Mumbai: Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance has launched an educational initiative under the theme “Life Goal Mantras”. The campaign aims to simplify personal finance and insurance concepts collaborating with content creators.
Every episode, in this short-format video series, focusses on a single personal finance concept simplified by the influencer in an engaging manner. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance’s ‘LifeGoal Mantras’ campaign videos will be available on the social media pages of the company and the influencer.
Starting with influencer Aiyyo Shraddha, the initiative simplifies several financial concepts including Rule of 72, equity allocation formula, size of insurance cover, 10-5-3 investment allocation thumb rule, and many more.
Commenting on the educational initiative, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance chief marketing officer Chandramohan Mehra said, “One of the challenges driving personal finance awareness is the seemingly complex concepts and jargons. Through the initiative, Life Goal Mantras, we aim to leverage social media influencers to educate and advise the newer generation of investors, about key personal finance concepts in a manner that aids easy comprehension and strengthens resonance with the brand.”
Mumbai: Hindi general entertainment channel The Q has announced the launch of a new show Mr Aur Mrs LLB diversifying its programming slate. The show will premiere on 20 June at 9 pm and will air from Monday to Friday.
Set in the fictitious town of Machandpur, Mr Aur Mrs LLB will feature stories around the lives of lawyer couple – Anirudh Agarwal played by Subir Rana and Payal Agarwal played by Shivani Tomar – who have contradicting ideologies and theories. Adding humour to the plot is the silly Judge Rajinder Chaudhary played by Sumit Arora. Each story will spread across three to five episodes and is a satirical take on situations inspired from real life settings. Gunjan Sinha who plays the character of an orderly and Saksham Shukla who portrays a crazy reporter are also part of the show.
To promote the humour and the madness, The Q will roll-out a cross-media integrated marketing campaign helmed by the central characters
“At The Q, we believe the onus rests upon us to offer our audiences especially in the FTA universe with differentiated content that is original to TV,” said QYOU Media CEO Simran Hoon. “Mr Aur Mrs LLB adds variety to our current offering with a mix of interesting genres, and characters. Each story is a one-of-its-kind narrative that will keep viewers gripped. We are sure that this show will help us further develop appointment viewing for The Q and a stronger relationship with our viewers.”
“Mr Aur Mrs LLB offers a whole new entertainment experience for our discerning viewers. Each character has their own quirk, characteristic and ideology making them unique, fresh to TV and pleasantly amiable,” said The Q and Q Marathi programming head Ashutosh Barve. “Collaboratively, the show is designed to drive engagement and conversations. We are sure that the launch of Mr Aur Mrs LLB will bring families together in their living rooms and fulfil their entertainment needs with content they can associate with.”
The show originally made for digital by ‘Two Nice Men Mediaworks’ is brought to television homes in the Hindi heartland by The Q.
MUMBAI: Vuulr, an online content marketplace for film & TV has announced that BBC Studios has signed an agreement to list over 3,000 hours of its premium British content on the Vuulr marketplace.
BBC Studios’ library of documentary, comedy, factual entertainment and lifestyle content will be immediately made available for licensing to customers in Asia, featuring titles like Top Gear, Death In Paradise, Call The Midwife, Attenborough and the Sea Dragon and The Young Offenders.
Additionally, BBC Studios has commissioned a BBC Studios branded content sales platform from Vuulr at bbcstudios.vuulr.com. This BBC Studios Branded Sales Platform (BSP) will allow interested buyers to search the catalogue, watch trailers and screeners on-demand, check rights availability and place licensing offers easily and conveniently.
All 7,000 buyers already registered with Vuulr will be able to login to BBC Studio’s BSP with their Vuulr credentials. New buyers will only need to do a quick registration to gain full access to the platform.
“The entertainment industry is fast evolving, and we need to expand the ways to showcase our extensive content catalogue to capture customers that we can’t always reach. Working with Vuulr enables us to reach out and connect with buyers across the diverse Asia and South Asia regions, bringing our bold British premium content to new audiences” BBC Studios senior VP & GM Asia Phil Hardman said.
