ITV

Tag: ShareChat

  • ShareChat, Moj sign multi-year music licensing deal with T-Series

    ShareChat, Moj sign multi-year music licensing deal with T-Series

    Mumbai: Mohalla Tech-backed short video app Moj and social media platform ShareChat on Wednesday announced an exclusive multi-year agreement with T-Series. The partnership allows ShareChat and Moj to access an extensive catalogue of the music label’s Indian music library.

    ShareChat and Moj were also the first in the Indian social media and short video landscape to strike a licensing agreement with T-Series last year. Moj and ShareChat COO & co-founder Farid Ahsan said “the partnership drives more value to the industry, supports more artists, and delivers an incredible creative experience to the users across India.”
    “ShareChat and Moj have been a wonderful partner and they are a true long-term partner for us in the Indian short video space,” T-Series, managing director, Bhushan Kumar said. “This long-term license reciprocates both of our intent to support the creator economy and build a robust foundation for the creator-led content ecosystem in the country.”
    Moj and ShareChat together, with a 340 million-strong monthly active user community and over 82 million creator community, represent a significant share of the internet population in India, a statement said.

    “This is an important step forward and sets the standard in the Indian social media and short video space that acknowledges and respects the music industry.” T-Series, president, Neeraj Kalyan said. “With this continued commitment, ShareChat and Moj will bring more innovation and creativity for the Indian short video space an objective we share mutually. We are hopeful this would drive deeper engagements on the platforms and create a mutually benefitting partnership for years to come.”

  • ShareChat’s parent company enters coveted unicorn club

    ShareChat’s parent company enters coveted unicorn club

    KOLKATA: Mohalla Tech, the parent company of Moj and ShareChat, has become the latest entrant to the coveted unicorn club. The start-up has raised $502 million in its latest round of funding led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient. With the new rounds of investment, its valuation has passed over $2.1 billion.

    ShareChat CEO & co-founder Ankush Sachdeva said, “We are at an exciting inflection point in our journey, where we are going after a massive opportunity with the right team in place and the backing of long-term investors who have a deep conviction in our mission. With ShareChat & Moj, we are well-positioned to build the largest AI-powered content ecosystem in India.”

    With this infusion of capital, the company is looking at aggressively growing its user base, strengthen our creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine and platform health, added Sachdeva.

    Tiger Global partner Scott Shleifer said, “As internet penetration increases, ShareChat’s leading content creation platform is poised to expand dramatically by bridging into online purchases of goods and services. Additionally, Moj is well-positioned to seize the opportunity presented by the growth of short video in India. We are impressed with the team’s understanding of these rapidly evolving technologies and its ability to execute quickly, and we are excited to partner with them as they continue to build a great company.”

    Lightspeed Venture Partners partner Ravi Mhatre said, "We are excited to witness the market-leading growth of Sharechat's short video product Moj over the past year, with adoption in metro cities, towns and villages across the length and breadth of India. Lightspeed globally is honoured to double down on its partnership with Sharechat to build one of India's iconic consumer Internet companies."

    Lightspeed has backed the start-up in every Series A investment round since 2016.

    Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has now successfully raised over $766 million across six fundraising rounds, enabling ShareChat to substantially grow and differentiate itself by delivering a unique, tech-led social media experience. Furthermore, Moj, which launched in July 2020, has already made huge strides towards leadership in the short video space. Moj and ShareChat together, with a 280 million-strong user community, envision building a cohesive AI-powered content ecosystem to address India’s growing digital needs.

  • How ShareChat enables 150+ brands to engage with India’s heartland

    How ShareChat enables 150+ brands to engage with India’s heartland

    NEW DELHI: With over 530 million people connected to the world wide web and counting, India has the second-largest internet user base in the world today. Out of these, around 71 per cent come from lower-tier cities, according to a Statista report. Another study by Zinnov indicates that 81 per cent of tier-2 and 80 per cent of the tier-3 population choose mobiles as the preferred platform for consuming content. Naturally, these numbers are quite attractive to the marketing community. With growing awareness, a rise in disposable income, and access to information, these netizens are also their next set of consumers. But the question is, what’s the most effective way to reach them?

