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Tag: Vi

  • VI brings live darshan of Lalbaugcha raja to its loyal customers

    VI brings live darshan of Lalbaugcha raja to its loyal customers

    Mumbai: To enable its customers to experience the Lord Ganesha from anywhere in the world, telecom brand, Vodafone Idea will be streaming live darshan of Lalbaugcha raja on Vi App and Vi Movies & TV App, powered by ShemarooMe.

    The Ganesh Festival will be celebrated from 31 August to 9 September across the country.

    Vi customers can access the Vi Movies & TV App or Vi App from their mobile devices to watch live daily virtual aartis throughout the 10-day festive period.

    The daily aarti will be streamed live at 1:00 p.m and 8:30 p.m. In addition, Vi customers will be able to watch Ganesha documentaries on the Vi App and Vi Movies & TV App.

    On Anant Chaturdashi, viewers can join the live-streamed visarjan procession and bid Ganpati Bappa farewell until 10 p.m.

    Vi has also made special arrangements to install Led screens in select Vi stores in Mumbai, which will broadcast Lalbaugcha Raja’s live darshan for the benefit of visitors and the general public.

  • Vi launches new campaign #BestIsGettingBetter

    Vi launches new campaign #BestIsGettingBetter

    Mumbai: Vi has launched a campaign to highlight its network engineers’ efforts to make “the best network even better” in order to reinforce its commitment to providing a superior network experience to its customers. The eight-week long campaign #BestIsGettingBetter, themed as ‘Best ho raha hai aur bhi Behtar’, went live over the weekend.

    Conceptualised by Ogilvy Mumbai, The high-visibility 360-degree campaign illustrates Vi’s continued commitment towards enabling customers to excel and will be seen across diverse media including TV, OOH and digital.

    The brand campaign comprises a series of three quirky TVCs which showcase the continuous effort of network engineers in providing the customers the best network experience with Vi GIGAnet—India’s fastest 4G network.

    The first TVC focuses on two boys who wonder what the network engineers are up to even after becoming the fastest 4G in India.

    The other two TVCs will be launched in the course of the campaign.

    Commenting on the campaign, Vi chief marketing officer Avneesh Khosla said, “Vi has consistently topped the network quality parameters and speed rating charts of several independent network testing agencies. The latest validation from Opensignal is an endorsement of our efforts to constantly work towards enhancing the customer experience through superior network performance. Our new campaign is a celebration of the critical role of our Network Heroes, who tirelessly work in all conditions to improve network performance on a continuous basis, helping Vi users to do more and thrive in the digital world.”

    Adding to this, Ogilvy Mumbai ECD Rohit Dubey said, “Announcers are a balancing act, a sweet spot between chest thumping and humility, with a bit of ‘ok…so what?’ closure. And that’s what the crafting challenge was when Vi achieved “India’s fastest 4G” claim. I was watching an athlete’s Insta-feed and noticed the gap between his Olympic gold and the next practise session. There was a seed of thought—after achieving something, even the “best” take a bit of rest, and bask in the moment’s glory. What if our network engineers are cut from a different cloth? And they don’t? Taking a leap from there, we crafted these moments between our Vi network engineers, as they go about making India’s fastest 4G, even better.”

  • Vodafone Idea rolls out an ad-tech platform for the advertisers to connect

    Vodafone Idea rolls out an ad-tech platform for the advertisers to connect

    Mumbai: Digital revolution in India has led to innovation and significant growth in the ad-tech industry, thereby, also increasing the volume of investments in the industry. Generating content and programmatic media buying on customized platforms will be the new normal. As the Digital Adex juggernaut moves ahead unabated, Vi aims to participate as a major player in the multibillion-dollar Indian advertising industry. With this, India’s leading telecom operator Vi on Wednesday announced the launch of its world-class ‘Ad-Tech’ platform – Vi Ads – an Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) driven Adtech platform. It gives marketers a programmatic media buying platform that is cutting edge and returns on investment (ROI) focused.

    Riding on Vi’s deep data science technology, Vi Ads will enable marketers to engage with the operator’s over 243 million subscribers through multiple channels like Vi owned digital media – Vi App, Vi Movies & TV App, and traditional channels like SMS, IVR calls. One of the key differentiators of Vi Ads is that it will be media agnostic and empower marketers to engage with Vi users on external media channels and publisher partners of Vi Ads. 

    Additionally, Vi Ads will offer a self-serve interface enabling marketers with full control of their campaigns from a campaign set up, tracking campaign performance to driving campaign insights. Since Vi Ads is built to achieve a full-funnel campaign objective, be it awareness, consideration or purchase – it caters to advertisers looking to drive reach, generate leads or drive sales. The combination of advanced features and ease of execution will appeal to large agencies and SMEs alike.

    In the last 10 years, Digital AdEx has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 27 per cent. Even during the pandemic, when all other media saw a decline, Digital AdEx witnessed significant growth. Programmatic media buying has firmly taken root in India and its share has been increasing year on year, now standing at 42 per cent, as per Madison Advertising Report 2022.

    Commenting on the launch of Vi Ads, Vi CMO Avneesh Khosla said “With our programmatic platform – Vi Ads, we will address two of the biggest challenges faced by marketers today – authentic insights and enhanced reach. Firstly, it offers marketers the benefits of unique audience segments, interest groups and targeting parameters derived using Vi’s deep insights of our consumers built on opt-in data. Secondly, it allows advertisers to not only reach their chosen audiences over Vi’s own digital media like Vi app and Vi movies & TV app, but also on external third party programmatic media and traditional channels of SMS & IVR calls. This is a simple, easy to use and highly efficient solution for marketers to effectively reach out to the right target group with the most relevant messaging at any given point of time, while also providing a monetization opportunity to Vi as we aggressively build and scale our digital assets.” 

    The Vi Ads platform has been built in partnership with TorcAi, a global provider of audience infrastructure and programmatic solutions, leverages advanced data sciences & machine learning to stitch together legacy marketing & advertising technology platforms with new breed tech. TorcAi helps media value chain stakeholders to build and nurture audience assets by bringing together data and activation channels at the organizational level. 

    TorcAi Digital CEO Rohit Verma said, “This partnership, and the development of the Vi Ads platform, will enable Vi to connect their vast stores of customer insights with advertisers, and publishers, to deliver the right message, at the perfect time. We look forward to a long relationship with Vi and welcome the opportunity to deliver world-class products and technologies that will continue to revolutionize the way data is used to better engage with consumers across an ever-evolving digital backdrop.”

  • Vi launches prepaid pack offering SonyLIV premium subscription

    Vi launches prepaid pack offering SonyLIV premium subscription

    Mumbai: Vi has announced a partnership with over-the-top platform SonyLIV. The telco has launched a new prepaid pack offering subscription of SonyLIV premium along with extra data benefits to users.

    Vi has introduced a new add-on recharge of Rs 82 for prepaid users, offering free mobile only subscription of SonyLIV premium for 28 days along with an added data benefit of 4 gb with 14 days validity.

    Vi users can watch sports properties like UEFA Champions League, WWE, Bundesliga, UFC to originals like “Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story,” “Maharani,” “Tabbar,” “Rocket Boys,” “Gullak Season 3,” regional content like “Salute”, “Kaanekkaane,” “Shantit Kranti” and “James” and international shows “The Good Doctor,” “Fantasy Island” and “Magpie Murders.”

    Vi also offers a vast content library for its customers under Vi Movies and TV on the Vi app. The app has more than 450 live TV channels, live news channels and premium content from other OTT apps.

  • Vi ties up with ‘Hungama Music’ to offer premium music streaming service

    Vi ties up with ‘Hungama Music’ to offer premium music streaming service

    Mumbai: Strengthening its OTT-based digital content offerings, the telecom major Vodafone Idea on Monday launched its music offering on the Vi App in association with Hungama Music.

    Vi’s music offering with Hungama was unveiled by the musician and composer duo – Salim Sulaiman, who also performed at the launch event. Under the partnership, Vi will offer a six months premium subscription of Hungama Music at no extra cost to all its post-paid and prepaid customers. As part of the offering, customers will be able to listen to ad-free music in as many as 20 languages across genres from Hungama’s library of songs, Bollywood news, and podcasts. Vi customers can also attend 52 Live Digital Concerts on the Vi App, said the teleco major.

    Vi CMO Avneesh Khosla said, “Vi strives constantly to enrich the lives of its consumers through its partnerships with brands that have experience and expertise in the field of entertainment, education, health and financial services. Vi is committed to work with partners across varied domains to provide unique and compelling digital offerings for its consumers with varied needs and preferences. In the near future we will continue to see a lot newer initiatives being launched as this agenda gains scale and momentum.”

    Khosla further added that the launch will fulfill the customers’ need for a comprehensive music streaming service. “Our association with Hungama will allow Vi users to get access to a rich repository of diverse music, across genres and in their preferred language,” he said.

    Hungama Media founder Neeraj Roy said, “Our association with Vi has seen us introduce a first-of-its-kind Pay Per View service model in India’s exploding Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) market, earlier this year. The partnership aligns with Hungama’s aim to explore and develop innovative ways to entertain and engage audiences across the world. Our repertoire is consistently expanding to include a diverse, and rich line-up of multi-genre, multi-lingual content across audio, video, and gaming.”

  • This Diwali ‘it’s all about loving one’s family’: Brands celebrate the joy of homecoming

    This Diwali ‘it’s all about loving one’s family’: Brands celebrate the joy of homecoming

    MUMBAI: It’s that time of the year when advertisers spend the major portion of their annual ad spends in going all out to woo the Indian consumer. With the Festival of Lights upon us, marketers and brands are doing everything they can to unlock the year’s biggest festive blitzkrieg by ensuring their campaign stands out this Diwali.

    With families separated by the pandemic for long, it’s time to come home, sit together, and catch up. After all, festivals are all about celebrating togetherness, and what better way to celebrate than to be home with one’s loved ones? With this understanding, brands across categories have released ad films centred around family reunions and bonding sessions. After all, ‘it’s all about loving one’s parents/ family’.

    Backed by a heart-warming narrative, Vivo released a Diwali special digital film communicating the “Joy of Homecoming”. Starring actor Kanwaljit Singh, the ad film conceptualised by Dentsu Impact encapsulates the role of the smartphone in rekindling the joy of connection. 

    Another ad from Anand Sweets also highlights the simple joys of attending the rituals and traditions with family members. The ad takes a nostalgic trip down memory lane showcasing the fun activities that defined festivity during one’s childhood. The script drafted by Norm creative strategic agency brings out the emotions, love, and lore of Diwali.

    With their new Diwali campaign video ‘Kissa Kaaju Katli Ka’, online poker platform, PokerBaazi gave a sweet twist to enjoying a game with family, where members apply their Poker skills to understand and read their opponent while trying to win a pot of sweets.

    In a message which would resonate with today’s generation, telecom operator Vodafone Idea’s Diwali campaign #LookUp says mere physical presence is not enough if one is not mindfully present in the moment. Vi has launched a digital video highlighting the importance of virtual platforms, yet encouraging real conversations during special occasions. The campaign throws light on how one can miss out on the special times despite being there and gives out a call: ‘it’s time to shut our screens’ and truly be there to celebrate with our loved ones.

    Taking a dig at all the other so-called ‘cliched’ Diwali ads, tech brand DIZO realme’s released a new ad – “Not-So-Clichéd Diwali Ad”. The ad executed by White Rivers Media is a light-hearted take on the most commonly used format of storytelling in Diwali campaigns while going on to do just that even as it cleverly integrates the tech brand’s product into the narrative.

    Taking a step further is surfacing solutions brand, Greenlam Industries which has rolled out a digital campaign that humorously underlines the importance of taking time out to ‘celebrate at home and celebrate home’, this Diwali. The short film conceptualised by Mirum India showcases an American boss delegating work to his team in India over a video call on Diwali while stressing that the timeline is crucial and needs to go out immediately. The team manages to get out of the sticky situation by pulling a fast one over the boss unitedly. Watch how they do it:

  • Vi was ‘buzziest’ brand in IPL ’21 phase 1, Dream 11 in phase 2: Wavemaker report

    Vi was ‘buzziest’ brand in IPL ’21 phase 1, Dream 11 in phase 2: Wavemaker report

    Mumbai: Popularity and excitement around IPL in India continue to grow year on year. This time, social chatter around the tournament grew by 33 per cent over last year and crossed 80+ million mentions this season, according to an IPL 2021 report presented by Wavemaker India. The report which captures the social conversations around this season’s IPL, for both first and second phase, found that the first phase which was played in India garnered more mentions (42 million) than the second phase (38 million) which was played in UAE recently.

    The study has been done by Wavemaker Mesh – the real-time data Intelligence solution that reads real-time environmental signals. The first Phase refers to matches played in India from 9 April to 2 May and the second phase refers to matches played in UAE from 19 September to 16 October.

    Telecom brand Vi was the ‘buzziest’ brand in the first phase of the event, even as it continued to engage fans with ‘Fan of the Match’ activity during IPL hours, said the report. After Vi, it was Vivo, Unacademy, Cred, and Dream11 that created buzz on the advertiser leaderboard.

    In the second phase of the IPL this year, Dream 11 emerged as the ‘buzziest’ advertiser, even as Vivo, Unacademy, and Dream11 maintained their leader spot in the top five. Paytm and Ceat were the new advertisers in the top 5 buzziest advertisers, as per the findings of the report.