“BBC Studios is well known for producing some of the most engaging and premium British programming, with many iconic and much-loved titles. We are incredibly excited to be working with BBC Studios and to present their amazing catalogue on Vuulr,” Vuulr CEO Ian McKee said.
MUMBAI: The leading provider of content, marketing, and monetization technologies InMobi on Tuesday announced an expansion of its partnership with Microsoft Advertising to support enterprise and strategic advertisers in southeast Asia, middle east, and Africa. They will offer marketers an integrated solution to power their campaigns built on the search and native display capabilities of Microsoft Advertising and the mobile ad tech capability of InMobi’s advertising platforms.
InMobi and Microsoft have been in a strategic partnership since July 2018 to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation by providing them with insights, audience, and engagement platforms for a connected world. The partnership was expanded in 2019 as InMobi added the Microsoft Advertising products and solutions to its offerings in India.
Speaking of this association, Microsoft Advertising APAC vice president Nick Seckold said, “Over the last two and a half years InMobi has done a wonderful job establishing Microsoft Advertising’s Indian footprint while doubling revenue over the same period. InMobi’s extensive knowledge and expertise of the digital advertising ecosystem in India combined with their trusted client relationships has delivered significant growth despite the effects of the pandemic. InMobi’s successful track record in India has led Microsoft Advertising to extend their coverage across southeast Asia where they will be tasked with building close relationships with advertisers and agencies to grow the business in the region.”
Microsoft Advertising’s EMEA and LATAM vice president Mark Richardson said, “Microsoft Advertising are thrilled that InMobi will further expand their representation of our full suite of advertising offerings to strategic and enterprise clients in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa as part of our continuation to expand our sales and marketing efforts into this region. Microsoft Advertising offers advertising solutions that reach people across Microsoft properties including Bing, Microsoft News, Edge, and Outlook as well as on partner sites like AOL and Yahoo.”
As part of the expansion, the Microsoft Advertising business at InMobi general manager Rohit Dosi will take up additional responsibilities for growing the Microsoft Advertising business across southeast Asia, middle east, and African markets and leading the global relationship with Microsoft.
“The extended partnership between Microsoft Advertising and InMobi will enable marketers to deliver a unified brand experience to customers by bringing together the best of search and native display platforms across both organisations,” he said.
“We are positioned uniquely to bring Microsoft Advertising to marketers in southeast Asia, middle east, and Africa through our deep appreciation of marketers’ needs, a keen understanding of the markets, and a customer-obsessed team,” Dosi added.
Talking about the benefits of this partnership, Angara vice president of marketing Ankit Maheswari said “The InMobi team is pivotal to the success that Angara witnesses with Microsoft Advertising. Their proactive approach has time and again enhanced campaign efficiency, driven innovation, and delivered healthy returns for the brand. We are looking forward to replicating this success across multiple geographies and markets and going from strength to strength with InMobi as a partner.”
On the promise of the expansion, Commerce Pundit digital marketing head Anand Mistry shared, “In the last two years, the partnership with the InMobi team has consistently enabled us to grow business and maximise ROI for our clients on the Microsoft Advertising platform. The strategic inputs and executional excellence from InMobi have not only added value to our client’s business but also deepened Commerce Pundit’s relationship with them. The comprehensive insights shared by the InMobi team on search, shopping and native display have been pivotal in exploring and scaling our business across new locations globally. We are excited to see the partnership reach new heights in the future!”
Mumbai: The number of original and exclusive titles in Netflix’s US catalogue accounted for more than 50 per cent of all available content for the first time in the company’s history in March 2022, according to a report.
Ampere’s Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) tracking data indicates that there are now over 3,700 original-branded (i.e. original and exclusive) movies and TV seasons in the Netflix US library, which has consistently offered around 7,000 titles over the last three years.
Among the major SVoD platforms, Netflix is second only to the much smaller Apple TV+ in its focus on original-branded content. It’s far ahead of fellow longstanding streaming incumbents Amazon Prime Video (9 per cent) and Hulu (4 per cent).
Netflix’s original content investment reached $6.2 billion in 2021. Originals have been a major focus of Netflix’s content strategy. In September 2016, when originals and exclusives accounted for only 5 per cent of its US catalogue, the then CFO David Wells set a target of a 50/50 split between original and licensed titles within the next few years. This transition to the majority of original titles is a product of Netflix’s market-leading spending.