    ShareChat claims to have the answer. Founded in 2015 by three IIT-Kanpur graduates, Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan, ShareChat is a unique social media platform – it’s available in 15 Indian languages and dialects, but not in English. It hosts content ranging from love, devotional, entertainment, to great user-generated material. With more than 160 million active users, it’s fair to say the app has a direct line to India’s heartland.

    ShareChat director sales Satyajit Deb Roy shared, “Today, ShareChat is the only social media platform connecting language-first, new internet users at scale. We are at the forefront of the India's internet revolution. Users are coming to ShareChat to discover content, and also consume content in the comfort of their own language, societal norms and interests. Our user community is dominated by language-first internet users across the country, the majority of them hailing from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Exploring this space has been of utmost priority for brands, and ShareChat stays relevant with its capability to connect brands to language first internet users at scale, and in a targeted way.”

    He added that the app’s focus remains on driving good performance advertisements and solutions for brands. “We have built our adtech solutions after evaluating brands’ needs and understanding consumer behaviour insights that we gathered over the years. We work with brands and marketers to design customised campaigns, relevant to their target audience. Taking their product deeper into the country and engaging with audiences they haven’t been able to do it at scale.”

    Roy highlighted that within a year of starting monetisation, more than 150 brands have signed up and worked with them on multiple occasions. 

    “We have seen increasing interest from the companies belonging to e-commerce, consumer durables, FMCG, telecom, gaming, automotive and many more verticals. We are expanding our focus beyond these verticals and would like to cater to more than 25 consumer-focused verticals in the foreseeable future,” he elaborated. 

    Brands are open to partner with ShareChat not just because it has traditional advertising solutions in store for them. Rather, the platform brings in unique capabilities to drive maximum reach and retention for the advertisers. 

    Roy explained, “The intent is to connect brands with the targeted audience on our platform through every possible touchpoint. Apart from traditional digital marketing solutions like video/banner ads, we offer native ad formats, influencer-led conversational ads, user-generated content, creator-led ads, hashtags and impact options, et al.” 

    As brands demanded high impact for their campaigns on the platform, ShareChat introduced the idea of exit interstitial, which appears to the targeted users while exiting the platform. This generally includes a banner or a 6-second video. In addition to this, it has recently introduced a 360-degree solution called Divas. This drives engagement for the brands through branded user-generated content, hashtag challenges along with top creators and influencers on ShareChat to drive KPI's like sales, downloads etc.  “That said, we have also rolled out programmatic solutions recently and are experimenting with a selective set of brands,” he quipped. 

    The app’s success and popularity are attracting good investments too. Just last year, the platform won a 100 million dollar financing round led by Twitter. Other investors include TrustBridge Partners, Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient, and Morningside Venture Capital. Reportedly, the company’s valuation today stands at 650 million dollar. Also, speculation is rife that Google is now eyeing to buy the platform. 

  • ShareChat gets Wavemaker’s Ajit Varghese as chief commercial officer

    ShareChat gets Wavemaker’s Ajit Varghese as chief commercial officer

    NEW DELHI: ShareChat has appointed Ajit Varghese as its chief commercial officer. Varghese brings in a track record of 25+ years of leading large-scale business transformations and building diverse and successful businesses around media, creative, digital, data, content, sports, and performance.  

    Prior to joining ShareChat, Varghese was the global president at WPP group’s Wavemaker, known among the world’s top five media networks with clients ranging from industry giants like Vodafone, L’Oreal, Huawei, IKEA, Paramount Pictures, Chanel, Xerox, Netflix, Chevron, Beiersdorf, and Tiffany.  

    In his new role at ShareChat, he will be pivotal in expanding and strengthening the platform’s revenue efforts and building a robust monetisation approach with the strategic content partnership. He will also spearhead its marketing functions, to be inclined towards brand elevation, aligned with business centricity. He will be reporting into ShareChat COO & co-founder Farid Ahsan. 

