NEW DELHI – Essence, a global data and measurement-driven media agency which is part of GroupM, has appointed T. Gangadhar aka Gangs as the company’s CEO for APAC. Succeeding Essence’s global CEO Kyoko Matsushita, who previously served as APAC CEO, Gangs will be responsible for driving continued client-centric innovation in data, analytics, and technology, as well as business growth and company culture across the agency’s fastest-growing region. Based out of Mumbai in India, Gangs will work closely with Essence’s global and APAC leadership teams and will continue to report to Matsushita.
Gangs most recently served as president, growth and strategy, APAC for Essence, in charge of the agency’s business strategy, development, and growth. He first joined Essence in 2018 as chairman, India with more than two decades of experience in marketing, advertising, and media. He previously held the role of managing director, south Asia at MEC & senior vice president, head of marketing at Sony Entertainment Television in India, and began his career in creative agency account management and strategic planning.
“Gangs’ extensive experience in the industry, his knowledge of Essence’s culture and our clients, and his vision for our business in the region make him the ideal person to lead us into our next phase of growth and innovation in APAC. As the most senior member of our regional leadership team, Gangs has done an outstanding job in partnering with me to navigate our business through the challenges of 2020 and I am truly excited about what we will be able to achieve with him at the helm in APAC going forward,” said Matsushita.
“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this truly special agency in APAC. Essence is pioneering the use of data, analytics, and technology at a time when more and more companies are looking to take advantage of data-driven media and creativity. I am excited about leveraging our best-in-class capabilities to discover new ways to add value for our clients, consumers, and employees – in these current times and in the post-Covid2019 future ahead of us,” said Gangs.
Since Essence’s entry into APAC in 2013, the agency has expanded rapidly across the region, opening offices in Beijing, Bengaluru, Delhi, Jakarta, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. Essence’s diverse portfolio of clients in APAC now includes Airtel, Britannia, Coty, Faces Canada, the Financial Times, Flipkart, Games24x7, Google, Hermès, HMD (Nokia), Honda motorcycles and scooters, Livspace, Roborock, NBCUniversal, Nitori, Scoot, Toytron, Vedantu, Wakefit, War Horse, and Zee5.
BANGALORE: Havas Media has won media duties for MyGate, India’s leading community management solution, whose comprehensive offering comprises security, ERP and a host of other features for gated communities. The mandate includes over-the-top (OTT) media services and all offline media duties. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch. The account size is estimated to be Rs 30+ crores and will be handled out of the agency’s Bangalore office led by Havas Media EVP south Saurabh Jain.
MyGate head of marketing Ranjit Behera said, “By enhancing the safety and convenience of gated communities and constantly introducing newer, better, friendlier solutions to everyday problems, MyGate is bringing about a positive change in community living. Effective communication is a crucial component of this effort, and we’re glad to have the passion, experience and strategic thinking of Havas Media Group’s meaningful media to navigate its constantly evolving landscape.”
Havas Media Group India MD Mohit Joshi said, “MyGate is a pioneer brand in the community management space which thrives on technology and innovation. MyGate app facilitates a seamless and contactless experience to its user which is a need of the hour. MyGate’s recent integrations with news and healthcare platforms is a testament to their passion towards community welfare. We are honoured to be partnering with MyGate and are glad to further bolster our e-commerce portfolio with this win.”
Founded by ISB-IIM-IIT alumni, MyGate is headquartered in Bangalore, with offices in its major markets across the country. MyGate’s eponymous mobile app enables gated communities to vastly enhance their security and convenience through a number of innovative features, such as visitor management, e-intercom, accounts & payments, leave at gate, and daily help management. It allows residents to approve entries and exits, manage visitors/deliveries, communicate with their neighbours, log attendance and pay society maintenance bills and daily help workers, among much else. Launched in 2016, it is now used by over 2 million homes every day in over 10,000 gated communities across the country.
Over the past year, MyGate has been named one of India’s Most Disruptive Start-ups (by YourStory) and among India’s Top 15 Tech Disruptors (by BusinessWorld).
New Delhi: GSK Consumer Healthcare’s leading antacid brand in India, ENO has launched the third phase of the successful #WhatARelief campaign to drive relevance for the brand. As the country prepares itself for a longer stint of social distancing, the in-home food experiments continue to be a relevant trend, as validated from the recipe search data from YouTube. Riding on this wave, ENO has partnered with Google to create a unique campaign where the communication is customized as per the recipe being searched by the user.