Content data shows that the group has outspent every other SVoD company on original content each year since 2013 and has consistently increased its yearly investment. Netflix’s original content spend peaked at $6.2 billion in 2021, more than double the next highest spender, Disney+, with $2.8 billion.
Netflix owns some of the most-watched SVoD content, including Bridgerton. Such investment has helped make Netflix a prominent distributor of popular content. Ampere’s proprietary Popularity score indicates that across Q1 2022, Netflix originals and exclusives accounted, on average, for 12 per cent of the 100 most popular titles available on SVoD in the US, the highest share of any SVoD platform.
Notable titles include the final season of crime series Ozark and the second season of period drama Bridgerton, which recently became the most-watched English-language TV series on Netflix.
Ampere Analysis analyst Joe Hall said, “Netflix’s increasing content self-sufficiency is necessary for today’s streaming market. The rise of studio-led direct-to-consumer platforms has led to a shrinking pool of licensable content as studios prefer to keep productions in-house. Original content also allows platforms to offer exclusive titles internationally without additional licensing costs. This is particularly important as Netflix sets its sight on acquiring more international subscribers to compensate for maturity in developed markets.”
75 percent of titles on Netflix will be original or exclusive by the end of 2024. Under current growth rates, Ampere estimates that 75 per cent of the movies and TV seasons available on Netflix will be either originals or exclusives by the end of 2024.
Mumbai: Bangalore based brand advocacy platform, Socxo, has announced the launch of ‘Socxly’ in India. It is an organic social marketing platform for products and acts as a one-stop tool for content marketers and creators.
Socxly is the next level of short links, which is a need in today’s expanding digital media universe. It aims at being a game-changer tool for content creators and marketers who use ‘short links’ for social posts, to differentiate their content in today’s ever-demanding social media universe.
Besides helping marketers create quick short links with ‘Branded URLs’ on its web and mobile app, Socxly offers a fully integrated set of features to make the short links ‘smarter’ for social sharing and posting, by allowing marketers to configure the short links as clickable social cards, insert a call to action banners & pixel retarget codes, embed UTM & URI parameters for any brand/non-brand content including file-based links.
This is the first time that a ‘short link’ tool generator has been built with distinctive and well-defined features that have always been a latent need for marketers but never addressed clearly within a single content marketing tool. Posting content using random ‘short links’ and pictures is a routine for most social marketers as part of their organic social marketing. But, simply posting short links and pictures without the context of user action on the post, click-based measurement and attributes is an opportunity lost in social marketing.
The key objective for social posting is to drive awareness/demand/lead generation by attracting users to view the posts, and activate them to engage, click and take the users to the intended landing pages for conversion/sales.
Socxly also offers a first of its kind ‘organic social campaigns’ feature, to drive social referral marketing for customer advocacy, employee, or partner referral marketing on social media.
Speaking about this new product Socxo co-founder and CEO Sudarsan Rao said, ‘We realized that content/social marketers were underutilizing the power of social media and were dependent on multiple tools to run their organic content posting on their social pages. Socxly is an attempt to offer a single point solution to marketers for all their ‘organic social marketing and campaign’ efforts and along with its core tool Socxo, to increase the value of their content marketing by further distributing/amplifying through trusted influencer/brand advocacy.”
Mumbai: World’s largest independent video software provider Synamedia has announced the acquisition of Utelly, a UK-based privately-owned content discovery platform provider.
As a part of this deal, Synamedia has acquired the company with products targeted at the entertainment industry. Its offerings include metadata aggregation, search and recommendations, as well as content management and a content promotion engine.
Utelly’s solution simplifies the complexity of users’ content discovery across TV channels, demand and multiple streaming services. Its SaaS-based technology is already pre-integrated with the Synamedia Go video platform and will now be embedded in the Go.
Aggregate add-on pack to solve one of the major challenges that viewers face such as finding content across TV and apps on any screen. Utelly’s technology achieves this through metadata aggregation, intelligent asset linking, AI and machine learning.
