Category: Software

Disney UTV Studios goes gung-ho on digital movie marketing

MUMBAI: As one of the TVC‘s says ‘In the age of technology its criminal to think one is stranded,‘ similarly, in 2013 it will be stupid to think that a movie release is only limited to the theatres.

Today, the social media has changed the way people connect, discover, and share information. Production houses are not leaving any stone unturned to promote their films – from promotions on television to launching various campaigns on the digital space. The digital space is now the new entrant in the list of marketing and promotion strategies of most media houses.

How can one forget the craze created by Kolaveri Di when it was leaked on the internet, and everyone wanted to watch the movie 3 after the hype generated by it. Similarly, before Himmatwalareleased, snippets of the making of various days was uploaded on YouTube for fans to see what happens behind the scenes. This was also done to create hype about the movie before its release.

In the past two years, Disney UTV Studios has tried to make the optimum use of the fact that digital has increased in importance progressively. The studio feels that the medium is perfect to engage with young movie consumers, always on-the-go, and to also build a loyal community of Hindi film fans online.

“We have a Klout score of 84 which is highest for a Hindi film studio. We have a million fans on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/utvmotionpictures), 90, 000 followers on Twitter (www.twitter.com/utvfilms) and 200, 000 subscribers on our YouTube channel,” says Disney UTV executive director, marketing, studios, Shikha Kapur.

The latest movie to come out of the production house stable is Ship of Theseus. And even before the movie‘s official release date, the production house created a special ‘Vote for your city‘ campaign to promote it. Through this campaign, movie lovers in other cities (The movie is releasing in five cities – NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Kolkata on 19 July) can get the film released in their city via an online voting mechanism on Facebook.

“All they have to do is log on and vote for their city from the list provided or add their city and get a chance to watch the movie in their city. Based on the responses so far, we have already added Hyderabad to the list of cities where the movie will be released. We are getting a good response for the same,” explains Kapur.

Depending on the script and the type of the movie, the production house designs its online communication to bring out the true essence of the film and at the same time engage with customers in the most innovative and interesting way possible.

In the past too, Disney UTV Studios came up with various such campaigns to connect with its audience before the film release. For instance, for Rowdy Rathore an app was created where people could vote for the different mustached looks of Akshay Kumar. More than 3000 fans participated and the look that won the most votes was adopted by Akshay in the film.

Acccording to the folks at the studios , Barfi! changed the way audiences consume content today. For this movie a digital app was created on YouTube (www.youtube.com/barfi). “People through this app could make Ranbir Kapoor dance, smile, cry and do anything else they desired. The app was a viral hit which gained over 250,000 users in two weeks and was hailed by the Google India team as the best online innovation that has been done on YouTube in the past one and a half years. The app also won a bronze in the video innovation category at the prestigious Yahoo Big Idea Chair Awards. The only media product to do so!” informs Kapur proudly.

The production house has spread its wings in a big way in the online space and doesn‘t shy away from spending on it. “On an average between five and ten per cent of marketing spends is kept for social media marketing, but for small films like Ship Of Theseus (SOT) that spend could go up to 25 per cent. SOT is the first film that we are marketing predominantly online with a limited spend on print and no spend on TV,” says Kapur who clarifies that the spend depends from movie to movie.

Now for its forthcoming movie, the Shah Rukh Khan starrer Chennai Express, the production house had crowd-sourced the trailer launch to its fans. “The concept was that the more they tweeted the faster the trailer would be released. In fact the trailer was first broken online and several hours later SRK, Deepika and Rohit Shetty revealed it to the media at a press conference,” she adds.

Digital space has thrown a new challenge for production houses: to engage the audiences to drive them to the theatres; to continuously evolve new ideas, better than their competitors. In a scenario when box office results are dependent on the marketing strategy, we can surely sense some creative war awaiting on the digital space!

July 18, 2013
Digiworld appoints Value 360 Communications as their strategic communication partner

MUMBAI: Digiworld has appointed Value 360 Communications, as their strategic communication partner to manage all the external communications and public relation activities across India. Value 360 Communications, an affiliate of Huntsworth, is one of the leading Public Relations (PR) Agencies, headquartered in New Delhi with five network offices and 36 regional partners in India. Value 360 claims to have helped more than 100 startup brands from across the world to fulfil their corporate communication requirements.