    This key appointment announcement comes amidst Sharechat witnessing exponential growth in the past few months. The upward curve not only mirrors the new user growth and higher user engagement on the platform but also reflects an increased interest among B2C brands, for leveraging Bharat internet audiences. 

    Farid Ahsan said, “Brand marketing and monetisation is going to be the core focus of ShareChat and we will direct our efforts towards elevating the brand positioning through strategic communications approach. Ajit, with his leadership capabilities and expert knowledge of the media, marketing and advertising domain, will play a critical role in further building brand awareness, deepening relationships with our business stakeholders and driving ShareChat toward the next phase of growth.”  

    Ajit Varghese said, “Having previously worked and transformed several global organisations, it has always been a hidden desire to contribute towards transforming an Indian organisation to global repute. I believe ShareChat in the next few years will evolve as the default partner to every brand, homegrown and global, who intends to engage with the internet-first population. As the digital advertising landscape awaits the inclusion of over 400 million new internet users, mostly inclined towards native languages, ShareChat will stay at the forefront of unveiling a new digital era. This will be an exciting journey for me as I look forward towards contributing to ShareChat’s growth and building a win-win relationship with our community of users, partners and business stakeholders.” 

    An alumnus of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhuvaneshwar, and a graduate in agriculture engineering from Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Varghese has worked across India, Singapore and London. With years of leadership positions across globally-reputed media organisations like Wavemaker (WPP), Maxus (WPP), Madison World, he has been recognised as a Global Media Leader with a track record of turning around organisations, leading rapid growth, and gaining market dominance. 

    Over the past few months, ShareChat has been strategizing to become a future-ready organisation by delivering an immersive social experience to its users and building a global product. The platform has collaborated with leading music labels in India and across the globe, set up ‘ShareChat Labs’ in Silicon Valley, and driven content partnerships with various news and entertainment organisations. Over 150 B2C brands have partnered with ShareChat to explore its strength in engaging with Bharat (language-first) internet audience on the platform. 

  • Saregama strikes global licensing deal with ShareChat and Moj

    Saregama strikes global licensing deal with ShareChat and Moj

    KOLKATA: ShareChat announced a global licensing deal with Saregama, one of India’s largest music labels today that would allow for its users to create amazing new content and add to their social experience on the ShareChat and Moj platforms.

    As part of this deal, Saregama will license its large catalogue to both platforms allowing for the large community of ShareChat and Moj members to create their own short video content using the Saregama library. The robust music library offers thousands of songs in diverse Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Bhojpuri amongst many others.

    Saregama is India’s oldest music label and holds the richest catalogue spanning across genres like film or non- film songs, devotional music, ghazals and indipop in more than 18 languages.

    With this partnership, users would be able to use songs from legends likes Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Asha Bhosle, Gulzar, Jagjit Singh, R.D Burman, Kalyanji Anandji, Geeta Dutt and Laxmikant Pyarelal etc. making their experience on the platform more engaging and fun.

    Commenting on the partnership, Saregama India managing director Vikram Mehra said, “It’s great to partner with ShareChat for both their apps. Saregama has a very large library of Hindi and regional music which is just apt for a platform like this where users are so innovatively creating content using music.”

    Over 180 million active users across ShareChat and Moj would now be able to explore the Saregama music library.

    ShareChat director Berges Y Malu said, “Music is an integral part of Moj and as we build India’s youngest short video platform, we are incredibly excited to partner with Saregama to allow our community of users to create fresh new content alongside their favourite retro music from Saregama.”

  • ShareChat, Moj inks music licensing deal with T-Series

    ShareChat, Moj inks music licensing deal with T-Series

    KOLKATA: Social media platform ShareChat has announced its agreement with India’s largest music label, T-Series to license its music catalogue on the platforms. The collaboration would provide for an enhanced experience on ShareChat and short video platform Moj.  

    Over 180 million active users on ShareChat and Moj would now be able to explore hundreds and thousands of songs from the T-Series music library, and add to their own videos, it added.