Utelly aggregates data in real-time from multiple metadata providers – pre-integrated with Gracenote, TiVo, IMDB, Netflix and fifty other platforms. By unifying data and using AI to enrich sparse data sets, Utelly provides customers with search and recommendations that enhance viewers’ content discovery experiences. The result is an increase in customers’ Net Promoter Score (NPS), subscriber retention, and ARPU.
This acquisition strengthens the Synamedia Go offering and underlines a new phase of investment in Synamedia’s portfolio of SaaS streaming solutions which also includes Synamedia Clarissa, Synamedia Iris, VIVID Workflow as a Service, and Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard.
Speaking of this development, Synamedia CEO Paul Segre said, “Every day we hear from customers that metadata aggregation is an obstacle that is negatively impacting viewer engagement. Utelly was ahead of the curve in recognizing this and developing a SaaS solution that enables end-users to find content across aggregated TV and video services. Its AI-powered solution eliminates the complexity of combining data from multiple metadata providers and is a great addition to our Synamedia Go streaming platform.”
Utelly founder and CEO Romain Eude commented, “This acquisition is testament to the hard work and ingenuity of our tight-knit team of developers who have put Utelly on the map. We look forward to the next step in Utelly’s journey as we become part of the Synamedia family and embrace the new opportunities on a global scale.”
Mumbai: Airtel Digital TV is ready to enthrall its subscribers yet again with the launch of its new service – Airtel HITS HD.
HITS brings the iconic series all set to launch on Airtel Digital TV on 20 May 2022.
Featuring a selection of some of the most popular, iconic, and award-winning Hollywood television content from the 60s to the early 2000’s, the channel is sure to take you on a lovely trip down memory lane. Airtel digital TV subscribers can now enjoy a window to the best content ever produced for television in HD like Diff’rent Strokes, Bewitched, Charmed, Bonanza, The Lucy Show, Baywatch, The Bionic Woman, Sherlock Holmes, among many others. These award-winning titles are sure to appeal to both those who remember the Golden Age of Hollywood and modern audiences.
Airtel Digital TV CEO Manu Sood said, “At Airtel we are always looking at serving the discerning content needs of our subscribers. With Airtel HITS HD we are giving our subscribers a platform to indulge in their favourite Hollywood shows from the 60s to the early 2000’s. The diverse assortment of English shows from the good old days fulfills a need gap for our evolving viewers who are constantly looking for unique entertainment destinations that are not available elsewhere be it TV or OTT.”
Rewind Networks CEO Avi Himatsinghani said, “We are thrilled to associate with Airtel Digital TV to bring Airtel HITS HD to their subscribers in India. Airtel viewers can now tune in to enjoy the finest curation of the most popular, iconic, and award-winning Hollywood television content from the past in high definition! I am certain our hand-picked selection will make the viewers reminisce over their favourite TV shows, making Airtel HITS HD a perfect destination for family viewing and entertainment. We look forward to the partnership!”
HITS features a carefully curated collection of top TV dramas and sitcoms from Hollywood and UK majors such as The Walt Disney Company, ITV Studios, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Fremantle and Sony Pictures, and will progressively introduce more titles from other studios.
The channel shall be available free for the first 10 days followed by Rs 75 per month. Airtel HITS HD will be available on Channel 167 on Airtel Digital TV and will be aired in high definition (HD) with English subtitles.
Mumbai: The client solution company Spring Bio Solutions has assigned its social media duties to Verve Media. The media agency will be responsible for the company’s social media management, digital creative designing and brand recognition.
Verve Media will also work to enhance the presence of Spring Bio Solution on LinkedIn by curating innovative content, company updates and industry trends.
Verve Media co-founder Vinay Singh Sangwan said, “Marketing for pharmaceutical brands comes with its own set of challenges. We are sure that our energetic team with their digital marketing expertise will empower the brand to strengthen its hold in the market.”
Speaking on this partnership, April Bio Solution director Salim Shaikh commented, “Spring Bio Solution is on a growth path and we are excited to embark on the digital journey for the brand. We are hoping to leverage the benefits of digital in a category that has not yet embraced the medium as widely as consumer brands.”