    Cred’s popular ad featuring Rahul Dravid as ‘Indranagar Ka Gunda’ was the most viral advertisement this IPL season. According to Intuition Intelligence, the agency’s partner on creative analytics solutions, the ad received a Virality Grade (VG) of eight which is amongst the most viral ad in the ecosystem. After Cred, the ‘This Is How We Roar’ ad by Myntra featuring MSD, Jadeja, and Bravo was second on the leaderboard with a VG score of 57.

    In the second phase, the Cadbury Dairy Milk cricket stadium ad #GoodLuckGirls with the nostalgic and gender-empowering take on their 90’s ad emerged as the most viral ad.

    Tellingly, amongst the top 10 viral ads on IPL in the second phase, five ads were by fantasy sports platform, Dream 11.

    Fourth-time IPL winner Chennai Super Kings, led by skipper MS Dhoni was the most buzz-generating team in IPL 2021 and drove maximum chatter around the event & the matches, with a  clear spike seen in matches where CSK is playing any other team.

    Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, and Rohit Sharma have been adjudged the most popular players this season, as per the report.

    With IPL over on 15 October, the study also shifts gears to the ongoing ICC WC 2021. Since the end of IPL, there are already 1.2 million mentions around the T20 World Cup, with nearly 50 per cent mentions being on the much-touted Ind Vs Pak match played on 24 October, says the report.

    The analysis, based on multiple data points, was collated to create meaningful and actionable insights by Wavemaker India. The report has data sources from multiple consumer touchpoints across the digital ecosystem ranging from social listening, Video analytics in partnership with intuitive intelligence, interaction data points collected from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, stated the agency.

  • Vodafone Idea loses 12.3 million subscribers in Q1 FY22

    Vodafone Idea loses 12.3 million subscribers in Q1 FY22

    Mumbai: Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) revenue has been declined by 4.7 per cent quarter on quarter (QoQ) to Rs 91.5 billion at the end of the first quarter FY22. EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 37.1 billion, with EBITDA margins at 40.5 per cent vs 45.9 per cent in Q4 FY21. The CapEx spend for the quarter was Rs 9.4 billion vs Rs 15.4 billion in the previous quarter.

    The telecom company reported total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) of Rs 1915.9 billion, as of 30 June. This includes deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs 1060.1 billion and AGR liability of Rs 621.8 billion that are due to the government and debt from banks and financial institutions of Rs 234 billion. Cash and cash equivalents were Rs 9.2 billion and net debt stood at Rs 1906.7 billion.

    The company said its broadband site count stood at 447,114, lower compared to 452,650 in Q4 FY21 as it continues to actively shut down 3G sites. “Our 4G network covers over one billion Indians as of 30 June,” it added.

    The subscriber base has declined by 12.3 million and stands at 255.4 in this quarter vs 267.8 million in the previous quarter. The telco’s 4G base declined to 112.9 million vs 113.9 million in the previous quarter. The subscriber churn was 3.5 per cent in Q1 FY22 vs 3.0 in Q4 FY21. ARPU declined to Rs 104 vs Rs 107 in the previous quarter. The data volumes witnessed strong growth of 13.2 per cent quarter on quarter. Data usage per broadband subscriber surged to 14.6 GB/month vs 12.8 GB/month in the previous quarter.

    “The severe second wave of COVID-19 caused significant disruptions and slowdown in economic activities,” said VIL managing director and chief executive officer, Ravinder Takkar. “During these challenging times, VIL continued to serve its customers and community at large by providing seamless connectivity as well as maintaining superior quality of services.”

    “Vi GIGAnet’s superior network experience on both data and voice, is testified through top rankings in independent external reports. We continue to focus on executing our strategy to keep our customers ahead, and our cost optimisation plan remains on track to deliver the targeted savings. We are in active discussion with potential investors for fundraising, to achieve our strategic intent,” Takkar added.

  • Vi kicks off online gaming tournament for IPL 2021 viewers

    Vi kicks off online gaming tournament for IPL 2021 viewers

    KOLKATA: With India Premier League (IPL) kicking in, the tournament’s associate media sponsor Vi has rolled out an engaging initiative based on the popular game concept Play Along’ i.e. play while you watch the live T20 league. One can play solo or with friends every day during the upcoming matches spread over 52 days, and add some fun and excitement with loads of rewards. Vi is offering its customers an opportunity to participate in the Vi Dekho bhi, Khelo bhi, Jeeto bhi online gaming initiative and win daily prizes as well as a bumper tournament prize, from 9 April to 30 May 2021.

    This announcement comes close on the heels of Vi’s partnership with Disney+ Hotstar, giving the telecom operator’s customers the opportunity to watch the IPL T20 games live from their mobile phones, from anywhere.  