    This is ShareChat's first partnership in the music licensing space.

    T-Series managing director Bhushan Kumar said this association sets a fresh beginning between us and the social media platforms.“This moment celebrates the contribution of great music to social media, and we commend ShareChat for respecting the copyrights. It's great to see ShareChat agree with our philosophy.”

    ShareChat director Berges Y Malu said, “Music brings out the best of emotions and nostalgia to our users as they share their creativity on our platform. Our partnership with TSeries would help our community of users to access thousands of songs from the T-series catalogue on ShareChat and Moj to express their emotions and share content in amazing new ways.”

      

  • TikTok ban to see influencer spillover onto YouTube & social spaces

    TikTok ban to see influencer spillover onto YouTube & social spaces

    KOLKATA: The recent ban on Chinese social media platform TikTok in India sent shockwaves across the country's TikTok community. The platform, which leverages viral, user-generated content, has more than 120 million users as recorded in June 2020.

    TikTok has emerged as a viral phenomenon in India, providing the power of digital content creation and virtual stardom to many in India. The country is also the largest market for the app outside China. Currently, TikTok influencers command a sizeable following, benefitting from lip dub, stunts and quickie content on the short video format platform.

    "The TikTok ban will lead to a boom in influencers and viewers onto other video-based platforms and homegrown competitors. We at Bisbo India, expect a surge in influencers and viewers to hit YouTube, Instagram and Sharechat," explained Bisbo India founder and creator Shakir Ebrahim.

    "TikTok works because of its short content length. Recently, TikTok users had begun working with informative and educative content (including explainers). I look forward to how they'd synergise their short video sensibilities to YouTube," he added.

    Ebrahim also talked about how the ban on TikTok would fuel similar, homegrown startups. "TikTok had hooked its specific junta. Platforms like Mitron, Chingari or Roposo would be an easier adjustment for them."

    This is not the first time the app has faced public ire and legislative action. India had banned the platform in April 2019, when an Indian court ruled that the app could expose children to sexual predators, pornography and inappropriate content. TikTok had successfully appealed against the move, convincing the court it had taken steps to safeguard against such dangers. However, recently it has clarified that it is not going to take any legal route.

  • TikTok ban: Indian UGC apps ready to take on traffic; see advertiser interest too

    TikTok ban: Indian UGC apps ready to take on traffic; see advertiser interest too

    KOLKATA: TikTok had become a rage among millions of Indian youth until the Indian government’s interim ban crushed its multi-billion dollar strategy. Creators, influencers and marketers will have to seek an alternative platform as the future of TikTok remains uncertain in the country. But the flip side of the story is a silver-lining for Indian platforms and video sharing apps which are now poised to grow fast. UGC platforms like Roposo and Bolo Indya have started seeing a massive user base shift to their platforms.

    These homegrown apps had already been growing since the last few weeks when the call to use local brands started. With the recent decision of the government, they are set to see never-expected traffic, at least the instant reaction seems so. Bolo Indya co-founder Varun Saxena says it saw over one lakh new creators joining the platform in less than 24 hours and around five lakh new videos had already been created. Roposo co-founder Mayank Bhangadia says a number of TikTok influencers have already announced their shift to the Indian short video app. He adds that it will direct followers to the platform as well.

    “It is a big boost for most of the short video platforms because these creators will look for a new platform. It’s a big opportunity for Indian applications from the perspective of getting new creators and high volume also,” Saxena adds.

    However, he also mentions that most of the TikTok influencers are now exploring where they can get a good follower which includes Instagram and YouTube too. He adds that for a few days they will be creating content on all the platforms and will stick to one once they get a loyal audience. Saxena says Bolo Indya is favourable to creators compared to others as its format, interface, time length is very similar to TikTok. 

    According to Bhangadia, this change is extremely good for an Indian entrepreneur and will give them a very good boost. He says that they have got calls from close to 20 brands inquiring about how to advertise on Roposo the morning after the ban. They are hopeful that the shift will be happening in the next few days.

