Mumbai: ShortsTV, the world’s first 24/7 channel for short films, has inked a content deal with Tipping Point, the digital content production arm of Viacom18 Studios. As a part of the deal, ShortsTV has bagged the South Asia distribution rights of 15 short films featuring some of Bollywood’s top actors and directors.
ShortsTV’s depth of films is unrivalled, drawing from a growing catalogue of more than 13,000 Indian and international short films. With this new partnership, ShortsTV has added to its bouquet top Indian short films such as Maya, Geek Out, The Epiphany, Glitch, The Daughter-In-Law, Grey, Red Velvet, A(U)N Usual Day, On the Road, Joy Ride, Teaspoon, Tea, Kill Me with Love, Hidden Cricket and A Twist in Love.
These boundary-breaking stories, featuring popular actors such as Vicky Kaushal, Sayani Gupta, Mona Singh, Fardeen Khan span across genres as diverse as drama, thriller, adventure and mystery and are produced by Tipping Point.
ShortsTV chief executive Carter Pilcher said: “In line with our endeavour to bring the highest quality short entertainment to film buffs, we are delighted to partner with Viacom18 Studios’ Tipping Point to add the most popular Indian short films to our growing library. During these unprecedented times when people are indoors and looking for new entertainment options, ShortsTV is ready to deliver content extraordinaire from across the globe, to be enjoyed from the safety of our homes.”
Viacom18 Studios COO Ajit Andhare said: “In just over a year, Tipping Point as a young digital content brand, has managed to create content that cuts across demographics, set genres and formulas. Our latest association with ShortsTV for our widely appreciated short films is a step towards deepening that connect with discerning consumers. From licensing our content to top Indian OTT players like VOOT or global platforms like Netflix & ShortsTV – we will continue to connect stories to audiences across the globe.”
Debuting in India in 2018 first on Tata Sky, ShortsTV is now available across all leading DTH platforms reaching over 60 million households, providing short filmmakers an excellent platform to showcase their work. ShortsTV is available ad-free on Dish TV and d2h as ‘ShortsTV Active’ (channel 135), on Airtel Digital TV as ‘Airtel ShortsTV’ (channel 259) and on Tata Sky as ‘Tata Sky ShortsTV’ (HD channel 112 and SD channel 113).
In addition, ShortsTV has founded the Best of India Short Film Festival inviting filmmakers to make their submissions aiming to qualify more Indian short films for Oscar consideration. This year, the festival has already received more than 1000 entries.
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MUMBAI: Creativity sometimes takes inspiration from past creatives but what if it is an entirely copied one? Plagiarism (or inspiration), is a never-ending burning issue in the advertising world. A little similarity can be overlooked but complete knockoffs are just astonishing.
Information sharing on the internet has led to rampant plagiarism. In the garb of creativity, sometimes, knowingly or unknowingly, ideas tend to be entirely copied.
Plagiarism with ads is much more difficult to pinpoint compared to a music piece or a film narrative, purely owing to the shorter format of the medium. Accepting that this does happen, The Glitch senior creative director Sunetro Lahiri admits that he has personally been part of campaigns where the main thought had to be tweaked in the event of another brand (that too, from a totally different category!) having launched a campaign with the exact thought. He affirms, “It does happen and that’s why it’s more about ethics than rules. We see elements of different auteurs in the work of a lot of current film-makers. Just the way you can’t label it plagiarism, there’s a larger grey area in advertising too.”
Without naming any brands Grapes Digital COO Shradha Agarwal brings up that there are times that a client shares references to create a new piece of communication. After multiple rounds of changes and iterations, it becomes less of an inspiration and more of a ‘copy’. This is another reason why sometimes a creative agency, without the intention of copying, might actually end up copying a current campaign from an ‘inspirational’ campaign.
Lesser known local brands tend to ape their famous counterparts. It was only last year when a 2015 ad for Wagh Bakri Tea conceptualised by Scarecrow Communications was plagiarised by a local Gujarati tea brand, Jay Jawan Tea. The local brand not only copied the entire ad but smartly replaced Wagh Bakri shots with its own product placement.
