ITV

Tag: User Experience

  • CleverTap launches ‘Product Experiences’ for app & web UX optimisation

    CleverTap launches ‘Product Experiences’ for app & web UX optimisation

    Mumbai: CleverTap has announced the launch of ‘Product Experiences’ – a solution to experiment and elevate customer experiences across web and apps to help maximise lifetime value. With a no-code approach, user-friendly UI, and advanced segmentation capabilities and analytics, ‘Product Experiences’ allows product and growth managers to effortlessly personalise as well as optimize app and website user experiences.

    In today’s competitive app landscape, the stakes are higher than ever for businesses. With 50 per cent of users uninstalling an app within 30 days and 25 per cent abandoning it after just one use, the pressure is on the brand to deliver personalised experiences. Any issue in user experiences can lead to swift abandonment given the ease of access to other alternatives. According to studies by McKinsey, a staggering 70 per cent of drop-offs are due to sub-par in-app experiences, while 76 per cent of customers express frustration when brands fail to provide personalised interactions.

    That’s where CleverTap Product Experiences steps in to address these critical challenges. It empowers product managers and growth teams to effortlessly experiment and make swift changes to the app’s design, functionality, and workflows with minimal technical dependency—be it A/B testing onboarding, add-to-cart flow variants, updating banners, showing dynamic pricing, and other content. Thus democratising app and web experience management by enabling growth teams to independently manage in-app monetisation and personalization without the need for additional app updates. This drives operational efficiency, ensuring your business remains agile and responsive to market demands.

    The key components of ‘Product Experiences’ include remote config and product A/B testing. Remote config allows marketers and product managers to effortlessly map app and web functionalities to remote config’s user-friendly interface, enabling seamless control and personalisation of the user experience. They can create precise segments with zero-code and override variable values to tailor the experience for specific audiences directly from the CleverTap dashboard.

    With product A/B tests, marketers can set up experiments with multiple variants related to UI, functionality, and workflows. Through precise measurement of results based on key performance indicators (KPIs), businesses can analyze performance with detailed analytics and seamlessly deploy the most successful version to their user base.

    CleverTap co-founder and chief product officer Anand Jain said, “Businesses are continuously striving to push out newer features and updates to benefit the end user. The app updates that bring these changes are often the result of a complex, time-consuming and resource-intensive process. App release cycles are not scalable, cost-effective or agile enough to respond to market demands and keep up with the rapidly changing business environment. Product Experiences addresses these industry pain points by empowering businesses to take control of their app and web experiences with minimum technical dependency. Its unique capabilities offer CleverTap customers an all-in-one solution that redefines campaign management and performance and app and web experience management, proving to be a complete platform for future digital engagement success.”

  • “Bad ads are spam but good ads are content”: Moloco India’s Siddharth Jhawar

    “Bad ads are spam but good ads are content”: Moloco India’s Siddharth Jhawar

    Mumbai: Ad personalisation isn’t just about tailored ads, it’s about transforming them into engaging content for enhanced user experience. Moloco, a multinational adtech company pioneering machine learning, is at the forefront of this revolution. In a strategic partnership with Viacom18 and JioCinema, Moloco’s advanced capabilities are reshaping the landscape of Indian advertising.

    From combating ad fraud to leveraging 5G for programmatic innovation, Moloco is driving tangible results for advertisers while prioritising user privacy. With success stories like Zupee’s 5x growth and significant user jumps for Rummytime, Moloco’s vision for India extends beyond market growth—it’s about fostering innovation and empowering businesses to thrive in a dynamic digital ecosystem.

    Indiantelevision.com caught up with Moloco India general manager Siddharth Jhawar to talk about growing concerns about ad fraud and privacy in the Indian market, the future of programmatic advertising in India, and much more…

    Edited Excerpts:

    On Moloco addressing growing concerns about ad fraud and privacy in the Indian market

    We believe that complete transparency, constant vigilance, & working with trusted partners are critical to ensuring that advertisers and customers are protected from fraud and privacy concerns.

