ITV

Tag: Short video

  • Trell eyes the next 100 mn online shoppers in Tier II and Tier III cities

    Trell eyes the next 100 mn online shoppers in Tier II and Tier III cities

    KOLKATA: Social commerce, one of the biggest drivers of e-commerce today has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. This holds particularly true since the onset of the pandemic that saw a surge in online shopping. 

    Besides social commerce, online video content has also experienced skyrocketing demand as people spend an increasing amount of time browsing for engaging, and relatable content.

    Having chartered a remarkable growth trajectory, Trell is now offering products from distinguished beauty and personal care brands including Lakmé, Tresemme, and Ponds, amongst 50 labels including MyGlamm, Bombay Shaving Company, Mirabelle, Ustraa, Biotique, Plum, Mamaearth, Lotus, Khadi Essentials and OGX to name a few, with attractive discounts on its recently launched ‘Shop’ section.

    While Trell takes pride in catering to the wellness needs of its users and providing a seamless shopping experience, it also benefits the content creators on the platform. The front running platform empowers these micro-entrepreneurs by enabling them to monetize their tried and tested recommendations in their videos. On the Trell Shop website, while buying products, customers can now make informed purchases by viewing videos by expert creators just before adding the product to their cart.

    Speaking on how the platform caters to a myriad of lifestyle categories, Trell co-founder Pulkit Agrawal said, “The idea of launching Trell’s Shop section came after extensive research and study on consumer behaviour and preferences. Today, users creating and consuming content on Trell can also purchase desired products from eminent brands at their convenience. As Trell continues to evolve and grow, we will be expanding our product offerings to achieve our goal of becoming a global leader in the space.”

    Offering content in seven regional languages including Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi apart from English, the content creators on Trell hail from Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Trell has also noted that over 70 per cent of purchases on the Trell Shop are from these cities.

  • Snapchat India ropes in Poonam Nikam as communications lead

    Snapchat India ropes in Poonam Nikam as communications lead

    KOLKATA: Snapchat India has roped in Poonam Nikam as communications lead. Prior to this, Nikam was associated with ByteDance as global communication manager.

    In her long career, she has worked with renowned companies including Airtel, Sony Music Entertainment. Nikam is an alumna of St Xavier’s College and a graduate from the Symbiosis College of Arts & Commerce.

    Snapchat which has reached over 500 million monthly active users has seen over 100 per cent (year-over-year) growth in daily active users (DAUs) in each of the last five quarters, announced recently.

    Nikam is a professional specialising in consumer, corporate, crisis and internal communications across consumer tech, music, lifestyle and telecom sectors. She is a believer in adopting new age tools in communication in order to engage with different external stakeholders, a passionate storyteller with a constant hunger for developing engaging and enthralling stories.

  • YouTube breaks out $100 mn creator fund to push Shorts space

    YouTube breaks out $100 mn creator fund to push Shorts space

    KOLKATA: The competition in the short video ecosystem has been heating up for some time now, and YouTube has just upped the stakes with the announcement of a creators fund. Dedicated exclusively for those who create short form video content, the YouTube Shorts Fund is a $100 million pot that will be distributed over the course of 2021-2022.

    The cash injection aims to reward the thousands of creators whose Shorts received the most engagement and views, YouTube said in a blogpost. The video viewing platform will also seek feedback from these creators to improve the product experience.

    The Shorts Fund is not limited to just creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Any creator will be eligible to participate if they create original content for Shorts. Its biggest rival, TikTok, also rolled out a creator fund last year, followed by Snap a little later.

    “The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetisation model for Shorts on YouTube. This is a top priority for us, and will take us some time to get it right. We are actively working on this, and will take the feedback gathered from our community to help develop a long-term program specifically designed for YouTube Shorts,” read the blogpost.

    The company has qualified the grant of the fund on the grounds that only “original” content would gain rewards. However, it didn’t clarify how it will go about checking to ensure the content isn’t already uploaded on another platform, like Reels, Snapchat or TikTok.

    Further details about the payments and eligibility would be available closer to the fund’s launch, which is expected sometime in the next few months.

