohli.

    “It's been quite a journey putting this together and implementing it at scale. This award is a fantastic recognition of the effort that Mindshare, the media and brand teams have put in,” Kohli added.  

    “The purpose of our brand Lifebuoy, India’s largest selling soap, is to help millions of mothers stay one step ahead of infections so that their children fall sick less often. We were able to do this through ‘our infection alert system’, which has won at Cannes, by leveraging data and the reach of mobile phones in traditionally media dark geographies, to ensure we live our purpose.” commented Hindustan Unilever Limited vice president – marketing Harman Dhillon.

  • Dentsu Aegis Network Data Labs launches its own Blockchain Engine

    Dentsu Aegis Network Data Labs launches its own Blockchain Engine

    MUMBAI: As an industry-first move, the Data Sciences Division of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) India has announced the launch of its own ‘DDLCoin’ with an aim to power transactions on its flagship product, DAN Data Labs.

    Being an industry that is swift to adopt new technologies to scale operations and drive innovation, this ad tech ecosystem promotes and fortifies new technologies while offering its clients with holistic innovative solutions. With a team of data scientists, ethical hackers and martech experts, the Data Sciences Division of DAN powers its DDLCoin with blockchain.

    Commenting on the launch of the ‘DDLCoin’, Vivek Bhargava, CEO DAN Performance Group said, “Trust and transparency has become almost a necessity in the way we enter into contracts with our clients. The recent wave of distrust in the advertising ecosystem has provided many in the industry with sleepless nights. With the use of trust-building technologies like distributed ledgers – known as the blockchain, the ad tech industry has the unique opportunity to rebuild trust by creating a more transparent ecosystem for all. It gives me immense pride to be a part of a network that has the capability to service this modern need of clients and be pioneers in adopting this technology.”

    By mining and generating its own system of distributed ledgers on a blockchain, the DAN India Data Sciences Division will create an immutable store of every single transaction for every single user journey on its platform, DAN Data Labs. Through a gamified process, clients (both internal and external) will be presented with the opportunity to gain access to exclusive audience insights reports, conduct in-depth campaign audits and run competitive industry insights to strengthen their strategy and market position.

    Commenting on this new wave of change, Gautam Mehra, Chief Data Officer- South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network added, “DAN Data Labs has been known for being the industry gold standard in driving innovation in the way we plan and execute campaigns in the modern-day digital ecosystem. It has been our vision to provide a solution for whatever the need of our clients may be when it comes to data driven marketing. The product has been known to be swift to adapt to the changing environment by being constantly updated with the latest tech, advancements in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and now trust systems like the blockchain.”

    DAN Data Labs made headlines earlier this quarter for being the platform that made the Dentsu Aegis Network the first global agency group to be badged as Facebook Marketing Partner (Ad-Tech) for its sophisticated campaign planning and optimization engine.

  • ESP Properties: Sports and entertainment trends 2019

    ESP Properties: Sports and entertainment trends 2019

    MUMBAI: ESP Properties, GroupM’s sports and entertainment marketing agency announced its Top Sports and Entertainment Trends for 2019 on 26 February 2019.

    ESP Properties India business head Vinit Karnik said, “2019 will be a year for sports and entertainment. With Cricket on our minds for more than half the year, brands would want to revolve their game around the sport and the athletes. While e-sports is also becoming big, it has come a long way, and it is only expected to get bigger. With almost 20 per cent of share of spend expected in digital, ad spends in sports and entertainment marketing is expected to grow and evolve.”

    Cricket to dominate media and mind measures in 2019

    Cricket is in full swing in H1 2019 with Team India moving bases from Australia to New Zealand post the ODI series and following it up with hosting Australia in February to play ODI’s & T20’s. Then comes Vivo IPL and ICC Cricket World Cup, making Virat Kohli and his boys the talk of the town for the first six months in 2019 and literally monopolizing consumer eyeballs and advertising money. 2019 will break all records of cricket consumption on TV and Digital. With the ICC World Cup in England & Wales and considering our love for London, Indians will break all worldwide records of traveling overseas to watch sports and boost the sports tourism economy. With such a start to the year dominated by cricket, emerging leagues may have to reset themselves to make their presence felt and stay relevant.