    Moloco ads reports advertising spends to the most granular level, which empowers advertisers to pressure-test the quality of their traffic for any suspicious activity. For instance, we capture timestamp data and then analyze whether the time taken between viewing an ad, clicking on it, installing an app, and making a purchase are coherent with expected customer behaviour. It certainly helps if an advertiser works only with reputed channels, because it minimizes the risk of fraudulent activity.

    First-party data is critical for a machine learning engine to become intelligent in identifying high-value users of an advertiser. Hence it becomes even more important to adopt the highest standards of safety and privacy to help companies grow while ensuring their customers’ privacy.

    On Moloco envisioning the future of programmatic advertising in India, with the advent of 5G

    Moloco ads processes seven million requests per second. We take 14 milliseconds to make a deep neural network prediction. Building this kind of infrastructure has taken us more than a decade, and it helps that network speeds are improving. The advent of 5G will support the nature of innovation that we do in terms of speed and efficiency of computational infrastructure.

    On Moloco’s approach to ad personalisation and its impact on user experience

    Bad ads are spam but good ads are content. If an ad can be hyper-personalised to a user and their context, it improves the customer experience and also gives better returns to an advertiser.

    The trends we see today are that customers want great but inexpensive service without being bombarded with ads, advertisers want maximum returns on every rupee spent, and platforms want to grow fast while also being profitable. Personalized ads address these needs by enhancing the customer experience, delivering measurable outcomes to advertisers, and boosting advertising revenue for platforms. But this is easier said than done. There are almost five billion internet users in the world today. We can not expect any two customers to be exactly the same. But when the scale is massive, 1-1 targeting becomes computationally tough. This is when companies need world-class machine learning systems to support them. Moloco uses machine learning that works on an advertiser’s first-party data and helps them show hyper-personalised ads to users while also optimising bid prices and probabilities in real-time – that is tough, but when done right, can be valuable to both advertisers and customers.

    On the strategies that Moloco employs to effectively integrate in-game and mobile advertising for maximum engagement

    Showing relevant and hyper-personalised ads to a user on a gaming app improves their engagement levels on the app. India’s gaming industry makes about one-fifth of its revenue from in-app advertising, and this trend is expected to grow further.

    On Moloco’s approach to operational machine learning and its significance in optimising ad campaigns

    Operational machine learning is special in four ways – it is autonomous, it involves real-time predictions, it can work at massive scale, and it is highly adaptable to the context. While machine learning and artificial intelligence have become household terms now, building an operational machine learning system at scale is a problem that very few companies in the world have effectively cracked.

    We use this operational machine learning system to train on an app’s first party data, identify high-value users, and efficiently bid for them on the open internet – this helps the app acquire more high-value users which can grow their revenue and profitability.

    On Moloco’s partnership with Viacom18 and JioCinema exemplifying its commitment to revolutionising the ecosystem in India

    Viacom18 is building one of the largest streaming platforms in the world and we are proud to be their ad-tech partners. The platform has immense scale and saw 32 million concurrent users during IPL 2023 – we use Moloco’s machine learning and ad-serving capabilities to serve relevant ads at astronomical scale on JioCinema.

    On any success stories or case studies where Moloco’s solutions have driven tangible results for advertisers in India

    Within a matter of 18 months, we have created a measurable impact on several industries and digital platforms in India. Moloco ads works with nine of the ten largest gaming apps in India and we have driven high-quality user growth for them. Our partner Zupee attained 5x growth and 3x return on ads spend targets using our ML engine. Rummytime from the Gameskraft group saw a significant jump in their high-value users. We also used our monetisation solution for CityMall to help them build an in-house advertising business and increase ROAS by 900 per cent. There are over 40 apps who have benefited from Moloco’s machine learning in India.

    On Moloco’s plan to further expand its footprint and partnerships in the Indian market moving forward

    India is a unique region for Moloco. Not only is the India market a small yet fast-growing region, India is also emerging as an innovation hub of Moloco. The entrepreneurial activity and scale in India make it an exciting place to develop machine learning products. For this reason, we are also building a global engineering centre in Bangalore, so that we can build products in India that can be scaled to the rest of the world.

