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Tag: Sidharth Gupta

  • Treebo acquires events and experiences company events high

    Treebo acquires events and experiences company events high

    MUMBAI: Treebo today announced its acquisition of Events High, a marketplace for experiential events and activities for an undisclosed amount. Events High’s acquisition is strategically aligned with Treebo’s mission to become India’s most loved travel network by delivering delightful experiences to every traveller. Events High offers customers information on, and ability to book activities like treks and hikes, cooking classes, dance classes, concerts, heritage walks, nightlife, etc. in 8 cities – Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Goa. The move will effectively enable Treebo to enter the thriving events and activities segment which is estimated to be ~$180B in size globally, and ~$5B in India. Post the acquisition, Treebo has absorbed the entire Events High team.

    Commenting on the acquisition, Treebo, co-founder, Sidharth Gupta said, “We are on a mission to offer delightful experiences to travelers and build the most loved travel network. Over the last 3 years, we have made the first big leap in fulfilling this mission by offering great quality hotels at affordable prices. We are now making another move in the same direction by offering curated local events and activities to our customers through Events High. Experiencing these local activities is a core part of people’s travel plans. More so now than ever before, people are keen to buy ‘experiences’ not ‘things’. Moreover, with nearly hundred percent offline bookings, fragmented and unorganised supply, and yet a large demand among travelers, this industry has similar characteristics to what the hotel industry had 10 years ago. We saw a great opportunity to use technology to capture the untapped potential of this space through Events High.”

    He further added, “We are excited to have Nikesh, Arvind and the team onboard. They come with strong tech experience having worked with the technology giant like Google and Walmart Labs in the US. Their solid domain expertise and consumer understanding reflects in the strong product they have built.”

    Events High, backed by Axilor Ventures, was started by Nikesh Garera and Arvind Batra in 2016. Nikesh & Arvind have a strong background in machine learning and big data. They both were a part of the Kosmix team in Bay Area, that was later acquired and became Walmart Labs. The duo moved to Bengaluru couple of years back with Walmart Labs and started Events High. 

    Events High, co-founder and CEO, Nikesh Garera said “Customers value engagement & unique experiences, and Events High has always been committed to curate these experiences and make them discoverable. We have seen an explosion in demand and supply of experiences, with Events High achieving more than 1.5 million organic unique users per month and 10x growth in bookings in the last year alone. Stay is an integral part of the huge number of travellers who attend such experiences, and with Treebo we share the vision to offer delightful experiences to such travelers. In the end, both the activity and the stay play a major role in the entire lifecycle for the traveller, and with Treebo we are excited to have a complimentary partner and are uniquely poised to comprehensively address this gap in the market.”

    Globally, interest in the activities and experiences space has piqued recently with several players taking bets by either building this offering organically or investing in existing companies. Airbnb launched Experiences last year, Marriott invested in activities metasearch platform PlacePass, and Booking Holdings acquired activities distribution software provider, FareHarbour. Viator (owned by TripAdvisor), GetYourGuide, and Klook are the other companies active in this space globally. This market, however, has been mostly unpenetrated in India. With the acquisition of Events High, Treebo will now be one of the major early movers in this space.

  • Treebo appoints Nishant Gupta as head of brand & marketing

    Treebo appoints Nishant Gupta as head of brand & marketing

    MUMBAI: Treebo Hotels, a budget hotel chain, has appointed Nishant Gupta as the head of brand and marketing. It has an inventory of 10,000 rooms and 400 hotels in over 85 cities.

    Gupta is a marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in brand and category building. At Treebo, he will spearhead the strategic initiatives to establish the startup as India’s most loved travel brand.

    Prior to joining Treebo, Gupta worked at Marico as the group product head for the male grooming category. In this role, he was responsible for managing the P&L of the product portfolio for this category by developing compelling brand campaigns as well developing a strong innovation pipeline. His brand building efforts helped achieve remarkable success for the company for brands like Parachute, Set Wet, and Nihar, many of which saw double digit growth year on year.

    Treebo Hotels co-founder Sidharth Gupta says, “Nishant’s expertise in building similar industry-leading consumer brands will help us in this mission. We are excited to onboard him into the leadership team. There are several brand related initiatives in the pipeline which he will be now leading for us. He will also shape the upcoming legs of the marketing campaign that we launched last year.”

    Gupta adds, “Treebo has crafted a unique identity in the budget hotel space in a very short span of time. The brand has an unmatched appeal and respect in the market. I am really excited about this opportunity and to be a part of a rewarding journey to build Treebo as the most loved hospitality brand in the country. While this category is cluttered and highly competitive, I believe that our brand building initiatives will keep us ahead in the game and top of mind for customers.”

