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Tag: Carat

  • Dentsu X retains top spot for third year in a row as fastest growing agency: RECMA’s report

    Dentsu X retains top spot for third year in a row as fastest growing agency: RECMA’s report

    Mumbai: Dentsu India has once again ranked amongst the top three, continuing its record-breaking growth velocity, in the latest RECMA Media Agency Ranking Report. 

    Dentsu International is a network designed for what’s next, helping clients predict and plan for disruptive future opportunities and create new paths to growth in the sustainable economy. This is delivered through the five global leadership brands: Carat, Dentsu Creative, Dentsu X, iProspect and Merkle, each with deep specialisms.

    The recently published RECMA report calls out the stellar performance of each agency: 

    Dentsu X, as India’s fastest-growing media agency leading the chart with a 153 per cent growth rate for the past three years. It is India’s #2 agency since 2020, narrowing the gap with Mindshare in 2021. Driving experiences beyond exposures, Dentsu X engineers brand outcomes and growth.

    iProspect, accelerating brands through a performance mindset, has clocked an impressive 83 per cent growth in 2021! Growing our brands at the intersection of culture, content, data, and tech is paying a dividend to our clients and our business.

    And Carat, designing for people, has recorded a smart 60 per cent growth over the last year, delivering an unparallel capability to unlock real human understanding to connect people and brands by designing powerful and engaging experiences.

    Dentsu Media South Asia CEO Divya Karani said, “Yes, of course, our clients and people value our vision, our continuous reinvention and rigour, but scaling at this unprecedented trajectory for the past three years is a huge validation! Even more gratifying is that all our media agencies, each with their unique proposition, are performing at full throttle. Transforming by design, Densu is planning the next steps even as we continue to scale. With our deep specialisation in media, creative and CXM, we are constantly focused on stitching up integrated business transformative solutions for our clients.”

    Dentsu’s recently released global ad spend report forecasts India’s growth at 16 per cent, reaching $11 billion in 2022, well past the 2019 pre-pandemic level. Digital is expected to clock double the momentum, contributing 33 per cent of overall India’s spending. Dentsu is bullish on India and predicts India as the fastest growing market globally. 

    RECMA is the leading independent research company that reports and tracks the performance of media agencies around the globe. The report showcases the market share and growth of the media agencies based on their overall activity. The overall activity volume report, evaluating over 900 media agencies across 70 countries, is the reference quantitative ranking based on the activity volume, a metric including both traditional buying billings and non-traditional activities, which covers online paid media as well as fee-based activities in digital, data & analytics, content, marketing, and sponsorship.

  • Carat India wins media mandate for Croma

    Carat India wins media mandate for Croma

    Mumbai: Carat, the media agency from Dentsu India, has bagged the media mandate for Croma – an Indian retail chain of consumer electronics and durables from the house of Infiniti Retail. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch and will be serviced from the agency’s Mumbai office.

    As per the mandate, Carat India will oversee the brand’s media planning and buying rights (traditional + digital). The agency will also partner with the larger teams at Dentsu India to drive the full-funnel marketing needs of the client, further driving outcome-based solutions for the next phase of their exponential growth, keeping customers at the core of its planning and execution.

    Commenting on the win, Carat India CEO Anita Kotwani said, “We are backed by a consumer understanding proprietary framework, designing for people (DFP), which is strong & always relevant. It is inspired by design thinking which enables us to help brands with an in-depth understanding of their consumers. Our single-source consumer-connected system is the key differentiator in the Indian market. It has the ability to drive full-funnel client outcomes. Our ability to stay ahead of the curve in the tools and tech space by showcasing a unified holistic view of the consumers has been a key tenet that helped us clinch the business.”

    Croma – Infiniti Retail chief business officer (e-commerce & marketing) Shibashish Roy added, “We are expanding our presence in India by strengthening our omnichannel proposition with digital initiatives and aggressive store expansion plans. We look forward to working with Carat India as our media planning partner to further build on the Croma brand.”

  • Carat India ropes in Avilash Chakraborty as associate VP, strategy

    Carat India ropes in Avilash Chakraborty as associate VP, strategy

    MUMBAI: Carat, the flagship media agency from the house of dentsu India, has appointed Avilash Chakraborty as associate vice president (AVP), strategy. In his new role, Chakraborty will report to Anita Kotwani, CEO, Carat India and will lead the communication strategy for the agency, nationally.