The brand first picked up the top recipes being searched on YouTube (which had a high correlation with acidity) and then developed customized six-second creatives for each recipe. The ENO advertisement is customised basis the recipe searched and plays before the recipe video commences, making the whole experience a very personalized one for the viewer.
GSK Consumer Healthcare area marketing lead OTC & expert marketing ISC Vijay Sharma said, “With prolonged confinement at home, food continues to be an expression of relief and people are seeking and trying new recipes that they can themselves make at home. We want people to enjoy their culinary experiments without having to worry about any interruption that may happen on account of acidity, as their trusted ally Eno is always there to take care of it. We had received an overwhelming response to the previous phase of this campaign and that’s why we are extending it – now making it far more personalised with this unique idea.”
With this campaign, the brand will drive relevance via contextual conversations and present itself as a reliable ally against acidity. The campaign has already garnered a massive reach of over 14 million consumers on YouTube within a week of its launch.
NEW DELHI: A movie buff, a chess lover, and a businessman with great intuitions and understanding, Ashish Bhasin is one of the easiest persons to talk to in the industry. An excellent leader with a future-focused vision, he might now be called the Nostradamus of the advertising world as his prediction of digital becoming the pack leader of marketing pies has been coming true amazingly, though in a scenario that neither him nor any other agency head, for that matter, could have predicted.
The CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network’s APAC operations & chairman for India, Bhasin is currently heading a number of markets, including the origin of the Covid2019 pandemic, China, as they set their sails for the ‘new normal’. Recently, in a virtual fireside chat with Indiantelevision.com founder CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, he talked about his experiences in the industry, how he is handling the lockdown and managing his national and international teams, and his thoughts on the economic slowdown we are in. Edited excerpts follow
So, have you been going back to your favourite classics, Gone With The Wind and The Sound Of Music during the lockdown or agency work is keeping you busy?
Well, the days are surely busy and longer for me now. It’s even hard for me to remember if it’s a weekday or a weekend. I start my day around 6:30, that’s when calls with the Australian team happen, and then as most of our senior management is in the UK now, the time stretches till late in the night sometimes. But I am not complaining. I love my work. I find it extremely satisfying that you have something that you're passionate about and you get paid for it.
So yes, I did not have much time to go back to these movies but still, I managed to watch The Sound of Music twice or thrice in these months. You can draw parallels from this film to your own personal and professional life. The whole movie is just about how you manage to keep your focus and enjoy working even in tough times.
What I love about Gone With The Wind is that it takes you to a whole different cultural era and shows human beings at their best. How with changes some hang on to older ideas and how some adapt. Also, it is one of the few movies that are as good as the book. Another such example is the Godfather.
And what about chess?
Chess, yes, I keep playing regularly. It’s something that both I and my son enjoy and there is always a healthy competition going on. And now with digital, I sometimes play it against other competitors too.
You said you love your work. But had you not been in the profession, what career choice would you have made?
I think I would have been a lawyer. But whenever I sit and think about my life and would have done anything differently if given the chance to restart, 9.9 times I feel that I would do exactly the same things that I have done. I would get into the same profession, I would marry the same person, and I would want to spend each day as it has been.
What do you love the most about advertising? What keeps you going?
One is that I am very passionate about my work. I love what I do and I have a sense of ownership. And the second thing is that no two days or I may say that no two hours are the same in the advertising business. Every day is a new challenge.
Also, I am a social person. I love interacting with people. And you get to meet and work with so many interesting and intelligent people in advertising. You find people who dropped out of school and college formal education but are so bright and so smart. So I think just the pure variety of people that you get to work with and the joy and enthusiasm that they bring in that keep me going.
I have always seen it as a great business. I think that’s what most of the industry misses right now. Advertising is not seen as a business; as much as creative talents are valued or planning leaders are valued, business leaders are not valued as much. I agree that advertising is more than just numbers but if you don’t run it as a business, you will get out of it soon.
That’s the only area that confuses me about the profession.
Who have been your role models?
Certainly, Alyaque Padamase, who was my super boss at my first job in Lintas. Then Prem Mehta, who was then the chairman of Lintas. I worked with him closely and learned a lot. Also, Martin Sorrell is one of the finest we have ever seen.
But I think at the end of it, you have to develop your own style, and you can just draw (energies, ideas) from people.
And what is your personal leadership style? Are you an optimist or a realist?