Digiworld, a large network of stores showcasing leading brands in consumer electronics, home appliances, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and other IT accessories has partnered with Value 360 Communications to build brand awareness and manage external communication. The company looks forward to provide experience of latest technology by vast array of brands.

Commenting on the tie-up Digiworld COO Jaideep Rathore said, “We were looking for an agency that can partner with us to further assist us in communicating our newly unveiled brand identity and building a progressive, dynamic and contemporary upholding. We are affirmative that Value 360 Communications‘, knowledge of emerging markets and capability to seamlessly implement national campaigns will be invaluable in positively putting across our brand‘s growth. Value 360 Communication‘s proficiency in establishing the reputation of businesses appealed to us and the company‘s strategic understanding of the industry landscape ascertains our belief in this association.”

Value 360 Communications director and co-founder Kunal Kishore commented on the appointment, “We are extremely elated on our alliance with Digiworld. We anticipate establishing compelling PR activities around the brand messaging and the newly coined identity. Our successful experience and key learning congregated over the years will help us achieve the brand‘s communication objectives. Digiworld‘s vast network and multi brand availability are indication for its quality services and offerings. We are positive to highlight brand‘s growth and progress and the essence behind its new brand positioning.”

Value 360 Communications will work with Digiworld on a nationwide mandate, spearheaded by its New Delhi office. The agency has been tasked with drawing on its strategic communications expertise to creatively engage consumers and stakeholders on a nationwide scale.

July 18, 2013
Prime Focus World wins its biggest VFX contract

MUMBAI: Prime Focus World, a subsidiary of Prime Focus has been confirmed as the exclusive VFX partner on Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, Robert Rodriguez‘s long-awaited, ultra-stylised comic book sequel. Sin City 2 is PFW‘s biggest VFX project win ever to date and their global teams will work directly with Robert Rodriguez to produce over 2,000 visual effects shots for the stereo 3D movie, currently slated for an August 2014 release.

Rodriguez, always the trailblazer, has been a highly influential filmmaker and is forging his own path since his earliest successes – El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995). The original Sin City (2005) was a seminal film, and its use of stylised computer graphics environments and VFX inspired many films that followed.

This contract further validates the unique business proposition of Prime Focus and catapults it to the league of being one of the few studios worldwide to break into, and contribute in a big way, to mainstream top-of-the-line Hollywood films.

The size and scale of the project would require each of PFW‘s location to come together under localised VFX and stereo leadership, and collaborate via the PFW global pipeline and VFX workflow structure to deliver on the contract.

Prime Focus continues to build a robust Order Book to fill its capacity across its various facilities worldwide. Currently, the group Order Book stands at a combined value of approximately Rs 750-800 crore, to be executed over the next 24-36 months.

“Normally, it is common for a film maker to split its VFX work amongst multiple studios, especially for a film of this size and scale. Robert Rodriguez has backed us to be the exclusive VFX vendor for his film, which makes us even more proud and honored as it validates our scale and superior workflow management capabilities to handle the entire length of a VFX film, across our global facilities. We are constantly looking for such opportunities to challenge both ourselves, and the industry as a whole, by working on projects that question and change creative, practical and economic paradigms,” said Prime Focus World CEO and Founder NamitMalhotra. “Prime Focus has been backed by marquee global institutional investors including Standard Chartered Private Equity, AID Partners and Macquarie Capital. Recently in June 2013, Macquarie Capital invested US$ 38 million in Prime Focus World NV (PFW), at an Enterprise Valuation of US$ 300 million.”

July 17, 2013
SES and MNC sky vision sign capacity deal for DTH market growth

MUMBAI: SES and MNC Sky Vision, Indonesia‘s premier satellite Pay-TV provider with its well-known brand, Indovision, has announced an agreement to provide capacity on the SES-7 satellite to support Indovision‘s future Chinese-language direct-to-home (DTH) package.