    Founded in 2015, Treebo Hotels offers high-quality travel experience to its customers by providing comfortable and value-for-money accommodation options. 

    Treebo works on a franchise model with carefully selected, existing, standalone hotels. Treebo aims at enriching lives of every traveller by delivering a delightful experience.

  • ‘Citylights’ …Dark and drab…

    ‘Citylights’ …Dark and drab…

    MUMBAI: Citylights is a pretentious film which attempts to depict the plight of a migrant family in a metropolis like Mumbai! The film is actually a crime story but is touted as a poor migrant’s travails in a major city.

    Rajkumar Rao is an ex-army man turned sari trader in Rajsthan’s Pali district. He fails to pay his liabilities and is thrown out of his shop by his creditors. After some deliberation, he decides to migrate to Mumbai with one contact number of a relative. He decides to do this with his wife and daughter, a move that you don’t see a sensible person make.

    In Mumbai, where a newcomer ceases to be so within minutes as the city takes him into its embrace, Rao’s start is not good. His contact is not traceable on the number he has, and with just a name and no address to go on, Rao doesn’t make much progress. Next, someone offers him a one-bedroom home against Rs 10,000 deposit and rent to be paid later. The house is actually in the hands of painters who are giving it a fresh coat of paint. Rao has been duped of his money. Finally he finds shelter in an under construction building for Rs 100 a night.

    From then on starts his struggle to find a job, which he lands eventually as a driver for a security company’s armoured car. These cars deliver sealed boxes to various clients and contain cash or stuff worth crores of rupees. Out of a horde of applicants, Manav Kaul, the supervisor, chooses Rao with a design in mind. Rao’s wife, Patralekha, meanwhile, finds a job with a dance bar.

    Producer: Mukesh Bhatt.

    Director: Hansal Mehta.

    Cast: Rajkumar Rao, Patralekha, Manav Kaul.

    Kaul gradually cultivates Rao and plots to involve him in an earlier foiled robbery. Kaul had managed to save the box from that robbery and now he needs Rao’s help to get the key lying in the security company’s locker room. The boxes can’t be forced open as doing that can detonate a bomb inside killing the one who attempts. Kaul shifts Rao to the house where he has hidden the box before telling him about his plan. Rao is livid but Kaul has trapped him from all sides. While on one assignment, the robbers catch up with Kaul and kill him. Rao is suspended for not saving him. He is now jobless and broke. Patralekha has kicked her job too. Exasperated, Rao decides to make a sacrifice for his family. He decides to execute the plan Kaul had made.

    The direction is fair. Music has no place yet is forced in. The original simple script has been complicated here. Performances by Rao and Patralekha are very good. Kaul makes an impact.

    A black film with no relief, Citylights is hard to take; all it can hope for is an award or two.

    ‘Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi’…Same to you…

    This is one more film with Delhi flavour and locales. It is about a middle class locality of Delhi where two friends have grown up together. They are inseparable and the most clandestine thing they do is to indulge in fruit beer once in a while. And, lest the audience not believe it is truly a Delhi story, the inevitable statue of Bajrangbali of Jhandewalan/Karol Bagh does not fail to make its appearance like in all Delhi centric films! And, of course, the title, Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi, is a local colloquial having little to do with rest of the country.

    Producers: Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Bejoy Nambiar.

    Director: Aman Sachdeva.

    Cast: Sidharth Gupta, Ashish Juneja, Simran Kaur Mundi.

    Siddharth Gupta (Kuku) is an average student who fails to get admission to a college after high school. He, like all boys of such age, has agendas they dare not open up about. Siddharth attends the English tuition class only because the girl living in the house opposite the class, Simran Kaur Mundi, has caught his fancy. He is motherless, responsible for looking after and cooking for his younger sister and father, a government servant. But cooking is something he relishes doing. His dream is to own a restaurant some day while his father wants him to become a NASA scientist.

    Kuku’s best friend, Ashish Juneja, is a little better off, hailing from a trading family. His family runs a sari shop and decides to set up a matching centre for him next to the sari shop so those who buy saris may go next door to his shop to buy matching falls and blouse pieces. While Ashish gets busy selling matching blouse pieces, Siddharth manages a job as a spot boy with a Haryanvi film unit. Here, at the shooting, just about everybody humiliates Siddharth. He snaps when his best friend too insults him.