    YouTube also plans to expand Shorts player across more surfaces on YouTube to help people find new creators, artists and Shorts to enjoy. It will also begin to test and iterate on ads to better understand creators’ performance.

  • How MX TakaTak plans to sustain its initial success

    How MX TakaTak plans to sustain its initial success

    KOLKATA: MX Player entered the short video race with the launch of MX TakaTak when the Indian audience was looking for a TikTok alternative. It was just one aspirant among a bunch of homegrown apps that were looking to fill the void created by the abrupt ban on Chinese-origin apps. These short form video platforms have been aggressive in customer acquisition but some of them clearly have emerged as leaders; MX TakaTak is one of them.

    It is comparatively easy to acquire a bunch of new users but much harder to retain them. The homegrown short video app is focusing on a couple of factors to hold on to the initial success; consumer experience, creation experience being key components of the strategy, said MX TakaTak business head Janhavi Parikh.

    “One is consumption experience on the platform, that is driven by content, content partnerships as well as the creators that we onboard. It is also driven by our ability to provide the right kind of recommendations to the users so that they get the content they are looking to consume. Those are two very big focus areas for us – building our content and continuing to improve our recommendation,” she elaborated.

    The platform is focusing on the right kind of tools, effects, filters, video editing capabilities to help create better content and retain top creators on the platform. Moreover, there is another segment of creators who are not professional, but just enjoy creating content. For the second segment, MX TakaTak is trying to build a product that can be used easily as the platform has a huge number of long-tail creators as well, Parikh added.

    A recent study by RedSeer Consulting had quantified the market leadership enjoyed by MX TakaTak. Interestingly, the report said the app leads in the net promoter score in the metro cities as opposed to the common notion that “I don’t think it is necessarily just metro cities, we have quite a wide audience” held by its peers.

    “Compared to some other players in the market, we are viewed as a good alternative or a good option because of the kind of content, creators we have onboarded so far,” Parikh remarked, further cementing the claim by adding that MX TakaTak has welcomed 11-12 influencers out of the top 20 former TikTok stars.

    The content they create sort of addresses the sensibility of the metro audience, she noted. In addition to that, the app has managed to create a high quality product from camera, effects, as well as overall user experience perspective which has played a critical role to attract those consumers.

    Is it helping the platform rope in premium brands? There are such brands carrying out campaign experiments on the platform but a number of long-tail of brands are also interested in working with MX TakaTak, Parikh claimed. “Because our audience is very large that cuts across all demographics. We have the premium brands on board with us because short video is such a high engagement platform but we also have other brands interested to work with us,” she stated. Nonetheless, it’s very early days for them from a monetisation perspective.

    Right now, most of the traction for MX TakaTak is coming from the Hindi-speaking market, followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, South India. As part of its push into building regional content and diversity, the platform has started to focus and onboard creators in south India. However, 60-70 per cent focus is on Hindi content currently, followed by regional content.

    One of the major initiatives that has driven engagement for the app is the Famehouse property. The idea is to create a location where creators from different backgrounds, different stages in their career can come and collaborate, create very engaging content, detailed Parikh. This a very exciting proposition for creators as small-scale influencers get to meet some of the larger creators and learn from each other.

    “As long as we sort of focus on the user experience and keep creating a quality supply of content on the platform, make sure the environment is safe for users which we are doing through a variety of steps, there is a huge opportunity to grow,” Parikh signed off.

  • Treat yourself every month with Trell’s #IMEMYWEEK campaign

    Treat yourself every month with Trell’s #IMEMYWEEK campaign

    KOLKATA: Homegrown social commerce platform Trell has come up with a week-long #IMEMYWEEK campaign featuring lucrative deals on notable brands on the app. The campaign, that will run in the first week of every month, commenced on 1 May and will be running till 7 May, so as to enable its customers to treat themselves during their pay week.

    #IMEMYWEEK refers to individuals in the first person to create a connection and drives the compelling notion that everyone should be open to splurging on themselves, guilt-free, from time to time. The campaign provides an opportunity to customers to finally fulfil their wishes by ticking items off their wishlist that they’ve been eyeing be it that new perfume, the lipstick in that trending shade, or the set of skincare products they’ve been contemplating to purchase for a while now.

