New Delhi: Digital payments firm Paytm has reported narrowing of its loss for the second consecutive fiscal year. According to its annual report, the company has reduced its consolidated loss from Rs 2,943.32 crore loss in 2019-20 to Rs 1,704 crore for 2020-21.
The total revenue of the company has decreased about 10 per cent to Rs 3,186 crore in 2020-21 compared to Rs 3,540.77 crore in the previous year. Expenses have come down 22 per cent to Rs 4,782.95 crore, largely because of the cut down on marketing and promotional expenses.
According to the company spokesperson, despite a significant disruption in the business of the merchant partners due to the ongoing pandemic especially in the first half of the year, “the company has had a minimal impact on revenues, due to strong recovery in the second half of the year.”
“As Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe and India, it has had an impact on all local and global economic activities. The company has considered the possible effects that may result from COVID-19, on the carrying amount of the receivables, investments, goodwill etc,” the report said.
KERALA: Indian e-wallet and fintech company PayTM has pledged to donate 100 concentrators and one oxygen plant for Covid relief efforts in Gujarat. The donations were made to the Corona Sewa Yagna initiative spearheaded by Gujarat governor Acharya Devvrat.
PayTM has donated oxygen concentrators to combat the shortage in the supply of medical oxygen and stabilise the healthcare infrastructure. The oxygen concentrators will be sent to public hospitals, Covid-19 clinics, primary health centres, dedicated Covid-19 hospitals and health centres.
“We feel proud to extend our efforts to support Gujarat governor Shri Acharya Devvrat’s noble ‘Corona Sewa Yagna’ initiative. It’s crucial in the time of crisis to provide a pillar of support to our fellow citizens as pandemic waves hit the shores. We aim to converge our resources along with the state government’s initiatives to save as many lives of the people of Gujarat. These oxygen concentrators are our humble contribution to help overcome the oxygen shortage by the Gujarat citizens struggling with Covid-19,” said PayTM founder & CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Non-profit organisation Yuva Unstoppable is supporting this campaign under the mentorship of the governor of Gujarat. Other corporates like HDFC Bank, Finolex, JITO, and more have supported ‘Corona Sewa Yagna’ initiative.
PayTM’s helping hand to its employees
While interacting with the Indiantelevision.com, Sharma talked about various initiatives PayTM has taken to assure the wellbeing of its employees.
“Unfortunately, we have lost eight members of our PayTM family due to the Covid pandemic. We, at PayTM, are trying our best to fulfil the needs of the employees at these pandemic times. We are providing jobs to the dependents of the deceased employees, and we are meeting their family expenses for one year. We have introduced work from home option to our employees. We have given health insurance to our employees, and have never compelled them to work if they face any Covid-related issues,” he added.
MUMBAI: While modern Indian women do not lack ambition or ability when it comes to financial conversations, many are still surprisingly uncertain and not confident. To date, the importance of financial knowledge for women has not been given its due significance. It is primarily believed and followed that men handle financial matters better and are the ones who should be in control.
Despite not being widely spoken about, the matter of financial literacy poses deep questions we need to ask ourselves today, especially in the context of gender disparity in Indian society.
Consequently, Dentsu Impact India has partnered with fintech platform Paytm to launch an impactful social experiment – #FinanciallyEqual – that centres around this very topic.
An experiment conducted by award-winning director Ruchi Narain, the campaign has aimed to make viewers realise that making women in India financially literate and confident is a major and crucial step on the path to practicing gender equality. The film urges the audience to separate gender from finance, while driving home the point that every one of us, regardless of gender, needs to be adequately aware about money management and the financial decisions of our lives.
NEW DELHI: Advertising informs. It generates awareness, entertains; less often than not – if one goes by harsh cynics – leads to a buy decision, and with even lesser frequency flies into controversy. Sometimes the storm that follows proves beneficial for the brand, especially if it is a cult product. At other times, it proves highly detrimental. 2020 was no different. The year had its fair share of brands and labels which got into the crosshairs of some activist group or other, inviting consumers' ire and even unmentionable expletives. Even though what they communicated was well-meaning, and should be considered by most to be within the norms of decency. Most of these ads will end up finding a mention in marketing case history books, detailing what transpired.