    “Roposo is best positioned because we have been working for the last few years and we have built a product which is not available anywhere in India. The kind of camera feature we have along with other features is not available on all apps. The holistic nature of the platform is able to accommodate many communities. We don’t focus only on lip sync or short act. We have all kind of talented people. Hence, creators are shifting to us,” he adds.

    Saxena says that they were already doing content marketing working with certain brands. And the major reason brands were working with the platform despite the fact that it had less volume compared to TikTok was the higher spending power of users on the app compared to TikTok and Helo. While new creators will give it a better volume also, Saxena is optimistic that they would definitely see more and more brands coming to Indian applications for content marketing.

    “In a short to medium term, advertisers and agencies will look at alternate platforms to help them meet their marketing goals. Some of the banned platforms are sizeable, so it would be difficult to find an immediate apparent replacement. In this case, a combination of replacements or an increase in presence in existing platforms can be an option. Also, the ban is still a little unclear from an implementation standpoint. The downloaded apps are still running, though new downloads are at a halt. If the government calls for a complete ban, things will go south for these platforms. Even then, I don’t believe brands will advertise on these apps, fearing public outrage,” TheSmallBigIdea CEO and co-founder Harikrishnan Pillai says.

    “For influencers, from a short-term POV, the business will be affected if they have had a single platform focus. From a long-term perspective, Indian apps have a great opportunity to grow. ‘Revenge Download’ will lead to a sudden spike of Indian apps. Whether they manage to be sticky and effective, time will tell,” Pillai adds.

    While the sudden spike in traffic will be a pressure on the apps, they are ready to take on new users. Saxena says they had started updating their infrastructure a couple of weeks back because it was expecting something like this to take place. They have been pro-actively ready to take the kind of surge it saw since Monday night. As he shares, there was hardly 1.5 minutes of downtime because it was upgrading infrastructure.

    Bhangadia is also confident about Roposo’s engineering team. He also says that the team has been preparing because the app had seen surge coming in the last four months since the lockdown started. It got accelerated in the last few weeks when people started shifting to Indian products. He also mentions that they are part of a much larger InMobi group. 

    "This is a welcome move from the government against platforms that have had serious privacy, cybersecurity and national security risks. We expect the government to continue their support for the Indian startup ecosystem,” ShareChat public policy director Berges Malu comments. 

  • ShareChat lays off 101 employees

    ShareChat lays off 101 employees

    MUMBAI: Indian video-sharing social media platform ShareChat has laid off 101 employees in view of the unpredictable advertising market in 2020 due to the Covid2019 pandemic, reported Economic Times.

    According to the newspaper's report, the company emailed its employees on Wednesday regarding various cost-cutting measures. It was only in October last year the Bengaluru-based platform, which has been funded by Twitter, started monetizing through advertising. 

    CEO and co-founder Ankush Sachdeva was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the company needs to go back to the fundamentals.

    ShareChat competes with TikTok and Facebook and has 60 million monthly active users in India. In August 2019 ShareChat raised $100 million funding from Twitter, Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital, and TrustBridge Partners.

    Follow Tellychakkar for the consumer facing news & entertainment

  • Brands undertake mothers’ day campaigns

    Brands undertake mothers’ day campaigns

    Mumbai: Advertising and marketing world is buzzing with ideas on making Mother’s Day more special for their audiences. Brands are leaving no stones unturned to mark their presence on social media. Today is International Mother’s Day, an occasion that reminds us the reason for our existence. During this lockdown, family is the only thing that is keeping us sane. No matter how difficult the times are, there is one person we can always lean our shoulders on: our mothers. Yes, in this quarantine buying a bouquet of flowers or buying a card may be a little difficult, but you can definitely look at these creative campaigns to make your day little happier.

    We’ve come up with a bunch of fun, innovative and emotional campaigns that will want you to hug your moms immediately. So, let’s have a look at the Mother’s Day campaigns for 2020.