    Eminent makeup, grooming, skincare, health and wellness, and fragrance brands including Lakmé, Mamaearth, Bombay Shaving Company, Plum Goodness, Khadi Natural, OGX, and LetsShave and premier brands such as Mercedes Benz, Bentley, Jaguar, and Mirabelle Korea, amongst others, would be offered at attractive prices throughout the week. The campaign is aimed at encouraging people to indulge in what they wish for, post receiving their salaries, as they have earned that purchase and deserve to spend on themselves.

    Trell co-founder & CEO Pulkit Agrawal said, “Trell’s #IMEMYWEEK is a way to convey to individuals that splurging on themselves is important in these tough times to keep themselves motivated and energised. Much to the contrary, it should be perceived as celebrating their professional achievements at the start of the month. With the concept of self-care gaining immense importance in recent times, Trell’s campaign is a way of encouraging people to indulge in some much awaited shopping for themselves, every month.”

    The offer would be running on Trell Shop, which has over 500+ brands across categories for customers pan India.

  • Tik Tok appoints Shouzi Chew as CEO

    Tik Tok appoints Shouzi Chew as CEO

    New Delhi: Chinese short-video sharing platform TikTok has tapped Shouzi Chew as the company’s new chief executive officer.

    TikTok’s interim head Vanessa Pappas, based in Los Angeles, will be the new chief operating officer.

    Chew is based in Singapore and was named chief financial officer of TikTok parent company ByteDance in March this year, and will continue in that role, the company said.

    The decision was taken after TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit the company in August 2020 amid India’s decision to ban the app.

    Chew has served as Xiaomi’s chief financial officer from 2015 to 2020, and ran its international business for a year, and took the company in one of the largest ever Chinese tech listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

    “The leadership team of Shou and Vanessa sets the stage for sustained growth,” said ByteDance CEO Yiming Zhang. “Shou brings deep knowledge of the industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors and having worked in the technology sector for a decade.”

    TikTok became the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide, with more than 58 million installs in March. Over 11 per cent of these installs were from China followed by the US at 10 per cent. The second most popular app was Facebook, with more than 56 million installs in March, according to data shared by app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

  • MX TakaTak & Nas Academy power Creator Fellowship Training Programme

    MX TakaTak & Nas Academy power Creator Fellowship Training Programme

    KOLKATA: MX TakaTak in collaboration with Nas Academy, has announced India’s first Creator Fellowship Training Programme, wherein 25 handpicked influencers will be trained to tell great stories and create high-quality content on-the-go. In this programme, selected applicants will get a chance to grasp the A-Z of content creation – be it scripting, shooting, editing and publishing.

    The platform has already emerged as a frontrunner in the short video space, encouraging the country’s innovative minds to create engaging, impactful and inspiring content on its platform.

    Nas Academy is a global online education platform for the Creator Economy. Founded by Nuseir Yassin (Nas Daily), with 35 million followers and seven billion plus views on the internet, it has a track record of identifying and mentoring aspiring creators across the world.

    The programme will include fellow meetings, weekly activities, contests, regular projects, training, feedback sessions, guidance on the management of social pages, 1:1 sessions from Nas Academy mentors and an opportunity to join the MX TakTak Influencer Programme.

    MX TakaTak business head Janhavi Parikh said, “Collaborating with the Nas Academy is a big opportunity that we as a homegrown platform can offer to aspiring Indian creators. The idea is to provide them exciting opportunities to grow and innovate along with newer ways of grooming themselves, and we think there is no better platform than Nas Academy for accomplishing this.”

    “Video is the future of storytelling, and content creators are the future media powerhouses. We are proud to partner with MX TakaTak launching India’s first creator fellowship training programme. We hope to empower individuals to become the next wave of content creators on one of India’s most popular social media platforms,” Nas Academy founder Nuseir Yassin said.

