ITV

Tag: indya.com

  • Aidem ropes in Sanjay Hemady, Sandeep Singh

    Aidem ropes in Sanjay Hemady, Sandeep Singh

    MUMBAI: Aidem Ventures recently roped in Sanjay Hemady and Sandeep Singh thereby constructing a robust management team along with Alok Rakshit and Joydeep Ghosh.

    Hemady and Singh come with over two decades of media experience. Both have been appointed as the senior vice presidents.

    Aidem Ventures president Alok Rakshit, said, “I am confident that their rich experience & leadership assets will definitely be valuable for Aidem in the long run.”

    Prior to joining Aidem, Hemady worked with Clear Media India. He has donned senior managerial roles across organizations like Clear Media India Pvt Ltd & CNBC TV18. He has been actively involved in driving the business at media companies like MTV, Indya.com, BBC World, IndusInd Media & Communications, Mid-Day and Indian Express. He will be heading Broadcast Sales for Aidem.

    Hemady said, “I am excited to be a part of such an environment and lead the high-spirited sales teams in their challenging yet fascinating responsibilities. I look forward to identify and scale up Aidem’s growth opportunities in the coming years.”

    Singh who has served organizations like R. K. Swamy, HTA [WPP], A.C. Nielsen, Sab TV and Sahara TV will be spearheading strategy and business development for Aidem.

    Singh added, “Aidem’s repertoire, strong presence, network, work-culture and passionate team of employees enticed me to consider this role. With a strong vision and strategy, I look forward to lead a committed squad in exploring new methods of functioning.”

  • Aidem ropes in Sanjay Hemady, Sandeep Singh

    Aidem ropes in Sanjay Hemady, Sandeep Singh

    MUMBAI: Aidem Ventures recently roped in Sanjay Hemady and Sandeep Singh thereby constructing a robust management team along with Alok Rakshit and Joydeep Ghosh.

    Hemady and Singh come with over two decades of media experience. Both have been appointed as the senior vice presidents.

    Aidem Ventures president Alok Rakshit, said, “I am confident that their rich experience & leadership assets will definitely be valuable for Aidem in the long run.”

    Prior to joining Aidem, Hemady worked with Clear Media India. He has donned senior managerial roles across organizations like Clear Media India Pvt Ltd & CNBC TV18. He has been actively involved in driving the business at media companies like MTV, Indya.com, BBC World, IndusInd Media & Communications, Mid-Day and Indian Express. He will be heading Broadcast Sales for Aidem.

    Hemady said, “I am excited to be a part of such an environment and lead the high-spirited sales teams in their challenging yet fascinating responsibilities. I look forward to identify and scale up Aidem’s growth opportunities in the coming years.”

    Singh who has served organizations like R. K. Swamy, HTA [WPP], A.C. Nielsen, Sab TV and Sahara TV will be spearheading strategy and business development for Aidem.

    Singh added, “Aidem’s repertoire, strong presence, network, work-culture and passionate team of employees enticed me to consider this role. With a strong vision and strategy, I look forward to lead a committed squad in exploring new methods of functioning.”

  • Scope of Innovation in Print Advertising

    Scope of Innovation in Print Advertising

    On 16 April, 2000, The Times of India arrived on the doorsteps of millions of Indian households with its front page blank! It carried only the masthead, but no editorial. Blank!! That was the surprise of all surprises. It was our way of telling the world that the dot com revolution had arrived with the launch of indya.com. It took the country by shock! It hit newsreaders right between their disbelieving eyes. You couldn’t help but notice it. Unbelievable, even to us! 

    When we thought of the idea, we didn’t use fancy words like ‘innovation in print’. All we wanted to do was dominate the news! Take over everything. To shell-shock the world, to be remembered! Nobody had dared mess with the front page of Times of India until then. It took a great client like Sunil Lulla, the then CEO of Indya.com, to inspire, appreciate and see this idea right through. 

    Today we see a lot of messy stuff on the front pages of most newspapers. These are not innovations, but desperations. If we want to truly break through, we’ll have to do much better than what we currently see. More importantly, we’ll have to have the inventive fire of a madman and the inspired blessing of a visionary client. Else all we’ll get is paper pulp.

    It is getting harder for advertising to stand out in print. Because editorial is so much more exciting. And it’s being generated at the speed of life. So forget about creating print ads like we did before. We are competing with gripping news. And the only way to fight news is to make news. 

    Which explains the work many of us have seen for Benetton a few years ago. The ‘Unhate’ campaign. It dared to create news. A childlike argument for peace and reconciliation, it created huge buzz. The big pictures of world leaders kissing each other in the print ads incited strong reactions. The campaign was withdrawn but the brand’s point was made. The work won worldwide accolades and the Grand Prix at Cannes.

