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Tag: Wavemaker India

  • PubNation: Agencies should look beyond just numbers for clients

    PubNation: Agencies should look beyond just numbers for clients

    NEW DELHI: While the local language market has always been a force to contend with in the Indian publishing industry – be it radio, print, TV, or digital – agency partners are not being active enough in providing the deserved monetisation support to them, said a panel discussing the state of local language market on day one of PubNation (print & digital), organised by Indiantelevision.com in partnership with Quintype and Gamezop, opined. 

    Moderated by Wavemaker India chief growth officer & south head Kishankumar Shyamalan, the session was attended by Punjab Kesari Group of Newspapers director Abhijay Chopra, Vikatan group MD B Srinivasan (Srini), Lokmat Media Ltd editorial director Rishi Darda, Mathrubhumi director – digital business Mayura Shreyams Kumar, and Eenadu general manager – marketing Sushil Kumar Tyagi. 

    The panel unanimously agreed that local content and publications have always been strong players in India, and this conversation about their relevance and sudden emergence comes up every time a new medium comes into the spotlight. 

    Chopra, who is a fourth-generation leader from Punjab Kesari Group, highlighted that they have existed in the market since 1948 and the audience was always there for the papers. 

    He said, “This point of local languages emerging comes from an advertising standpoint. What happened in the initial days was that we mostly had foreign advertisers and they advertised what they understood. So, English became their preferred language.”

    Srini, in the same vein, noted that India has always been a land of multitude of diversity and it is reflected in the comparative ad spends on television channels – but the same cannot be said for print. “Regional channels are far more successful than the English ones on TV. Sadly, that never reflected on to print publications,” he said. 

    Kumar stated, “We have been active in the regional market since forever. And there is a sense of trust within the readers as well as the advertisers when it comes to our content. So, I won’t say we are an emerging force. Yes, for digital, I can say that our presence is now being amplified but it is certainly not ‘emerging’, so to say.” 

    However, they are still not getting the commercial traction they deserve because the agency and client partners are not making enough efforts to reach out or discover their content capabilities. 

    To drive this point home, Chopra shared a personal experience: “I started this digital property called Yum; it’s all about food, recipes and other related stuff. So when it started gaining good traction, with the intent of monetising it, I mailed a presentation to an agency representative, who never got back to me. In fact, a few weeks down the line, the same advertiser that I was trying to get onboard got in touch with me via our Facebook channel.”

    He added that the clients (advertisers) do not have enough teams. And for most agency managers, the sole focus remains on completing the work and not actually doing research for good content. 

    Srini, supporting this thought, added, “I often wonder if there is any other metric beyond the numbers or ComScore that makes any impact on the planners. The discussion always starts with CTRs, CPLs, CPMs etc. Is there any willingness to look at our storytelling capabilities and the ability to provide the brands with a platform to engage better with their consumers?”

    However, he also agreed that the publishers themselves will have to take the responsibility to promote their content and increase visibility. 

    Tyagi highlighted that consumers are going to get back to credible sources to get their news and advertisers are also willing to associate themselves with credible publications. “The agencies should be coming to us asking what are your editorial policies, how are you dealing with the news, what are the cultural aspects, etc.” 

    Darda and Kumar also noted that advertisers and agencies should look beyond just numbers and take into consideration the impact and the trust metrics for any digital channel.  

  • 3700+ advertisers active on television in Diwali week

    3700+ advertisers active on television in Diwali week

    NEW DELHI: As the ongoing festive season hits a crescendo this Saturday with Diwali, ad volumes on television are witnessing a steady rise. However, in terms of revenues, the industry is still struggling and money in the bank might clock at less than 10-15 per cent of what 2019 achieved, industry insiders have projected. 

    Wavemaker India managing partner Mansi Datta said that the advertising industry has seen demand rising and an almost comeback to similar ad volume levels to last year Diwali. “Festive period of Diwali has seen marketers hoping for a recovery in demand generation. This time frame was also quite a tempting one for advertisers with the presence of the high octane IPL, an equally fiery political scenario with Bihar elections, along with interesting reality format shows. TV, which has registered the quickest recovery, is witnessing demand levels similar to pre-Covid levels.”

    OMD Mudramax EVP and principal partner Navin Kathuria shared a similar overview as he elaborated that the early trends for Diwali point to inventories on television filling up fast. And these are only expected to grow as the festival draws closer. 

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Chaudhary revealed that the advertiser count for Diwali week is 3700+ on television alone. 

