ITV

Tag: YouTube

  • Viacom signs deal with pocket.watch for small screen content

    Viacom signs deal with pocket.watch for small screen content

    MUMBAI: Kids’ entertainment platform pocket.watch has raised $15 million in a funding round led by Viacom. Under their agreement, Viacom and pocket.watch will develop and produce long and short form content. Viacom will also become the exclusive third-party agent for ad sales on pocket.watch’s YouTube and creator footprint, which the media plans to package Nickelodeon inventory.

    The two companies have already teamed up to develop sketch comedy show Skoogle, created by and starring Kenan Thompson, for Nickelodeon. They are also working on a variety of talent initiatives, including jointly identifying up-and-coming talent and creators where the companies are aligned to generate 360-degree talent partnerships. The creator partners of pocket.watch will also be invited to a variety of Viacom events such as the Kids Choice Awards.

    Viacom’s Paramount Players has purchased a pitch from pocket.watch for a feature film known as The Unboxing Movie. The companies have further formalised a process for collaborative development and expect to work together on a number of content projects over the coming year.

    “Pocket.watch’s unique and comprehensive approach to celebrating the new digital stars of today makes them an outstanding partner for Nickelodeon and our unmatched connections with kids around the world through video, digital and real-world events. It’s great to be in business with them and we are excited to be expanding our relationship with such an innovative new media brand,” said Viacom Media Networks COO Sarah Levy.

    Launched in March 2017, pocket.watch has amassed a number of deals to bring its brand to consumers globally while growing its original intellectual property and creator partner brands, including Ryan Toys Review, the largest YouTube channel based in the US. The platform has raised $21 million since its launch and it gets over one billion monthly views across twenty YouTube channels, with a combined subscriber base of over 34 million.

  • Oakley unveils new brand movement with One Obsession campaign

    Oakley unveils new brand movement with One Obsession campaign

    MUMBAI: Oakley recently launched another chapter of the ONE OBESSION campaign which encourages you to make room for your sporting passions, be it sacrifices in your family-life, career or friendships.

    Oakley created the One Obesession athlete survey that examines the behaviors and lifestyles of “The Obsessed”, the committed everyday athletes who tirelessly pursue their sport to find true insights into what drives them.

    The campaign showcases that it’s not just about winning and losing. It’s about the journey and the lengths you’ll go for your sport, and we want to celebrate all of it.

    The One Obsession campaign looked at each of the daily routines to the biggest sacrifices be it time, careers or relationships.

    The findings were very revealing about what’s ok in the name of obsession:

    They know what work-life balance is all about

    – 40 per cent of employed athletes would rather excel at their sport than at their job

    – 23 per cent of employed athletes say their sport is more important than receiving awards or recognition at work

    The Obsessed are willing to make sacrifices

    – One-third (34 per cent) of athletes who have made sacrifices have let go of romantic relationships for their dedication

    – 29 per cent of athletes who have made sacrifices think they have given up financial success for athletic excellence

    – 51 per cent have trained on their birthday and 40 per cent have worked out on major holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving

    For committed athletes, their sport is always on their mind

    – Over in 9 in 10 (91 per cent) think about their sport at least once a day

    – 21 per cent say they would be ‘completely lost’ without their sport

    – 15 per cent simply ‘don’t feel like themselves’ when they are not doing their sport

    Whether they are cyclists, golfers, skiers and snowboarders, runners and triathletes, or motorsport athletes, their sport is at the heart of their identity.

    A Day in the Life of The Committed

    Maximising time is everything for these athletes. Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) wake up before 6 am to ensure time for their sport, and over a quarter (27 per cent) rise before 4 am.

    Runners and triathletes are the earliest risers, with 72 per cent waking up before 6 am, followed by cyclists (58 per cent) and action sports athletes (57 per cent).

