ITV

Tag: Vishal Bhatnagar

  • 5th year of BBC Football Connect played to a packed house!

    5th year of BBC Football Connect played to a packed house!

    BBC World News is not only the top-notch news channel in the world, but it has been at the forefront in doing things differently for its partner agencies and brands. On 30th August 2019, the best corporate footballers from Mumbai’s biggest media agencies and brands competed to win the 5th edition of BBC World News Connect Championship. 
    Since its inception in 2014, the event has offered Mumbai’s media professionals a platform to showcase their football skills on the ground while networking and building valuable relationships from across the industry. This year not only had a bigger venue at Om Grounds Astro Turf Field at JVPD, Mumbai, but the event promised to be better than before with both the enduringly popular five-a-side matches and a mandatory penalty shootout with 2 female players at the beginning of each game. Guests also challenged their hosts from BBC World News to games with the opportunity of winning exclusive vouchers to take home. The tournament saw a full house as 6 groups each comprising of 3 teams competed against each other to take home the coveted trophy. 

    (Vishal Bhatnagar speaking about the event & unveiling of the trophy)
    The trophy was unveiled by Vishal Bhatnagar, Sales Director, South Asia, BBC Global News who not only cheered for all the teams but was equally excited to watch the matches. “The BBC Football Connect showcases and reinforces BBC’s strong cross-platform sports credentials. BBC World News, BBC.com and the BBC Sport mobile app provides world-leading sports coverage with score updates, analysis, interviews and a lot more.
    As you can see, BBC Football Connect draws the best football talent from across the advertising and marketing community in Mumbai. There is not a hard business agenda at the event. It provides a fun, relaxed atmosphere to meet and catch up with friends and associates; happy change from the usual workday that revolves around negotiating deadlines and price lines.
    Besides the football connect in Mumbai, we the have the BBC Golf Connect in Delhi, where we host top golfers from amongst our client partners. Now in its 15th year, BBC Golf Connect is one of the longest-running corporate sports events in India.”
    Bhatnagar was very specific about how the BBC produces branded content and partners with agencies and clients. “For the BBC, our content reflects our values of putting our audience first. The content that we create for our partners is credible and of the highest quality and adheres to the same values as our editorial content i.e. it has to be interesting & appealing to the audience,” he said.

    (Matches of 5th edition of BBC World News Connect Championship underway)
    The event was attended by a diverse bunch of people from media agencies, some of whom were first timers while others have been regulars for the past few years. “It’s my first time here and it is a good way to meet old friends & colleagues from other agencies. I also participated in the game & scored for my team”, exclaimed Rima Mehta, Media Director at OMD.While some like Yash Desai, Client Partner at Wavemaker said, “This event has been a perfect place for reunion of sorts. I have been attending for 2 years now & get to meet my old colleagues & hang out with them.” A handful of people were more concerned about the game. “This is my first year & I am here only for football. But I also got to meet a lot of my friends from my previous agency which seemed like an advantage”, said Deepak Ramesh, Creative Director at Wavemaker. 
    The 5th BBC World News Football Connect trophy was won by team Gladiators from Wavemaker while team Falcons of Lodestar / Draft FCB were the runners up. The winning teams were also awarded with exclusive vouchers, thus ending the event with lots of fun, frolic, friendships and reunions! 
     

  • BBC Advertising appoints Vishal Bhatnagar as S. Asia sales director

    BBC Advertising appoints Vishal Bhatnagar as S. Asia sales director

    MUMBAI: BBC Advertising, part of BBC Worldwide – the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has appointed Vishal Bhatnagar as sales director for South Asia.
     

    Bhatnagar will lead the advertising sales teams across BBC Worldwide’s three South Asia sales offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, with immediate effect. He will be based in Delhi and will report to BBC Advertising ASEAN & India vice president advertising sales John Williams.

     
    Bhatnagar will be responsible for domestic and international advertising sales for BBC Advertising’s digital and broadcasts assets in South Asia, including the multi-screen product offer around the world-renowned website BBC.com and the global TV channel BBC World News.

    Williams said, “Vishal brings with him a proven track record in business development across traditional and new media in the highly dynamic and fast moving Indian national market, and we are delighted to welcome him to BBC Advertising. As we look to drive future growth across South Asia, Vishal’s experience in leading teams, coupled with the premium content opportunities offered by the BBC, will be invaluable.”
     

    Bhatnagar added, “I am thrilled to be joining BBC Advertising and have the chance to offer partners in South Asia opportunities to be associated with world-class, trusted content from the BBC on TV and online. I’m looking forward to working with the teams in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and building new business relationships across the region.”
     

