Tag: Zapr

Zapr, PubMatic partner for integrated TV and digital media buying

Mumbai: Media-tech startup Zapr has partnered with programmatic advertising company PubMatic.

This partnership will enable media buyers to build integrated TV and digital plans by leveraging rich audience segments across all digital screens and channels including mobile, connected TV, and the open web – on PubMatic’s premium inventory.

The direct integration, via PubMatic’s Audience Encore, allows buyers to activate data at the supply level, said the company in a statement.

The integrated marketing solutions backed by India’s largest offline media consumption data can help brands and agencies achieve targeted engagement more efficiently, it added.

Audience Encore is an audience data platform designed to improve how marketers and data owners transact by giving more control to the data owner and better ROI for the advertiser. Publishers with first-party data and data providers can simply upload their segments to Audience Encore, generate a deal ID for single, recurring, or customised use, and then transact programmatically alongside premium PubMatic inventory in private or open marketplaces.

“There is significant adoption of programmatic advertising in the Indian market, where it has become an integral part of most brands’ digital plans,” said Zapr, senior vice president – revenue and ad operations, Bhavna Saincher. “This collaboration with PubMatic will expand the accessibility footprint of Zapr’s unique TV and behavioural segments for agency and brand partners.”

September 9, 2021
Urban areas dominate DD viewership: Zapr

MUMBAI: Once the sole television provider in India, Doordarshan (DD) has survived the onslaught of television privatisation over decades. TV analytics conducted on DD channels provide insights into its diverse content across sports, Hindi entertainment and news and how the broadcaster is still relevant for India’s TV population. In 2003, DD radically changed its monetisation plan by paying private producers for prime-time shows to promote new content and open advertising avenues on its channels. With data-driven audience segmentation being an important prerequisite for media planners to set priority markets for their branded content, Zapr Media Labs (Zapr) has mapped out viewership trends of DD channels at the individual user level. From channel level analysis to geographic positioning of viewers, the study even traces migration patterns to see how DD viewers are switching channels across the Indian Television landscape. The company has analysed DD channels over three months—September, October and November 2017—and mapped out current trends in reach, viewership and audience migration. Over the considered period, there was a gradual rise (165.7 million) and fall (92.4 million) in audience reach and 4 per cent non-DD viewers (August) started watching DD in September. Deep-diving into DD’s viewership trends, the study found 59.20 per cent of urban viewership share for the pubcaster’s channels. These insights were derived from Zapr’s active user-base comprising over 40 million smartphones.

DD’s viewership over September, October and November

DD channels’ viewership ranged from 165.7 million to 117.1 million during week 36 and week 37. This viewership spike is before and during the India-Australia ODI series. The chart below shows the viewership of the broadcaster across weeks:

DD’s top-ten channels

DD channels are home to various genres, languages and television programmes. The top-ten list comprised channels from across DD’s categories. Irrespective of the fact that the channel caters only to Hindi audiences, DD National (previously DD1) topped the list with an audience share of 23.90 per cent. This high viewership could pertain to the varied shows—serials, bhajans, news, cookery shows and even news for the hearing impaired (15 minutes daily) that ensures DD National has something for everyone.

DD National is followed by DD News (15 per cent) and DD Bharati (13.20 per cent) in terms of viewership. Interestingly, the sole international DD channel, DD India did not make it into top three and was followed by six regional channels—DD Madhya Pradesh (13.10 per cent), DD Yadagiri (12.80 per cent), DD Oriya (12.5 per cent), DD Kashir (12 per cent), DD Sahyadri (11.90 per cent) and DD Podhigai (11.59 per cent). DD prevails in metros and cities with million plus population. The report also identified geographical locations that claimed a major share in DD channels viewership. Delhi (30 per cent) claimed the top position in the metro cities list, followed by Mumbai (25 per cent), Chennai (16 per cent), Bengaluru (11 per cent) and Kolkata (11 per cent). For brands and media planners, these insights reveal deterministic geo-segmentation by actual content consumption, something which large sample TV data cannot provide. The chart below also indicates viewership share across top five cities distributed across tier-2 populations. These stats show Pune with the highest viewership share (17.30 per cent). The top city is followed by Ahmedabad (9.40 per cent), Bhopal (6.20 per cent), Jaipur (6 per cent) and Lucknow (5 per cent) based on actual actual audience share for DD channels.