Wagh Bakri ad:
Jay Jawan ad:
Recalling an old incident, Happy mcgarrybowen senior creative director Naren Kaushik read about a bike, named Gulsar, which was a rip off of Pulsar. He says that maybe years ago when internet didn’t make everything news, it was just easier to use existing ideas for which people would have spent time and money, and just rip them off as is. In today’s context, Jai Jawan gets their share of eyeballs very quickly. Now we all know such a brand exists.
While there is no way to stop it and brands often just send a legal notice to the other party, maybe there is a need to have more stringent rules to keep a tab on plagiarism.
Our experts view on this:
BBH chief creative officer and managing partner Russell Barrett:
The people who do that should be ignored. It’s the best punishment. It’s a vile habit that untalented poseurs have resorted to through the centuries. The best thing is for them to be forgotten and ignored. By their peers and their audience. The argument should not be about copied versus unique. Show me what you think is a unique idea and I will show you another one that is somewhat similar. The drive should be for freshness. Why is this idea different? Why should it exist in a new form? What’s fresh about it?
Happy mcgarrybowen senior creative director Naren Kaushik:
Needless to say, yes. A regulatory system for any big industry is important. There will always be me-toos bordering on illegal. If we walk around our own neighbourhood, how many salons do we see with actors’ and actresses’ pictures all over them? Surely they haven’t paid for endorsement. Even smaller and local fashion outlets use celebrities of all sorts. There’s no real way to keep track of who is copying who and where. We have also seen billboards when we drive out to smaller towns where some or other ad has been ripped off. It is very difficult to keep a track of this. But when it does come to someone’s notice, there should be some action that we can take. The trouble, though, is that this is a sketchy process right now. We don’t have a system to ensure quick results and more often than not, the petitioners end up losing time and money. That is a huge deterrent. If there’s a ‘regulatory body’ that can help fast-track this, more agencies will be encouraged to take their case up.
The Glitch senior creative director Sunetro Lahiri:
Ideally, it should. If various forms of media are protected, why should this field be left out? The lack of legal action stems from the lack of belief that there will be a possible resolution. Also, as a rule, as mentioned in the question, agencies and brands aren’t even aware of the said creative.
Grapes Digital COO Shradha Agarwal:
There are a lot of copyright laws that exist which are meant to safeguard the interests of advertisers from ones that are out to steal. But sometimes they are not enough as has been proven time after time. Things, like muting the audio or taking the entire video down, are currently practised on multiple social platforms as a good way to minimise copyright infringement. So yes, perhaps a regulatory body can help minimise the damage that this sort of plagiarism can cause. If the entire advertising community comes together as one and penalise the one that is stealing work from one of their own, it can definitely serve as a step in the right direction.
White Rivers Media co-founder and CEO Shrenik Gandhi:
Honestly, it is too small a problem for a regulatory body to be formed for. These are marketing techniques used by smaller brands to influence a smaller audience. So this has to be solved at a smaller level itself. And I don’t think at this moment there’s a need for a regulatory body to guide on this particular issue. There are much bigger issues the industry is facing and if a regulatory body exists, they should focus on those.
While copying someone’s creative is a pertinent issue that needs to be looked at, maybe AAAI, ASCI (The Advertising Standards Council of India) and other regulatory bodies should come together to fight against this. If not, let us just leave ideas to breed other ideas just like this ad where oil brand, Sunny Lite filed a complaint with ASCI against the Aashirvaad Atta brand over a TVC where Sunny Lite claimed that the ad bears a striking similarity to its advertisement.
MUMBAI: Digital agency The Glitch, an independent brand under GroupM, has launched Flux@The Glitch, a specialised new-age content division.
Flux is a content development and production hub that works in a unique structure built for the modern creation needs of brands around the world. Saransh Agarwal is being elevated to lead content strategy and business for Flux and will report to Varun Duggirala, content chief at The Glitch.
Flux@The Glitch will have two distinct verticals to service the content requirements of clients.
Creator Lab will be a unique incubator for content creators, brands and platform partners or in short, Tinder for branded content. Content Studio and Hub will focus on the long-term requirements for brands who have an ‘always on’ approach towards content. This can range from micro content, especially for ecommerce models, to long form content that is driven by data and insights.