    Siddharth is seething with anger when his cousin from Kanpur enters the scene. The cousin is as foxy as they come and, as a way of taking revenge on Ashish, suggests to Siddharth that they burn down the Sari godown owned by Ashish’s family after stealing all the goods which could be sold to another trader to finance Siddharth’s dream of starting a restaurant.

    Siddharth is now a successful eatery owner. Things change, he now has a car and, finally, also starts dating Simran who never noticed him in the seven years that he pined for her. But, the Kanpur cousin proves destructor for the family; his father gives up on his job while his sister is talked into leaking exam papers, both on the cousin’s advice.

    Siddharth’s conscience begins to bite him for his crime. He decides to meet Ashish and own up to his crime. Eventually, crime does not pay but friendship does.

    It is tough to understand the title of Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi to care enough to watch it. It was explained to me by the director as the generally used term ‘Vaat lag gayi’ in Mumbai. That is the most likely fate of this film at the box office.

  • Getit to power Yahoo’s local search service

    Getit to power Yahoo’s local search service

    MUMBAI: Getit, India‘s leading digital marketing has associated with digital media company Yahoo wherein Getit will power results under Yahoo Local. The association will mean that Getit‘s entire databases of over three million business listings will be accessible to Yahoo users on Yahoo Local.

    Any search conducted on Yahoo Local will automatically land on a co-branded section which will be powered by Getit. This association will help to create further brand awareness and popularity of Getit among masses.
     
    Further, for searches conducted on Yahoo! web search which correspond to a local need, Yahoo! users will have the benefit of the listings powered by Getit, depending upon relevance, location and keywords.

    Getit CEO Sidharth Gupta said, "This is a very significant partnership since it brings the power of Getit‘s databases to Yahoo! users and likewise brings the immense distribution of Yahoo! to Getit‘s advertisers and SME‘s. It is a privilege to be partnering a leading brand like Yahoo! to bring powerful yet simple solutions to our users and advertisers." 

  • Aidem Ventures to handle Getit’s corporate ad sales

    MUMBAI: Getit has appointed Aidem Ventures as its corporate advertising sales representative for the next 5 years.

    Through this mandate, Aidem will be responsible for marketing Getit’s synergistic product suite to leading brands, agencies and corporates. The products include a free-deals site – www.getithotdeals.in, India’s leading mall locator – www.getitmalls.com, B2B platform – www.tradeget.com, a host of micro-communities in key verticals such as automotive, weddings, young-moms, gadgets, travel, fashion, food etc. in addition to its local search engine – www.getit.in and leading free-classifieds website – freeads.in.

    While Aidem will be responsible for services to large corporate clients, key brands and agencies, Getit will continue to sell directly to its SME clients in over 70 cities, through its 1200+ strong sales force.

    Getit already has over 85,000 paying SME advertisers across India; more than three million are listed businesses in its databases. Its platforms receive over four million visitors monthly and generate over 17 million page views. Already more than a million Getit local search apps have been downloaded across iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Java and Symbian platforms.

    Getit has alliances with leading media and telecom companies, wherein it powers local search and classifieds on their digital platforms. Some of these are with NDTV.com, Indiatoday.in, Dainikbhaskar, Aircel, Loop Mobile and RadioOne in Chennai.

    Getit Infoservices CEO Sidharth Gupta said, “We have appointed a strategic sales partner in Aidem and going by their track record and level of commitment to their partners, we are confident that we can take our business to new heights. The search advertising industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India and trade analysts have pegged it to grow 5 folds in the next year. We at Getit want to ensure that we set the pace for the growth of the industry and appointing our sales partner is a big step in that direction.”

    Added Aidem Ventures EVP Kaushal Dalal, “We are excited with the mandate to enhance the advertising potential of Getit that will provide brands with a perfect platform for a sustained engagement with consumers. This partnership also complements our plans to expand Aidem’s footprint in the digital and new media space. With a fair percentage of the consumers spending almost 16 hours a week online, it’s a strategic decision for most brands to be proactive in the digital space for best possible consumer engagement. It is our constant endeavor to enable the Indian advertiser base to explore lucrative media platforms.”

    Directional media is the much needed link to complete a brand’s advertising cycle by bridging the gap between desire (purchase) and action. For brands, it ensures an instant brand connect with consumers, just when there is purchase intent. Getit comes with the proposition to fill the need gap in the advertising cycle of every brand with its directional media offering.

    Getit, the pioneers of the concept of Yellow Pages in India, has transformed into an integrated digital media organisation specializing in local search and classifieds. It is India’s leading ‘directional media’ platform providing leads to businesses & brands, across media and devices, thereby helping their business grow. The aim is to connect buyers to sellers, thereby generating actionable leads that result in immediate sales.