    Embrace the athlete, embrace their stories

    One of the biggest marketing trends of this year is storytelling and we expect talent to unlock maximum value in 2019. Sporting landscape, led by cricket, will see the true value of talent beyond the top cricketers being unlocked. Audiences not only want to be taken on a journey, but they also want to connect with brands. Brands which can use Athlete and their storytelling power will garner massive interest from fans and advertisers owing to mass media exposure via TV and one-to-one engagement through social communities, rediscovering their true value. Federations and leagues will carefully evaluate talent contracts in terms of talent usage rights for self, sponsor activation and scope of the engagement. With social media becoming the primary engagement platform, the right balance between personal and public imagery will be most talked and debated in 2019. One can’t rule out a policy for talent on national duty for social media engagements and media appearances. This space will be super exciting in 2019, hence watch this space closely…

    Definition of ‘sellable’ content to be rejigged by newer monetization models

    Experimental content is facing challenges to release in large scale formats like cinemas. With newer digital platform and content taking center stage, storing telling will be redefined with a lot of experimentation and fresh feel. For example, content series like Lust Stories and Love, Per Square Foot has managed to harvest a completely new group of audience via digital only release. This trend is expected to continue with many more such content prices seeing a ray of hope to see the light of day.

    Broadcasting platforms to lean on data-driven insights and player access to engage and build fans

    While traditional broadcast passed on Gold Standards of Content from linear to non-linear platforms, best practices in Consumer Engagement will move from non-linear to linear platforms. For example, Watch ‘n’ Play on Hotstar during Vivo IPL 2018 has redefined Consumer Engagement norms for the traditional linear broadcaster(s) to follow. Moreover, increasing insistence on player access as a ‘Sponsorship Right’ in the sporting ecosystem is bound to blur lines of personal endorsements. With professional sporting ecosystem in India being over a decade old, advertisers have started looking at ‘Sponsorship’ as a one-stop solution to media exposure and talent access.

    Mobile Gaming to take center stage in the competitive CPU dominant Professional E-Sports World

    Globally, professional E-sport competitions are primarily held on a computer and consoles and mobiles take a backseat. In India, we’re witnessing a different trend where tournaments being held on the mobile, courtesy – PUBG on mobile with DAU of approx. 10mn+ which is more than any other game in the world across any platform is already giving gamers in India almost half the prize money of an E-Sports League India and this is only going to further grow. There will be so many more mobile E-Sport tournaments which will be seen in the coming future.

  • Valuepoint Systems announces its top management to accelerate its digital transformation solutions and services

    Valuepoint Systems announces its top management to accelerate its digital transformation solutions and services

    MUMBAI: Value Point Systems, one of South Asia's leading digital transformation catalysts, on Wednesday announced the strengthening of its leadership team as the company aims to realise its vision to lead the digital transformation space globally. Valuepoint Systems is a 28-year-old Systems Integrator and Managed Services Company with a rapid growth trajectory as it expands into new technologies and geographies. The company has appointed heads for its sales & marketing, digital, and cyber security verticals. With these appointments, the company has reaffirmed its commitment to be a leader in its space.

    Ashok Prabhu, Chief Executive – Sales and Marketing for Valuepoint Systems. Industry Veteran having an experience of over 28 Years and an accomplished business leader in the Cyber Security Industry takes over as the Chief Executive – Sales and Marketing for Valuepoint Systems. Prabhu has built businesses for 25+ years promoting almost every Cyber Security Product Company/OEMs who entered Indian Market. Known for his exceptional people leadership skills and domain knowledge in Cyber Security, Prabhu has created agile Sales organizations led by trusted client relationships. He will be responsible to drive strategic partnerships and alliances for Valuepoint Systems across Data Center Transformation, Network Transformation, Cyber Security & Risk Advisory, IMS, Digital Workplace, Cloud, BI & Analytics’ solution verticals. 