Here's our collection of some of the brands, TVCs and ads that ran into controversy.
1. Tanishq – Baby Shower
The jewellery brand from Titan released a TVC on the theme of Ekatvam (Oneness) featuring a Hindu girl married in a Muslim family which is celebrating her baby shower. This ritual is customarily not a part of the Muslim culture but the ad film showcased a liberal family that was more concerned about their daughter-in-law’s happiness. The film ran into a major wrangle, as a lot OF people opposed the premise and claimed that their cultural sentiments had been hurt. They asked why advertising industry always goes for these tropes and why a Muslim girl was not featured in a Hindu environment. Allegations of promoting ‘love jihad’ were also thrown around. The backlash pushed the brand on the backfoot and it pulled the plug on the ad. However, the move was not acceptable to certain sections, who criticised Tanishq for not taking a stand. For the record, the film got a clean chit from every industry body and reviewers.
Tanishq has officially withdrawn their ad after being trolled viciously. Here's why this is a very sad state of affairs, and context from other such ads that were trolled (and some, withdrawn) https://t.co/Nb0cSiTPHXpic.twitter.com/sn3IMBqdmC
Not happy with getting a social media caning from certain pressure groups, Tanishq’s marketing mavens decided to take a shot at being liberal in its outlook and released a TVC promoting its Ekatvam range. The film featured four artistes – Neena Gupta, Nimrat Kaur, Sayani Gupta and Alaya F – talking about the festivities. During the film, one of the actors’ spoke about not bursting firecrackers and celebrating a peaceful Diwali. While the idea was to prevent pollution, several people took it in a different light and rebuked the brand to not tell others how to celebrate the festival of lights. The brand was stalked by trolls for the second time in a month. Again, Tanishq was forced to withdraw the ad.
On both occasions, trollers pointed that the ad had hurt Hindu sentiments.
3. Kent RO
This year, several brands tried to cash In on the pandemic by communicating how they could help in the fight against pathogens, especially the Coronavirus. While some brands came out with effective ads, some made exaggerated claims even as others tried to be extra cautious in their communication. One such company which took such a tack was the maker of water purification system Kent RO. In an advertisement, Kent cautioned against letting the househelp knead flour in case “her hands might be infected,” which served as the plug for the company’s product. Featuring Hema Malini and her daughter Esha Deol as celebrity endorsers, the TVC got thrashed black and blue on social media. Some even complained to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). Their reasoning: the TVC was insensitive towards the domestic helps who were already facing discrimination from housing societies across the country. The film was pulled off Kent’s social media handles and the brand issued an apology and promised to investigate its advertising procedures and deploy corrective measures.
4. Amul – Exit the Dragon
During June this year, tensions between India and China were at its peak. Starting with the tiff in Galwan valley, where PLA soldiers were pushed back while trying to enter Indian territory, to boycotting Chinese brands and products with a call for Atmanirbhar Bharat, the dairy brand Amul, famed for its on point topicals, came up with a creative titled ‘Exit the Dragon’. The creative showcased the iconic Amul Girl telling the dragon to exit – an oblique reference to Chinese products. The powerful creative clearly communicated the message in regards to boycott of goods manufactured in China. Shortly after the cartoon was posted, the Twitter account of Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation (which owns Amul) was blocked. Twitterati accused the social networking platform of having a bias against India and #Amul became a top trend. The account was restored soon after.
The ed-tech brand certainly caught the pulse of the nation when it was acquired by Byju’s for a staggering $300 million. Post that, the brand went on a new audience acquisition spree on the back of a huge marketing campaign. However, as many as seven WhiteHat Jr ads fielded complaints for being misleading. Out of these, complaints regarding five ads were upheld by ASCI, which directed them to be pulled down. It used messages such as “TedX Speaker at the age of seven,” among other inflated, unverified claims.
The brand also used the images of global leaders such as Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Steve Jobs and others to convey a message that joining WhiteHatJr will turn kids into tech geniuses like them.
