Tag: Culture Machine

  • Ex MullenLowe Lintas’ Joseph George ‘Tilt-ing’ the creative agency model

    Ex MullenLowe Lintas’ Joseph George ‘Tilt-ing’ the creative agency model

    MUMBAI: A 150-year experienced team from across advertising, marketing, content, consumer advocacy, data analytics, storytelling, studio production, digital, media, qualitative research, behavioural science and video analytics have come together to offer consulting, communication, content and video production services for brands and businesses under the name Tilt Brand Solutions.

    Tilt Brand Solutions chairman and MD Joseph George says, “The context in which brands operate is everything. When that changes, everything about the brand outreach needs to change. What, where and how consumers buy, and what, where and how they consume content, have all changed. These changes cannot be responded to, by shoe-horning existing models into new structures. They need to be addressed by structuring a new; not re-structuring an old. Ergo Tilt.” 

    Tilt believes that brand and communication planning today is mostly “right brained”, predicated primarily on culture, attitudes and beliefs. And while these will continue to remain critical, the plethora of actual behavioural and consumption data available today cannot be ignored.

    Joseph opines, “Data analytics today sits only in digital, media or analytics agencies. At Tilt though, composite teams of left and right-brained strategists evaluate brand and behavioural data in human and cultural contexts and vice versa. Specialists in brand management, consumer behaviour, digital and media, data analytics, video analytics and communication planning work together to provide what we at Tilt call, full brained thinking.”

    Democratisation of data and proliferation of screens of all sizes, have resulted in Indians consuming more videos than ever before; contributing 50 to 70 per cent of all IP traffic and 75 per cent of advertising spends. Tilt believes thus, that getting right the conceptualisation and production of advertising and content in the video format, has become critical.

    Explains Joe, “Tilt’s creative philosophy of One Brand, Many Stories is built on the belief, that brands have, and need to tell many stories. More the stories, the more the brand begins to breathe and belong in people’s consciousness. The assumption that one video asset will work across audiences, objectives and platforms is flawed. Content creation and production needs to be tailored to each platform and experience across all forms of video-based advertising and content – from commercials to long, short and very short format video content.”

    The leadership team, Shriram Iyer chief creative and content officer, Srikanth Sarathy chief operating officer, Rajiv Chatterjee chief business officer and soon to join Kedar Teny as chief strategy officer is confident that Tilt’s strategy-story-studio offering, driven by its twin philosophies of full-brained thinking and one brand, many stories could well serve as proof of concept for brand owners and creative enterprises who are seeking to influence, engage and entertain consumers of today.

    The agency wants to sit in the union set of consulting, communication, content and video production; drawing inputs however, from the intersection set of brand building, communication planning, storytelling, analytics, media & digital strategy, behavioral science and production management.

    Joseph further adds, “We had to look at talent with specific experience and skills; and so, our starting team couldn’t be more diverse from each other, and different from norm in terms of careers and academics – Airtel, Culture Machine, Disney, Franklin Templeton, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, IIT, Infosys, ISRO, Leo Burnett, Lintas, London School of Economics, McDonald’s, Mediacom, NID, Omnicom Media, PWC, Sony Sports, Star TV and The Viral Fever.”

  • NBA India, Culture Machine partner for digital content

    NBA India, Culture Machine partner for digital content

    MUMBAI: The National Basketball Association (NBA) in India and digital media company Culture Machine have announced a content partnership to produce and deliver game highlights and original programming to fans in India through several NBA and Culture Machine platforms on 14 March 2018.  

    As part of the partnership, Culture Machine will produce daily short form videos covering the court NBA stories on and off, including daily highlights, player profiles, on-court rivalries, the history of the NBA, memorable fan moments, bloopers, and player celebrations. Additionally, Culture Machine will produce an original long form video series exploring basketball culture in India.

    NBA India senior director content and media distribution Mairu Gupta said, “We are excited to partner with Culture Machine to deliver compelling NBA content that will resonate with Indian youth. As the popularity of the NBA continues to grow in India, we look forward to engaging both existing and new NBA fans on all platforms and wherever they are.”

    “At Culture Machine, we have put together a deep bench of creative and engineering talent to create engaging stories powered by our cutting-edge technology,” said Culture Machine CEO and co-founder Sameer Pitalwalla. “The goal of this partnership is to deliver premium NBA content to the young audiences consuming digital content across India and build on the NBA’s growing popularity.”

    Fans can access the content for free through the NBA app and content creator pages like Being Indian, Put Chutney, Viva, and Blush.

    Also Read:

    Dsport not in the running for BCCI’s media rights

    Mumbai Indians gets Goibibo as principal sponsor for IPL 2018

    RCB signs Duraguard Cement as principal partner for IPL 2018

  • Blush and ITC Vivel collaborates with Pad Man present

    Blush and ITC Vivel collaborates with Pad Man present

    health at immense risk during menstruation. From using mud & ash to dirty clothes, menstrual hygiene takes a backseat due to financial constraints and inaccessibility to clean products.

    Culture Machine’s digital channel ‘Blush’ along with ITC’s Vivel collaborated with the cast of Pad Man to create a video titled ‘#AbSamjhautaNahin – The Shopping List’. An eye opening, spoken word piece, listing alternatives to sanitary pads that women in most parts of the country resort to during periods. What may seem like an innocuous list of household items on a shopping list for some, is unfortunately a de facto substitute to hygienic sanitary napkins for a majority of women in India.  Right from old & dirty rags to unsafe objects like ash, coconut husk and hay, Sonam Kapoor & Akshay Kumar bring attention to the grave situation of menstrual hygiene in the country. The video concludes with the lead actors requesting viewers to donate a minimum of Rs. 400 to The Vatsalya Foundation in order to facilitate a year-round availability of sanitary pads to women in various parts of the country.  

    Rooted in its core brand philosophy Ab Samjhauta Nahin, Vivel, continues to empower and educate women to challenge stereotypes and help enable self-action. It firmly believes that no one should have to compromise on their dignity or be discriminated against. Vivel actively stands in support of equality and believes that for a more equal life, awareness and education is the first step to empowerment. This is reflected in the recent launch of www.absamjhautanahin.com, a website designed for a simplified understanding of laws and rights that women should be aware of. Vivel Ab Samjhauta Nahin is working relentlessly towards women empowerment with its continued support to organisations like Apne Aap Women Worldwide fighting to end sex trafficking of women and girls and Azad Foundation to help empower women feminist leaders at the grassroots level.

    Culture Machine’s digital channel ‘Blush’ that stirred a debate with the release of a video around First Day of Period in the past says, “Blush Originals is reviving the conversation on menstruation.  But this time, the purpose is much larger, and the canvas, bigger.  We’d like to take the conversation beyond metros and air-conditioned offices.  Vivel with its brand philosophy of Ab Samjhauta Nahin enables purpose and a deep rooted conviction to make changes at the grassroots level. This collaboration brings together some of the most influential voices to take the conversation about menstrual hygiene, methods of managing menstruation, cost of sanitary pads, ease of availability, taboos and habits, lifestyle choices and overall well-being to the masses. Conversations that lead to awareness, awareness that leads to knowing one’s rights, knowing that leads to action – and there’s only one action, that needs to be achieved: a perfect menstrual health card for this country.”  

    The Vatsalya Foundation, Director, Ms. Swathi Mukherjee, comments, “Inaccessibility to sanitary pads is one of the primary reasons for young girls and women to drop out of schools and work, respectively. The Vatsalya Foundation is focused on needs of our young women. It encourages a performance based livelihood with a dual purpose of enabling access and empowering women through financial independence. We are glad that menstrual hygiene is now set to become mainstream with a feature film focused on the issue and brands like Vivel supporting the initiative. With the funds raised through this video, we will be purchasing and distributing Sakhi Pads to underprivileged women.”

    Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah25qCdEpG8

    Donation link on Ketto: https://www.ketto.org/fundraiser/absamjhautanahin

  • Culture Machine adds a new category to the leader board for publishers across India

    Culture Machine adds a new category to the leader board for publishers across India

    With the beginning of the New Year, India’s largest digital media company, Culture Machine has made an addition of ‘Food’ category to the existing established leader board for publishers in India.

    Culture Machine’s patent pending tech IP ‘Intelligence Machine’ tracked the month on month performance of Indian channels on YouTube and Facebook to provide a comprehensive view of which publisher has maximum engagement in terms of views, likes, comments, shares and subscribers.