  • CTV advertising in India to surge at 47 per cent CAGR over next five years: Frodoh World’s Russhabh R Thakkar

    CTV advertising in India to surge at 47 per cent CAGR over next five years: Frodoh World’s Russhabh R Thakkar

    Mumbai: The burgeoning connected TV (CTV) space has not just reshaped our content consumption but has also presented unprecedented opportunities for advertisers. With the rise of streaming platforms and Smart TVs, CTV advertising offers a targeted and immersive way to engage viewers. As consumers increasingly shift towards on-demand, personalised content experiences, advertisers can harness the power of CTV to deliver tailored messages and optimise brand visibility in this dynamic digital landscape.

    Indian Television in an interview with Frodoh World founder and CEO Russhabh R Thakkar explored the company’s evolution since its inception, trends in 2024 impacting the CTV space and much more…

    Recognising the immense potential in the intersection of technology and user experience, Russhabh founded Frodoh World, a CTV advertising specialist company, in 2020, to bring groundbreaking ideas to life. As the founder and CEO of Frodoh World, he leads a dynamic team dedicated to revolutionising the way consumers experience and interact with technology. Under his entrepreneurship, Frodoh World is making waves in the connected TV advertising space, seamlessly integrating interactive and engaging digital ads.

    Edited Excerpts:

    On the launch of Frodoh World in 2020, and its evolution since then

    Frodoh World was launched to revolutionise digital advertising by filling a gap in the market, prioritising impactful storytelling and attention-grabbing ads with the ethos of ‘Don’t just get viewed, get noticed,’. We have since evolved by consistently innovating in the latest technology, strategies, adapting to industry trends, and delivering measurable success for clients.

    On the growth and penetration of CTV in India and the trends that will impact the CTV space in 2024

    We have witnessed the remarkable growth and increasing penetration of connected TV in India over the past few years. The evolving landscape has been marked by a surge in consumer adoption, presenting significant opportunities for our platform. Looking ahead to 2024, I anticipate a continued upward trajectory for CTV, driven by innovations in personalised content delivery, immersive advertising experiences, and the seamless integration of data-driven insights, shaping the future trends of the CTV space in India.

    Over the next five years, connected TV advertising is set to grow rapidly in India at a compounded annual growth rate of 47 per cent, and this increase will contribute to the overall TV landscape including the linear segment, making India the third largest market by 2024.

    On Frodoh World setting itself apart in the CTV advertising landscape with its proposition, “Don’t just get viewed, Get noticed”

    Frodoh World stands out in the CTV advertising landscape by consistently adapting to the dynamic tech environment, integrating measurable and trend-forward ad solutions. Our commitment to assessing the impact post-campaigns ensures result validation, addressing client’s business challenges and fostering trust for repeat collaborations. Recognising the fleeting attention span, our approach prioritises engaging ad experiences through context-driven planning, ensuring a distinct and impactful presence in the market.

    On Frodoh World’s demonstration of its commitment to CTV and the results it has achieved for advertisers

    Our dedication to CTV is distinctive in our strategic campaigns, which emphasise impactful messaging through innovative practices like TV to mobile cross-screen device targeting, ensuring precise household reach and action-oriented frequency. Advertisers have experienced substantial outcomes, including heightened engagement, elevated brand awareness and recall scores, and a quantifiable positive influence on their target audience. This underscores our unwavering commitment to providing tangible value to clients.

    On the significant influence or transformative impact of AI in the evolving landscape of CTV and advertising and Frodoh World harnessing AI to enhance its CTV strategies and deliver more effective advertising solutions

    Certainly! AI wields significant influence, and Frodoh strategically harnesses its power to elevate CTV strategies and deliver more effective advertising solutions. By leveraging AI – we optimise content delivery, enhance audience targeting precision, and tailor ad experiences based on real-time insights.

    This not only ensures a more personalised and engaging viewer experience but also maximises the impact and effectiveness of our CTV campaigns, aligning with the evolving demands of the industry and staying at the forefront of innovation.