MUMBAI: How has the exponential growth in consumption of OTT content impacted the tech – especially hardware – infrastructure needs of those running streaming platforms or serving video entertainment to consumers?
That was the main question that was discussed during the tech session at the sixth edition of Indiantelevision.com’s pioneering Vidnet Summit held in end April. Titled Rise of Digital Revolution – Accelerated Growth Led by Disruptive Innovation in the world of OTT, the session featured Dell Technologies medium business leader Radhesh Shankaranarayanan, Sony Pictures Networks India head of Sony LIV Technology Manish Verma, NXTDigital COO Rouse and Indian Television Dot Com founder, CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari as the moderator.
Ten years from now, this period will be called the digital revolution period across the globe, expounded Shankaranarayanan, referring to the industrial and information revolutions which transformed the world in every way in earlier centuries. “There was a pressure or push to move into digital before this, but the pandemic has actually accelerated the digital drive completely.”
Specifically pointing out to the media and entertainment ecosystem he opined that production houses have suddenly seen a huge amount of video content business flowing into them and, as a result, the demand for Dell workstations and servers has skyrocketed.
“Earlier this segment used to be very niche in terms of technology adoption, but today I have seen so many production houses mushrooming in the last couple of years,” he revealed. “I am currently talking to at least 400-odd production houses in the country- right from Delhi to Trivandrum. Hence we want to be as close to content creation that’s happening. We are really keen on offering even more of them solutions which will help them keep pace with the burgeoning needs by offering them workstations with the fast video processing power they need.”
What demonetisation has done to the payment industry, I think the lockdown has done for the OTT industry, added SPNI’s Manish Verma.
“We have seen consumption increasing crazily during the lockdowns and it has essentially increased in three different areas. One is the premium VOD (video-on-demand) service, people have actually started paying for content where earlier they used to find means to not to pay. Second is sports, which is a very good driver of consumption for us, we offer multiple live sports. That’s where we have seen good consumption happening and that’s always been there.”
Third big area was interactivity- KBC Play along, wherein users can play the same KBC on their devices, while the show is on air, adds Verma. “All three areas require a lot of backend infrastructure, which has increased exponentially for us. We need to make sure that our backend infrastructure is scaled properly to handle the traffic, so that when concurrent users are coming in there is no latency.”
Another phenomena that is happening is the shift in devices from personal mobile viewing patterns to consumption on bigger screens such as smart TVs for a better viewing experience, he noted.
NXTDigital’s Rouse Koshy offered his perspective on how his cable network was impacted on the tech infrastructure front by the increase in video consumption.
“The pandemic didn’t hit us as hard as these guys (OTT platforms) hit us!” he expressed. He went on to add that in the last one and a half year, the company started digitising and coming up with combo products such as broadband with video etc.
“Now in the last six months we have also started aggregating all OTT platforms and selling it as a bouquet.” This transformation is going to be a challenge, admitted Koshy as cable TV operators have a different mindset and to train them to transform is going to be a “humongous exercise.”
4K adoption will need to further demand for tremendous processing power houses of workstation going forward, noted Shankaranarayanan, even as 8K is still distant.
“I am seeing this as another huge additional spend coming in hardware, software and cloud infrastructure along with 5G opening up a totally new experience,” he explained
Going forward, we see this trend of gaming and music, apart from entertainment genres as a part of OTT platforms, revealed Koshy, which would further accelerate hardware needs at the consumer end.
With 5G emerging, we will need to further scale up infrastructure, bandwidth requirement, affirmed Verma in response to Wanvari’s observation about the telecom spectrum transition happening globally which is expected to hit India in the next 12 months or so.
When it comes to Metaverse, it’s too early for us to say how it’ll take off, Koshy confessed, and whether it will end up as a fad. Shankaranarayanan was more optimistic about the surge in hardware infrastructure investments that the metaverse era is going to bring with it. “The compute power is going to be huge, and for that the Dell has products which can cater to the requirement so consumers can have a seamless experience,” he highlighted.
Watch the entire panel discussion on the Rise of Digital Revolution – Accelerated Growth Led by Disruptive Innovation in the world of OTT by clicking on the link here:
