ITV

Tag: Cellcast

  • Valentine’s Day hampers on Radio City Bid2Win

    Valentine’s Day hampers on Radio City Bid2Win

    MUMBAI: Radio City and Cellcast Interactive announce a special Valentine’s Day Surprise Hamper that listeners can win by bidding for it. ‘Radio City Bid2Win’ will be part of the Valentine’s day programme line up in Mumbai, Delhi , Jaipur, Lucknow, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

    The surprise hampers comprise of premium, lifestyle products varying from exotic cruise-liner packages to a bouquet of luxury fashion accessories valued up to Rs.1.5 million.

    Listeners can win these hampers for a nominal amount by submitting the lowest unique bid via SMS to CITY BID (amount) to 6644. Based on the ‘lowest’ and most ‘unique’ bid, the winners for the hampers would be declared on-air on 13 February at 10.30 am.

    Bidding for these hampers begins from 8 February 8 and closes on 12 February.

    Speaking on the development Radio City vice president and head – strategic planning and alternate revenue Hemant Jain says “Reiterating our commitment to consistently provide innovative and exciting initiatives to enhance listener delight, we launched Radio City Bid2Win early last month across all our stations after the initial success in Mumbai. The Valentine’s Day Special Hamper, exclusive to our listeners brings them the perfect and most simple gifting opportunity to win a specially selected bouquet of luxury and lifestyle brands and celebrate the season of love with Radio City. Hence by using technology to create interactive radio programming formats we have provided opportunities for Radio City listeners to benefit in multiple ways”.

    According to Radio City executive vice president and head – corporate sales Ashit Kukain “Radio City Bid2Win will provide an opportunity for an array of lifestyle brands to showcase their products to a huge audience and will also help them widen consumer base through experiential marketing. Most certainly, Radio City listeners are in for an amazing treat with the high value products on offer through a unique interactive experience.”

    ‘Radio City Bid2Win’ is a unique reverse auction bidding platform developed by Cellcast Interactive India as the ‘backchannel’ that enables listeners to take an active role in a real-time auction using their mobile phone. Radio City has used this innovation in its prime time show Kase Kai Mumbai in November 2006. The popularity of the format was later replicated across Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad from 9 January.

  • Huge market in rural areas through Mobile Value Added Services

    Huge market in rural areas through Mobile Value Added Services

    MUMBAI: Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) industry is fast growing in India. “VAS is taking a wider view to content providers and expanding the demographic segments”, said Mr. Pankaj Thaker – CEO, Cellcast at The India Digital Summit 2007 hosted by Internet & Mobile Association of India in New Delhi. Advocating the use of VAS in India, he added that 80% of the participation in China is via VAS.

    Chief Guest Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Hon’ble Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said that today telecom companies in India are receiving global attention. He added “It is only a matter of time that Digital offerings will be across products and services. The content and services will become the unique selling point. His vision for digital India comprises of the country being connected with a network of communication technologies spanning optic fiber and wireless, interacting in all the 22 languages and cross lingual information access facilities.”

    Mobile VAS is slowly becoming a critical source of information and interactivity. MVAS market is pegged at 2200- 3000 crores. Commenting on VAS, Mr. Rajiv Hiranandani said that India is lagging behind China as the latter has been using VAS for the past 4 years while India is still an infant. The role of VAS is very critical to the growth of the industry in India.

    Eminent speakers / leading industry experts like Neville Taraporewalla, MD & CEO – Connecturf, Arvind Chawla, Advisor TDSAT, RK Arnold, Secretary – TRAI, Pankaj Thaker, CEO- Cellcast,

    Rajiv Hiranandani, Mariam Mathew – CEO, Malayalam Manorama among others presented an insight on convergence, communication, content and commerce.

    Speaking at the summit, the distinguished panelists highlighted that rural Indian market plays a pivotal role in the growth of internet and mobile sector. Rajiv Hiranandani added that 50% of the internet subscribers are from rural India. Mobile phones have permeated to smaller towns, cities and villages expanding the opportunity for adoption and use of value added services. Expansion of mobile subscriber’s base beyond cities presents a great opportunity to the MVAS industry to grow. However, the challenge is the role of entertainment in adoption, pricing, packaging and local content.

    The India Digital Summit 2007, IAMAI’s flagship annual event, had set a tough agenda for itself this year and though there were some tricky questions, each panelist provided a “view” of the future. The Summit this year focused on two distinct areas: internet and related issues of current and future policies, communications tools and commerce; and mobile devices and connected issues of mobile value added services over two days.
     

  • Cellcast launches Sumo.TV in India

    Cellcast launches Sumo.TV in India

    MUMBAI: Cellcast Interactive India has launched Sumo.TV, a pioneering product offering India’s first end-to-end user-generated content (UGC) solution for broadcasters.

    “Sumo.TV invites individuals to share their personal or creative videos that could be featured on prime time television”, said Cellcast Plc, UK, vice president Mahesh Ramachandra. Sumo.TV has already been launched in the UK and China markets.

    “In the UK market we have started a 24-hour channel with the content contributed solely by viewers. This exceeds what even YouTube or MySpace can provide for their communities,” Ramachandra added. All content can be contributed through the newly-launched website, at www.sumo.in, where individuals can view, share and manage their own content.

