MxMIndia

Category: Ad Agencies

  • Chinese and Indian Millennials Believe Government and Businesses are key forces in addressing climate change

    Need for a new era of sustainable biz, notes MSLGroup study

    By A Correspondent

     

    The future of business and the future of sustainability are the two sides of the same coin, according to MSLGROUP’s latest People’s Insights report, A Chance for Change: The Tipping Point for Sustainable Business.

     

    Two weeks before world leaders convene at the United Nations climate change conference (COP21) in Paris, to negotiate an agreement on climate, MSLGROUP has spotlighted the voices of global leaders, Millennial change-makers and sustainability experts who are leading the momentum towards sustainable development and sustainable business.

     

    The report highlights key takeaways, through a series of expert-written opinion pieces.

    • Led by Millennials, people are demanding businesses take meaningful actions to address climate change. MSLGROUP’s global community of 250 Millennials* at BeTheChance.com, of which 90 of them are Millennials from China and India, share that they are frustrated, worried, and want immediate climate action. Similar to their global peers, both Chinese and Indian Millennials want to hear about greener products and expect businesses to collaborate with governments to address climate change. Interestingly, Chinese and Indian Millennials are different in one key way: Indian Millennials believe that the change starts with them personally, while Chinese millennials believe the change starts with the government.
    • With new global goals announced by the United Nations, business is expected to play a bigger role in sustainable development. Experts from the UN and Salterbaxter MSLGROUP view the seventeen new Sustainable Development Goals as an opportunity for business growth and global impact. Business will play an essential role in implementing the goals, especially as it relates to partnerships, innovation and investment.
    • Savvy businesses have already pivoted, raising the bar for others to transform and embrace disruption, innovation and new business models. MSLGROUP trend-watchers share examples of businesses that are already maximizing resources, creating positive handprints, collaborating across boundaries, changing people’s behavior and switching to clean energy. There is a race to the top that is widening the gap between businesses that already focus on sustainability and those that do not.
    • Climate change and sustainability are complex topics – businesses must make these easier to digest to successfully engage consumers and employees. Sustainability leaders at leading businesses and organizations share their approaches to sustainability and citizenship, with examples of their latest initiatives and their projections for the near future. Action on sustainability is essential to attracting and retaining top talent.
    • Human rights are a growing priority and responsibility for business, and a crucial part of the future of sustainability. Human rights experts and advocates highlight the growing pressure on businesses from the UN (and peers that are early adopters) to strengthen human rights policies and increase disclosure and assessments. Collaboration with human rights experts, and a proactive stance on newer human rights issues will help businesses achieve real impact.

     

    According to Pascal Beucler, SVP and Global Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP, the shift to sustainable business is unstoppable: “Sustainability has become one of top-most priorities for businesses today. Businesses are now increasingly eager to find more ways to add value to their triple bottom line. One could say that there’s a collective desire to be socially and environmentally responsible in how businesses are conducted. Material sourcing and climate change realities are only pushing brands to introspect new ways to operate, and the upcoming COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris is going to significantly accelerate the movement.”

     

    “Considering the fact that Millennials in both China and India have seen first hand the impact of human activity on their local environments, it is no surprise that they feel worried, anxious and sad about climate change. Millennials sense an urgent need to address the global issue, where Chinese and Indian businesses should seize the opportunity, engage concerned Millennials and involve them as active agents of change to make the difference that is desperately needed,” said Schubert Fernandes, Asia Practice Leader for Corporate & Brand Citizenship at MSLGROUP.

     

    The Tipping Point for Sustainable Business and BeTheChance.com are part of MSLGROUP’s global initiatives to give Millennials a voice on the issue of climate change. These efforts culminate at an event of the same name, Chance for Change, which takes place in Paris during COP21. The event will bring together business leaders and inspiring Millennials and will explore how the millennial generation can lead the response to climate change.

     

  • Vidur Patney appointed as National Director Experiential Marketing & Pooja Verma as Head of Maxus ESP

    Maxus makes key senior appointments

    By A Correspondent

     

    Maxus announced key appointments across its two specialist units. Vidur Patney joins in as the National Director Experiential Marketing and Pooja Verma as Head of Maxus ESP respectively.