    On Frodoh World measuring the effectiveness of its CTV advertising strategies, particularly in terms of targeting precision and audience engagement; and a few examples of your notable clients or success stories

    Frodoh World employs a sophisticated methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of our CTV advertising strategies, leveraging over 15,000 unique segments from trusted third-party data sources, we provide a spectrum of targeting options, including online and offline behavioural, interest-based, demographic, geography-based, and custom segments.

    A forthcoming innovation is the industry-first Web-to-TV targeting. A distinctive feature is our integration of scientific campaigns, allowing clients to set up campaigns and deploy the Frodoh pixel on their websites for data collection. This facilitates the development of a retargeting audience pool, enabling us to engage valuable visitors with impactful, non-skippable CTV ads. This proven approach consistently yields tangible results, revitalising brand interest and fostering substantial engagement, showcasing our commitment to delivering effective and measurable outcomes in the dynamic CTV advertising landscape.

    On Frodoh World tailoring its audience solutions to address the unique needs and preferences of diverse sectors within the CTV advertising landscape

    Our commitment to tailoring audience solutions involves ensuring that each client benefits from a personalised and precise approach. We provide a plethora of options for segmenting audiences, ranging from readily available choices to creating custom cohorts, enabling precision targeting with content. This strategy diverges from generic marketing approaches, emphasising a bespoke, one-on-one strategy that resonates with the specific requirements of each sector. Our goal is to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” model, offering clients a tailored and effective solution.

    On Frodoh World’s future plans and specific targets or milestones that the company aims to achieve in the coming years

    Frodoh’s future plans include aspiring to become a formidable contender in the competitive landscape, aiming to rank among the leading CTV platforms. We are focused on substantial growth across priority markets in India, accompanied by a strategic emphasis on building exceptional talent across all facets of the organisation. Our commitment to ongoing innovation is a core element of Frodoh’s strategy, recognising the growing significance of connected TV and anticipating the increasing interest from advertisers eager to explore this platform.

  • Hero Future Energies app partners with Marcom Avenue for website revamp

    Hero Future Energies app partners with Marcom Avenue for website revamp

    Mumbai: Hero Future Energies (HFE), a clean energy company, has joined hands with Marcom Avenue, an integrated marketing agency, to revamp its website and provide an enhanced user experience for its customers. This partnership aims to strengthen HFE’s online presence, highlight its clean energy solutions, and demonstrate its positive impact on the environment.

    The project, which involves multiple phases, will begin with meticulous planning and data collection, leading up to the launch of the revamped website. The Marcom Avenue will bring its expertise in various areas, including strategy & brainstorming, technology development & content development, and Vendor Management System (VMS) integration to deliver a comprehensive solution.

    The key deliverables of the project include a modern website design that captivates visitors, an improved user experience for seamless navigation, integration with social media platforms to expand HFE’s reach, an admin panel for efficient content management, and various technical enhancements to optimise performance.

    Hero Future Energies vice president & head – branding & corporate communication Dipankar Bose said, “This project marks an important milestone for Hero Future Energies in our digital transformation journey. We are confident that our collaboration with The Marcom Avenue will result in a visually stunning website that effectively communicates our clean energy solutions and showcases our commitment to a greener future.”

    The nature of the engagement between HFE and The Marcom Avenue is a one-time project focused on revamping the website and delivering the specified features and improvements. The Marcom Avenue will ensure that the website adheres to IT service guidelines, meets industry standards, and supports multi-language integration to cater to a wider audience.

    The Marcom Avenue, director Divanshi Guptaand said, “We are excited to partner with Hero Future Energies in their mission to drive clean and sustainable energy solutions, by combining our expertise in digital marketing and technology development, we aim to create a website that not only impresses visitors but also educates and inspires them to make environmentally conscious choices.”

  • Trivayu Media Works announces its customer success services portfolio

    Trivayu Media Works announces its customer success services portfolio

    Mumbai: TriVayu Media Works has announced the launch of its new customer success service portfolio. The services will be launched under a new brand called TMW: NBUx (next billion users’ experience). With a presence in over 200 districts, 1,000 villages, and 20+ states across the country, TMW is a private hyperlocal content distribution company and distinguishes itself as a solution that assists India’s leading companies in targeting the hyperlocal market through the development of super-niche content, marketing, and resource services.