Urban folks flock towards DD

The urban segment claimed a substantial viewership share of 59.20 per cent over rural regions (40.70 per cent). With studies reporting higher socio-economic position among urban audiences, this urban skew among DD viewer suggests that their buying power is not lagging behind other TV segments across paid channels. For media planners, DD channels and their upward-mobile audiences constitute a trough of unexplored opportunities compared to largely cluttered spots on more commercialised channels.

DD caters to viewers across the TV spectrum

Cricket broadcasts such as Sri Lanka vs India T20I and Micromax Cup Sri Lanka vs India 2017 ODI Series and news telecasts such as News Night, Batmya and Samachar occupy top positions in the list of most-watched prime-time shows on DD channels. With significant overlaps between the viewers of cricket tours and sport leagues such as the IPL. Marketers can tap into high-value TV segments and reach them on cost-effective spots using surrogate targeting offerings, DD’s top five primetime shows based on viewership have been listed below.

DD National penetrates Urban India with purely Hindi content

To understand how language influences viewership at a national level, Zapr looked at DD’s popular all-India channels—DD National and DD Sports. Interestingly, DD National with its single-language content in Hindi had higher viewership skew towards urban audiences (63 per cent) compared to its rural counterpart (37 per cent). DD Sports with its bilingual telecasts in Hindi and English witnessed smaller difference between its urban (55 per cent) and rural (45 per cent) markets. Our analysis indicates that DD’s all-india content in Hindi which began as instructive and informative content for India’s largely rural masses has now majorly penetrated much of urban India. Are marketers keeping up with DD’s evolution from Bharat to India?

Non-FTA to FTA

To further understand purchase power of DD viewers, Zapr mapped out DD audience overlaps with free-to-air (FTA) channels exclusive of DD content and non-FTA channels. As the name suggests, FTA channels are accessible without subscription charges and according to Zapr data, 55.6 per cent of DD viewers tune into these channels regularly. Interestingly, the data reveals larger skew towards with non-FTAs or pay channels with an overlap of 58.4 per cent, suggesting that DD audiences have high propensity to spend on premium content.

Migration to DD channels post agency accreditation

The growing commercialisation of television indicates more focused marketing efforts across TV segments. Zapr wanted to understand the impact of DD’s agency accreditation in September 2017 when the network opened commercial ad-spots and a round of new TV content on 30+ DD channels. “TV analytics at Zapr reveal that there has been a 4 per cent rise in DD viewership from August to September suggesting a shift towards DD channels which could be an early positive result of the broadcaster’s agency accreditation plan. The 58.4 per cent overlap of DD viewers with Non-FTA channel viewers is also an incredible result,” Zapr VP (data insights) Aditya Kulkarni said.

DD has revamped its content and advertising avenues, and clearly succeeded in staying relevant to India’s dynamic media landscape. Armed with data-backed insights, broadcasters can optimise their content inventories and expand their TV audiences. Marketers can avoid clutter by targeting these growing segments, and ultimately stand strong in the minds of their priority markets.

Also read:

Doordarshan’s R-Day broadcast notches up record TV viewership

DTH’s year of consolidation

BARC ratings: DD Sports in top 5 after 37 weeks

February 25, 2018
Digital measurement: Star leads the way, partners Zapr

MUMBAI: Even as India’s only television rating body BARC India plans to get into digital measurement arena, Star India has made a major splash and taken a strategic minority stake in Zapr Media Labs, one of the largest media intelligence repositories and cross-device targeting platform which enables brands and media-owners to identify their offline media audience and re-target them on mobile and web.

BARC India’s intent, through its planned foray into digital measurement, is to measure total unduplicated audience across all devices and platforms, measuring combined program impressions or advertisements regardless of where and how content/ad is being consumed, through a Single Source Panel. BARC had planned to provide a TV+ Digital viewership measurement service across the globe covering over 50 per cent of media spends between TV and digital. BARC was said to be in talks with an Israeli media technology company to customise for it tools for measurement, which is likely to be rolled out in phases from sometime in 2017 or early 2018.