    Chakraborty will also help drive the ‘Designing for People’ (DFP) framework inspired by Design Thinking from the house of Carat and work closely with the office leads on the agency’s existing and new business development initiatives.

    Armed with more than 13 years of experience, Chakraborty has worked with some of India’s leading advertising and media companies including JWT, Y&R and Cheil. He has led various strategy functions in Mindshare – North & East. Chakraborty has worked across areas in Innovation & Content Strategy, Integrated Media Strategy, Communications Strategy and Strategic Partnerships. He has also been part of The Walt Disney Company where he established and led multi-platform Strategic Partnerships for the iconic National Geographic brand in India.  

    Welcoming Chakraborty to the team, Anita Kotwani said, “Avilash brings with him a wealth of experience across creative, media and content. As we drive growth for Carat India, we needed to bring in talent that can truly transform the agency offering, and drive integrated communication planning. Avilash, with his strong strategic bent of mind and diverse experience, will work with the newly formed central strategy function at Carat and lead communication planning for the agency. I am truly excited to have him as part of the Carat family.“ 

    Commenting on his new role, Chakraborty added, “Touted to be the world’s first media agency, Carat is a powerhouse when it comes to some of the best-in-class strategic frameworks, brand planning products, and proprietary audience insight tools that exist in the market today. Moreover, the tight-knit integrated ecosystem of dentsu India across Media, Digital, Performance, OOH, Marketing Effectiveness and Creative agencies, make it perfectly poised to cater to the ever dynamic and agile marketing needs of clients. I am looking forward to being a part of Carat’s growth story under Anita’s leadership in India and partnering with clients in placing their brands at the helm of culture, consumer, and context.”

  • Carat & dentsu X announce senior leadership appointments

    Carat & dentsu X announce senior leadership appointments

    New Delhi : Dentsu International on Friday bolstered its senior leadership team with the appointment of Fiona Lloyd as the global client & brand president at Carat and Sanjay Nazerali as the new global client & brand president, dentsu X.

    The two executive appointments mark the culmination of a strategic re-set of global brand leadership within the dentsu international global media agency brands: Carat, dentsu X and iProspect.

    Dentsu international, global CEO Media & Global Clients, Peter Huijboom said, “We now have new faces and fresh thinking driving each of our global leadership media brands, each with the determination and spirit needed to deliver meaningful progress and growth for our clients and our business. Even before taking on these new roles, both Sanjay and Fiona have already been instrumental in shaping our new, simpler and streamlined market proposition.  Sanjay helped to establish and grow the dentsu X brand outside of APAC when it launched and Fiona has been driving an entire global rebrand of Carat and created its new ‘Designing for People’ proposition ready for the next phase of our growth plans.”

    Lloyd has been with dentsu since 2005. Starting first as an account director, she has held key leadership roles in both the Carat UK and Global business, including chief client officer and global CMO. Most recently, as MD Carat Global she spearheaded the global re-brand. Lloyd on her new role and the direction of the brand said, “Empathy, collaboration and value exchange are at the heart of our brand.  I’ll be focussed on driving these hard across our network to ensure Carat continues to be the industry powerhouse it is, maximising the contribution media makes to growth for our clients and creating a place where our people can thrive.”

    Nazerali joined dentsu over seven years ago, originally at Carat as global chief strategist, he then moved over to dentsu X in 2018 as part of the plan to make the brand a worldwide media agency, outside of its Japanese heartland.  Since then, dentsu X has been on an upward trajectory and was named the fastest growing agency by RECMA for two years. Before joining dentsu, he was SVP marketing at the then newly-launched MTV Europe and subsequently the first ever Global CMO at BBC News.

    Talking about his ambition for the brand, Nazerali said,“dentsu X is dentsu international’s bridge builder, across clients, partners, and civil society, creating value for all.  We’re the radical collaborators who forge meaningful progress through awe inspiring work.”

    Lloyd and Nazerali, alongside Amanda Morrissey, who joined as global president of iProspect in October 2020 now form the global leadership of the three global media brands within dentsu international.