    TMW: NBUx’s customer success services include live chat support, email support, online reputation management, and telephony (inbound and outbound) in 10+ languages. TMW: NBUx service is a plug-and-play kind of module where clients just have to select their customers and define the aim or queries. TMW’s team will also facilitate the strategy and execution using their in-house CRM ecosystem. Soon, TMW plans to offer short services such as customer response surveys and user intent research surveys as well.

    “We are thrilled to announce the launch of our customer success services portfolio under the new brand of TMW: NBUx. The service aims to empower any B2C brand that is keen to enhance its customer loyalty and satisfaction. There are many tier-two-based SMB companies that want to set up a customer success team but are not able to do so due to a low budget and lack of awareness. With our cost-efficient and feasible plug-n-play hyperlocal dialect module, we are driven to serve more brands and help them scale quickly and build customer trust,” said Trivayu Media Works co-founder Ratnendra K Pandey.

    TMW offers content in 15+ languages to help brands reach a wider audience in tier two and tier three cities where branding and its associated concepts are challenging to develop. TMW also trains and employs youth in content learning, and the process is completely free until a candidate begins earning money. Candidates are hired based on their performance and work from TMW’s micro-offices, which the company claims no other company offers. By collaborating closely with trained resources from tier two and tier three cities, TMW is able to save its clients up to 30 per cent on project costs.

  • Guest Column : The Importance of User Experience for business you must know

    Guest Column : The Importance of User Experience for business you must know

    New Delhi: With the ever-global and ever-evolving digital world, what makes your business or brand stand out is your User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design and development. UX design and development is one of the most crucial elements in your branding and marketing strategy. It is the spark that determines the end-users experience and first impressions of your website or mobile application when discovering and interacting with it.

    So a simple UX with high-quality images and content is not enough when it comes to today’s rapidly competitive markets and multiple platforms of marketing and marketplaces. An exemplary user experience starts with incorporating easy using features to eye-catching creative designs to top-notch valuable content with layers of attractive and impressionable animations and motion graphics to quick loading time and mobile & other device optimizations to enhance user convenience. Let’s understand why UX design and development are important for your business.

    The importance of UX design can’t be stressed enough. To begin with, it lays the groundwork for your brand’s values and importance to be perceived digitally. A good user experience primarily focuses on understanding the user’s needs. It also serves the purpose of providing a helpful, positive experience that helps in customer loyalty and retention towards your brand or business.

    In addition to these factors, a worthwhile user experience gives you advanced customer insights, predicts the consumer journey, understands the preferences, needs, likes, dislikes, limitations, and valuable insights of the consumer. Such first-hand data helps your brand optimize marketing strategies, conduct fruitful business practices, and attract new consumers with similar preferences.

    Implementing a great UX design can boost your brand or businesses and multiply your search engine optimization. User experiences are one of the biggest factors to a good SEO ranking and the success of your pay-per-click campaigns.

    Since Google’s objective is to serve the most relevant information to users and promote great user experiences in their search results and rankings, your brand or business’ website or mobile application with a magnificent UX design is sure to get the added advantage and improve your SEO ranking. Advertising mediums such as Google Ads actively monitor and score the results of their metric “landing page experience” in all ad campaigns and provide you suggestions to improve the user journey.

    A great UX design can bring your brand or business valuable conversion and build loyal customers. The simple science behind it is, a customer comes looking to have their requirement met, while searching there are hundreds of websites out there providing solutions but your brand or business website can be the one-stop solution to all their needs if your UX designs are simple and value providing. Most of the time, customers are impatient to find the answers for their search, and hence you can optimize your UX design to reduce their level of effort to the minimum to get your brand or business maximum conversions through your website or mobile application.

    Naturally, when customers find the answers to their search, they are more likely to visit your website or application again, thus increasing customer loyalty and building customer interaction further.

    The two key points to focus on achieving such valuable conversions are meaningful content and call-to-action and an easy user journey.