    Continuing to make use of proprietary algorithms and exclusive partnerships with Google and Facebook, Intelligence Machine has the unique ability to track 3 billion videos and categorize and rank publishers extensively. The current report provides insights on three different categories including Food, Entertainment and News.

    For more information visit: https://culturemachines.com/im/leaderboards/

    ​Also, please note:

    · The rankings are based on the number of views clocked only for the respective month

    · Only India based top YouTube and Facebook pages are considered for the analysis

    · Top channels from YouTube and pages from Facebook are carefully chosen using Intelligence Machine Influencer section based upon several factors such as subscriber count /page likes, overall viewership, engagement and consistency of video uploads

    · Top 100 channels/ pages belonging to food, 500 channels/pages from the entertainment genre and 300 news channels/pages categorized by Intelligence Machine are incorporated in the analysis

    · Food category includes pages/channels publishing food recipe related videos like Hebbar’s Kitchen, Curly Tales, Cooking Shooking etc are a part of the report

    · The Entertainment category for December’ 18 includes GEC’s like Star Plus, Sab TV, Zee TV along with digital channels like BB Ki Vines. It also covers popular celebrities, music labels, regional TV channels and movie production houses

    · News category comprises TV news channels, print newspapers and digital news portals like Buzzfeed, NDTVKhabbar.com, Bollywood Now etc.

  • Culture Machine launches leaderboard for publishers

    Culture Machine launches leaderboard for publishers

    MUMBAI: Digital media company, Culture Machine, has established a leaderboard for publishers across multiple categories in India. Culture Machine’s patent pending tech IP ‘Intelligence Machine’ tracked the month on month performance of Indian channels on YouTube and Facebook to provide a comprehensive view of which publisher has maximum engagement in terms of views, likes, comments, shares and subscribers.

    Making use of proprietary algorithms and exclusive partnerships with Google and Facebook, Intelligence Machine has the unique ability to track 3 billion videos and categorise and rank publishers extensively. The current report provides insights on the entertainment and news category. Future analyses by the beginning of 2018 will include sports, fashion, beauty, automobile and food industry.

    The ranking is based on the number of views clocked only for the respective month with only India-based top YouTube and Facebook pages being considered for this analysis. Top channels from YouTube and pages from Facebook are selected using the intelligence machine influencer section depending upon several factors such as subscriber count /page likes, overall viewership, engagement and consistency of video uploads. Top 500 channels/pages belonging to entertainment genre and top 300 news channels/pages categorised by intelligence machine are included in the analysis and entertainment category includes digital brands like Being Indian, The Viral Fever Videos, All India Bakchod etc. It also covers popular singers, movie and television celebrities, music labels, TV channels, movie production houses.

    News category includes TV news channels, print newspapers and digital news brands like FirstPost, Bloomberg, The Quint, TheWire.in etc.

  • Culture Machine’s ‘Put Chutney’ to air on Star Vijay every Sun

    MUMBAI: Culture Machine’s ‘Put Chutney’, the #1 Tamil digital media brand, is now foraying into television with Star Vijay starting 2 July 2017.

    This move marks the collaboration of two of Tamil’s biggest media giants to create digital to linear long form original content. This pioneering alliance marks a first of its kind in South India, where a digital brand has extended its footprint onto a major broadcast television network. Culture Machine’s Put Chutney that caters to the Tamil speaking audience globally, will produce one hour long exclusive episodes on Star Vijay for the show titled, ‘Intensive Comedy Unit (ICU)’. The unique format and characters for the show have been developed by Put Chutney.

    The show will be an extension of the immensely loved digital brand Put Chutney, popular for their spunky videos, full of wit and humour. Put Chutney fans can now look forward to more entertaining and engaging content from the Put Chutney stable, on one of the most widely watched television channels in the region.

    Culture Machine president Tuhin Menon commented on this deal, “’Put Chutney has grown in the hearts and minds of viewers to occupy a pivotal spot in the cultural milieu of Tamil speaking audiences globally. This deal with Star Vijay represents a major extension of the brand, which now straddles both digital and linear platforms. We could not have found a better partner than Star Vijay to take the Put Chutney brand to the next level, through a unique one hour show that is guaranteed to delight loyal and new audiences alike.”

    Vijay TV GM Krishnan Kutty said, “We at Vijay TV believe in partnering with the most exciting creative minds in the business. In Put Chutney, we found a partner who we believe will push the boundary in the comedy genre and who share our commitment in providing the most cutting edge content to Tamil consumers.”