    To truly innovate in print advertising, it’s important to remember that we are not competing with other ads, we are competing with news. What’s your news? If you have inspired guts, you’ll find the answer. Innovation in print is not a topic of discussion. It’s not an ad… it’s an act!

    (These are purely personal views of BBDO India chairman and chief creative office Josy Paul and Indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • Indya.com gears up for cricket World Cup

    Indya.com gears up for cricket World Cup

    MUMBAI: Played with passion! Followed with obsession!

    With the cricket World Cup scheduled to kick off in less than a month’s time indya.com, which is running the official website www.cricketworldcup.com as the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) web partner, is starting to make a push.

    The site officially launches on Monday, 26 February.

    Information available with indiantelevision.com indicates that one presenting sponsor and four associate sponsors have been signed up so far for this year’s highlight cricket event.

    It was last year that Star inked a deal with the ICC to run its sites for the Champions Trophy and next month’s World Cup. Indya.com business head Sumant Kasliwal claims that its Champions Trophy site got three million unique users. In total there were over a billion hits, a lot of which, not surprisingly came from India. One million downloads took place and there were 100,000 registered users.

    For the Champions Trophy the site got 230 million page views. Kasliwal says that for the World Cup the site is expecting a billion page views during the event. “Our application Matchcast (which is a scorecard) has been expanded upon. It will be interactive. The aim is to give the consumer a complete experience. One can get match highlights, fall of wickets package, interactive contests. There will be live chat during the game. Users can comment on the state of the game. Our video content will include highlights from the previous World Cups. Other sites (as per the ICC diktat) are not allowed to show cricket videos.”

    Kasliwal also mentions another application – the Simulator. The visitor can view a graphical representation of what is happening ball by ball. He says that from a technological point of view it is a challenge. For each over two dozen parameters are taken into account. The recording takes place on the fly.

    There will also be expert analysis of each match. Prominent names are in the process of getting signed up. There will also be interviews with players and the captains. For the captains there is a section Captainspeak. Kasliwal says that it is in the process of tying up with speakers.

    It is also doing an interactive Voice Of the World Cup initiative. The contest kicks off next month. Here a clip of India’s match versus Pakistan in the previous World Cup is featured. Sachin basically hammers Shoaib. One can visit the section and provide a commentary recording. The winner who will be chosen by the public and a team of experts gets to do commentary for the semi finals and the final for the site.

    The site will also have a picture gallery courtesy gettyimages. For fun one can participate in games. One game that will shortly be launched is called Pick The Score. This is a prediction game and one has to guess scores. There will also be a fantasy game. Here one chooses a dream team for each match and one scores depending on how well the individual players are faring.

    The site will also have quizzes, an ICC contests suite. There will also be pages dedicated to teams and players, merchandise that can be ordered. In some countries like New Zealand, Hong Kong, Korea, Germany, France the site will offer for a fee live streaming of matches. In India highlights and the other earlier mentioned features will be given for free.

    GroupM COO South Asia Vikram Sakuja says that at first the agency was not sure how the product would turn out. However he is happy that for the Champions Trophy the site got a quarter of a billion page views. “I am glad that GroupM saw this potential and got some of our brands like Lufthansa to work with this exciting media offering.”
     

  • Channel [V] kicks off reality VJ hunt ‘VJ Freshers’

    Channel [V] kicks off reality VJ hunt ‘VJ Freshers’

    MUMBAI: Channel [V] has invited aspiring VJs to register for a reality cum talent hunt show VJ Freshers – the class of 2006.

    At present, the channel has nine VJs on board. In search for a new face, the channel is calling for potential VJs from Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. The quest will be lead by the old VJs of the channel, Ranvir and Vinay.

    Channel [V] head honcho Amar K Deb says, “We are in the mood to shake things up again and we are looking for some freshers who have got what it takes to make the world sit up and take notice. We are going to find them, train them and hone their talent and attitude and then we are going to let them lose on television audience.”

    Interestingly, this is the first time the musi arm of Star India is running a VJ hunt.

    To create the buzz on the arrival of VJ Freshers and the opportunity it offers, the present VJs will visit various colleges in the cities and provide tips on careers. The channel will be also be using Star’s website indya.com to pull in more contestant to register.

    The VJs will be fanning out to various colleges to pick out those they believe have potential. The selected ones will be put through a series of interviews and tests to shortlist the best from each city. The contestants will have to face some verbal jousting with the jury and some action in front of the camera as well.