Duggirala says, “Over the last 8+ years, we have always relied on a core brand insight driven strategy to build brands across platforms and consumers. It is this very thought process that has helped us create effective branded content as a core part of a brand’s value chain, and we have used that learning to come up with an effective yet fluid system that works for brands, for consumers, for creators and for platforms. The beauty of a fluid model is that it will always be in Flux because the world of content changes every day.”
GroupM chief strategy officer Tushar Vyas adds, “Flux will be empowering brands by providing powerful meeting point between the consumer and the brand across diverse touchpoints- this brings in a unique layer augmenting GroupM’s capability in consumer insight, planning and activation. Flux will work closely with GroupM Agencies to deliver effective and engaging content solution for our clients across GroupM in India and beyond.”
The Glitch has been one of the first movers in the Digital Branded Content space and has created successful branded content campaigns across a vast array of clients encompassing FMCG, Entertainment & OTT, Auto amongst other categories.
MUMBAI: Glitch, the Digital first creative agency (an independent brand under GroupM), has launched Flux@The Glitch, a specialized new age content division. Flux is a content development and production hub that works in a unique structure built for the modern creation needs of brands around the world. Saransh Agarwal is being elevated to lead content strategy & business for Flux and will report to Varun Duggirala, Content Chief @The Glitch.
Flux@The Glitch will have two distinct verticals to service the content requirements of clients.
Creator Lab will be an unique incubator for content creators, brands and platform partners or in short, Tinder for branded content. Content Studio & Hub will focus on the long term requirements for brands who have an ‘always on’ approach towards content. This can range from micro content, especially for ecommerce models, to long form content that is driven by data and insights.
Speaking on the launch Content chief @The Glitch, Varun Duggirala said,
“Over the last 8+ years, we have always relied on a core brand insight driven strategy to build brands across platforms and consumers. It is this very thought process that has helped us create effective branded content as a core part of a brand’s value chain, and we have used that learning to come up with an effective yet fluid system that works for brands, for consumers, for creators and for platforms. The beauty of a fluid model is that it will always be in Flux because the world of content changes every day.”
“Flux will be empowering brands by providing powerful meeting point between the consumer and the brand across diverse touchpoints- this brings in a unique layer augmenting GroupM’s capability in consumer insight, planning and activation. Flux will work closely with GroupM Agencies to deliver effective and engaging content solution for our clients across GroupM in India and beyond.”
Over the last 8+ years The Glitch has been one of the first movers in the Digital Branded Content space and has created successful branded content campaigns across a vast array of clients encompassing FMCG, Entertainment & OTT, Auto amongst other categories.
MUMBAI: Digital is the buzzword everywhere today and the advertising industry is not any different. Companies looking to acquire are also scanning for digital-ready candidates over traditional agencies.
WPP’s GroupM, the world’s leading global media investment group, recently gobbled up digital creative agency The Glitch in India, showing its appetite for growth in a technology-driven communication market. GroupM South Asia country manager for WPP India and CEO CVL Srinivas believes that the communications ecosystem in India has evolved dramatically in the last few years. “With The Glitch, we found a partner that brings exciting creative and content skills that can leverage our unique assets to create effective solutions for our clients,” he says.
It was in 2009 that two friends Varun Duggirala and Rohit Raj from Symbiosis decided to quit their jobs at Channel V after it stopped airing music and was pivoting into a general entertainment channel. Recalls Raj, “We went to Channel V because we loved music and wanted to work in the space but decided to quit after our team leaders told us that the channel will be shifting focus to GEC as the youth that was watching music content has now moved into digital ecosystem.”
Soon after leaving the duo turned entrepreneurs and launched their own digital video production company called The Glitch. Like every other startup, Duggirala and Raj slogged the first two years as they were trying to sell a concept which most clients didn’t have. Duggirala says that due to work of mouth work worked in their favour.
The company started operations from their apartment’s front room with four employees and an investment capital of Rs 3 lakh. Although they loved creating digital videos for clients, it was only in 2011, that Glitch started its digital agency route with major initial international clients Diesel and Quicksilver in its kitty. Today, the company has over 200 employees and offices set up in Mumbai and Delhi and is looking at setting up a new office at Bengaluru by the end of this year.