    Anyone can join India’s First Creator Fellowship Training Programme, where one can learn directly from amazing creators. The programme aims to help amateurs and budding content creators help find their voice and learn everything they need to get started. Applicants will be asked to submit a one-minute video of why they should be chosen for this programme, which will then be followed by a shortlisting process. 

  • Flick registers 42 mn+ views, 100 mn+ impression across social media

    Flick registers 42 mn+ views, 100 mn+ impression across social media

    KOLKATA: The Zoom Studios’ short-format content brand Flick has registered 42 million+ views and 100 million+ impression across The Zoom Studios YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram. With powerful 40 individual stories, Flick has produced an exclusive suit of short format videos that captures a series of universal moments taken out of our lives and portrayed through a heart-warming narrative. It was launched during the lockdown last year.

    With a central theme on how individual moments from our lives, if placed in a timeline, is nothing short of a film, Flick stories reflect the essence of life and celebrate its little moments. Delivering relatable stories which are brought to life with strong narratives and power packed performances, Flick has featured a talented pool of artists including Priyank Sharma, Benafsha Soonawalla, Harleen Sethi, Namit Das, Karishma Sharma, Shruti Vyas, Aashim Gulati, Mahesh Thakur, Shreya Gupto, Barkha Singh, Archak Chhabra, Ritvik Sahore, Pankhuri Awasthy, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi and many more.

    Times Network COO and EVP Jagdish Mulchandani said: “With the pandemic induced lockdown last year, content consumption patterns and preferences evolved significantly. The Zoom Studios took a leap forward with Flick during this time, exploring short format entertainment, offering viewers a differentiated yet wholesome content that can be watched in one go. We are really excited and encouraged by the overwhelming response from our viewers and the strong brand resonance and preference that Flick has achieved in a short span. I am confident that Flick will continue to resonate with our viewers who are looking for short stories that are real and heart-warming.”

    Building a strong connect with young male and female viewers alike, Flick has not only gained a loyal millennial fanbase but also received appreciation and recognition from the industry. The Flick titled Tape, A Love Story was awarded with ‘Content Debut of the year’ title and Flick was declared ‘Top 25 content brands & enterprises’ at Inkspell’s Indian Content Leadership Awards 2020. The brand also won Gold at the (Drivers of Digital) DOD Awards 2021 in the category of Top 10 Digital Brands/Enterprises. 

    A robust integrated brand campaign #StoriesToTell has also been rolled out across print, digital, OOH and TV platforms. Popular brands like OkCupid, Unilever, Korea Tourism and Tru Hair have associated Flick.

  • Chingari partners with new OTT Biiggbang Amusement

    Chingari partners with new OTT Biiggbang Amusement

    KOLKATA: In a bid to strengthen its positioning among millennial consumers, short video app Chingari has partnered with newly-launched OTT platform Biiggbang Amusement. Since its inception, Chingari has always looked to disrupt the market through its consumer-centric approach, innovative features and strategic tie-ups and this is another significant step in this direction.

    With carefully curated content from award winning directors to fresh stories, Biiggbang Amusement has a prominent content library. The content hub features some of the most notable short films that have been screened at film festivals across the globe. This collaboration will enable the Chingari subscribers to enjoy the content exclusively.

    Biiggbang Amusement founder and CEO Sudip Mukherjee said, “At Biiggbang Amusement, our constant endeavour is to present stories that can teleport the audience to another world and satisfy their need of entertainment regardless of the time crunch. Curating and getting content from around the world to add it to the Indian milieu is what we thrive on and I firmly believe, this collaboration with Chingari aligns perfectly with what we are trying to achieve. Also, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce our tagline – ‘Jab Bhi Kare Mann, Entertainment Dan Dana Dan’, as this exclusive partnership will help us achieve exactly that.”

    Chingari App co-founder & CEO Sumit Ghosh believes the exclusive collaboration with Biiggbang Amusement will add greater value, attract new consumers and improve stickiness.

    Biiggbang Amusement marketing and brand head Rinku Sukumar Biswas shared, ‘The young’uns of India want snackable, yet complete and fulfilling content that they can consume at any time of the day. Short format content addresses this need gap.”