     

    Vidur joins Maxus from Globox Media Private Limited. As a founder in a start-up of an Experiential Marketing company, he was responsible for the day to day running of the firm along with everything that went into building the business and developing new clients as well as executing projects. Some of his key achievements at Globox include, managing all TVS Racing initiatives for the last 2 years at the BIC, MMSC and the KMS racing tracks and conducting over 70 Apache Pro Performance Stunt Shows across India etc.

     

    In a career spanning eighteen years, Vidur has worked with leading agencies these being Dentsu Communications Private Limited, Encompass Events Private Limited, and 212 Traders etc. He has handled important and significant clients in all his earlier stints and brings to the table a proven ability to manage key account relationships and large-scale projects.

     

    For nearly a decade and a half, Pooja has been involved in building engagement as a part of content strategy through communication, branding, marketing and citizenship initiatives. She has worked for leading multi-nationals including Disney, BASF and Make-A-Wish Foundation. In her last role Pooja was Director of Marketing and Communication for Make-A-Wish based in Singapore. She also consulted independently for brands in India and overseas for their content marketing and multi-platform content needs. In her free time, Pooja also offers her content and marketing communication expertise pro-bono to non-profits.

     

    Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia said “The appointments of Vidur Patney and Pooja Verma reflect Maxus’ commitment to attracting the best and brightest talent to our agency. They both are reliable leaders with robust backgrounds in experiential marketing and content marketing respectively. Both of them will fit very well within our strongly established client-driven culture and marketing culture and we are sure they will achieve even higher success with Maxus.

     

    These appointments come in the wake of Maxus solidifying its position as an employer of choice and are a step towards becoming the leading marketing communication consultancy in the country.

     

  • Unilever renews media relationship with Mindshare in India for non-digital duties, and with PHD for digital

    It’s Mindshare (& PHD) again for HUL!

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Media agency Mindshare’s India operations will continue to handle the non-digital media duties for FMCG major Hindustan Unilever. The WPP agency has been appointed by Unilever in 60 markets in its global media agency review which it conducts periodically. Omnicom’s PHD will continue to oversee the digital spends for HUL in India.

     

    “We just celebrated 20 years of a great partnership. This news brings in a momentum to instill new thinking and adaptive way of engagement with consumers. We are completely poised to take on this challenge of discovering inventive ways of achieving key goals of Unilever,” said Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia.

     

    Added Amin Lakhani, Head, Mindshare Fulcrum South Asia, which oversees the HUL business: “We are delighted to continue our partnership with Unilever. As the team, we embark on creating futuristic marketing solutions for all the Unilever portfolio brands. Greater consumer engagement with content in a real time environment and bespoke integrated media planning will be our topmost priority. The team is excited to be the lead partner to Unilever in their next phase of growth.”

     

    Just last week, Mindshare celebrated 20 years of partnership handling the media duties of HUL in the presence of Sanjiv Mehta, Managing Director and CEO, HUL and Mindshare Global CEO Nick Emery. A communiqué from Mindshare on PR Newswire quotes Emery saying: “Unilever is not only one of the world’s largest advertisers, it is one of the most progressive. It is a great privilege and also a great reflection on our teams that we now work with Unilever in 60 markets across all continents.”

     

    Mindshare has been confirmed as Unilever’s media agency partner in Europe, North America, South East Asia, South Asia and Africa.  PHD and IPG agency Initiative will also execute media spends for Unilever in certain international markets. . It’s been mostly status quo for Unilever’s media mandates, except, as per an Ad Age report, that some European markets have moved from PHD to Mindshare and the all-important Australian market has moved from Mindshare to PHD. China, it may be noted, will be with PHD, as will be Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. Initiative will direct Unilever spends in Latin America and Greece.

     

    PHD officials were not available for comment.

     

    In Arrangement with MxMIndia.com

     

  • Pandey was COO of McCann Worldgroup India until recently

    Govind Pandey to join TBWA\India as CEO

    By A Correspondent

     

    Govind Pandey

    Govind Pandey, who was COO of McCann Worldgroup India until recently, will be the new CEO of TBWA\India.

     

    Pandey, who has had a 13-odd-year run at McCann was earlier with Ogilvy & Mather, JWT/Contract and Lowe after a PDGDM from IIM Bangalore.

     

    TBWA Group India has been helmed by Vineet Bajpai since early last year when Shiv Sethuraman quit the agency.

     

    Meanwhile, McCann is said to be making a senior hire to fill in the vacancy after Pandey has left.

     

  • He is set to join McCann as Vice Chairman and will report in to CEO and Chairman (Asia Pacific) Prasoon Joshi

    Partha Sinha quits Publicis to join McCann. Like Maggi 🙂

    By A Correspondent

     

    Partha Sinha

    Publicis Worldwide Managing Director Partha Sinha is moving on. To join McCann Worldgroup, reportedly as Vice Chairman and reporting in to Prasoon Joshi, CEO of McCann Worldgroup India and Chairman (Asia Pacific).

     

    Although Sinha said there was no such development when MxMIndia spoke to him last Friday, according to a senior McCann official, the news is confirmed.

     

    Interestingly, Sinha had just been made Managing Director of the Publicis Groupe agency in July this year two years after he and Bobby Pawar joined theagency. Earlier this year, there were murmurs that Pawar too was quitting, a move that was rubbished by all.

     

    As reported on Tuesday, McCann COO Govind Pandey has moved to TBWA India as CEO.

     

    According to the information received, the news of Sinha’s joining McCann will be made official later today or this week after some key clients of Publicis have been informed of the development.

     

    Interestingly, Maggi, the brand whose strategy Sinha would oversee at Publicis, has moved to McCann until further notice.

     

  • Kunj will be based out of the agency's office in Mumbai

    DDB Mudra West appoints Kunj Shah as Group Creative Director

    By A Correspondent

     

    DDB Mudra has announced the appointment of Kunj Shah as Group Creative Director, DDB Mudra West. Kunj will be based out of the agency’s office in Mumbai.

     

    A veteran of 17 years in the advertising industry, Kunj joins DDB Mudra West from Ogilvy and Mather where she was a Senior Creative Director for almost 3 years. Kunj brings in a plethora of experience from her earlier stints at McCann Erickson and Grey Advertising.

     

    Kunj has worked on numerous multinational brands in the FMCG, telecom, electronics and automobile sector. Her key client roster includes brands like, Home Centre for MENA region, Abbott Pharma, Coca Cola (Sri Lanka), British Petroleum, STAR Indian Super League, Titan Watches, Allen Solly, Reliance Telecom, TVS Scooty, Pond’s, Levi’s, ITC’s Aashirvaad Atta to name a few.

     

    Quoting on Kunj’s appointment, Rahul Mathew, Creative Head, DDB Mudra West, said, “Bernbach had said “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it” And Kunj is the kind of talent that we believe will help us create more magic. She makes our talent roster even more formidable and enviable. And will surely help us script many more success stories in the market place and in award shows.”

     

     

  • Launched in November 2012, Reboot is a category leader in the IT refurbishment space

    Grasshoppers India bags Reboot’s digital mandate

    By A Correspondent

     

    Delhi-based communications agency Grasshoppers India has joined hands with Reboot Systems to help the brand connect with the youth as it looks at an expansion in the retail space through brick and mortar as well as online platforms.

     

    Launched in November 2012, Reboot is a category leader in the IT refurbishment space with a 300 per cent annual growth and most of its procurement and sales so far taking place in the corporate sector. The brand is now looking at increasing its retail presence by setting-up over 250 Experience Centres and Zones across the country by March 2017. Currently, there are 20 Reboot Experience Centres and Zones across 12 states. The brand offers refurbished PCs (desktops & laptops), PC peripherals and mobility devices (IPhones and IPads only), but has now launched a new category of products especially aimed at the youth which include fitness tracking bands, cameras and gaming consoles. Gradually, Reboot plans to offer all chip-based products that weigh less than 7kg in weight via refurbishing across all is channels.

     

    Reboot’s CEO & Co-Founder Rahul Chowdhury, “Refurbishment is a popular concept in the West but is yet to gain full momentum in India though the surface is getting scratched now. Through our partnership with Grasshoppers, we not only want to draw attention to our brand but also create awareness among the target audience about the need for embracing refurbished products for a host of economic and environmental benefits. It is important for people to know that refurbishment is not a synonym for second hand. Rather, a refurbished product bought from a reliable Microsoft Registered Refurbisher is as good as new. Every Indian should own a refurbished product so that they are able to own a device of their choice just like globally in developed nations where consumers own between 3 and 4 devices. Reboot will play at the heart of the ecosystem via its innovative take back policy to reduce E-Waste for the country and have a simple disposition for end consumers. With the objective of educating the masses, we will be coming up with a lot of interesting and interactive campaigns on various digital platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Google.”

     

    “We live in a tech-savvy era where a lot of us discard our e-goods within a couple of years in order to buy the latest gadget. When Reboot approached us for this campaign, we got very excited with the thought of getting associated with a cause where we will be able to instigate the affluent people of the society to help the technology deprived through a small gesture of giving away their disposable IT and technology assets for refurbishment. Our campaign will also encourage people with a good spending power to opt for refurbished products not only to save money but because it is good for the environment.” said Grasshoppers’ Director, Arjun Banerjee.

     

  • The McCann ad is the only Made-in-Asia commercial in Gunn Reports Top 20 in the 21st Century

    Saare Jahaan Mein Achcha… Happy Dent humaara!

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    In these intolerant times, playing with the lyrics of an ever-so-popular nationalistic song, may be the wrong thing to do. But, heck, this is celebrating what appears to be a significant achievement for India. The McCann Erickson Mumbai creative for Happy Dent Teeth Whitening Gum titled “Happy Dent Palace” is in Gunn Report’s 20 Best Commercials of the 21st Century.

     

    The results were based on a public pulled on who voted on a list 30 candidates with provision made for other nominations, The Gunn Report has been able to select the Reel of The 20 Best Commercials of The 21st Century So Far (here!). The reel complements the much-viewed Gunn Report collection of The 100 Best Commercials of The 20th Century.

     

    Sharing the honour equally, the 20 ads (from 2000 to 2015) and their creators are:

     

    BGH Silent Aircon, “Dads in Briefs”, Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi, Buenos Aires

    Budweiser, “Wassup/True”, DDB, Chicago

    Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, “Gorilla”, Fallon, London

    Canal+, “Closet”, BETC Euro RSCG, Paris

    Canal+, “The Bear”, BETC Euro RSCG, Paris

    Chipotle, “Back to the Start”, Creative Artists Agency, Los Angeles

    Dove Self Esteem Fund, “Evolution”, Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto

    Guinness, “noitulove”, Abbott, Mead, Vickers, BBDO, London

    Happy Dent Teeth Whitening Gum, “Happy Dent Palace”, McCann Erickson, Mumbai

    Honda, “Cog”, Wieden & Kennedy, London

    Honda, “Grrr”, Wieden & Kennedy, London

    John West Salmon, “Bear”, Leo Burnett, London

    Metro Trains, “Dumb Ways to Die”, McCann, Melbourne

    Nike, “Tag”, Wieden & Kennedy, Portland

    Nike, “Write The Future”, Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam

    Old Spice, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”, Wieden & Kennedy, Portland

    Peugeot 206, “The Sculptor”, Euro RSCG MCM, Milan

    Sony Bravia LCD TV, “Balls” Fallon, London

    Volkswagen Golf DSG, “Kids On Steps”, DDB, Berlin

    Volvo Trucks, “Epic Split”, Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg

     

    Needless to say, Prasoon Joshi, chairman, McCann Asia-Pacific, and CEO, McCann Worldgroup India is ecstatic. Really feels good, he said in response to a text.

     

    Commenting on the 20 Best Commercials of the 21st Century So Far, Donald Gunn, Founder of The Gunn Report says, “We’re delighted that the participation was high, the result of which is a reel selected by our industry of iconic, game-changing and much loved commercials produced during the last 15 years.”

     

    “Not only do these commercials stand the test of time, but they have also influenced changes in brand communications. As such, we hope that they will bring inspiration and learning taking our industry to new creative heights,” added Donald Gunn.

     

  • The agency won the account following a multi-agency pitch

    TimesOfMoney assigns digital mandate to Isobar

    By A Correspondent

     

    TimesofMoney (Remit2India and Klinnk) has appointed Isobar, the full-service digital agency from the Dentsu Aegis Network, as their digital agency. The agency won the account following a multi-agency pitch.

     

    Achal Shah

    Sharing his thoughts on the association, Achal Shah, Senior Vice-President & Head – Marketing at TimesofMoney said, “We have been in the pure-play digital cross-border business for 15 years now. Given our objective of reaching out to global ethnic communities, digital has always been our primary medium of communication. With our services now catering to newer audiences like the Chinese, Filipinos etc in the US, UK and Australia, it was imperative for us to get the right digital media partner who had a global presence combined with the local expertise.”

     

    Shamsuddin Jasani

    Shamsuddin Jasani, Managing Director, Isobar India, “We are very happy to be associated with TimesofMoney. We are always looking at experiences across different sectors and different types of clients and this win adds a very important category of money remittance to our ever expanding repertoire.”