  • Broadcasters beat Covid2019 blues with new channel launches

    Broadcasters beat Covid2019 blues with new channel launches

    MUMBAI: The Covid2019 pandemic was an unforeseen catastrophe for the broadcast industry. With the months-long lockdown, ad revenues troughed, and as content dried up, viewers started migrating en-masse to the greener pastures offered by OTT platforms. But thumbing their collective noses at these setbacks, the broadcasters are seeing the virtue in launching new channels. Television is now starting to mirror the online content space and deliver to the evolved consumer needs around content.

    Even during the lockdown, people turned to television as a means to keep themselves engaged and entertained, with BARC reporting a 43 per cent increase in India's TV viewership during the lockdown compared to the pre-Covid2019 period. Recent BARC data suggests a 17 per cent increase in India’s TV viewership compared to pre-Covid2019 period (week 38 vs weeks 2-4 ’20). The rise in TV consumption signifies the viewers’ appetite for content – and clearly, the time is ripe to green-flag new channels catering to different tastes and smaller sub-segments across geographies.

    ZeeL has debuted two new channels, lifestyle channel Zee Zest and Marathi music channel Zee Vajwa. Enterr10 Television Network has expanded its footprint in south India with Dangal Kannada, close on the heels of its Bhojpuri offering, Enterr10 Rangeela . Star Vijay, owned by Disney-Star, has come out with Tamil music channel Vijay Music. In10 Media Network has recently ventured into the kids’ entertainment space on Children’s Day with a new premium Hindi channel, Gubbare — Masti Ke Phuwarre. On 1 May 2020, Shemaroo Entertainment Media Network launched Hindi GEC Shemaroo TV.

     ZeeL chief consumer officer Prathyusha Agarwal said, “With Zee Vajwa, we promise to provide our audiences with a platform to enjoy some great music deep-rooted in our rich culture. We also identified a need gap in the lifestyle genre to serve a holistic entertainment experience to the focused Sec A target audience. These viewers seek experiences from around the world but from the comfort of their own homes. That’s where Zee Zest seamlessly comes in, with diverse lifestyle content themes such as wellness, travel, lifestyle, food, home improvement, and culture.”

    Media experts highlighted that these are part of long-term plans to strengthen a network’s overall portfolio and expand into new segments. With viewers confined to their homes, it’s the best time to launch new channels. Broadcasters now have more time on hand to try out new content.

    In10 Media Network MD Aditya Pittie shared that the network is focused on building scalable businesses and strategically expanding its footprint in the industry. He added, “In our country, television continues to be a primary viewing platform for kids’ entertainment among most households.”

    Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd CEO Hiren Gada mentioned that the network is always keen to experiment and set milestones in the media and entertainment space. With this industry-first initiative allowing viewers to tune into Shemaroo TV live on Facebook, Gada hopes to reach out to a new and wide set of audience and offer content that they would like to watch and enjoy in their free time.

    Carat media director Grashima Sahni pointed out that broadcasters are bringing in an element of personalisation into the television space and hence, discouraging migration to other avenues and sources. “The vernacular flavour in this expansion is a crucial ingredient too. Zee Vajwa, Dangal Kannada, Enterr 10 Rangeela, Vijay Music are all offerings in local languages of each region, appealing to the “local-masses” or “micro-masses” of each region. With this step, broadcasters are also building immunity for themselves to the challenges of NTO by TRAI. A customised appeal will make sure that the channel remains a part of the selected channel basket by its viewers,” Sahni explained.

    She further highlighted that these channels are a stepping stone for broadcasters to work towards a TV+online content ecosystem. The success of Hotstar has reflected a clear learning that the primary audiences of the content on the channel can and will remain within the ecosystem given their needs are met. When the unstoppable migration from TV to the online screen does happen – due to time flexibility needs or choices (cross-selling the content with a bigger online library) – the audience can be successfully made to migrate internally if the TV hook is present in that household.

    With NTO also setting in and consumers able to pay per channel than a group offering, channel choice mix will be an intricate balance of content on TV & digital.

    Agarwal stated that all of ZeeL’s new launches have not only established themselves strongly in their respective markets but have also aided market growth. Zee Punjabi captured a third of the viewership pie in the first four weeks of its launch, and consumption of Punjabi language content grew by 23 per cent compared to the one per cent growth in total TV viewership in Punjab/Chandigarh. Even during the lockdown, Zee Punjabi capitalised on the surge in demand for content as viewership grew by nearly 60 per cent (BARC data: weeks 12-15). The network’s new movie channels – Zee Biskope, Zee Picchar & Zee Thirai – have also aided growth by capturing significant share in the movie genre, which rose by 28-29 per cent in a growing TV pie. (BARC data: weeks 12-15).