See, I am an optimist in the sense that I see opportunities in adversities. Like right now, I am not seeing any sudden V-shape recovery happening, but I am sure that things will start getting better from here, month-on-month. So, I plan according to the real scenario but my goals are more optimistic.
NEW DELHI: While the road to economic recovery is long and troubled, there is a positive sentiment amongst the marketers to cash on the upcoming festive season, IPG Mediabrands CEO–India Shashi Sinha shared during an exclusive virtual fireside chat with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari. Over an hour-and-a-half-long session, the duo discussed a number of industry trends, advertiser and consumer sentiment, and the way ahead for the industry.
Sinha noted, “India is a very sentiment-driven market. And while it is going to be a difficult recovery and the consumer demand might or might not be there, a lot of brands are wanting to invest at this point in time; maybe not at a large value scale, but definitely far higher than they would in the months of July-August. I'm not seeing the uptick in demand but the marketing sentiment is that let us cash in on this system.”
He insisted that the advertisers want to capture the festive season and the initial signs are already visible in the dealings. “To give an example, auto sales are there. And then there is a client of ours called Indigo Paints, which is telling us that their sales are up. I am asking them how is it possible as according to me to call people home to paint, would be the last thing on someone’s mind now. But they tell me it is for outside paints. So, yes the market has already started moving.”
But considering the Onam and Ganpati were both muted, how is the market sentiment moving, Wanvari asked.
Sinha elaborated that both the festivals were very localised events and he won’t take it as an indicator of the overall market sentiment. He added that IPL is looking very positive, much above the initial expectations the market had.
Sinha pointed out that the upcoming new programmings on TV channels, including big-budget properties, like KBC and Bigg Boss, will also attract a lot of advertiser attention. “I am not sure if they all will earn because they are coming at almost the same time, but the marketing sentiment is quite positive right now.
But all of this might not translate into consumer sentiment pulling up. “I see advertisers pumping money in September-October. And if the sentiment turns out to be false and they fail to move the consumers, the impact will be seen in the first quarter of the next year, which for Indian companies will start this year. So, the companies will evaluate whatever money they are investing in IPL and Diwali and if it doesn’t yield results, they might pull back.”
Overall, the earnings of the media companies and agencies will not be similar to what they recorded last year, but will be a great improvement from the past few months, he shared.
KOLKATA: Kyoorius, in continuation of the campaign launched at ZeeMelt 2019, released a montage image that features 58 memorable characters from TV serials and shows broadcast across Doordarshan and Hindi GECs.
“I thoroughly enjoyed this brilliant piece of art and loved the process of identifying my favourite characters from the world of television. There is a beautiful relationship which gets created between a viewer and the character, and this painting celebrates this bond and the power of the entertainment platform. I congratulate the teams from Kyoorius and BBDO, who have created this masterpiece. I wish them all the best and look forward to a yet another successful edition of ZeeMELT,” Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd MD & CEO Punit Goenka said.
“Last year, to mark ZeeMELT, we had created a collage of memorable moments from Indian advertising. It was no surprise to us that the image went viral as consumers enjoyed competing with each other to see who had identified more moments and brands. Programming and advertising are both content as far as our viewers are concerned and this painting is a natural progression of the original thought," Kyoorius founder & CEO Rajesh Kejriwal said.
He was confident that the image would go viral again. “The painting is a wonderful example of communication riding on popular culture. TV is popular culture in India, and, across the country, much time is spent of discussing TV content and thousands of social media messages discuss developments on TV shows and the performances of characters," he added.
"Last year's ZeeMELT poster was a fun guessing game of the most memorable Indian ads over time. This year, more ambitiously, we decided to create an interactive poster with famous shows that filled our living rooms with life. We've tried to capture the memories and times of the last 40 odd years through the characters who gave us our most memorable TV moments. The result is not just a guessing game, it's an outpouring of nostalgia — a glorious look at where we come from," BBDO India CCO and chairman Josy Paul said.
NEW DELHI: The merging of age-old agrarian myths and traditions with the commercial realities of today, the festival of Onam is a happy celebration for the Malayalis and businesses encashing their festivities. Historically, the festival acts as a hotbed of ad spends, consumer-friendly deals, the launch of new products, and flared up sales. It’s close proximity to the wedding season which also makes it a big opportunity for the advertising and the marketing industry to cash on.