    All Vi customers (pre-paid and postpaid) can register and play the game. It will need one time registration from the Vi App home page. There will be four stages for each game, pre-match, play along, strategic time-out, and power play. There will be daily challenges based on the day’s match. Each participant can earn booster points by inviting friends or recharge / bill payment through the Vi app. There are daily prizes for top scorers of the match, bumper prizes for top scorers of the tournament and mega prizes basis draw of lots for those who have scored a certain minimum points.

    As a separate initiative, Vi has invited customers to play the ‘Vi Fan of the Match’ contest during match breaks and win exciting rewards, including iPhones. ‘Vi Fan of the Match’ can be played on the telco’s official Facebook and Instagram page, and on Twitter during every match break. Participants will have to answer simple questions pertaining to the live match being played. There will be a total of 20 questions for each match. The gifts on offer for those giving the maximum correct answers:

    o   Surprise Vouchers on every ad break.

    o   iPhones to be won at the end of every match – 60 matches, 60 winners, 60 iPhones.

    o   Bumper prize at the end of the season.

    Additionally, the names and photos of each daily winner will be put up on Vi’s social media pages.

  • Pay-per-view takes off in India, but has a long way to go

    Pay-per-view takes off in India, but has a long way to go

    KOLKATA: While the last year has seen the entry of new over-the-top (OTT) players, it has witnessed the burgeoning of new business models as well, pay-per-view being one of the most noticeable trends. A number of new entrants, along with some of the existing over-the-top players, launched this transactional model. Very recently, online ticketing player BookMyShow and telecom player Vi introduced their own on-demand services under the TVoD category.

    Despite it being the latest bandwagon, experts are sceptical about pay-per-view’s success in the market. For the value-conscious Indian viewers, who are much more inclined to pay for bundled catalogues, this model will tempt only a minuscule set of audiences. But with effective pricing and marquee content, pay-per-view may increase its attractiveness.

    Vi announced the launch of its pay-per-view streaming service, available on Vi Movies and TV app, in collaboration with Hungama Digital Media. Vi customers will be able to rent premium Hollywood movies at Rs 120 and others at Rs 60 for a period of 48 hours.

    Media expert Rajiv Sharma thinks content under this model should not disappear so soon. According to him, the model can work better if the library is phenomenal, and moreover, whatever is being picked up should be available for long term, at least for six months.

    While movie theatres being shut for a long time led to a line-up of movies pending releases, there is a huge backlog that will not hit theatres right now for multiple reasons. Hence, some of the pay-per-view platforms feel that consumers might shell out for watching movies at home, Elara Capital VP research analyst (media) Karan Taurani said. But he also pointed out that most Indians pay for cinemas considering it as an outing and for the overall experience. So, it can be challenging to get consumers to just pay for one content.  He also mentioned that the model has been tried and tested by DTH players but they have not been able to scale it up.

    ShemarooMe was one of the first players to launch a pay-per-view service ShemarooMe Box Office during lockdown. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd rolled out Zee Plex in October. In early February, BookMyShow’s streaming service debuted under the TVoD model, offering 600 movie titles and 72,000 hours of content. Notably, BookMyShow Stream allows users to either buy or rent a movie and the price point ranges between Rs 40 to Rs 700. Some smaller regional players are also testing the waters with this model.

    Kuarte Digital’s Uday Sodhi noted that the pay-per-view model is not new in India. Earlier, telecom operators had tested this model or other aggregators like Apple also went for this pricing model, albeit OTT platforms have been trying it for the first time in the wake of Covid2019.

    “This model is still at a very nascent stage. Also, if you look at BookMyShow streaming service, this is more of an evolved ticketing system for movies. TVoD is a good proposition for live events, sports coupled with effective pricing. It is very unlikely for major OTT platforms to choose TVoD for mainstream entertainment content,” Sodhi added.

    However, according to Sharma, if pay-per-view is strategised properly, it will give users more flexibility and control over payout. An average user sometimes watches only one-two content in a month paying for the library. With a proper price gap, it might attract that part of the user base. Even so, every piece of content cannot be a marquee property, “killer content” is very rare, which is one of the biggest gaps for this model.

    Among the top players, SonyLIV is dipping its toe in the pay-per-view pool by introducing WWE to its viewers with the WWE Network pack curated specially for fans of pro wrestling. Most experts are of the view that the chances of major platforms exploring this model are very rare. Instead, they will look at innovative comprehensive pricing like Netflix did with its mobile only plan, Taurani stated. To reach critical mass, the subscription should be the focus area for bigger players as of now, experts believe.