    Mamaearth

    Toxin-free personal care brand Mamaearth has decided to launch a special Mother’s Day Campaign this year. It’s a fun and refreshing tribute to Indian mothers, who are having a hard time during this pandemic. The video of this song showcases Indian moms of all ages, sizes, and communities.https://we.tl/t-hOL7V2e3dX

    Wakefit.co

    Wakefit.co’s Mother’s Day Campaign ‘MaaTeri Lori is an emotional ode to the mother who is currently away from her child due to this lockdown. The company has tied up with film, TV and social media celebrities such as Sumeet Vyas, Rasika Dugal, Atul Srivastava, Abhay Mahajan, Ashish Verma and Sulagna Panigrahi, who feature in the videos.

    ShareChat

    ShareChat, the Indian social media platform, is running a five-day #MAA4ME campaign to commemorate motherhood and recognize all the selfless efforts made by the mothers.

    Glucon-D

    On this Mother’s Day Glucon-D salutes mothers across the nation with its campaign #EnergyGharKi. Through this campaign, users on social media will be able to create virtual packs with their mother’s name embedded with a personalised picture instead of Glucon-D’s logo

    Surprise your mother too by creating a virtual pack: https://glucon-d.com/

    Havmor

    Havmor has come up with an interesting campaign celebrating the essence of motherhood. This is the first time that the brand has taken a digital route to convey a special message. The film highlights the fact that mothers can be carefree and it’s time we live and celebrate the kid in them.

    Dineout

    Dineout celebrates Mother’s Day in a diversified manner. The video showcases the idea of different languages but one love. Dineout’s employees shared videos of the most common dialogues of their mothers.

    Whirlpool of India

    Whirlpool launches a social campaign to acknowledge the lessons learnt from mothers that prepares one for life. The #PreparedToTakeCare campaign has been designed to celebrate the unwavering spirit of mothers.

    https://we.tl/t-nyAZqGHbDq

    Sony Music Kids

    On this special day Sony Music Kids launches ‘Mother’s Day Rap Party’ playlist in an effort to drive up the entertainment quotient for moms. Celebrity parents Soha Ali Khan, Mahi Vij, Tahira Kashyap and Angad Bedi will be seen bopping to these unusual beats.

    bit.ly/SonyMusicKids_MothersDay

    Lotte ChocoPie

    Lotte India Corporation Limited celebrates this Mother’s Day with two unique digital campaigns #PauseToThank (Lotte ChocoPie) and #ArgumentsWithMom (Coffy Bite).

    Titan

    Titan has launched ‘Tune for Ma’ Mother’s day campaign to make this day special. The campaign is conceptualised by Ogilvy. In this film, Titan shares an evocative message on the healing power of Mothers and Music.

    Asus

    Electronics firm Asus has also launched a new campaign #LikeMotherLikeAsus to celebrate the consistent productivity of mothers while juggling with several other tasks.The campaign is conceptualised by Dentsu Webchutney.

    Voltas Becko

    On this day, Voltas Beko is paying tribute to single mothers through its emotive campaign “#IAmEnough”. The video, conceptualized by Momspresso, is inspired by single moms. With this DVC, Voltas Beko is reinforcing its commitment as the ‘partners of everyday happiness’ to mothers across India.

    CK Birla

    Columbus India (A Dentsu Aegis Network Company) created a beautiful and emotional video for CK Birla Group Hospitals which will be posted on all its social media handles to honor the brave health care workers in the hospital.

    AIS

    AIS did an amazing post saluting the mothers for their undying will and unconditional love for the family. Such a simple yet impactful thought to thank the strength of the whole family during this time of the pandemic. A true inspiration who deserves appreciation every day for being our savior like an unsung hero. #ThankYouMa

    Disney Junior

    This Mother’s Day, Disney Junior is celebrating the special relationship between mothers and their little ones across its digital platforms. These mothers along with their adorable kids, gave a glimpse of a few special moments spent with their pre-schoolers.

    https://www.instagram.com/disneyjrindia/

    Some of the other interesting posts that caught our intention include:

    Viviana Mall:

    Balaji Motion Pictures:

    RCE:

    Twelfth Man: