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Executive Dossier

‘Our aim is to become the currency tool for media research’ : Ormax Media co-founder & CEO Shailesh Kapoor

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Ormax Media, the consumer knowledge and consulting firm for the media and entertainment industry, was launched jointly by Vispy Doctor, the managing director of Ormax Consultants, a specialist in qualitative research, and former Filmy business head Shailesh Kapoor in July 2008.

The company has expanded across categories like television, radio, films, and media agencies. It has launched various tools, which can predict the future of a show or a film.

The expansion plan includes doing research in the news and South Indian market. The aim is to establish Ormax Media as the currency tool for media research.

In an interview with Indiatelevision.com‘s Gaurav Laghate, Kapoor sheds light on the research needs in the media and entertainment industry and Ormax Media‘s drive to plug the gaps.

Excerpts:

You have worked with companies like Sony, Zee, Zoom and Filmy in roles across marketing, content and business strategy. So what led to Ormax Media?
The idea was always there, I wanted to start something of my own. And I wanted to set up something which combined the media and entertainment industry where I came from with the marketing and consumer understanding that was always my interest.

The exciting part is that we are working on multiple categories – like GECs (general entertainment channels), niche channels, movies, radio and digital. So there is a wide variety that makes the learning experience far more dynamic than it would have been in a traditional media role.

What the company has achieved in these two years?
Since it has been a new company, the first year focus was on consolidation and the second year was really of growth and expansion into new categories, businesses and clients.

We started with TV. It was for two reasons – a far more organised industry in the M&E sector and also because of size.

In 2009 we started with GECs, then moved on to niche channels and radio. During this time, we also started creating specific products.

How did you identify the need for the product offerings?
As we met more and more people, we recognised that there were common needs across the category. For example, there was common need for tracking marketing campaigns for TV programmes. This resulted in a tool – Showbuzz.

You said you are in expansion mode. What all categories are you looking at?
Initially, we spent time on developing tools, products and methodology. Then our focus was clearly on categories where we had strength. Like Bollywood – so we launched Cinematix. We are planning to launch a structured product of test screening of Hindi movies soon.

How has the film industry responded so far?
We have already worked on 7-8 movies in the last six months. And I think for an industry which is still getting used to the idea of research, it‘s a pretty healthy number. Going forward, the film industry will continue to be the focus. First we were trying to get them on board and trying to make them understand the whole idea of research. And we were pleasantly surprised. Once they (film industry) were exposed to this; they were more than willing to receive research in a far more flexible manner.

 

What are the challenges you have been facing for getting clients?
The biggest challenge has been to meet more and more people and give them the flavour of what research can give them. And once they get the right flavour and do one project, they certainly understand the importance of it.

Apart from films, what are the other areas you will be focusing on now?
The areas which we are going to focus on now are specific categories – like South and news.

What opportunities do you see in the southern regional market?
South is a very big market for both TV and cinema industry. The fundamentals of TV and film research are not different. And we have teams in the four southern states.

And what are your plans for the news industry?
The news market is one that largely relies on Tam. But at the category level, there may not be any tools and products available. So we are looking at that option.

News is also a big category in terms of revenue. It is a category where the advertiser buying is often based on decisions based not directly on the function of the ratings. Particularly English news channels where many different parameters come into play.

All your tools basically try to asses and predict the future – cinematix or showbuzz?
A lot of our work is going into putting tools and analytics in place. We are trying to create ways in which future prediction and future analysis can be made rather than just looking at the past and getting a sense of that.

Research is not just looking at today and giving feedback at what people are liking or not liking. I think the more important area, where a lot of our energies are focused on, is to predict the future.

So what all services you offer to clients?
We have three kinds of products. Syndicated products are owned by us like Showbuzz, Cinematics, Characters India Love, RJ Files. We do them at our cost, irrespective of who is subscribing or not subscribing to it. This is data which is registered and trademarked to us. Whoever subscribes to it, gets it.

These products are most cost effective for all as they are common to the industry. Multiple people are subscribing and paying for it . It cannot be affordable for someone wanting to do it alone.

Second is commissioned research, which could be qualitative or quantitative research. These are need based research.

We also do consulting work, which is specifically beyond consumer research and is more advisory in nature. But it is not our main area of work. We are primarily a consumer understanding firm.

How much market share are you looking at acquiring in future?
We hope to be controlling at least 75-80 per cent of the research market in a couple of years. That doesn‘t mean we are going to compete with already established systems such as Tam, Ram etc. We are going to complement the information available through them. So if Tam gives the viewership, we will add value by explaining the viewership understanding. We are more about adding value beyond the measurement systems.

If some other similar company starts working on the same lines, what will be your plan of action?
See, eventually, in a category like this, one becomes currency. We have seen that in case of Tam. The second player to come will have a disadvantage. It is difficult to say at this stage who will become currency, but my sense is that till the time other players will come, we will be established as the industry currency. We are moving in the right direction.

Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

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MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

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Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

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INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

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Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

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MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8. 

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability. 

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns. 

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives. 

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes. 

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement. 

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.  

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift. 

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.  

 As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium. 

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception. 

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence. 

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors. 

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable. 

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact. 

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.
 

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