The multi-transponder and multi-year deal provides Indovision with access to the Ku-band capacity aboard SES-7 at the prime orbital location of 108.2 degrees east. Indovision intends to offer more than a dozen Chinese language channels using the capacity, which would allow Indovision to reach a niche audience segment in Indonesia‘s fast-growing pay-DTH market, beyond its current base of more than 2 million subscribers. Use of the capacity by Indovision is subject to regulatory approval.

Rudy Tanoesoedibjo, CEO of MNC Sky Vision, said, “We see continued growth in the pay-DTH market in Indonesia and are delighted to be able to leverage SES‘ global network and deep industry expertise to broadcast more content to meet the diverse needs of our subscribers in Indonesia.”

“The increasing maturity of the Indonesian pay-DTH market requires pay-TV operators to react swiftly in meeting the demands of different audience segments, as Indovision has done with the new Chinese-language pay-DTH offering. We are pleased to be the satellite operator of choice for Indovision and look forward to supporting Indovision‘s fast and robust growth strategy in this important market,” said SES sr. VP commercial Asia-Pacific and Middle East Deepak Mathur.

July 17, 2013
CODA postpones agitation on Maharashtra cable TV entertainment tax

MUMBAI: The state of Maharashtra was to see a blackout of all news channels- Hindi, English and Marathi- from 15 July by all TV cable operators as a sign of protest in case the entertainment tax levied on them was not reduced. But that has not happened.

Reason: The Cable Operators and Distributors Association (CODA), which was demanding that it be shaved to Rs 15 per set top box or per subscriber from the Rs 45 charged currently, decided to be patient and hold on.

Says CODA president Anil Parab: “We sought an appointment from state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat and he could only give it to us for next week. So we decided to defer our decision on the blackout till we meet him and gauge his response towards our demand.”

Parab also stated that the assembly is on till 3 August so they have enough time to go ahead with their black out, in case they don‘t get Thorat‘s support.

The cable TV operator fraternity in Maharashtra say it is unnecessarily being burdened with high taxes even though digitisation has led to greater transparency and tax payouts by them. Delhi‘s entertainment tax is at Rs 20 while in other cities it is at zero to five per cent.

July 16, 2013
CogMat bags social media marketing duties for Plobal

MUMBAI: CogMat, a digital media agency based in Mumbai, has been awarded the social media marketing duties for Plobal.

Plobal is a fast-growing interactive mobile and web platform that helps locals ask questions, join discussions, get recommendations or simply be updated with what‘s happening around them.

Plobal co-founder Atul Poharkar said, “The whole idea about building Plobal is to create a social network that helps people discover what is happening in their city in real time. People can see updates posted directly by their favourite brands or simply ask and get recommendations from people with similar interests in their city.”

This mobile and web platform has reinvented the face of communication by uniting lifestyle business owners and users on a common, social media platform in real time.

“We‘re very excited to work with Plobal. They are a young, dynamic team of professionals who‘ve created an application that gives users access to real-time and relevant information pertaining to local lifestyle needs. We look forward to do something creative, yet effective, in the social media space for them,” said CogMat co-founder Mitchelle Carvalho.

July 16, 2013
Maa TV partners with Amagi to launch customised channel feeds to Singapore

BENGALURU: India’s Telugu language Maa Television Network is using Amagi’s localisation platform for creating customised local feeds to Singapore for its “Maa TV” and “Maa Movies” channels claims Bangalore headquartered Amagi Media Labs.

Maa TV has gone live with custom feeds on SingTel mio TV since April, 2013. Maa TV network uses its existing satellite feed playout for India as the base feed for Singapore as well, but masks few hours of programming and all advertising everyday on its feed to Singapore using Amagi’s localisation platform.

Amagi says that broadcasters with common multi-country broadcast feeds can now adapt Amagi’s patent-pending localisation platform to easily fine-tune programming played out in individual countries. Broadcasters can ‘opt out’ of specific programs or even specific spot advertising in a country and replace it with some other locally appropriate content for the country by utilising Amagi’s cloud-based localisation platform.