    Commitment and obsession constitute 365 days a year for these athletes. More than half (51 per cent) have trained on their birthday, and 40 per cent have played their sport on a major holiday, like Christmas or Thanksgiving. 15 percent have even broken a sweat on their wedding day.

    “Early to bed, early to rise” is crucial, with committed athletes getting an average of seven hours of sleep each night. 40 per cent go to bed before 10 pm each night, and nearly a quarter (23 per cent) actually get into bed before 9 pm.

    The Benefits of Obsession

    Athletes recognise the positive benefits their sport brings to their lives. 42 per cent say their sport provides balance in their life, and one third (33 per cent) say they play their sport because it’s the best way to alleviate stress. In fact, 24 per cent admit they’re able to sort through most of their personal issues when they’re training.

  • Indian YouTube kids channels gain momentum

    Indian YouTube kids channels gain momentum

    MUMBAI: Technology has redefined entertainment for kids across the world. As more kids get hooked to mobiles and tablets, the business of kids content on YouTube thrives more. With hundreds of channels entering the sector every year, this category is expanding as well as giving more scope of monetisation for creators. Indian kids channels on the platform are gaining, keeping pace with the global market and sprawling to unprecedented growth. ChuChu TV is the market leader with 27 million subscribers across all its channels in the sector leaving content powerhouses like AIB and TVF far behind. The success of the Chennai-based creators could be a lesson for others across the genre how to monetise on the platform. 

    But ChuChu isn’t the only one. There are others also making their mark. CVS 3D Rhymes, Videogyan and HooplaKidz are also propelling the growth.

    Though traditional television industry has a good amount of content offerings for kids, the viewership for this category is growing rapidly in India and globally too. However, YouTube does not have a different category for kids, but comes under ‘Education’.

    Interestingly, among educational content, 70-80 per cent viewership comes from kids as shared by video analytics firm Vidooly co-founder and CEO Subrat Kar.

    “We have seen in last three years, the consumption of these content compared to all the categories is very huge,” Kar said. He also gives credits to creators for tapping into exactly what the kids want. Following the success of new age creators, even traditional players like Sony, T-Series have entered the space.

    The category of Indian kids channels on YouTube is highly monetised. Kar thinks one of the main reason behind that is the love of brands for these channels. Kids friendly brands like chocolate, toys and kids apparel find the category interesting. Even the brands that want to target the age group of 25-35 population in top metros, run a digital campaign on YouTube targeting kids content as parents share a large amount of viewership too.

    ChuChu TV, whose success story is well admired in the industry, started at a time when there were just a handful of channels in the market. Along with a good timing, the rejection of lullaby songs, rewriting old nursery rhymes helped the channel to grow. However, today the Indian market has changed owing to Jio and projects like Railfie from Google.

    “When we started our Indian viewership was four per cent of total viewership. Other countries like UK, Phillipines, Canada, and Vietnam were at the top. But for the past two years India has beaten everything and now it is right at the top. The viewership from India is equal to the US now that is 20 per cent,” ChuChu TV co-founder and CEO Vinoth Chandar said.

    Chandar also explained the revenue pattern of the venture. Most of the revenue comes from developed countries like the UK, US and Canada. Though Vietnam gives high viewership, it cannot provide any revenue. Kar says as kids content does not have localised nature, the global taste adds to revenue and the viewership of Indian creators, especially, from developed countries. Higher CPM, more brands investing in digital space contribute majorly to the business. Along with 30 to 40 per cent viewership from outside India, 40-50 per cent revenue also comes from abroad.

    Despite the boom, things have become tougher as the market is getting crowded with entry of more players. In the last year itself, more than 1000 channels have entered the space. The existing big players are coming out of YouTube dependency for monetising effectively. ChuChu TV has content deals with broadcasters and other OTT players. Cosmos Maya’s digital venture WowKidz recently joined a collaboration with leading OTT platform YuppTV.

    Chandar says that with differentiating and good content ideas, anyone can get a foothold in YouTube despite the competition. Among thousands of Johny Johny Yes Pappa, the one searched by a huge number of viewers on the back of “awesome content” will be able to engage more little stars.

  • YouTube allows private viewing for Android users

    YouTube allows private viewing for Android users

    MUMBAI: YouTube has officially launched ‘Incognito Mode’ on the Android version of the app, which let the users watch videos without affecting their viewing history or recommendations. It started testing the feature back in May, and now it’s rolling out to all Android users. The feature can be activated by selecting the ‘Turn on Incognito Mode’ option from the account section of the application.

    To enable the incognito mode, users have to make sure that they have the latest, updated version of the YouTube app. Then they need to tap their profile picture at the top right corner and go to account settings to turn on incognito. After watching a video is done, at the bottom it shows a black bar with some text indicating incognito mode is active. When the users turn off Incognito or become inactive, their activity from this session will be cleared and they will return to the account last used.

    The user can only access ‘home’ and ‘trending’ parts of the app while using this mode. Subscriptions, inbox and library aren’t available. The user cannot bookmark videos while watching using incognito, though one can switch off the incognito mode while viewing a video to bookmark the video. Therefore, the incognito mode doesn’t turn out to be really useful when YouTube has an option to pause search and view history while staying logged in.

    YouTube launched YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscriptions this Tuesday across 17 countries. Last month it announced that it is going to replace YouTube Red which was only available in a few countries with YouTube Premium which will be expanded to other countries as well. The Premium service is not yet available in India.

  • YouTube announces new tool to prevent copyright issues

    YouTube announces new tool to prevent copyright issues

    MUMBAI: YouTube has a number of ways for copyright owners to protect their work like content ID, but has taken another big step towards solving this long time problem for creators with its Copyright Match tool.

    The tool works by scanning videos that have been uploaded to the platform and seeing if there is anything that is the same or similar. If there is a match, it will show the user, and then, action can be taken. YouTube does stress that it is important that original creators be the first to upload their video to the service because that is the way that it will determine who should be shown matches.

    The creator can get in touch with the other channel or simply request the video to be removed if matches are found. This action can happen instantly or after a seven-day delay, the latter option is there in order to give the offender time to correct the issue. This could become a slippery slope for YouTube and, as such, the firm has also made it clear that when creators are taking action, they should carefully consider whether the matched videos are fair use or fall under some other exception.

    “Before taking action, we ask that you carefully evaluate each match to confirm that you own the rights to the matched content and ensure that you believe it infringes on your copyright. You should not file a copyright takedown request for content that you do not own exclusively, such as public domain content. You should also consider whether the matched content could be considered fair use or could be subject to some other exceptions to copyright and hence not require permission for reuse,” reads the creator blog by YouTube.

    Next week, YouTube will start rolling this tool out to creators with more than 1,00,000 subscribers. As this is a powerful feature, it will monitor usage closely and will continue to expand over the coming months with the long-term goal of making it available to every creator in the YouTube Partner program.

  • Kalyan Jewellers announces campaign winners for a Mercedes Benz

    Kalyan Jewellers announces campaign winners for a Mercedes Benz

    MUMBAI:  Jewellery brand Kalyan Jewellers has recently announced the top 25 winners from the “Shop and win 25 Mercedes Benz CLA” global campaign. The campaign, which was started as part of the brand’s Akshaya Tritiya offer in April, drew to a close on 9 June.

    The winners from India were selected via an electronic raffle while the winners from other countries like UAE, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait were identified through the individual lucky draw from each country. As announced at the start of the campaign, 10 winners were selected from India, seven from UAE, three from Qatar, three from Oman and two from Kuwait. The cars keys will be handed over in the coming weeks after the formalities are completed.