    Raj Reddy takes over as Chief Executive – Digital. Raj, a dynamic business leader in IT industry worked with Fortune100 customers with a razor-sharp focus on Enterprise Value Creation, drives Value Point’s vision of being a Digital Transformation catalyst in expanding its business globally through Cybersecurity, Cloud, Analytics, Product engineering and Digital Infra & Support services. Being trusted advisor to Customers, Raj orchestrates the fusion of innovative digital products, technologies, solutions and services for them to leverage the digital revolution tailored to different markets there by enhancing value to its Customers, Investors and employees. With his experience and prowess, he has earned the reputation of leading organizations into the Leadership Quadrant in Digital services winning accolades from Gartner, Nelson Hall and Forrester.

    Suresh Iyer, as the Chief Executive Officer of CyRAACS, A Value point company, responsible for accelerating growth, profitability and market share in Cyber Security Consulting and Advisory Services. 

    A thought leader who comes with over 25+ years of rich experience in Global corporates in capacity of CISO, building Risk Management and Privacy teams. Suresh has in-depth knowledge of Global regulatory and Client security landscape. He has been excelling at building high performance teams and believes in providing the best opportunities to employees.

    Murari Shanker, as the Co-Founder Chief Operating Officer of CyRAACS, comes with 25+ years of experience and will be responsible for day to day business operations and revenue. Murari, multi-disciplinary leader has strong consulting and advisory skills in mentoring project teams to achieve cost, time and providing high quality deliverables to clients. His unique ability to stich long term value creation with immediate actions & results has benefited several clients immensely.

    Commenting on the structuring, RS Shanbhag, Founder and CMD of Valuepoint Group said, “I wish everyone a great success in their respective roles. With this leadership team, we look to the future with renewed confidence. This is a planned structuring that will enable agile decision making, while also putting us on the path to developing more independent, yet collaborative teams. I am confident that this team will propel Valuepoint Systems' growth globally.” 

    Last year, Valuepoint Systems had announced the appointment of Sudhir Pai as the Director with the additional responsibility of Chief Financial Strategist to develop a sustainable financial model and restructure the organization to derive optimum value to investors in the long term. In January, the company had also announced the appointment of Phaneesh Murthy as an additional director on the board.

  • GroupM consolidates commercial data benchmarking with COMvergence

    GroupM consolidates commercial data benchmarking with COMvergence

    MUMBAI: GroupM, WPP’s global media investment group, has announced that it is consolidating the reporting and analysis of its commercial and business development data with COMvergence. COMvergence is an independent, international research company collecting and analysing data from the global marketing services groups, and the marketplace, to provide quarterly reports and more accurate benchmarks for the scale of media agencies’ client billings.

    GroupM has worked with COMvergence as a data source for more than three years, each year adding additional markets in a progressive push to consolidate its data reporting with the most accurate resource available. Per the terms of the new global agreement, COMvergence will ensure the accuracy of its methodologies and reporting with annual third-party auditing by an accredited auditing firm.

    Global chief growth officer Elizabeth McCune said, “COMvergence has taken an open approach to building its methodology and partnerships for data collection and tabulation, giving us the confidence that when we share data from their benchmark reports to clients and their pitch consultants, it is the most accurate and validated view of the size and scope of our business and competitive set across the globe. Our industry truly needs a focus on accuracy and transparency in this area.

    According to COMvergence’s most recent global billings and market share reports, GroupM is the number one media investment group for 2018, with $45 billion of cumulative billings and 28.8 percent market share (based on the total billings for the big 6 groups). In addition, three of GroupM’s agencies – Mindshare, Wavemaker and MediaCom – are in the top 10 rankings for global media agencies.