However, for the past two years, the deadly floods washing the thin strip of land in the southwestern edge of India have also been drowning the great marketing fiesta it used to be. This year, while the rains were friendly, the ongoing Covid2019 crisis acted as a dampener to the celebrations.
Albeit, if the insiders are to be believed, the festival has led the industry to raise its head a little above the sad water. Indiantelevision.com had extensively covered in a series of stories, and also in an exclusive one-day-long virtual conclave how Kerala ad market is pinning its hope on Onam to bring some respite to its dwindling cash reserves and the latest update is that it might have managed to achieve 50-70 per cent of what was expected out of it.
MPlan CEO Parag Masteh shares while the national advertisers went big on spends during Onam, local advertisers were very conscious of the spending and preferred staying away from making any big investments. This is also why the local agencies couldn’t soak in the benefits of the festival. However, it surely brought some respite from the lull of the previous months. “If I compare with the last month, our cash registers witnessed a hike of 15 per cent from the previous month,” he noted.
Nestle Milkmaid recently launched a campaign #SpreadSweetness around Onam. The brand rolled out a 30-second ad film with the cast of one “Vanambaadi”, a popular TV series of the region. The film showcases the famous mother-daughter duo discussing the excitement during the 10 days of Onam starting from Atham to Thiruvonam.
Nestle India director Vineet Singh said, “As part of the initiative, Nestlé Milkmaid is sharing 10,000+ bowls of payasam with the less privileged and we encourage people to do their own act of kindness, by pledging and sharing a bowl of Payasam with someone who needs it. We hope you will visit http://createsweetstories.in/ and spread joy and sweetness and create delightful experiences for the underprivileged.”
Another major FMCG player Marico also launched a digital campaign #ThankYouNurses honouring the unparalleled spirit of nurses across the country. The campaign salutes the brave warriors and provides a platform for all Indians celebrating Onam to come forward and express their gratitude for the nurses through their Pookalams, a popular floor decoration with flowers which is an integral part of Onam celebrations.
Marico chief marketing officer Koshy George said, “As India continues its fight against the pandemic, we wanted to honour the nurturing spirit and tireless efforts of the nurses who have ensured millions of COVID survivors are with their families this festive season. Parachute Advansed Gold stands for care and nurturance and has a deeper connect with the consumer larger than just hair. With this heartwarming ode, Parachute Advansed Gold aims to not only salute them, but also encourages every individual to remember them and dedicate their pookalams to the unparalleled spirit of these warriors”
Amplifi EVP Chandra P Dobhal adds that for national advertisers, the purpose of advertising is not just sales but for a broader perspective of brand building as well. That’s why they continued advertising. “Smaller, local brands don’t have that big budgets. I won’t say that they weren’t advertising at all but they were conscious of where they were putting their money. Also, it seems they don't want to be the reason for the spread of covid2019 and don't want their shops to be crowded.”
He also mentions that surprisingly there was an uptick in the ad spends by local advertisers at the end of July and the first week of August. However, they started pulling back mid-August.
As per the TAM Adex data published in reports, the print medium witnessed 280 per cent rise in ad volumes in July 2020 as opposed to April 2020 in Kerala market. Further, more than 180 categories, over 1,400 advertisers, the region saw an upsurge of advertisements as more than 1600 brands started to advertise on the print medium. Similarly, ad volumes on television in Kerala witnessed 102 per cent rise in the same period. With more than 160 categories, over 320 advertisers, and 540 brands advertising on television platforms, the market saw an upsurge of advertisements as top 10 advertisers contributed to almost 50 per cent of the ad volume share of advertising on Kerala TV channels.
Maitri Advertising MD Raju Menon notes that one of the reasons for local advertisers staying away from the festival was the weekend lockdown that was mandated in the state. “Local advertisers felt they will not get any benefit from advertising if the consumers can’t reach their shops. There was no RoI they could see given the lockdown restrictions and also keeping in mind the safety concerns.”
Another reason that Menon mentions for local advertisers saving ad money is the positive consumer sentiment, “Many local players were also saying that we are getting consumers even without advertising, why should we spend money then?”
The expectation from Onam was that more categories will start advertising during the period, but that did not really happen.
Masteh shares, “The categories that were active during the previous months were pretty much the ones who were advertising. Healthcare kept spending big, gold retail started spending, and some other categories like FMCG and white goods kept spending.”
Menon adds, “Local retailers were conscious of their ad spends but white goods and FMCG were fairly active during the period. It is also because these were industries where consumers are actively spending.”