However, in what seems to be a march ahead of BARC India, Hotstar, one of India’s leading OTT platforms, and Zapr today announced a strategic partnership to drive the next wave of mobile audience analytics in India. The partnership is accompanied by a minority investment into Zapr from Star.

For Hotstar, the partnership signals a clear intent to evolve from a media startup to a full-fledged technology and analytics company that shapes the next wave of mobile usage and advertising in India. With more than 60 million users in the month of January and a sharp uptick in user growth in the last few months, the platform already boasts of some of the highest daily engagement amongst its followers.

In what is certain to be an exciting development for advertisers and agencies, the two companies will work together to create a deep understanding of mobile audiences that can be leveraged by brands to create personalized communication and offers. The two will collaborate to create deep audience segmentation and razor sharp targeting as a trail-blazing move for the mobile advertising ecosystem

Zapr Media co-founder and CEO Sandipan Mondal informed www.indiantelevision.com, “Our partnership with Hotstar and Star reinforces the great response we’ve received from our industry partners, and we look forward to continuing to grow our relationship with the media and advertising industry.”

Mondal added, “At Zapr Media Labs, we’re focused on building one of the world’s largest media consumption repositories and audience targeting platforms. Over the past few years, we’ve been working very closely with our partners across brands, agencies and broadcasters on deeper audience segmentation, sharper targeting and richer insights.”

While access to the Internet has been exploding in India in the last few years, especially on the mobile screen, mobile marketing has been constrained till date by the lack of availability of platforms that marry deep user engagement and audience segmentation. While many brands have deployed significant amounts of money on mobile in the last few years, especially through banner and in stream display ads, marketers have been frustrated by the lack of brand building vehicles online that allow them to leverage deep audience analytics. In what is clearly a trail blazing move for digital marketing, the partnership could herald the emergence of more robust audience analytics and better accountability for results in the mobile marketing world.

Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan said, “In the transition from the broadcast world to the digital world, advertisers got a data bonanza but in the process had to give up the ability to engage consumers who are actually paying attention to what they are saying. Hotstar has the opportunity to build the world’s first platform on digital where consumers are engaged and immersed while at the same time delivering deep audience understanding that allows brands to talk to individuals rather than segments. We believe that we have a shot at creating the world’s premier truly personalised advertising service, which benefits both brands and consumers.”

Mondal added, “We look forward to accelerating the pace of our research & development, growing our product portfolio and building a deeper and long lasting relationship with the larger media and advertising industry.”

Zapr’s proprietary technology platform analyzes television viewership across 600+ channels in India providing targeted digital analytics and insight into offline consumption behaviour. Zapr has built an analytics platform that combines this proprietary understanding with enriched data that allows advertisers to use it for sharper audience targeting and analysis.

The announcement is a big step in the direction of becoming the premier personalised advertising service.

March 7, 2017
Rio Olympics notches up impressive TV viewership numbers: Zapr

MUMBAI: Doubts had been raised whether arguably the world’s biggest competitive sports event – the ongoing Rio Olympics 2016 – would attract Indian viewers. Mainly because of the time zone differences between India and Brazil.

But lo and behold even the opening ceremony of the games lured viewers like a moth to a lamp; according to Zapr’s TV viewership audience pool. More than 5.6 million Indians tuned in at 4 am on 6 August 2016 to watch Gisele Bundchen stage her interpretation of the Girl from Ipanema, apart from a host of other Brazlilian singing and sports talents.

Day one of the Olympics received a grand viewership of 52.7 million viewers in India, despite claims that this year’s Olympics telecast has received the worst television viewership ratings compared to previous years in some parts of the world.

The repeat telecast of the opening ceremony later in the day was watched by 6.1 million viewers. According to the reports, 7.5 per cent of the viewers who watched the live telecast in the morning came back to watch the highlights.

The live telecast saw the highest viewership for the day between 8 pm and 11 pm pm during which famous Indian sportspersons took to the field: 14.4 million viewers tuned in between 8pm and 9 pm witnessing the Indian men’s hockey team’s first win in the Olympics this year.