While digital still continues to be an urban phenomenon, low cost data and availability of cheap mobile handsets has helped digital penetration in rural areas. The Glitch CEO Pooja Jauhari emphasises that rural is going to be a huge focus for the team this year. Duggirala adds that with this acquisition, the company is looking at GroupM helping it out on a large scale to tap rural India as GroupM has a large set of data of rural audience which will help them to craft communication better.
Though the company was in conversation with various agencies over the years, it was approached by GroupM in 2014. Raj mentions, “We started to analyse the pros and cons of each acquisition. We had a two year learning curve to understand and only then we decided to go ahead with the deal.”
The Glitch Delhi managing partner Kabir Kochhar adds, “In GroupM we saw the market leader that would help inform our intuitions better with data backed insights as well as give us a jumpstart with consumption trends. Post the acquisition, the company wants to concentrate on having quality clients and add new services and business solutions for them.”
The year started on an extremely positive note for The Glitch and the team has a positive outlook for the year. ”2018 has begun on a very positive note with some key account wins and we look to cement our existing relationships with clients and bring them the benefits we gain from the GroupM alignment,” concludes Kochhar.
MUMBAI: Haptik – India’s leading personal assistant app and first conversational commerce platform launched version 5.0 of the app and chose to do so with a new campaign with print, outdoor, digital and TVC ads. Conceptualised by The Glitch, the ad highlights a day in the life of a Haptik user.
Haptik co-founder & CEO Aakrit Vaish says, “I believe a great video is critical to the success of a consumer internet product marketing campaign. The Glitch team has lived up to our high expectations as a true video first agency.”
The Glitch creative director Petal Gangurde said, “To build the Haptik brand story we chose young, vibrant, urban style cues that demonstrate the fundamentals of technology-driven, efficiency-focused service excellence, while indulging the cool quotient. Therefore, brand communication drives home the role Haptik plays in our lives – Haptik is the intelligent, intuitive assistant you have always dreamt of – the kind that works round-the-clock; simplifies your life and always has your back.”
An assembly line of part-human, part-robot assistants, robed in slick suits, choreographed to perfection to an upbeat tune, which mirrors the exceptional customer experience offered by Haptik through swiftness of service, in order to turn every new user into a loyalist.
MUMBAI: Haptik – India’s leading personal assistant app and first conversational commerce platform launched version 5.0 of the app and chose to do so with a new campaign with print, outdoor, digital and TVC ads. Conceptualised by The Glitch, the ad highlights a day in the life of a Haptik user.
Haptik co-founder & CEO Aakrit Vaish says, “I believe a great video is critical to the success of a consumer internet product marketing campaign. The Glitch team has lived up to our high expectations as a true video first agency.”
The Glitch creative director Petal Gangurde said, “To build the Haptik brand story we chose young, vibrant, urban style cues that demonstrate the fundamentals of technology-driven, efficiency-focused service excellence, while indulging the cool quotient. Therefore, brand communication drives home the role Haptik plays in our lives – Haptik is the intelligent, intuitive assistant you have always dreamt of – the kind that works round-the-clock; simplifies your life and always has your back.”
An assembly line of part-human, part-robot assistants, robed in slick suits, choreographed to perfection to an upbeat tune, which mirrors the exceptional customer experience offered by Haptik through swiftness of service, in order to turn every new user into a loyalist.
NEW DELHI: Facebook and Twitter, which are taboo in Iran, accidentally became available to users on 16 September – only to be shut off the next day with the government blaming a technical glitch for this sudden freedom.
The two social sites had been shut off in Iran in the summer of 2009 after riots erupted following a disputed win of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A number of Facebook and Twitter users said on Monday that that they could access the social networking sites without bypassing the firewall which Iranian government had imposed for monitoring the social media.
Correspondents of almost every western newspaper tweeted that they were able to access their accounts using regular internet services.
Reuters reported that not only Facebook and Twitter was being accessed, but other blocked sites were also opening.
But then Secretary of a State Committee Abdolsamad Khoramabadi said it was a technical glitch by a few internet service providers and there were no plans yet to lift the ban. An inquiry has been ordered.
However, media sources said that the Iranian government may be testing the intensity of response if the ban is lifted. This is borne out by the fact that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarid created his Facebook and Twitter accounts during this period.
Newly-elected President Hassan Rouhani is believed to be more liberal and has already hinted earlier that he would tackle the social media differently.