    The launch of a new channel provides brands an opportunity to create competitive advantage as they reach sharper audience cohorts that are culturally connected. “For instance, Zee Vajwa, a category first, will allow advertisers to reach to a new audience cohort and hence offers a new opportunity for brand outreach. Zee Zest will use a dual strategy to reach consumers across TV and digital platforms, further making it an attractive proposition for advertisers. The advantage with the launch of a new lifestyle genre/ destination channel is that it opens doors to various new brands to associate with the channel. Therefore, it’s a clear driver of mutual growth,” elaborated Agarwal.

    Multiple projections suggest a recovered economy by mid-2021. Demand is a critical aspect of this recovery and advertising plays a crucial role in this demand generation. BARC has already reported TV ad volumes to be at a five year high. Sahni remarked that with festive season and big-ticket properties, the sentiment is relatively positive and reflects that the business is working hard to gain back its shares or capture newer opportunities in the market due to a refresh and reshuffling in buying cycles.

    She added that the dip in advertising by some mature categories will be neutralised, if not positively overcome, by increased spending from relatively newer and now bullish categories like ed-tech, pharma-tech, etc.

    Agarwal noted that the steady revival in the economy and increase in consumer spending is sparking demand and brands are being both conscious and cautious about the right ROI for the money they are spending. Agarwal shared that the network works very closely with all its  partners across the value chain to help deliver a holistic solution to influence their business KPIs and not just address their communication objectives. She concluded, “We will continue to focus on consumer centricity to drive mutual business growth, that will continue to garner leadership and currency for us.”

    In contrast, Sahni was of the view that each channel is in a unique position of its own, in context to market standing, core audience profile, and competition. While some channels are expanding and increasing footprint in regional space, or even niche genres (Zee Zest); others like HBO and WB are soon going off-air and online only to manage increased pressures from digital content sources in their core territory of English speaking and digitally adoptive audiences.

    However, the road to recovery remains a long and winding path, and the question that arises is: will the broadcasters reach a breakeven point where they are able to maximise profit?

    Sahni opined, “With newer channels and hence, wider owned original content by broadcasters, we foresee long term content solutions becoming an important element in the revenue stream. What the broadcasters will need to do is push their limits on creativity, flexibility and timelines. Future thinking brands have already moved towards creating a larger impact and solutions beyond reach & frequency planning, which will benefit the content owners in the coming years.”

  • Agencies, advertisers weigh in on BARC India filtering out outlier data

    Agencies, advertisers weigh in on BARC India filtering out outlier data

    MUMBAI: Recently, The Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC) announced that it is reverting to its earlier process of treatment of landing pages and filtering out outliers from the data as it released its week 23 ratings. This came just a week after the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) verdict allowing broadcasters and distributors of television channels to place registered satellite television channels (whose TV rating was measured by BARC India) on the landing page or boot up screen.

    This frequent change in the measurement module might have led to some confusion within the advertising community that relies heavily on BARC data for its marketing planning on television. Marketers Indiantelevision.com spoke to said that they prefer this data filtered out.

    MediaCom general manager Sudipto Chatterjee explained that any sudden spike in the reach or viewership of a channel is termed as an outlier. Citing an example of English news channels, which have comparatively lesser sampling than any other news channels, he elaborated, “Let’s say it has a base of 1000 subscribers and even if 150-250 more people view it, the range will look like it has shot up greatly, thus being counted as an outlier.”

    Placing channels on the landing page may lead to such outlier spikes but the viewership might not follow since it depends on the content that a channel features and that’s what media planners and marketers look at while strategising their plans.

    Chatterjee added, “We need to understand that in overall media planning, the outliers might just amount for 5-10 per cent of investment. It will not add anything to the GRP or reach. It is based on your consumer affinity. For media planners like us, we do not really buy numbers. It is more about content and what kind of audience I am looking at. Nobody looks at the minimal up and down in the ratings.”

    RK Swamy BBDO president and director Sangeetha N also mentioned that the landing page strategy is generally adopted by channels with very low ratings and any surges, even due to calculation errors, on such low bases, will be insignificant.

    She said, “For how long can a channel with poor content but deep pockets hold viewer attention by forcing landing page viewing? Only good content will define where the target audience will move to.”