    Feeding COMvergence’s analysis and reports are data from independent, third-parties like Kantar and Nielsen, as well as other research firms, agency performance evaluation companies, and financial analysts. COMvergence also tracks and digests information from the most reliable and respected international and local trade press titles, as well as industry associations including the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As). These strategic alliances are critical to deliver unparalleled research products, market analysis and methodologies. COMvergence also conducts face-to-face meetings and proprietary surveys with CMOs and advertising and procurement directors from the top 100 international advertisers.

    COMvergence founder Olivier Gauthier said, “GroupM has been an extraordinary client partner. They, along with the major holding company media groups, have worked with COMvergence since our founding to develop accurate methodologies and a collection of local and global reports that provide true insight into agencies and their performance across the globe. COMvergence stands behind the veracity of our data, and we promise annual audits to provide our clients and the marketplace at-large with utmost confidence in our data and analysis.”

  • Movie Partnership PUBG – URI: The Surgical Strike

    Movie Partnership PUBG – URI: The Surgical Strike

    MUMBAI: Movie promotions broke new ground when URI: The Surgical Strike, produced by RSVP (Ronnie Screwvala Productions) Movies, became the first Indian movie to join hands with PUBG Mobile to launch a surgical strike on Pochinki, one of the largest and most popular towns in the game’s maps. The event, which was conceptualized and deployed by Publicis Entertainment, took place on 6 January 2019 with a large number of PUBG enthusiasts taking part.

    Talking about the decision for the tie-up with the game, Pashan Jal, Marketing Head RSVP, said “The movie and the game were a natural fit as both are based on teamwork, precision, survival skills, remote communication, and strategy. What’s more the game has players being airdropped into Pochinki, just like our para commandos who did the surgical strike. With Uri: The Surgical Strike being the first big release of 2019 and PUBG Mobile being one of the top games in the world, we thought this was a match made in entertainment heaven. We feel proud that it is the first Indian film to tie-up with the game.”

    Pranay Anthwal, Executive Director, Publicis Entertainment, said, “We have always tried to push the envelope when it comes to movie promotions. So, when RSVP movies gave us the brief for Uri, we knew that a regular installation or a fan-interaction activity won’t cut it. Our challenge was to dial up the surgical strike and the gameplay on PUBG was completely in sync with the action in the movie. And since millions already play the game, we thought of getting Vicky Kaushal, the lead of the movie, to play the game and talk us through the experience of making the movie.”

    Speaking about the activity, Saurabh Mankhand, Vice President & Business Lead of the Campaign said, “The brief was clear – dial up the mission and help fans experience a para commando’s journey during the strike. Through our research, we found out that PUBG Mobile was a platform that matched most of our requirements. The gameplay resembled a surgical strike – being airdropped into danger, strategizing survival, teamwork, combat style – and thus was a natural fit. To further amplify the activity, we got Vicky Kaushal to play the game live with the top gamers, and other players who were selected through a contest. 

  • Pankaj Vasani wins ICAI’s “chief financial officer of the year” award 2018

    Pankaj Vasani wins ICAI’s “chief financial officer of the year” award 2018

    MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe’s Executive President & CFO, South Asia, Pankaj Vasani, has been awarded “CA CFO of the Year in the Media & Entertainment Sector” by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) at the 12th ICAI’s Leaders & Business Excellence Awards held in Mumbai on 19 January.

    Pankaj received his award from Shri. Vijay Goel, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for parliamentary Affairs, CA. Naveen Gupta – President ICAI, CA, Dhiraj K. Khandelwal – Chairman Committee for Members in Industry & Business, and other key officer bearers of ICAI.

    The awards instituted by ICAI acknowledges the Chartered Accountants (CAs) in the industry who have demonstrated excellence in the way they conduct their profession, are exemplary role models in the industry, have created value to their company's stakeholders on a sustainable basis and are outstanding contributors to the society.