    Chingari app COO Deepak Salvi said the two brands saw tremendous synergies in terms of target audience. “Chingari has always been an app that is extremely popular with millennial and gen Z and, which is also a target market for Biiggbang Amusement. We believe that together with Biiggbang Amusement we will be able to offer a value add to our customers and scale greater heights in the times to come,” he added.

  • Mitron turns one: Vernacular, monetisation to be key focus areas

    Mitron turns one: Vernacular, monetisation to be key focus areas

    KOLKATA: In last June, a number of short video platforms stepped into the limelight after the Indian government’s unceremonious ban on popular Chinese-origin app, TikTok. After riding on the initial wave of fame, these homegrown apps have now started solidifying their business models. This comes at a time when big league players like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are raising the stakes in the short form video space. Mitron TV, which turned one this April, has rolled out new monetisation models for creators and is looking at various innovative solutions for higher engagement on the app.

    The video sharing app that started with two people now consists of 55+ people in the team. While it is scaling operations across the board, tech is taking centre stage, said Mitron TV CEO & co-founder Shivank Agarwal. With new initiatives, the platform has set the target of 100 million users in the next six months. For the second year, the focus is on how it can go bullish on vernacular and drive monetisation for creators, he added.

    Other new features like Mitron Club, Mitron Academy and Mitron On-Demand have been introduced in the app. Through Club, creators can churn out engaging content exclusively for users opting for the service. Through Mitron Academy, content creators get an opportunity to share educational videos to help users learn from the platform. Additionally, with Mitron On-Demand, users will be able to place requests for on-demand content across segments.

    Recently, Mitron rolled out the Editor Tool to help remove creators’ dependency to log on to other video editing apps to edit their content. Post this launch, the number of videos created using Mitron camera has jumped 50 per cent. Moreover, the platform has lately seen a huge growth in creator to user ratio, Agarwal stated. Currently, 22 per cent of the total user base falls under the creator category.

    To increase brand recall, the Made in India app has also created an opinion platform where users can create videos or add text in different topics – be it sports, politics, entertainment. The initiative has been rolled out to encourage users to create a social asset. Once they come in and create a social asset, the recall to the platform increases a lot, shared Agarwal. Mitron TV is focusing more on the users who are liking, commenting, participating in opinions, along with watching videos as it aims to establish itself as a short video social media platform.

    At present, the highest number of users hail from Maharashtra, making up 19 per cent of the overall base. In the western region, Gujarat is also contributing highly to its user base. Among other states, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Haryana, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha make up the lion’s share of members. From the age group perspective, most users belong to the 25-34 segment, followed by 18-24, 35-44, 45+ age groups.

    While the platform is eying at markets as its next frontier for growth, Mitron TV CTO and co-founder Anish Khandelwal said that the recommendation engine is already in place to boost the growth but content strategy needs to be aligned in that line.

    “I think everybody is trying to innovate the revenue model, somebody is trying the e-commerce model, somebody is going the advertisement way. Everybody has to find which model suits their product and how to benefit. The good part for us is we have seen a good trend in terms of users spending on the platform, not just time but some money since last quarter,” he commented.

    “If we can convert 20 per cent customer audience into paying customers, that will be a good target for us,” he added. The platform is developing recommendations for users in such a way that it includes exploration along with personalisation. It does not want to personalise user experience in such a way that it becomes monotonous for the consumer, Khandelwal explained. Moreover, developers are focusing on the metric that if the app is showing a video to the user, he should finish the video.

    At a time when short video platforms are splurging on media spend, roping in brand ambassadors, Mitron TV execs want their product to stay low-key. Agarwal stated that they have avoided media spend but users have organically liked the app. The platform is prioritising technology and improving experience for users to improve retention and engagement, rather than going on an acquisition spree by burning cash.

    “For us, infotainment and edutainment are two important pillars we are very bullish about. And on the content perspective, technology perspective, recommendation engine and editor tool, we want to create differentiation. The overall idea is anybody with any knowledge to share, skill to share should come to the platform, engage on the platform,” Agarwal concluded.