    Carat India SVP Mayank Bhatnagar also shared similar views as he noted, “I feel that landing page is a mechanism to get people to sample a channel. If the content is good, one will continue to watch the channel or else they will move on. It doesn’t matter if the channel has the landing page rights for a month or even a year. Content is the key to get the viewership.”

    Advertisers also share a similar view. Angel Broking chief marketing officer Prabhakar Tiwari shared, “In our view, landing page is a purely promotional exercise. As per some industry data, a channel may get an increased viewership between 4 to 18 per cent subject to target demographics of a particular cable operator by investing in landing page-based promotions. We also have our internal research to guide us, as we take channel-specific media calls. Media decisions are taken after a lot of deliberation and we measure all factors before coming to a decision.”

    Although the data, filtered or unfiltered, does not really impact the marketing strategies, experts prefer having filtered statistics at their hands as it is more transparent and reliable, and thus feel that BARC India’s decision is a welcome move.

    Sangeetha noted, “The resuming of outliers being filtered out – whether manually or through automation – will mean more meaningful data, closer to reality, and hence will be welcomed. By this method, no channel gets preference over another by getting the landing page rights through the purchase of the same, hence prima facie no channel can have an unfair advantage.”

    Bhatnagar said, “By eliminating the outlier data, all channels are now on the same platform and can have an end-to-end comparison. Now it all depends on content.”

  • DAN acquires stake in Scottish creative agency

    DAN acquires stake in Scottish creative agency

    MUMBAI: Multinational media and digital marketing communications company, Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired 100 per cent stake in a Scotland based creative agency, Whitespace.

    Established in 1997, with a focus on digital and brand design, Whitespace has developed into one of Scotland’s leading and most awarded creative agencies. Currently housed with a talented team of 70 and located in Edinburgh, the agency offers specialised services in brand strategy, digital production, content and integrated campaigns spanning mobile, augmented reality and virtual reality to a diverse portfolio of clients.

    Following the acquisition, Whitespace will remain a standalone agency and will add capability infill in creative services, digital and production to DAN North, in addition to making an important contribution to the Dentsu Group’s business throughout the UK.

    The impact of this transaction on Dentsu’s consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ending 31 December 2018 is expected to be minimal.

    Dentsu Aegis Network, the Dentsu Group’s global business headquarters based in London, is expanding the group’s business worldwide through ten global network brands–Carat, Dentsu (Dentsu Brand Agencies), dentsu X, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Merkle, MKTG, Posterscope and Vizeum–as well as through several specialist/multi-market brands.

  • Dentsu Aegis Network launches video planning & insight tool

    Dentsu Aegis Network launches video planning & insight tool

    MUMBAI: The data sciences division of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) India has announced the launch of DAN Prism, a unique video planning and insights tool that provides a single audience view across television and digital.

    DAN Prism overlays the consumption pattern of the digital consumers on Facebook, YouTube and Programmatic Video with TV viewership measurement company Broadcast Audience Research Council to provide rich audience insights. These insights are then used for planning and activation through a single reach curve across all media platforms in a matter of minutes using a series of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms.

    Today India boasts of 800+ TV channels watched by 780 million Indians. There are nearly 100 million subscribers to over the top (OTT) platforms and nearly 260 million online video watchers in the country. Evidently, multi-screening has become a part of the natural video consumption habit of the average Indian

    Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia chief data officer Gautam Mehra says, “In the ever-changing media landscape, we are experiencing a golden age of video consumption in India with fantastic content and platforms. The proliferation of smart devices is changing the way consumers consume content. One of Dentsu Aegis’ core objectives today is to deliver a proprietary, audience-first approach to video planning that maximises client investment across TV and digital video. The idea here is always to harness the true power of data. DAN Prism is just one more step in that direction.”

    The tool will be used for all DAN India clients. The tool is a collaboration across the TV and digital brands under the network’s umbrella in India.

    Carat India CEO Rajni Menon adds, “The TV viewing landscape of the country is swiftly changing owing to the mushrooming of a large number of OTT players, better connectivity and increased smart-phone penetration. As a country, we are now spending a lot more time watching video content. A large part of this is done on the mobile and on tablets. DAN Prism serves to be a powerful tool that reflects people’s behaviours today, enabled by convergence.”