6. ISL Mohun Bagan
The ad, meant to create hype for the ISL 2020-21 season among Bengali football enthusiasts, wreaked havoc instead. Mohun Bagan loyalists objected to a scene where a team jersey is dipped into a washing machine along with an ATK jersey. The narration of the ad also mentioned a "six-year-old emotion" that fans found offensive, since Mohun Bagan, which debuted in ISL this season with the brand name ATK Mohun Bagan FC, has a long and glorious history of 131 years.
They were also perturbed with the idea of the team wearing three stars on the left sleeve of their jersey under the ISL logo, with the words 'Champions 2019-20' written under them. The Mohun Bagan fanbase perceived the mishandling of the branding and advertising of their team as an attempt to undermine their club's legacy and heritage. They expressed their disagreement with these branding efforts online. Soon enough, team management stepped in and took measures to cool down the situation.
A print advert by the Indore Institute of Law drew a comparison between two fictional characters – Harvey Specter from American TV series Suits, and Akshay Kumar from Jolly LLB 2. It bore the caption that an aspiring lawyer could be either – “Choice is yours.”
The picture started doing the rounds on social media platforms and netizens were quick to slam the college’s perceived elitist stance behind the ad. Others accused the institute of denigrating the “dignity of Indian lawyers.” Several people questioned whether the college had obtained permission from the original creators before running the campaign. A fair few wondered why the institute chose fictional characters instead of its own alumni or famous practitioners of law in the real world.
The ad-makers were brutally trolled for their creative sense and the ad was roundly panned as problematic and in poor taste.
Facing flak, the law college later issued an apology saying, “We assure everyone that it was absolutely not our intention to offend anyone or defame any section of the legal profession.”
Please find our clarification regarding our advertisement published on 15/10/2020. We would like to make clear the…
The fintech firm took a dig at arch rival Paytm by calling it “Chinese.” It further said that while 220 Chinese apps have been banned, many consumers are still using them on the downlow. MobiKwik urged users to go Indian and questioned them if they were still using Paytm, a Chinese app, for paying their bills.
Describing itself as a ‘truly Indian Payments’ app, the ad called on users to use Mobikwik for all their payment needs.
After the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) sparked a controversy in the FMCG space by reporting that several leading honey brands had not been able to clear purity tests, a brand war started. The ones that passed the litmus are now talking about their purity, while those that flunked are questioning the report. Post honeygate, several brands released ads sharing their perspective on the situation. The ad war was obvious as no brand would want to let its market share degrade based on one report. Industry experts believe that a massive PR and advertising war will be waged in this category as brands would go to any extent to retain their customers.
NEW DELHI: The curious case of missing monoliths is the latest mystery that has gripped the world. In late November, a team spotted a mysterious monolith in the desert of Utah, USA, which disappeared in a matter of 24 hours. Even though the government institutions did not reveal the details of the exact coordinates of the monolith, hundreds of enthusiasts flocked to the desert to visit the place.
In a matter of weeks, another similar monolith was spotted in Romania near the town of Piatra Neamt, which went missing in just four days. The two monoliths were quite identical in looks but were not examined by historians and scientists till then.
Since then, netizens have been demanding to know – who installed the monoliths in Utah and then in Romania and why did they just disappear in such a short while. Many seem to believe that incident is another one added to list of unsolved mysteries on earth.
While netizens and scientists were busy investigating the matter, brands around the world saw it as a great opportunity to jump in and connect with their audiences with a humorous take on the puzzling mystery. They released social media posts that showcased their products instead of the shiny metallic monolith.
Here are some of the brands that leveraged this trend.
NEW DELHI- Diwali – the biggest festival that’s celebrated across India. At this time, celebrations are in full swing with everyone decorating their homes, exchanging gifts, indulging in delicacies and sweets, and spreading love and happiness.
However, the festive season is different this year, due to the Covid2019 pandemic. Though peoples’ spirits remain undampened, the celebrations will be a bit muted. To brighten up the festive mood, brands across categories like FMCGs, consumer durables, smartphones, automobiles, and others have launched ad campaigns, with the message of empathy and spreading joy front and centre.