    Said Cellcast Interactive India CEO Pankaj Thakar, “UGC reflects a fundamental change in audience behavior, especially in the 18-34 age group in India where most of them are spending time online or on mobile creating and sharing their own content. Sumo.TV offers them an outlet to share their content with millions through the power of television.”

    “Importantly, the content contributors can earn revenue whenever their videos are watched or shown on television,” he added. Every time a user’s content is downloaded by another user, shown on television, or streamed on mobile services, he will receive a percentage of received revenues. Effectively, Sumo.TV users are being invited to set up their own mini-channels.

    Sumo.TV, said Thakar, brings together a compelling consumer proposition, offering users new ways of finding that ‘15 minutes’ of fame, new ways of making money from personal content and new ways of expressing themselves and making friends. In the U.K., the Sumo.TV website (www.sumo.tv) alone has an average of 80000 unique visitors per day.

    “India is experiencing a truly dynamic phase in media technology convergence and we, at Cellcast, are delighted to launch the revolutionary product Sumo.TV in the market that will help us derive the benefits over a long period. Cellcast India plans to air the video content on local television and are currently in talks with a number of television channels about the same,” he added.

    All the best videos submitted to the website or via mobile phone are selected by trained staff and broadcast on Sumo.TV channels and programmes. Broadcasters who license Sumo.TV have immediate access to all the components of next-generation UGC programming including original user-generated content, UGC-oriented interactive TV formats, 3D video jukebox, content management system and production tools Video-sharing and community website mobile services. These tools and services allow a broadcaster to create anything from an hour-long weekly television show to an entire UGC-driven 24/7 television channel.

  • Cellcast to simulcast Bid2Win on Sony, Sahara, Zee Punjabi and Zoom

    Cellcast to simulcast Bid2Win on Sony, Sahara, Zee Punjabi and Zoom

    MUMBAI: An attempt is being made to push the television programming envelope. Even if it is coming in the form of simple game show.

    Come this Sunday, viewers of Sony, Zee Punjabi and Zoom TV will all tune into a single programme at 12 midnight: Bid2Win.

    Before that viewers of SaharaOne will have already sampled the show at 11:30 pm. Based on the reverse auction principle it will run 365 days of the year, and will offer participants, who bid the lowest, prizes ranging from notebook computers to fridges to microwaves to LCD TVs to iPODs to home theater systems, to digital cameras to camcorders.

    Produced by Sparkle Works for UK company Cellcast Interactive, Bid2Win will be hosted by Veer Das, Taraana, and Yudi. Says Cellcast Interactive India CEO Pankaj Thakar: “It’s a compelling interactive format for a mass audience. In a reverse auction, instead of prices going up and up and out of reach, prices stay so low that everyone can participate with confidence. It is a show with high production values and high energy anchors offering high aspirational products at extremely low price.”

    Adds vice president business development Rajeev Dhal: “We plan to simulcast the show on many other channels as the days goes by. This is probably amongst the first major initiatives to push an audience particpatory show.”

    Basically, the three hosts will offer the products on screen and whip up a frenzy among viewers as they either shoot their bids via SMS or IVR. The bids will pop up on screen via graphical interfaces. The lowest bid will stand to win; duplication of a price point by two or more viewers will immediately lead to the bid becoming redundant, reveals Dhal. The auction will continue till the next day with the winner being announced in the following programme. Each SMS has been priced at a premium level of Rs 10 in its tie up with Airtel. Other sign ins with mobile telcos such as Hutch and Idea are likely to follow.

    The half hour show has Prabhu Azgaonkar as the online editor with Asim being the director of photography and Shikha Azgaonkar,the scriptwriter.A four camera set up is being used to bring out the show daily and and an entire operation has been set up to manage the backend for the SMS management and to decide the winner.

    Cellcast Interactive India has bought the telecast slots from the four broadcasters and will not be selling any sponsorships or airtime around the show. Around 10 promos a day are planned to pull in the audience, apart from a SMS push from Airtel.

    Bid2Win is an evolution of a highly successful format pioneered by Cellcast. Reverse auctions first gained popularity on the Internet, and Cellcast developed the concept as a live SMS-driven interactive television show with Star TV in India in autumn of 2004.

    The resulting show received over 6.7 million bids, becoming the world’s largest interactive reverse auction, says a corporate release. In December 2004 a similar format was launched with Lebanese partner Future TV, and proved so popular across the Middle East and North Africa that the show was extended beyond the Ramadan holiday, it adds.

    Will Bid2Win find takers? Will audiences pick up their phones and shoot across SMS and calls? Home shopping companies have been running a successful business by telecasting programming blocks on TV hawking everything from weight loss tools to exercise machines for some years now. Cellcast will probably have to do a lot more to push the concept at viewers; reverse auctions or forward auctions are unfamiliar concepts for the general viewers – a small section of which has been buying goodies shopping at home through television. Additionally, care will have to be taken to ensure that the prizes/bid items are alluring enough.

    If Thakar manages to pull off his plan of roadblocking Bid2Win across 15 channels all over the country, and pushes the telecast time aggressively enough, he might end up making it a success.