    Content is the king at all levels, your content is what defines the value to your customers. Choose only to put relevant and easy-to-understand content with highlights of unique selling points of your product or service. Your UX design should position your call-to-action buttons in an engaging and attractive style. These buttons should be clear to increase the chances of interaction with your brand and business. An exemplary CTA button shouldn’t be a simple call-to-action but also provide the purpose of clicking it, thereby increasing the chance of clicks.

    “Sign up for our newsletter for exciting discounts, tips, and offers” or “Register to avail 10 per cent off” are great click-bait examples. Such UX designs not only provide you data but also a clear demographic understanding of your target audience.

    Needless to say, an impressive UX design can touch and inspire many, by making their journey of making a purchase on your website easy and effective. A powerful UX design can leave countless lasting impressions on your customers and their peers through word of mouth building your secured and ever-lasting brand awareness and image.

    (Dhananjay Arora is the CEO of Kwebmaker Digital Agency. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • GEMS: How to make e-sports attractive for non-gamers

    GEMS: How to make e-sports attractive for non-gamers

    NEW DELHI: E-sports and virtual gaming in India is no longer limited to one-player play-to-win matches or personal entertainment without any benefits. It is now getting players recognised and driving immense monetisation across the spectrum. A fully-fledged industry now, it is supported by a larger play of schemes: from planning to development, production to play, and broadcast to post-broadcast content. And what has been at the centre of this evolution is quality content. 

    E-sports and gaming content production has come up as a separate genre of its own attracting technicians, creators, influencers, and publishers on board. Although the industry is still in its nascent stage, there is a wide scope for it to grow and flourish. To discuss current trends and the way ahead for the same, an elaborate panel of leading industry experts came virtually together for the Esports Production: Going Remote panel of Games, E-sports & More Summit (GEMS) presented by indiantelevision.com and AnimationXpress.com, co-powered by Tata Communications. The panel was supported by associate partner CapeTitans Games and support partner Loco by Pocket Aces. 

    Moderated by GoLive Games Studio founder and CEO Ravi Kiran, the panel was led by Anand Pimprikar (Tata Communications head sales BD – India, media and entertainment services), gaming/e-sports veteran Anurag Khurana, LXG director e-sports and broadcasting Kiran Noojibail, ESPL CEO Michael Broda, MPL VP-devops and reliability engineering Mukta Aphale, Playtonia Esports co-founder Sanupam Samantray, and Sky esports founder and CEO Shiva Nandy. 

    The speakers unanimously agreed that e-sports and gaming content is not just limited to live streams and India hosts a great pool of talent – be it technicians or players, or content creators who can take it a notch higher. 

    Hailing the role of content in popularising the category, Pimprikar noted: “Content drives viewership and that drives role models (for the upcoming generation of players). Therefore, it is very important to improve the quality of production, say like IPL, on both linear and essential channels.” 

    Multiplayer: The more, the merrier

    On the sporting level, the panellists pointed out that to improve the quality of content in any e-sport or game, it is essential to make it multiplayer and interactive. 

    Broda said on the subject: “What I think about e-sports beside it being skill-based and competitive, it must be multiplayer. In fact, it is important for any sport to be successful. One-on-one games are good for play-to-win, real money-making challenges, but on an overall industry perspective, it is very important to go multiplayer.”

    What makes multiplayer fun, added Noojbail, is that it shows glimpses of players playing the game live, making it interactive for people who are playing as well as those who are watching. “Interactivity plays a key part as unlike other games, you cannot see the player directly while playing e-sports. The entire e-sports perception eventually revolves around what the end-user gets to see and that’s where the value of e-sports content becomes even stronger,” he explained.

    Read more news on the gaming industry

    Beyond game-over

    Noojbail also insisted that there is a dire need to curate good post-content, which goes live after the matches to keep the audience hooked. Aphale pointed out that currently, only the audience that wants to better their own game is watching the e-sports and gaming streams and broadcasts, unlike the tier-1 offline sports. This needs to be changed. 

    Going forward, there are two major aspects that content producers must keep in mind: how to separate the production control rooms (PCR) from the site and then how to virtualise the whole PCR, said Pimprikar.  