    As per Kathuria, most of the festive categories are active on TV – e-commerce (Amazon, Flipkart, Pepperfry etc), cars, paints, white goods, apparel, retail, a few BFSI subcategories, footwear, and kitchen appliances. “This is in addition to the new emerging categories like edtech, online gaming, hand sanitizers etc. Of course, the regular or non-festive categories of FMCG, personal care, cosmetics, online food delivery, banking, OTC pharma products etc are present, as always,” he added. 

    Despite ad inventories filling up fast and advertiser sentiment turning upbeat even for categories which were otherwise muted during the pandemic-induced lockdown, television is still staggering in contrast to last year. 

    Both Chaudhary and Kathuria pointed out that while it is difficult to peg an exact number to compare, it is going to be difficult for TV ad revenues to pass the preceding year’s count. Kathuria, however, mentioned that it might be possible that the medium might come close to last year’s number. 

    An industry veteran, though, stated that it will be surprising if the numbers come close to 90 per cent of what was witnessed in 2019. 

    The industry is showing great positivity towards out-of-home advertising too, which has started picking up after a quarter of complete silence. 

    Datta elaborated, “OOH is seeing interesting trends with mobility reports showing the movement of people increasing away from home, into shopping areas, especially in upcountry cities. In urban centres, premium locations like airports have also shown a bounce-back of traffic levels. All this and more, has seen a lot of clients revaluating their interest in OOH solutions.” 

    One medium that is still struggling to achieve its pre-Covid glory is print. “Though advertising has increased as compared to the normal months, it is nowhere close to what it should be in the festive period. We are not witnessing multiple jackets, full-page ads, flaps etc which is a norm for publications during Diwali season. This year, though Diwali advertising is seen on print, the clutter is much lower compared to the last few years,” Kathuria noted. 

    Even though print has gained momentum during the last several weeks, in the end the advertising decision-making is led by efficiencies, pointed out Datta. “Hard-working formats are being preferred over big-sized impact formats. We have seen the demand for impactful formats like jackets going down. Our analysis shows that there’s been almost a 60 per cent plus drop in jackets consumption over last year’s Diwali.” 

    As has been the trend for most of the year, industry experts maintained that digital was again the most preferred choice for advertisers in Diwali season as well. Unlike other mediums, the platform is witnessing a better recovery and double-digit growth due to the benefits like real-time measurement and conversion tracking. 

    WATConsult VP – operations (west and south) Manika Juneja explained, “There is a noticeable difference between 2019 and 2020 festive planning & implementation which is primarily driven by consumer behaviour. There has been a surge in the first-time online shoppers from non-primary markets and the ways of offline and online shopping have evolved with propositions like scheduled in-store pickups, contactless delivery, online consultation and more. Brands which hadn’t considered the digital medium earlier are now hopping on the bandwagon at a faster pace for discoverability and consideration. There is a digital touchpoint everywhere for putting consumers’ mind at ease and providing them with an added experience to build trust and generate repeat visits.”

    She continued, “ROI-driven campaigns have now taken precedence and garnered the largest chunk of spends on digital. By its nature, e-commerce as a medium, has been the biggest driver of sales for brands in the new normal. Majority of the brands are strengthening their digital infrastructure to reach out to a larger consumer base. The IPL and festive overlap coupled with a 360-degree shift in consumer content consumption has given an added advantage to OTT platforms along with social and digital media this season.” 

    1702 Digital co-founder Mihir Joshi shared that the agency has witnessed DTC brands increase their spends on branding during the festive season, with as much as a 70 per cent uptick in the number of campaigns being fielded. “We’ve been witnessing an increase in performance marketing spends with our DTC clients. Brands are also coming to terms with this Covid-dominated year and realising that Diwali is the most positive peak of consumer sentiments that we are going to have. Hence, they are not getting cold feet to spend big on digital platforms.”

  • Ajay Gupte talks about the fabulous three years of Wavemaker India

    Ajay Gupte talks about the fabulous three years of Wavemaker India

    NEW DELHI: It has been three years since two very successful agencies called MEC and Maxus merged to give birth to Wavemaker India. The fledgling venture from the house of WPP’s GroupM already enjoys a market share of anywhere between 12 and 15 per cent, as per reports. Boasting valuable clients like Vi, Mother Dairy, Mondelez, ITC, and Supr Daily, to name a few, the agency has made great strides in seemingly no time at all. As the agency celebrates its third anniversary today in India, Wavemaker South Asia CEO Ajay Gupte, who took over from Kartik Sharma earlier this year, talks to Mansi Sharma from Indiantelevision.com about the journey thus far, their future growth plans, and how 2020 has made Wavemaker a more tight-knit and hands-on family. Edited excerpts follow.