  • YouTube 1.5x of FB, short-form popular, 65% in non-metros & 80% may pay premium: Kantar

    MUMBAI: In an attempt to understand the dynamics of mobile video consumption space in India, Culture Machine and Kantar IMRB presented an environment scan of consumption of video and OTT platforms.

    Highlights:

    – YouTube remains the king of online video consumption, with 1.5x the reach of second-ranked Facebook
    – Short-form video (<10 min.) remains the most popular format among mobile users, but it’s also gaining traction among PC users
    – Non-Metro consumers accounted for 65% of video views on smartphone
    – 1 in 3 mobile smartphone video viewers is accessing an OTT video Platform
    – 80% of OTT consumers would consider paying a premium to access exclusive content

    The advent of 4G services and subsequent reduction in mobile data costs have acted as significant catalysts for mobile video consumption. The video streaming landscape in India is being radically transformed, but information regarding viewership remains hard to come by. This report sheds light on the budding landscape of mobile video to enhance perspectives and drive decision-making for marketers interested in the mobile video phenomenon.

    Key Findings:

    – Short-form video remains the most popular format among smartphone users, with 85% of viewers preferring a video length of 10 minutes or less
    – YouTube leads the charge with maximum reach among online mobile video viewers
    – The average smartphone user devotes more than 3 hours a week, watching video content on their smartphones
    – 1 in 3 mobile smartphone video viewers is accessing an OTT video platform
    – 80% of OTT consumers would consider paying a premium to access exclusive content

    Facebook vs YouTube

    – YouTube remains the king of online video consumption, with 1.5x the reach of second-ranked Facebook. But this dominance has come under threat as Facebook is proving to be not just a platform that drives views but also delivers engagement for content
    – The frequency of accessing Facebook in a month is almost 2.5x times greater than YouTube
    – Entertainment/Comedy is the most popular genre on both platforms
    – Vernacular/Regional Content is the most engaging content across categories on YouTube
    Over-the-top (OTT) video services
    – Mobility factor and ability to consume content on-the-go emerges as the clear driver for growth
    – Women and those aged between 15-24 are most likely to be avid users
    – Weeknights are the most popular time slots for OTT consumption

    Culture Machine CEO Sameer Pitalwalla said, “Digital’s rapid growth continues and video is the fastest growing piece of that pie. This report was the result of Culture Machine’s proprietary technology platform Intelligence Machine which we used to understand the video landscape in India. Thereafter, the collaboration with Kantar IMRB was natural, given their global standing in creating reports and coming up with deep-dive analyses on data points.”

    Kantar IMRB MD Hemant Mehta said, “Mobile video has definitely come of age and is the new leveler. Over 40% of users are from the lower socio-economic groups (SEC C/D/E) and as many as 65% are from non-metros. Also, mobile video is not a youth phenomenon anymore – with over 25-year-olds contributing equally. For me, two things stand out: the strong engagement levels that women have with mobile videos and the fact that it’s not just about entertainment. We found that Education while being the third most watched genre, generated over a billion views; especially for the content-focused on toddlers and preschoolers.”

    The report combines Big Data and a deep understanding of smartphone consumer behaviour including –

    – Intelligence Machine – Culture Machine’s AI powered video intelligence platform that scans 3 billion videos daily.
    – Mobi Track: Kantar IMRB’s 8000-strong proprietary smartphone panel that tracks behavioural data.
    – Interviews with 1500 video OTT consumers across India.

  • Dekkho: Integration ease aids Brightcove power OTT service

    MUMBAI: Brightcove, a leading provider of cloud services for video, announced today that Dekkho, a streaming video service specializing in delivering premium content from India’s top content creators, has selected Brightcove to power its OTT service. The service, which debuted in February 2017, was built on Brightcove Video Cloud, enabling Dekkho to leverage an industry-leading online video platform to offer consumers VOD access to 12,000 hours of programming across desktop and mobile applications.

    Dekkho provides its customers with a curated, high-quality video experience with video content ranging from three to 45 minutes. It partners with leading content producers such as Sony Music, Zee Music, Culture Machine, Times Group, and OML.

    “Brightcove constantly remains ahead of the curve, rapidly innovating to incorporate and leverage the constant changes in the online video industry,” said Dekkho co-founder Vinay Pillai.