“We are able to ‘reliably’ and ‘cost effectively’ comply with all regulatory aspects related to programming and advertising for Singapore on both channels. Amagi gave us an end-to-end solution which has seamlessly merged with our existing systems and workflows”, said Maa TV COO J Sekhar

Maa TV’s Sr. general manager, P Masthanaiah added, “We were looking for solution which would efficiently enable us to generate a local feed for Singapore from our India feed and Amagi offered just that. The technology is simple yet powerful and augments the existing systems effortlessly.”

“Regionalisation of content is a pressing need for broadcasters. Amagi’s platform can easily integrate with existing workflows and systems of a broadcaster and reliably address regionalisation needs like local advertising, local programming to meet audience preferences, content masking for regulatory or copyright restrictions, etc. We are extremely pleased by the positive response to our exclusive platform from global broadcasters and are delighted to add Maa TV network as the latest customer”, said Amagi , Co-founder and CTO S Srividhya.

July 16, 2013
Samsonite and Lavie appoint Trinetra Focus to handle social media

MUMBAI: Trinetra Focus, the digital arm of Focus, has won the digital and social media duties for Samsonite and Lavie. Innovations form the core of the campaign. The focus of the mandate is to take conversations on the social media platform to the next level by ensuring continuous engagement and interactions with the target audience through novel campaigns. This will enable the brand to become a constant companion of the customer, thereby increasing the social quotient to achieve the business objectives.

Highlighting the core objective of the mandate, Focus Circle Brands president Upendra Welingkar said “Social media plays a pivotal role in ensuring continuous brand engagement especially for the fashion and retail segment. Recent facebook statistics suggests that among the next generation of consumers 96 per cent are using social media. Many of these also claim that their purchase decisions are influenced by the information gleaned on these platforms. Making it integral for brands like Samsonite and Lavie to be present on these platforms”

Adding his thought, Samsonite south Asia CEO E P Suresh Menon said, “For us the key challenge as far as our social media platform is concerned was engaging with the audience on a continuous basis. We have realised that channelising our energies effectively on the social media would enable us to come closer to the customer and in the long run assist us in achieving our business objectives. We were looking at agencies that could provide us with ideal balance of engagement and impact. With their futuristic approach and in-depth understanding of the target audience Focus has been able to capture that effectively”

Speaking on the mandate, Trinetra Focus VP Saumik Barua highlighted, “For B2C brands like Samsonite and Lavie audiences tend to create a perception on the basis of their online interactions and engagements. Our prime objective is to create content and applications that positions the brand to reach the masses who would either purchase the product or inadvertedly share the brands ethos”

The key responsibilities of Trinetra Focus will involve online reputation management, SEO consultation and most importantly amplifying social presence. In the second phase, Trinetra Focus is likely to establish the concept of social shopping wherein they will integrate iframe – a shopping tab on the website – to the facebook page allowing users to shop directly from the platform. The initiatives undertaken will be aimed towards driving the customers towards ecommerce platform.

July 15, 2013
Reliance Games ties up with Pacific Rim to launch mobile game

MUMBAI: Reliance Games has tied up Warner Bros Pictures and Legendary Pictures‘ Pacific Rim to release a game based on the screenplay of the movie for iOS and Android platforms.

Developed in partnership with Behavior Interactive and based on the film by Guillermo Del Toro, the Pacific Rim mobile game features epic battles amidst skyscrapers as players swipe and tap to defeat the Kaijus, aliens that have risen from the sea to wipe out humanity.

Piloting weaponised robots known as Jaegers, Earth‘s defenders must train their jockeys from rookie to ace in a story mode based on the movie, or challenge themselves to last as long as they can against waves of aliens in survival mode. To aid in the apocalyptic fight to save humanity, new weapons, technology and devastating combos can be unlocked, as well as different Jaegers.

“It‘s been a great opportunity to work with Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures to bring the excitement and edge-of-your-seat action of Pacific Rim onto mobile devices,” stated Reliance Entertainment-Digital CEO Manish Agarwal. “We are excited to provide an enhanced and immersive experience to moviegoers with a state-of-the-art 3D mobile game.”