On the other hand, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions CEO Shankar B feels that while Onam might not have been able to help the market recover fully, it has certainly set the ball rolling.
Dobhal quips, “I am hoping that at the overall level the ad spends would be much closer to what it was last year. The best part is that schemes and discounts on products are being extended, especially keeping the limited footfalls in the market due to time restrictions for keeping the shops open. Hence it is expected that advertisers to support their channel partners will let their activities go in September too! The positive in all this is that advertisers will now spread their activity for a longer period rather than planning for a few dates or weeks before the main festival.”
New Delhi: Facebook global chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio announced via a social media post that he is stepping down from his role. Lucio has been CMO of Facebook since September 2018 and will remain in that position until September 18, 2020. Currently, he is helping the company transition through the end of the year.
Lucio said, “This has been a challenging year for all and an especially reflective year for me, following my mother’s passing before the lockdown. Given the historical inflection point we are in regarding racial justice, I have decided to dedicate 100% of my time to diversity, inclusion and equity. Though these issues have been core to my personal purpose and my work for many years, I want to make them my sole focus. I will devote the next chapter of my professional life to helping companies and agencies in the marketing and advertising industries accelerate their transformation and to drive holistic and profound change. It is a time for reckoning for our nation and industry, and it is time for me to play a more active part in accelerating change.
In leaving Facebook, I am nothing but grateful.
I believe in Facebook’s mission, and COVID has demonstrated the platforms at their best. As the company evolves, striking the right balance between preserving freedom of speech and eliminating hateful speech on the platforms is a generation-defining question that must continue to be addressed. I know the company and its leadership agree on the centrality of this important task.”
Prior to joining Facebook, Lucio served as the global chief marketing and communications officer at HP. And he also had a similar position at Visa.
Lucio was reporting to Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. Cox recently returned to Facebook after departing from the company in March 2019. One of the biggest roles that Lucio took on was handling the negative press Facebook received following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Lucio has over two decades of experience of working at multiple brands such as Pepsico, HP, Kraft Foods, P&G, Visa and others.
NEW DELHI- Covid2019 battered the automotive industry in India with the demand for new cars and two-wheelers plummeted between March-May 2020. The month of April 2020 has gone down in the history of the country when not even a single car was except a few that were exported out of the country. The industry started to pick up since May 2020 and has been showing signs of recovery. Even then at a cumulative level, the first half of the year 2020 has battered the auto industry, even worst then the last year. In passenger vehicles, in particular, the April-June period saw sales drop of 78.43 percent, making it possibly the worst-ever quarter since the time such data were being compiled.
Covid2019 actually forced people to think twice before making investment into a big ticket purchase like cars. As a result, it created a window for the already existing new car market to grow further. Several brands have reported that there is an increased number of inquiries from customers around used cars. These include brands like Maruti Suzuki True Value and Hyundai’s H Promise.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited executive director marketing and sales, Shashank Srivastava said, “During lockdown scenario, most media got impacted due to restrictions and hence their consumption. In New normal, ensuring customer safety and communicating safe practices is of utmost priority.”
As per experts, the car buyers who had plans to buy new cars will opt for used cars seeing the economic uncertainty and the tougher times ahead. As economic activities resume, people prefer personal cars over public transport for the fear of being affected by the virus and to follow the physical distancing norms. This will give an impetus to the used car business.
People will either go for two-wheeler or pre-owned cars. Historically, it has been that whenever there’s an economic downturn people gravitate towards pre-owned goods as they are cost-effective.
Covid2019 has created a great opportunity for brands like Droom, CARS24, Olx, Mahindra First choice, and others in the space. They are aggressively promoting their products and released campaigns to connect with their consumers.
CARS24 rolled out a 360-degree campaign with MS Dhoni that talks about how CARS24 can help connect sellers with buyers directly making the process more transparent and easier for its new-age customers.
OLX CashMyCar is also doubling down digital presence across platforms. Maruti Suzuki also launched a 360-degree campaign on ‘Buy & Sell’ for True Value before the lockdown happened.
CARS24 co-founder and CMO Gajendra Jangid explains, “the size of the used car industry is 1.3 times the size of the new car market, in other words, used cars accounted for 55 percent of total 7.5 million car transactions in India. We are expecting a steady growth in demand post lockdown period due to the shift in budgets.”