    He joins BBC Advertising from Network18 News Media, where he worked since 2004, most recently as national revenue head for CNN-IBN and head of Focus-IBN 18 News Network. In that role, Bhatnagar led a cross-functional team spanning sales, marketing, content and digital to create, execute and monetise initiatives like IBN18-Microsoft Election Analytics Centre and Network 18-Tata Tea “Power of 49” among others. 

    Prior to that, he was CNBC TV18 and CNBC Awaaz senior vice president, where he launched CNBC Universe as a sales platform. Before working for Network18 News Media, he held roles at Times Television and Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.

  • Smarter data and innovations in news selling should go hand in hand

    Smarter data and innovations in news selling should go hand in hand

    MUMBAI: At the Seventh Indian News Television Summit, a panel comprising Zee Sangam national sales head Harsha Vardhan Dwivedi, IndiaTV senior VP and country head ad sales Sudipto Chowdhuri, CNN IBN and IBN 7 national revenue head Vishal Bhatnagar, Times Television Network senior VP business head branded content Hemant Arora, GroupM south Asia CEO CVL Srinivas and IPG Mediabrands Initiatives CEO Anamika Mehta discussed the various means for ‘Innovation in news selling’.

     

    The session moderated by Provocateur Advisory principal Paritosh Joshi revolved around how media agencies can increase brands’ ROI from news channels.

     

    Joshi began by saying that one expects the sales and strategy team in a news channel to show more interesting numbers but what one gets is a rehash of an existing standard rating currency. According to Arora, the right clients, revenue and ROI comes when he and his team turns the big data into smart data. 

     

     “It is not just about the data but one has to be able to effectively show how it can impact the marketing objectives. But the matrix system that is currently in use does not really allow sellers and buyers to go beyond it. Eventually it comes down to CPR, slot rates etc and the value that is being offered. Times Now, for example, does not need to be a news channel, it is part of life. It’s the hue we create with our brand and then we pass on the benefit to the brand which wants to be a part of the ecosystem,” said Arora.

     

    Dwivedi then speaking about the revenue of regional channels said that of the total business that regional channels have been making, only 40 per cent comes from corporate and thus, 60 per cent is supported by government and SMEs. “If it was not for the government and SME, the regional channels would not have been able to survive,” he said adding that two years ago there were 14 news channels in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, while today out of that only four are operating while others have shut down.

     

    Joshi, addressing Mehta, recalled the days when he sold ad inventories. “Those days, agencies worked towards “de-selling brands”, because they had a personal grouse against a particular brand or they simply ignored them and therefore, sometimes broadcasters did approach the client directly to bring them on to their media plan. Now, how healthy is the entire ecosystem?” he questioned.

     

    Mehta agreed to the fact that personal biases could exist in the industry. Credibility of content is what matters and we don’t often see channels coming to us and sharing insights beyond just a channel share, rating etc. She illustrated her point by giving an example. “We have brands like Dettol, which as a pure FMCG typically would be on the GEC platform, Hindi movies and not on a English news channel. However, taking from the national agenda of the Prime Minister which is Swatch India, we tied the brand with it in terms of sanitation,” she said. Integrating the brand and creating custom solutions gave far greater ROI.

     

    Bhatnagar joined the conversation and said that the most important thing is how well one understands the product. “There is a huge responsibility on us to understand what business we are in. Are we in the business of just farming inventory and off loading the inventory?” he asked. He then mentioned that today a lot innovation depends on the kind of discussion news channels have with the agencies or clients. “For example, we tried to do something innovative with Microsoft during elections. And Microsoft of all things wanted to talk about analytics which on news channels does initially snicker people. But then we sat down with the agency, Lodestar, and discussed the various possibilities before pitching for it,” he added. The initiative got Microsoft a lot of feedback globally in terms of how to engage with audiences.

     

    According to Chowdhuri innovation has to be like the topping on a pizza but it can’t be the pizza. “Some news channels may  have done deals like 20 L bands a day for 365 days a year into two years adding up to Rs 5 crore. So, while your content is on screen, the advertisement too comes on screen. Hence, if you have ‘X’ million viewership for a programme then you have the same number of viewers for the ad as well,” he said.

     

    Srinivasan had the last word in the discussion when he was asked if agencies and news channels were ahead of time when it comes to digital. “I think we are a bit late because while digital might be eight per cent of the total adex in India, it occupies 80 per cent of the time with conversation with clients. Today every campaign that is conceptualised, you end up spending a little on digital but the whole thought of promoting and creating the buzz is steeped towards digital. There are huge opportunities to win from digital,” he concluded.