    Kalyan Jewellers chairman and managing director TS Kalyanaraman said, “I would like to congratulate the all the lucky winners. At Kalyan our endeavour has been to enable our customers to extract value from their purchase while providing a great shopping experience. This campaign was an extension of that thought, and I am delighted that we could play a small part in helping realise the dreams of our customers.”

    The campaign marks the single largest offer of free Mercedes Benz CLA in a raffle draw in India and GCC. Customers participated in the promotion by making a minimum purchase across Kalyan Jewellers showrooms in their respective countries. 

    The list of all winners is as follows.

    list_15.jpg

  • Netflix outperforming traditional TV, YouTube in the US

    Netflix outperforming traditional TV, YouTube in the US

    MUMBAI: Netflix is outperforming traditional TV in the US. It has reached the top spot among platforms for watching entertainment on TV leaving traditional cable and broadcast television networks as well as YouTube and Hulu behind. A recent survey of US consumers by Wall Street firm Cowen & Co. has revealed the fact.

    The survey conducted in May included 2,500 US adults. The participants were asked which platforms they use most often to view video content on TV. 27 per cent of the total respondents choose Netflix. Other sources of entertainment like basic cable, broadcast and YouTube stood at 20 per cent, 18 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

    More importantly, millennials give Netflix higher preference. 40 per cent of adults aged 18 to 34  prefer the platform most often to view video content on their TVs. Only 17 per cent of them use YouTube, 12 per cent basic cable, 7.6 per cent Hulu and 7.5 per cent broadcast.

    “Over the long term, assuming [Netflix] is able to continue to increasingly offer great content, this lead clearly bodes well for further value creation,” Cowen & Co. analysts led by John Blackledge wrote in a research note as quoted by Variety.

    Other than US, Netflix is trying to strengthen its foothold in other countries too. In India, it has recently launched Lust Stories that has been critically acclaimed. It’s also being very bullish about its original content. The company hopes to add five million international subscribers at the end of this quarter.

    “Owning a leading international content-production footprint and ramping relationships across the talent ecosystem should prove beneficial to Netflix’s ability to increase production in those markets, much of which is produced at a lower cost than similar content produced in Hollywood,” the Cowen & Co. analysts wrote.

    Also Read:

    Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos says India is ‘TV starved’

    Netflix announces new Indian original film ‘Lust Stories’

  • Telco apps emerging as one-stop destinations in India: Report

    Telco apps emerging as one-stop destinations in India: Report

    MUMBAI: The newest trend in the world digital content consumption, is the emergence of telco apps as one stop shops for users. According to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) report quoted by Bloomberg Quint, Indians have shown a tendency to use apps like Jio TV, Jio Cinema, Airtel Wynk instead of downloading individual over-the-top (OTT) streaming apps.

    Among all the offerings from the data disruptor Jio, the live television streaming app Jio TV was the most used. Even Airtel’s Airtel TV app has clocked over 10 million downloads since its launch. Other than Jio TV, Jio Music and Jio Cinema also managed to capture the imagination of Indian users.

    Among the BofAML 1,000 consumers surveyed by BofAML, Jio recorded the highest number of users. The objective of the study was to document data consumption patterns. It found that 76 per cent users use mobile data to watch online videos, while 68 per cent download and save them

    The online content viewing numbers have increased exponentially, with 30 per cent of users breaching their daily limit of 1/1.5 GB almost regularly.

    Among the video streaming platforms, YouTube continues to hold its sway with consumers, with 58 per cent of them using the platform. 38 per cent viewed content on Hotstar, with ZEE5 and Eros being used by 2 per cent and 1per cent respectively.

    “We consider this as a new emerging theme in India and expect content companies to be beneficiaries of the telco price wars. However, given the nascent stage of the market, we don’t see a clear “winner” currently in the OTT space,” read the BofAML report.

    The findings of the study also indicated that cord-cutting may not disrupt the Indian television industry anytime soon, as monthly cable bills (200-400) continue to be significantly lower than what decent broadband connections cost.