We at Indiantelevision.com have created a list of such campaigns:
Lifestyle
Lifestyle India has launched #DilSeDiwali festive campaign inspired by the joyful feelings that the festival of light ushers in. The campaign takes a leap from 2019, to capture the heart of the celebrations in the context of recent times where everyone is looking forward to dressing up and dispel the gloom by celebrating Diwali in their own unique way.
This year, there will be many kinds of Diwali celebrations. There will be the ones who will keep the celebrations small and ones who will build on the festive occasion as an opportunity to reach out to their near and dear ones and share the spirit of the festival. Lifestyle’s new campaign considers all these different individual ways of celebrations, encouraging people to spread the brightness and joy in their own way. The campaign consists of two digital films with two-part storytelling, with two different Diwali Celebrations, accentuated by a memorable song. Young, vibrant and engaging, the film delivers the message of “celebrating the way your heart wishes” in a fresh new way.
Grofers
To support local artisans whose livelihoods have been severely impacted by the Covid2019 pandemic, Grofers has enabled local potters to sell their diyas on Grofers. The initiative called Ek Diye Se Do Ghar Roshan (One lamp lights up two homes) encourages consumers to shop for diyas made from local potters during this festive season, which can help lighten up Diwali for more than 200 potters and their families across Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata. The company will absorb the cost of delivery of the products and also ensure that 100 per cent of the contributions go directly to the potters.
Mankind Pharma
This Diwali, Mankind Pharma has come up with a campaign that emphasises on #SpreadingKindness and narrates the message of how kindness resides in all of us, we just have to find it for others.
The campaign is built on the importance of kindness and helping others in need and aims to encourage people to spread brightness and joy in others’ lives.
The video campaign reflects the story of a restaurant owner who has always always extended a helping hand to those in need. It then leads to the current situation where his wife is extremely unwell and how it has drained him of all his resources and it pushes him to sell his restaurant to make ends meet and pay for the medical bills. The video ends by showing a young guy who comes to his rescue by buying his restaurant and surprises him by gifting it back to him.
Tata Motors
Tata Motors rolled out the ‘Silent Diwali Film’, encouraging viewers to celebrate a silent, safe and pollution-free festival of lights with their loved ones. The video encourages people to protect the environment by opting for an electric mobility solution as a step towards building a sustainable future for India. Highlighting one of the important features of an electric car i.e. curbing noise pollution, this film draws attention to the underlying message – ‘the loudest statement will be the quietest one’.
The video begins with a young girl giggling at the excitement of lighting a firework. On the contrary, the second scene cuts to the chakras of nature spinning while pots of flowers are exploding into thin air, emphasizing the fact that nature suffers the consequences when human actions such as bursting firecrackers pollute the environment around us. Amidst all the noise showcased in the video, the final scene shows footage of India’s best-selling electric car, the Nexon EV, as it drives quietly with only a soft hum without contributing to any noise to its surroundings. An important point to note in this video is that the sound of the bursting crackers is replaced by the sounds of nature.
Paytm
Paytm launched an emotional digital ad film around Diwali celebrations. The film is receiving an overwhelming response due to its real slice-of-life depiction, at a time when many Indians are unable to meet their families or travel this festive season due to the pandemic.
This film captures the Indian sentiment around Diwali and how one can share happiness using Paytm with their loved ones, even from a distance. It is an extension of the company’s ongoing TV campaign highlighting the seamlessness of instant bank to bank transfers through the Paytm app. The TV ads had depicted various scenarios, ranging from a wedding ceremony to an everyday situation of a landlord and tenant, striking a chord with millions of Indians.
Haier
In its new digital film #LightUpAHeart, Haier celebrates the life of office people who work closely together but have drifted apart due to remote office and work from home setups. The ad seeks to play a vital role in nurturing office relationships and rekindle Diwali festivities with colleagues who despite efforts are not able to meet and celebrate the festival of lights together this year.
Through the campaign, the brand highlights how offices become a second home for office goers and how bonds transcend professional ties to become personal.