“We wanted to bring the summer blockbuster experience of Pacific Rim into the palm of your hands,” said Legendary Theatrical Marketing EVP Joel Chiodi. “The exciting and extreme fighting sequences in the mobile game compliment and extend the movie‘s spectacular action and story, helping to create a more complete movie-going experience.”

July 15, 2013
Smartphone based VAS to generate Rs Ten Trillion business

MUMBAI: The wireless Value Added Services (VAS) would subsume all services that today are delivered through different devices which are expected to create over 25,000 highly scalable new businesses with a revenue potential of Rs ten lakh crores over a period of time.

While addressing the 14th VAS Asia 2013 Conference, at New Delhi on 12 July Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) member R. K. Arnold said, “To achieve this, all the stake holders involved in telecom industry will have to work together to create a low cost smartphone device and make people aware of the potential of such a device.” The 14th VAS Asia 2013 conference was organised by Bharat Exhibitions.

Welcoming the delegates to the conference Bharat Exhibitions managing director Shashi Dharan said, “The issue today with TRAI is not against the industry making money, but how does it make money is surely an issue.”

Today the country needs to examine the fact that less than 40 per cent of the Indian population has the connectivity and out of which about four per cent own smartphones. “Mobile data could generate revenues worth Rs 40,000 crores by 2015. To achieve these numbers we need to look at the bottom of the pyramid where Mobile VAS will be most useful and economical,” said BSNL chairman & managing director Rakesh K Upadhyay.

Dependence on the Internet for day to day life is on increase, said Bharti Airtel chief of strategy, architecture and engineering Shyam P. Mardikar, while dwelling on the vast changes that were already evident in the common man‘s work due to the mobile delivering newer and newer services.

In a wide ranging presentation at the conference the Bharti Airtel executive demonstrated how the onrush new innovations were overtaking several traditional services like SMS. “Messaging applications have depleted dependence on SMS”, he said.

M-Wallet, M-health services, are changing the market scenario. Text books are being replaced by wireless access to books that makes knowledge available to a much larger mass at low cost. The viability of this mode of information is making data consumption an opportunity.

“The last mile connectivity is being replaced by a first mile super highway. The challenge for the operator is to make this happen by a dense network that would have flatter architecture with dynamic and on demand capacity as against the layered one. The move is towards a network that would be closer to the user forcing the last mile to shrink.”

“The challenge which needs to be addressed is to create a situation where-in cross operators platform(s) needs to develop and deploy services with ease, in local language, across operators,” said OnMobile Global Ltd. co-founder & chief executive officer Mouli Raman. “The industry stakeholders need to collaborate to find the right solutions through technology.”

Analysing the problems faced by the telecom service operators Cellular Operators Association of India director-general Rajan S. Mathews welcomed the latest changes that the TRAI has made in the regulations in VAS service provision. “However, we need to rethink on revenue sharing model between operators, application providers and government. If the Government wanted broadband to be universal, the operators should be offered 500 MHz of spectrum and not the small quantities now placed on auction,” he said.

On the issue of refarming of spectrum use, Mathews said that the operators should be allowed to use it in the way they consider best rather than government forcing it on them as it involved huge costs that would impact service charges. He specifically pleaded for AADHAR being incorporated into the mobile to expand the services the user could obtain from them. “There is a huge opportunity in penetration of vernacular languages in the mobile smartphones specifically in speech recognition at the bottom of the pyramid level.”

The possible fall in profitability for the operator as voice was substituted by data was a matter of concern, said Robi Axiata CMO Pradeep Shrivastava. Scale was the next step forward in Mobile VAS.

OnMobile, Qualcomm, Radisys, IMImobile, Tri-O-Tech Solutions, One97, Dialogic, DigiVive, Gemalto, IPgallery, Ehangcom, MediaTek, Synway, BincaTunes, DONJIN, SUPRANETCOM, DSNL, D‘Well Research, InCights Mobile, Nexge and Teracom participated in the event, making it a truly global platform to conduct business.

July 13, 2013