    On three-years of Wavemaker

    Wavemaker, in many ways, is a very special and unique agency because it happens very rarely that you get this opportunity to take two powerhouses and merge them to create something massive. Combining MEC and Maxus gave us the ability to invest in many things that we believed in and understood will be important for the future. With our combined strengths, we invested in data, tools, digital, programmatic, etc. and that really helped us in creating a strong bond with our clients. All these investments also helped us greatly in managing our business through this tough time of the pandemic.

    On the challenging year 2020

    2020 has been a massive experience for all of us in many ways. But for the agency, it came as a big opportunity to utilise and promote the many investments we made in the previous two years – be it in the data and analytics space, influencer capabilities, the effectiveness labs, etc, and give our clients the best services possible.

    On the team-level, we have gotten much more closer and understanding of each other. Earlier, our teams in various states could manage to meet once or twice a year, but now we are having at least two meetings every week. We are thinking about the future, the challenges, and how we can improve on our offerings. We also managed to do some amazing work for our clients, especially in the content space.

    On the new leadership panel

    I am very blessed to have such a phenomenal team here in India. The recent shifts in roles and promotions have only made it better for us. Premjeet (Sodhi) is an industry stalwart and getting him on board has added so much depth and intelligence to our work. Kishan Kumar has been with us for 17 years and he is extremely innovative. Mac Machiach is a fabulous resource for client relationships and I am very confident of him handling our one of the most valuable accounts of ITC. I am very proud of Sandeep (Pandey) who has now taken up a global leadership role. The best part is that he is based in India, so we can always approach him to help the teams.

    On his vision for future

    I am positive that 2021 is going to be very positive for us. I see it as a massive opportunity. We, therefore, want to strengthen our capabilities and investments in the data, content, and influencer capabilities. Our tools, analytics, and strategies are only going to be sharper.

    From a work culture perspective, it is definitely on our agenda to make Wavemaker India an inclusive workplace with gender ratios balanced. In fact, it is a wider WPP agenda that we are very seriously following to adopt here as well. We are taking small steps by making women feel more empowered and comfortable in the workplace, giving them much-needed respite when it comes to maternity or family roles. I am not saying that we are perfect, but we definitely are making strides in the right direction, towards becoming a good workplace for people of all sexualities and socio-cultural and economic backgrounds.

  • Pocket Aces launches India’s first Instagram original series ‘Firsts’

    Pocket Aces launches India’s first Instagram original series ‘Firsts’

    MUMBAI: The first significant moments of any relationship are always cherished. With this simple thought in mind, Pocket Aces is launching its new unique web series “Firsts” in partnership with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk facilitated by Wavemaker. Silk will be seamlessly integrated in the series as an enabler for the wonderful moments in the relationship.

    “Firsts” is the first-of-its-kind in many ways – it’s the first-ever series to be premiering in this format on Instagram, and it is also the first series to have distinct stories in each Season – i.e. Season 2 will have a different story than Season 1, hence maintaining the essence of showing the firsts in various relationships. The series will be released via daily one-minute episodes on Dice Media’s Instagram page, with each episode covering a significant moment in the relationship – the first time the couple saw each other, the first time they talked to each other, the first time they spoke on the phone, the first time they fought, etc.

    In a bid to capture relatability to a school going audiences and nostalgia for the other audiences, Firsts Season 1 takes us back to our school life and shows the magic of an innocent and tender school romance. The series features popular digital actors Rohan Shah and Apoorva Arora, who have been previously seen together in many FilterCopy videos have received much love and appreciation from the audience. Their video ‘Every School Romance’ has amassed over 30 million views alone! The series also features the very popular Viraj Ghelani with talented actor Urvi Singh as secondary leads.

    Commenting on the launch of the series, Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava said, “We are extremely excited to partner with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk for Firsts. We’re constantly innovating on content formats, and are very proud to be releasing the first-ever Instagram focused web series. The huge success of our web series Little Things has taught us that the audience loves seeing the small, cute moments of a relationship. In addition, we have done a lot of content around school life be it school romance, or exams, school bffs, etc. and they have all worked very well. Firsts Season 1 is an amalgamation of both these data points – showing the small moments of a blooming school romance. Silk with its romantic imagery is the most seamless and intuitive fit for this concept, and we’re excited to bring in Valentine’s Day 2020 together to the audiences.”

    Speaking about the association, Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “There is a rapid dynamic shift in the entertainment consumption patterns and preferences. Social media has become the go-to platform for entertainment amongst millennials. Taking this cue ahead,  Dice media, in association with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk decided to create a unique digital branded content initiative – an Instagram-first web series ‘FIRSTS’, for this Valentine’s season. Silk, over the years has always inspired us with its meaningful marketing campaigns and we are sure ‘Firsts’ will be yet another impactful innovation by the brand.”