Vivo
Vivo India released a heart-warming campaign #SmileWalaDiya to celebrate the festival of Diwali. Based on Vivo India’s brand proposition of ‘Delight Every Moment’, the ad captures the nuances of the prevailing situation; the difficulty and stress that our dear ones have been facing in one of the toughest years of history. Through the #SmileWalaDiya campaign, the brand reminds us that one thing we can easily do amidst adversities is spreading smile and delight.
Through a thought-provoking video film, Vivo depicts the excitement of Diwali, the expectations a child has juxtaposed against the pressures faced by his father in the current backdrop of struggling businesses and tightened purse strings. Then, his other friends come together, surprise him, and cheer him up by undertaking cute, innocent acts like only children can. The film is a beautiful reflection of how, by just going the extra mile, we can all spread joy and delight every moment of our friends and family.
MUMBAI: Google and Paytm have been directed to appear before a joint parliamentary committee on 29 October on the issue of data protection and privacy. Social media platforms Facebook and Twitter have also been called in to provide oral evidence. Meanwhile, e-commerce giant Amazon has refused to appear in front of the panel.
BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi, who heads the committee, stated, “Amazon has refused to appear before the joint committee of Parliament on the Data Protection Bill on 28 October and this amounts to breach of privilege."
The panel has decided to send a privilege notice if representatives of Amazon do not turn up. “Coercive action can be suggested to the government against the e-commerce company,” she added.
The summons to Facebook and Twitter is strictly pertaining to the issue of citizen’s personal data protection. The notice to Twitter assumes significance as these come close on the Centre’s letter to the microblogging site’s chief Jack Dorsey.
Taking strong exception to the misrepresentation of India’s map, the government wrote a stern letter to the Twitter CEO, saying that any attempt by the platform to disrespect the sovereignty and integrity of India, which is also reflected by the maps, was totally unacceptable.
On the other hand, social media giant Facebook has been interrogated by the parliament panel about the quantum of their revenue, profit and tax payouts in India and asked what portion of their earnings were being used for data security in the country.
Commenting on the questions raised by the panel, Facebook spokesperson said, “We deeply appreciate the opportunity to discuss data regulation issues with the hon’ble members of Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill. We believe that India’s data protection law has the potential to propel the country’s digital economy and global digital trade, and we wholeheartedly support this effort.”
Facebook India’s policy head Ankhi Das was examined for two hours by the panel members of the joint committee and has been asked tough and searching questions from across the political spectrum.
During the meeting, a member suggested that the social media platform should not draw inferences from the data of its users for commercial benefits of its advertisers or for electoral purposes.
Last month, amid severe criticism over the alleged collusion of Facebook India executive Ankhi Das and the BJP, minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote a hard-hitting letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, blaming the social media network’s India management of alleged bias against people supporting the right-of-center ideology.
The Personal Data Protection Bill proposes to put restriction on use of personal data without explicit consent of citizens. The draft bill, approved by Cabinet in December 2019, proposes a penalty of up to Rs 15 crore and up to three-years in jail for company executives for violating privacy norms.
The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in February and has been referred to a joint parliamentary committee for examination and report.
MUMBAI: Paytm has launched its android mini app store to support Indian developers in taking their innovative products to the masses. Mini apps are a custom-built mobile website that gives users an app-like experience without having to download them. This would greatly benefit millions of citizens to save their limited data and phone memory.
Paytm is providing listing and distribution of these mini-apps within its app free of charge. For payments, developers can let their users choose from Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank, UPI, net-banking, and cards.
Paytm has created the digital infrastructure to enable small developers and businesses to set up low-cost, quick-to-build mini-apps that can be encoded using HTML and javascript technologies. The company provides Paytm wallet, Paytm
Payments Bank account and UPI at zero charges and levies a 2 per cent charge for other instruments like credit cards. As a local Indian app store, it aims to drive the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission while keeping the digital consumer spends within the country.
Paytm Mini app store offers direct access to discover, browse and pay features without downloading or installing separate apps. More than 300 app-based service providers such as Decathalon, Ola, Park+, Rapido, Netmeds, 1MG, Domino's Pizza, FreshMenu, NoBroker have already joined the program. It comes with a developer dashboard for analytics, payments collection along with various marketing tools to engage with the users. This app store has been running in beta with select users and witnessed over 12 million visits in the month of September.
Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the mini app store creates an opportunity for every Indian app developer. "It empowers our young Indian developers to leverage our reach and payments to build new innovative services,” he added.
Sharma guaranteed that for Paytm users, the mini app store will be a seamless experience that doesn't require any separate download, and where they can use their preferred payment option without hassle."
The company believes that through this initiative India would be able to build a sustainable and thriving local technology ecosystem that resonates with the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Growing technology companies will get the opportunity to rely on Paytm to contribute towards the overall growth of the Indian economy and create employment.
NEW DELHI: Paytm First Games, a subsidiary of India's homegrown digital financial service platform Paytm, has roped in global sporting legend Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador. The icon of a billion cricket-loving Indians, Tendulkar would be instrumental in creating awareness about the exciting genre of fantasy sports in the country. Other than fantasy cricket, he would help PFG promote and generate excitement around all sports including kabaddi, football, and basketball. Paytm First Games is among the leading fantasy sports gaming platforms in the country and the partnership with Sachin will increase its reach in smaller cities and towns.
For millions of Indians, the legendary cricketers' journey has had a deep impact on their personal lives. He has been the sole inspiration for many to play, watch, and believe in cricket, more as a religion than just a game. By welcoming him as the brand ambassador PFG hopes to inspire gaming enthusiasts to experience the fantasy sports phenomenon. The company has also set aside Rs 300 crore for investing in growing the market for fantasy sports and other online gaming events during this financial year. It said that over the next six months, 200 plus live events would be featured on the platform including international and domestic cricket tournaments, soccer leagues and more.
Sachin Tendulkar said, “Cricket is an engaging sport, and we all tend to have opinions about the game – right from player selection to playing strategies. Paytm First Games will give fans the opportunity to don their thinking hats and experience the thrill of making the correct choices and getting their teams to win. I am happy to partner with Paytm First Games to enable cricket fans to engage more with the ever-popular game of cricket”
Paytm First Games COO Sudhanshu Gupta said, "Cricket is like a religion in the country which inspires over a billion people and fantasy sports takes the fan’s level of engagement to the next level where the user experiences the thrill of playing along with the athletes. As India’s homegrown gaming platform, our vision is to get the sports fans closer to the action with fantasy sports. Most of us have grown up watching the Master Blaster in action. With Sachin as a brand ambassador, we wish to inspire mobile gaming enthusiasts to experience fantasy sports which are about tactics, strategic planning and research."
Paytm First Games offers over 50 games where the most popular is fantasy sports where players apply research and strategy to engage with live sporting events. The platform currently engages with over 80 million gaming enthusiasts with the majority of them from smaller cities and towns.
KOLKATA: Paytm has announced the launch of subscription service for businesses. Named as ‘Paytm Subscriptions’, the service will enable businesses to collect payments from their users via flexible payment methods. The subscribers and customers will be able to choose and pay through their preferred payment option of Patym Wallet, UPI or cards.
Paytm Subscriptions can support different business models and use cases such as free trials with automatic payments, one-time charge with automatic payments as well as flat or variable charging. Merchants can also integrate the payment option for display on a TV screen or in-app purchases. To provide a seamless experience to users, the payment gateway is built with intelligent features such as pre-debit notifications, smart retry, intelligent routing between multiple bank gateways, card expiry notifications, and intelligent error code handling.
Paytm vice president Saloni Malhotra said, "We are excited to launch Paytm Subscriptions, which enables companies to receive periodic and timely payments for their services. Businesses of all sizes can integrate flexible payment options for their subscribers. We have already onboarded several leading online platforms and are expecting to bring in more than 1000 businesses within the next 6 months.
Paytm Subscriptions provides a unique offering to access the largest repository of saved payment instruments – 220+ million Saved Cards, 400+ million Wallets and 100+ milion Saved Bank Accounts. This helps the entire payment process to become faster, with the highest success rate in the industry. Already, popular platforms such as Zee5, Disney+, Epic On, JioSaavan and Gaana, The Hindu among others have started using the service for subscription payments.