    “Scalability was most critical for us. We need to deliver our content across a broad range of customers, from those with low-end phones and slow internet connections to people with high-end mobile devices and larger screens. Not only has Brightcove enabled us to do that technically, but their service has been outstanding. We were promised Tier-1 support and Brightcove has delivered.”

    Improving the viewing experience is one of the top challenges facing media organizations in 2017, and Dekkho required a platform with robust APIs that was easy for their application development team to leverage; in particular, the publisher was eager to integrate the video platform with its CMS for simpler ingestion of its videos. The scalability of the Brightcove platform, along with integrations with the majority of the content management systems (CMS), ad networks, and CDNs differentiated Brightcove from other providers.

    “Dekkho is yet another great example of the rise of OTT in India. They’ve managed to quickly launch an intuitive and unique experience, and we’re looking forward to being part of their success,” said Brightcove Asia VP Tomer Azenkot. “Brightcove is excited to be working with this innovative service and helping the company as online video consumption in India evolves.”

  • Culture Machine reorganises sales team

    MUMBAI: Digital media network Culture Machine has reorganised its sales team. Siddharth Narula, who served as the president – revenue, has been promoted to chief revenue officer. He will overlook the expansion of the firm’s technology sales footprint in international markets, starting with South East Asia and North America. He will continue to report to Culture Machine CEO and co-founder Sameer Pitalwalla.

    Aditya Aima has joined as the business head – ASEAN for Culture Machine, operating out of Malaysia. Aima will overlook the expansion of Culture Machine’s Intelligence Machine and Video Machine offerings to its brand and advertisers. Minal Sharma has joined as the national sales head, overlooking all sales for Culture Machine’s Studios and media brands. She joins the team with over 16 years of experience across leading media and entertainment brands.

    Both, Aima and Sharma will report to Narula.

    Pitalwalla said, “Our Indian media brands lead the charts in each of their verticals, and the core technology platforms that have helped scale them are already in use by Fortune 500 clients globally, with large demand the world over. We are excited about growing this opportunity, while continuing to focus on our domestic Media business.”

    Narula added, “2016 has been one of the most active years for Culture Machine in terms of revenue escalation and content creation. We created trendsetting videos which have led to hundreds of global and local brands to collaborate with us, resulting in award winning campaigns. In the embryonic days of digital entertainment and technology, the addition of Minal and Aditya will help catalyse the process.”

    Since its inception, Culture Machine’s vision of using technology and storytelling to build great media brands that people love has led the way in the digital content revolution that the country is currently witnessing. Culture Machine’s digital brands Being Indian, Blush, Put Chutney, Viva and Awesome Sauce have carved a distinctive identity and an undisputed space among the top three in their respective genres.

  • Viu Originals to feature two new shows by Vikram Bhatt & Culture Machine

    Viu Originals to feature two new shows by Vikram Bhatt & Culture Machine

    MUMBAI: Bollywood director, producer and auteur Vikram Bhatt is all set to launch two new premium shows on Viu, the OTT video on demand entertainment service of Vuclip. The shows commissioned by the platform will be co-produced by Bhatt and digital media company Culture Machine. The two new shows are slated to be released exclusively on Viu in the first quarter of 2017.

    “With an auteur par excellence like Vikram Bhatt presenting the soon to be launched shows, subscribers of Viu should be in for a visual treat come 2017,” said Vuclip India country head Vishal Maheshwari.

    The first of the untitled shows falls under the urban thriller genre with supernatural elements, while the other show is based on the life of a reigning Bollywood star who overcomes odds to achieve superstardom, offering viewers an inside view of the world of glamour, elusive love and scandalous controversies that are associated with it.

    A veteran of four movies shot in 3D, Bhatt will be using a new filming technology for one of these shows.

    “Always exciting to work on projects for a digital audience. The creative challenge is to hold on to their attention and make them want for more”, said Bhatt. “The allure of the paranormal that plays on in your minds and the vicarious thrill of knowing what it is like to lead the life of a Bollywood star are sure to glue the audience to their laptop or mobile screens.”

    He further added, “The star cast will be announced in the next ten days. What you can expect is very strong characterizations of the female protagonists”.

    Cricketer Virender Sehwag’s micro series Viru ke Funde and cricket humorist Vikram Sathaye’s chat show What the Duck are originals which have had a successful run on Viu.