    To this end, Aphale suggested that the technology needs to focus on making the mobiles lighter so a player doesn’t have to download a lot of gaming-related programmes, and then let the cloud servers do the entire processing. 

    E-sports a big hit in small towns

    Additionally, the panellists pressed upon the need to take e-sports to grassroots levels in India and equipping the game applications with technology and content support in regional languages. 

    Of the 6 crore active users on MPL, about 83 per cent of the gamers come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, signifying that the format is already very popular there, Aphale pointed out. Therefore, they are looking for more game developers, technicians, and talents to drive the next leg of growth. 

    Nandy said that his aim is to further expand the presence of e-sports and gaming in every nook and corner of the country. In fact, he has already started providing streaming services in all major south-Indian languages. 

    Training is key to success in global arena

    According to Khurana, the Indian e-sports and gaming ecosystem also requires a strong backend support system in the forms of coaches and trainers. 

    “I feel we have great players when it comes to the domestic circuit but we fail when we go international. It is because we are not focussing on organisation and skill development within the sector. There is a great need for psychologists, coaches, and the whole supporting sports staff within the esports ecosystem,” he explained. 

    Samantray seconded the thought and shared that with Playtonia, the team is already working on these lines. “We are actually working at the grassroots level and are planning to bring a certification as well as a university dedicated to e-sports.” 

  • How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    KOLKATA: As OTT platforms are making all the necessary moves to keep the users hooked, these players are realising that innovation is the key mantra to achieve this objective. To keep up with the pace with which users are adapting to streaming services, most of the players in the ecosystem are scaling up their offerings. However, innovation is more of a continuous process rather than a revolutionary change.

    In a webinar hosted by Indiantelevision.com in association with Accedo and moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, experts from the industry shared strategies and experiences around innovations.

    Hoichoi technology lead Aloke Majumder stated innovation is what should drive the OTT platforms. Innovation not only shapes the product but also strengthens the relationship with users. According to him, the platforms need to stay inspired by the users, other brands, all the current happenings in product offerings for the breakthrough. The largest Bengali platform has been adding new features in recent times including parental control. It is currently working around encoding to have seamless delivery of the videos even with low latency.

    Balaji Telefilm’s digital venture is also looking at a robust product offering. ALTBalaji chief technology officer Shahabuddin Sheikh said that the platform is highly focusing on metadata. “It’s a mix of both the worlds in terms of using technology and manual interventions where we can have more enriched metadata in terms of characters, keyframes, emotions which can be tagged and which is fed into the system. While the user is watching or viewing content, it can be liked back to his experiences and accordingly help to plan or program the content for him,” he added. Using experiences, the platform is also bringing other small changes like adding markers where users can identify content genres.

    "Epic On has done a couple of upgradations which are paying the platform good dividend now, " said Epic On chief operating officer Sourjya Mohanty. The platform has attempted to bring a multi-format experience by accumulating video, e-books, games, podcasts which has resulted into a good surge in mobile engagement. It is also factoring in the current situation while bringing new experiences. As more people are inclining towards smart TVs to enjoy in-home cinema experiences, the platform has brought few changes on that front which have yielded positive feedback yet, Mohanty said.

    However, innovations always don’t turn out to be fantastic if user need is not understood properly. Arre GM technology Rohit Bapat spoke of such an experience. While they ran a web series with an option to allow users to click on a specific character to provide information on that individual, they did not see any traction. Down the line, they had to take off the feature. Bapat acknowledged that it would have been more effective for events like sports tournaments where users would be keen to get match statistics.

    Like other players, fitness app Simple Soulful is also innovating user experience but more often as it has to deal with real-time issues. screen SSK Osmosis product head Soumik Solanki shared some examples. According to a users’ need, it is customising rest time feature during exercises. For users who don’t are already accustomed with various workouts and don’t want to watch the entire video, the app has come up with a complete programme list for that segment. It is also using a 360-degree camera view to help users exercise with correct postures.

    Accedo innovation director Niklas Bjorken agreed to the other panelists that innovation is key to a brand’s relevancy in the moving world. According to him, knowing users properly, adapting to new user behaviours, embracing technology, learnings from other services should drive the changes.