    The jury will select eight finalists who will spend a week in Goa wherein they will be put through tests, leading up to the selection of the winner. The whole process is expected to take three months. The television audiences will also be able to participate through six episode series that will be on air.

    Channel [V] has roped in Pantaloon and Maybelline as the main sponsors along with eight associate sponsors, which include Brylcreem, Moto Slvr, HP, 7UP, Scooty Pep+, McDonalds, Mrs Marino and Colgate Max Fresh.

    Pantaloon and Channel [V] are cross-marketing their respective brands through the VJ Freshers – the class of 2006. Pantaloon Retail, last year changed its positioning from a family-oriented store to a fashion store, sporting the baseline ‘Fresh Fashion’.

    According to Pantaloon president marketing Sanjeev Agrawal, “Pantaloon stands for fresh fashion. Channel [V] is a channel, which the youth identify with and Pantaloon Fresh Fashion also addresses youth.”

    The programme will be promoted through various Pantaloon outlets across the country. The customers will be awarded with special offers –‘cut the queue’ – in order to participate in the job hunt. At various outlets also, the VJ’s will interact with the customers. The outlets will run contests and will create the buzz through radio spots as well as through other media.

  • Star’s portal indya.com partners with ICC

    Star’s portal indya.com partners with ICC

    MUMBAI: In a bid to create greater visibility, Star’s portal indya.com has tied up with the International Cricket Council (ICC). Indya.com will be the internet partner for both the Champions Trophy that kicks off next month in India and for next year’s World Cup in the West Indies.

    Indya.com has developed and will maintain the site www.iccchampionstrophy.com.

    The site will allow net users in India and globally access to audio and video packages. There are country specific packages will allow internet subscribers to buy a match pack. This will give them live clips of ongoing games, deferred live highlight packages and archives of previous editions of the Champions Trophy. For Indians though there is no subscription fee.

    The site will have a feature called Matchcast. This allows viewers to watch live scores, ball-by-ball updates, player profiles, team profiles etc. The other contenders for ICC web partner were cricinfo.com and Yahoo! Star CEO Sameer Nair noted that Star’s parent News Corp is getting increasingly active in the internet arena. A case in point is the leading community social networking site Myspace. News Corp through Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) has worked closely with the ICC. The site he said can among other things provide an alternative to viewers in those countries who find cricket too expensive to buy on television or in regions that do not have access. The site he says allows indya.com to continue its goal of providing superior and distinctive content.

    One interactive feature that the site will have is called Voice Of The World Cup. The contest requires participants to provide commentary to a piece of archived footage which has had its commentary removed.

    The winners will be judged by a public poll as well as by experts. Two winners will get to go the West Indies for the World Cup. They will get the chance to officially commentate for the site. The site will also have daily contests when the Champions Trophy is on. There will also be a fantasy based game.

    Nair says that indya.com gets around 40 million page views a month. He expects this to at least treble when the champions Trophy is going on. For the World Cup the figure will be much more. When asked about sponsors for the site he said that indya.com is negotiating with certain parties. He said that indya.com is looking to learn from what Myspace and News Corp’s other net properties are doing. He noted that at the moment lack of bandwith is hampering the growth of broadband in India at the moment.

    ICC CEO Malcolm Speed noted that the net is an important communication tool that is growing. As it is a source of information to millions of people globally partnering with indua.com gives the ICC the chance to provide high quality coverage of the Champions Trophy through another medium.

  • Indya.com launches webisode for Star Plus soap ‘Pyaar Ke Do Naam…Ek Raadha, Ek Shyaam’

    Indya.com launches webisode for Star Plus soap ‘Pyaar Ke Do Naam…Ek Raadha, Ek Shyaam’

    MUMBAI: Indya.com has announced the launch of the webisodes of its upcoming serial Pyaar Ke Do Naam…Ek Raadha, Ek Shyaam. This webisode offers consumers a sneak preview of the show on the website.

    Commenting on this, Ajay Vidyasagar, executive vice president, Marketing and Communications, Star India says, “Star is proud to be at the forefront of adapting to new technologies and pioneering the effective use of new digital media. We see a perceptible increase in acceptance of content on new platforms like Internet. This pioneering effort by launching a webisode on the Internet even before it premieres on television, will help drive lots of viral & word of mouth publicity for the show”.

    With its move to allow the viewers to download and watch free of cost, the first episode of the soap, even before it hits on air, Indya.com has set a historical record in the television viewing space and from its day of launch on 10 March, it has already registered over 150,000 video downloads, claims an official release.