    On receiving the award, Pankaj said, “I'm truly and honestly thrilled to be here today, and sincerely grateful to the entire jury for the unique distinction. I might have done well at my job, but this recognition accorded by the Institute, which I greatly appreciate and accept with all humility and deep gratitude, comes in consequence of a lot of other people's work. I, therefore, accept this award on behalf of my family and friends for always being there and encouraging me, my mentors for believing in me and all my colleagues who I’ve worked in the past and work with at the Publicis Groupe, who made this moment, happen. This award is a compliment, an inspiration and cognisance that I'm on my journey to become a better professional, and a person of greater social significance.”

    The prestigious ICAI awards are given in various categories (i) CA Business Achiever (Chairman/CEO) (ii) CA Chief Financial Officer and (iii) CA Professional Achiever. The top five nominations in each category are short listed by the Nomination Committee, which then sends it to the Jury for final selection. The Jury consisting of eminent personalities from the Indian Industry, leading businessmen, representative of national trade bodies, regulators, academicians, heads of universities, past presidents of ICAI and other well-known personalities, then decides on the final winner of the awards. This year’s distinguished Jury was chaired by Shri Keki Mistry, Vice Chairman and CEO, HDFC. 

    The winners were chosen from various industries such as manufacturing sector, financial sector, services sector, information technology, media and entertainment sector, telecom sector, healthcare sector, public sector, infrastructure and construction.

  • MMA releases ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018

    MMA releases ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018

    MUMBAI: Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) along with media investment group GroupM has released the its ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018 highlighting an in-depth analysis of India’s mobile reach, smartphone penetration, rural and urban usage pattern, with an emphasis on gaming, and mobile advertising spends. Advocated by GroupM, the report is a collaborative effort by the marketing and mobile industry.

    The report offers an insight into how India is moving towards a new era of mobile marketing, seeing rampant growth in both usages and spends. It explores how programmatic works along with updates on the latest trends in data growth, content play, and device status. The report also reveals that Xiaomi became the most shipped smartphone, the first time any smartphone crossing Samsung in the last five years.

    The report highlights the ‘mammoth growth’ of Jio, which is now 18 per cent of the total market and has added more than 200 million users to the mobile ecosystem. It also states that rural India is bringing online three times more people than urban areas. “India will cross 500 million mobile internet users by the end of 2018, we foresee that this growth will be led by the rural populace,” it adds.

    It mentions that India is in the top three countries in programmatic spends growth with the spends growth of 81 per cent in the past year. Programmatic adoption in the country is growing; standing at 32 per cent right now and poised to grow to 52 per cent in the next 24 months. The propensity for programmatic guaranteed increasing in India – penetration to grow from 6 per cent to 17 per cent by 2020.

    Talking about the key verticals in mobile advertising, the report states that gaming, vernacular, OTT video, and OTT audio are leading the segment. “Mobile gaming in India is dominated by freemium games. 2016 saw a 200 per cent increase in gaming app revenue, which will grow at a CAGR of 87 per cent till 2020, crossing the $1 billion mark,” it reveals.

    The report claims that vernacular language users in India will grow 12 times by 2021. “In the next five years chat application, government sites, and digital payments will lead to more vernacular content consumers online,” it mentions.  

    The report further mentions that on-demand video platforms have crossed 100 million users in India with Hotstar leading the market. The user growth on these platforms has got maximum traction from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

    MMA Asia Pacific managing director Rohit Dadwal said, “Mobile Marketing is now a main stream advertising and marketing medium and it is imperative that we start to decipher the various parts of this burgeoning media. We hope the ecosystem study would provide insights to marketers and the industry on the whole on the opportunity and will help in making the right investments for its continuing growth.”

    GroupM CEO and Mobile Marketing Association India co-chair Sam Singh noted, “The number of smartphone users is expected to only go up and it just shows how much potential these digital screens have. Hence, we as marketers must understand various facets of mobile marketing. Times are changing fast and we want to enable marketers with the knowledge that can help them in a long run.”