    Also read: Reliance Jio to soon launch 5G services: all you need to know

    Amazon India’s new monthly subscription plan

     

  • YouTube introduces new initiatives to help creators earn more

    YouTube introduces new initiatives to help creators earn more

    MUMBAI: For young artists and aspiring entrepreneurs across the globe, YouTube has been nothing short of a revolution. While advertising has been the major source of revenue for YouTube’s creator community, the Google-owned site now wants to go beyond ads. The tech giant has started working on new tools to enable creators to make more money.

    YouTube’s ‘Sponsorship’ feature has now been rebranded to ‘Channel Membership’. Consumers can pay a monthly recurring fee of $4.99 to get unique badges, new emojis, members-only posts in the Community tab, along with access to customised perks offered by creators. Earlier, this feature was limited to select YouTube channels only. This feature will soon be expanded to every eligible channel that commands 100,000 subscribers.

    While merchandising may not be a new concept for the YouTube community, the company has partnered with Treespring to help creators design and sell products on the platform. In a tab under the video itself, creators can now offer t-shirts, hats, phone cases or any one of the 20 merchandise items.

    To help publishers build better engagement with consumers, YouTube has introduced Premieres, a new way to upload content.

    “With Premieres, creators will be able to debut pre-recorded videos as a live moment. When creators choose to release a Premiere, we’ll automatically create a public landing page to build anticipation and hype up new content,” the company said in a blog post.

    For the first time ever, creators can use Super Chat and take advantage of Channel Membership perks on traditional YouTube uploads. These were previously available on Live Videos.

    “We hope these tools help creators build a stronger community and earn more money while doing it, because when they succeed, the entire YouTube community thrives,” the blog read.

    Also Read :

    Three years down, YouTube Kids unable to make an impact

    YouTube Red rebranded as YouTube Premium with expanded reach in 14 countries

     

  • Louis Philippe launches new ad campaign #RiseAboveTheRest

    Louis Philippe launches new ad campaign #RiseAboveTheRest

    MUMBAI: One of India’s leading menswear brand Louis Philippe, from Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, has come up with a unique ad campaign ‘Rise Above The Rest’, showcasing that true leadership is about taking decisions that leave a lasting impact.

    Louis Philippe Brand COO Kumar Saurabh said, “Louis Philippe is a leader in the premium menswear segment in India. Louis Philippe stands for precision in craftsmanship that translates into clothing that is timeless yet contemporary, and perfect for the discerning audience. Louis Philippe was introduced in India in the year 1989 and almost three decades later, the brand logo the Crest is prized even more for its craftsmanship and attention to detail”.

    “This film is another big step in that direction to bring the Crest alive by appropriating meaning to the Crest. The objective of the film was to create clutter breaking and memorable communication that is relevant to today’s Indian consumer. The film is supported by a stellar media plan that targets consumers on channels most relevant for them; while creating impact properties for the brand to associate with as well. And this is only the beginning of the year. There’s lots more to come” he added

    The campaign has been conceptualized and executed by creative agency J. Walter Thompson. 

    J. WalterThompson South Asia, chief creative officer Senthil Kumar says, “Louis Philippe has been a brand that has definedpremium men’slifestyle segment in India. Louis Philippe recognizes men ofsubstance who make an impact and leave a mark of greatness. The very samephilosophy is delivered through the Rise above the Rest campaign where a President takes a decision that leaves a lasting impact on millions of hiscitizens. A brand of this stature can be the only one to stake claim to define‘The Upper Crest’ each time.”

    The new TVC features a victorious President, known for his leadership and identified by the Louis Philippe crest he carries on the cuff of his shirt. The campaign conveys that in a world filled with predictable formats to success, only a visionary leader creates an impressionand leaves a mark of greatness. 

    The campaign showcases that a discerning president invests a lot of thought behind every decision including his wardrobe choices, that help him influence and take on any challenge with his sartorial skills.