He further said, “According to our recent research study, we saw that Intention to use private cars by consumers increased by 41 per cent and 22.5 per cent people who were preferring to buy new cars earlier are now shifting to pre-owned cars which looks promising for the pre-owned auto segment.”
However, since the time economic activity resumed, several automobile brands have also launched new products that were on hold. They are realigning new strategies to connect with the target audience.
OLX CashMyCar business head Amit Kumar shares that the launch of new models will definitely help the pre-owned car market as consumers will have a wider range of brands and models to choose from across price ranges.
Kumar explains, “Pre-owned car market actually benefits from the increased activity in the new car market. “An important source of pre-owned market supply is the new car sold on the exchange. So, more new cars entering the market augurs well for the pre-owned car market as this would result in the availability of fresh new models with the latest features.”
However, the used car market in India is highly unorganized, only a few organized players are operating in the market. The organized market contributes only 18 percent of total pre-owned cars sold in the country. The used car market size is around 1.5-1.7x (times) of the new car market. As per estimates, over 4 million pre-owned cars were traded and sold in FY19.
Increase demand, the rise in personal mobility.
Covid2019 has impacted the consumer’s behavior and preferences towards their commute choices. He prefers personal mobility over public transport.
According to Jangid, as social distancing is the primary norm of the ‘new normal’, people are inclined towards commuting through their personal vehicles. But at the same time, they are looking for more affordable and budget-friendly deals as well. “This is the reason behind people moving more towards owning a pre-owned vehicle that fulfills both requirements. Further to the resumption of the services as soon as Unlock was announced, we have witnessed a surge in used car sales, he said.”
However, during economic stress, customers are expected to downgrade their demand due to declining affordability and enhanced focus on functionality.
Srivastava explains, “Nearly 85 percent pre-owned car customers are two-wheeler upgrades. We are confident that the current situation and sentiments will have a positive rub off on the used car market as the price of the new vehicle would be higher.”
He further adds that telescoping of demand is expected to happen due to economic stress and customers will give more importance to functionality buying, Customers who were earlier planning to buy a Swift top variant may now consider the base variant. “First-time buyers are also expected to increase,” adds Srivastava.
The used car market has registered healthy growth in India in the last few months. According to statistics released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (SIAM), pre-owned vehicle segment that accounts for 18 percent of the market share, registered estimated sales of 4.4 million units, whereas the new passenger vehicle sales in FY 20 stood at 2,775,679 units, dipping below the 3 million sales unit mark for the first time since FY17.
Kumar concluded by saying, “Pre-owned cars could see an increased supply of new car models. Buyers of pre-owned cars now would also prefer transacting with their local sellers instead of traveling to far off places which would further boost their local economy.” He also believes that the pre-owned industry will adopt digitization as a key pillar to ensure business continuity.
KOLKATA: ShemarooMe has today announced its association with Sony India to expand the Smart TVs content library, further enhancing the accessibility and convenience for consumers. With this association, the ShemarooMe app will now be available for streaming exclusively on select BRAVIA Smart TVs. The all-in-one platform offers a wide range of multi-genre, multi-regional content, including Bollywood Premieres, Bollywood Classics, Shemaroo Kids, and the best of Devotional, Comedy and Regional content.
Online content consumption has increased rapidly as consumers are confined to their homes due to the lockdown and are accessing streaming services from multiple screens such as tablets, laptops, mobile phones and smart TVs. During these unprecedented times, this partnership further deepens ShemarooMe’s reach by providing seamless access to BRAVIA’s vast number of consumers in the country as well as enables the latter to expand its Hindi and regional entertainment portfolio with the OTT platform’s exciting slate of popular shows and movies.
Talking about this announcement, Shemaroo Entertainment digital COO Zubin Dubash said, “We are extremely delighted to have partnered with Sony India to help expand their entertainment portfolio with ShemarooMe’s diverse content catalogue. Over the years, Sony’s BRAVIA television has truly revolutionized the way Indians watch content. With this strategic association, we aim to expand our OTT distribution and transform the TV viewing experience for consumers, giving them access to our rich legacy with the added convenience of streaming blockbuster Bollywood as well as regional movies and live events, seamlessly on their television sets.”
Sony India BRAVIA Business head Ranvijay Singh added "We are glad to partner with Shemaroo Entertainment and help amplify their diverse content portfolio across India. BRAVIA Televisions have a legacy of offering the most immersive viewing experience and with a rapid increase in the online content consumption, we are positive that this partnership will offer wholesome entertainment to our consumers.”