The viewership increased to 15.4 million viewers in the next hour as Indian tennis players like Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza kicked off with their first matches in the tournament.

A large portion of Indian TV viewers who watched the Rio Olympics had previously followed other popular sport events on TV, a massive 73.4 per cent of viewers who watched the Olympics had also watched the biggest sporting league in India – Vivo IPL 2016. 36.4 per cent of the Olympic viewers also watched the Pro Kabaddi League while 19.3 per cent watched the UEFA Euro 2016. A smaller portion of 1.5 per cent of Olympic viewers watched both the recent tennis tournaments.

The audience also heavily consumed Hindi GECs’ programmes apart from the sports channels which were The Kapil Sharma Show on Sony Entertainment TV, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa on Colors TV and The Voice Kids on And TV.

The state of Maharashtra received the highest viewership for the Olympics telecast with 17. 9 per cent in urban and 7.9 per cent in rural. Uttar Pradesh received 10. 5 per cent urban share and 6.6 per cent rural. Down south , Tamil Nadu experienced the largest share of rural audiences watching the Olympics telecast in India. It recorded a 9.2 per cent urban share and 8.6 per cent rural share. On the other hand Andhra Pradesh generated an 8.7 percent urban share and 4.3 per cent rural. Karnataka got 8.6 per cent Uuban and 5.6 per cent rura shares while West Bengal notched up 7.5 per cent urban share and 6.0 per cent rural.

August 13, 2016
Rio Olympics notches up impressive TV viewership numbers: Zapr

MUMBAI: Doubts had been raised whether arguably the world’s biggest competitive sports event – the ongoing Rio Olympics 2016 – would attract Indian viewers. Mainly because of the time zone differences between India and Brazil.

But lo and behold even the opening ceremony of the games lured viewers like a moth to a lamp; according to Zapr’s TV viewership audience pool. More than 5.6 million Indians tuned in at 4 am on 6 August 2016 to watch Gisele Bundchen stage her interpretation of the Girl from Ipanema, apart from a host of other Brazlilian singing and sports talents.

Day one of the Olympics received a grand viewership of 52.7 million viewers in India, despite claims that this year’s Olympics telecast has received the worst television viewership ratings compared to previous years in some parts of the world.

The repeat telecast of the opening ceremony later in the day was watched by 6.1 million viewers. According to the reports, 7.5 per cent of the viewers who watched the live telecast in the morning came back to watch the highlights.

The live telecast saw the highest viewership for the day between 8 pm and 11 pm pm during which famous Indian sportspersons took to the field: 14.4 million viewers tuned in between 8pm and 9 pm witnessing the Indian men’s hockey team’s first win in the Olympics this year.

The viewership increased to 15.4 million viewers in the next hour as Indian tennis players like Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza kicked off with their first matches in the tournament.

A large portion of Indian TV viewers who watched the Rio Olympics had previously followed other popular sport events on TV, a massive 73.4 per cent of viewers who watched the Olympics had also watched the biggest sporting league in India – Vivo IPL 2016. 36.4 per cent of the Olympic viewers also watched the Pro Kabaddi League while 19.3 per cent watched the UEFA Euro 2016. A smaller portion of 1.5 per cent of Olympic viewers watched both the recent tennis tournaments.

The audience also heavily consumed Hindi GECs’ programmes apart from the sports channels which were The Kapil Sharma Show on Sony Entertainment TV, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa on Colors TV and The Voice Kids on And TV.

The state of Maharashtra received the highest viewership for the Olympics telecast with 17. 9 per cent in urban and 7.9 per cent in rural. Uttar Pradesh received 10. 5 per cent urban share and 6.6 per cent rural. Down south , Tamil Nadu experienced the largest share of rural audiences watching the Olympics telecast in India. It recorded a 9.2 per cent urban share and 8.6 per cent rural share. On the other hand Andhra Pradesh generated an 8.7 percent urban share and 4.3 per cent rural. Karnataka got 8.6 per cent Uuban and 5.6 per cent rura shares while West Bengal notched up 7.5 per cent urban share and 6.0 per cent rural.

August 13, 2016