     

    “We recently instituted a focused business development unit to go after interesting brands. This win is just the beginning of many more to come. TimesofMoney is an interesting category and teams are excited to create innovative and creative work for them,” he added.

     

    TimesofMoney is the leading digital payments and remittances service provider catering to retail and institutional clients in India and across the globe. TimesofMoney’s bouquet of services includes retail online remittances (Remit2India & Klinnk), white-labelled remittance platforms (Payce), customized mobile wallet solutions (Movit) and online payment gateway solutions (DirecPay).

     

  • The former Vizeum India boss has set up the 'unagency' in partnership with Ajit Nair, MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi of IdeateLabs

    S Yesudas launches triggerbridge for ‘True Vertexing’

    By A Correspondent

     

    Until recently managing director – India of Vizeum, S Yesudas has announced the launch of his entrepreneurial venture, triggerbridge, the unagency, in partnership with Ajit Nair, MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi of IdeateLabs. In the adveritising and media business for over two decades this is Yesudas’s first independent enterprise.

     

    Commenting on the triggerbridge proposition, Yesu, as Yesudas is known in the industry, said:  “Disruption is the name of the game, not just in theory. But in everything we do, philosophy, product, process, people et al.  We are also building many aggregation and collaboration models. We believe the advertising agency model as it is practised today will cease to exist in the foreseeable future.  Global alignments, exclusive agency status will all fall by the way side. Clients will look for smarter brand solutions for making enduring and meaningful connections with their consumers and not super specialized silo solutions.   Media owners will be engaged with, directly by clients and the focus on computer algorithm-driven efficiency parameters will also disappear.   At triggerbridge,  our endeavor is to futureproof a disruptive model, True Vertexing,  that will be the need of the hour, now and then by clients and hence, the unagency. And interestingly this would be a virgin territory for us as agencies of today will only stay focused on the transactional mode of advertising as change for most them will be difficult considering their models and complicated structures”

     

    Commenting on the triggerbridge model, Nair said: “We have built our model around appropriate solutions for clients/brands at various life stages, be it a well-established brand or a brand which has already traversed some distance or a brand that needs to go digital from a business diversification perspective or even a client with a ready product and market but no marketing resources.  While funds are the solution for one, an e-commerce ecosystem will be for the other and incredible story telling, optimal content development and deployment, usage of data and technology will be the solutions for some others”

     

    Expanding on the proposition, Tripathi added: “True Vertexing is hand holding the brands in the journey to the highest peaks through true contributions by triggerbridge and through true expressions by the brands. In addition to the fundamental change in definition, our disruption also includes a series of products for the very first time, moving the business away from a pure service,one such is a digital platformthat aggregates story tellers and tech producers.  Many more are in the pipeline.  Our vision will be brought to life by brilliant minds. The overseeing creative board will include true storytellers like authors who have not been corrupted by 30 seconds TVCs and our business board will include members of other company boards as well as venture capitalists”

     

  • According to ZenithOptimedia, television is going to be a major driver for growth. Plus an interview with Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO, ZOG India

    Adspends in 2016 to grow 13%

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leading media agency network ZenithOptimedia says its growth forecast for advertising expenditure in India will be 13 percent for 2016.  Television largely fuels this at 15% and print – newspapers – at 10%. Digital is expected to grow upwards of 20% while all other media are expected to grow at 5-10%. E-commerce, telecom, mobile phones expected to have the maximum growth followed by automobiles and FMCGs.”

     

     

    ‘13% growth in adspends is a positive movement’

     

    Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO, ZenithOptimedia India on her agency network’s global spends forecast as she tells Pradyuman Maheshwari that the actual growth for 2015 will be at 13% as against 12% forecast last year, primarily driven by higher than expected growth on TV at 15%.

     

    You speak about rational optimism for the year ahead. But given your overall forecast for adspends as 13%, will you say that “achche din aanewaale hain” or would it be that “they could well have been ‘kharaab’, so be happy with this one”?

    The rational optimism is to contrast it with the irrational exuberance that was there last year this time given the new government. But to answer your question… I would say at 13% it’s a positive movement and if we have sustained momentum, it should go up further in the coming years.

     

    But even as forecast reports such as yours paint a rosy picture, friends in various media sales jobs rue that sales aren’t happening in right earnest…

    That’s right… at an informal level one can get different reports depending on who one is talking to. For example, most sellers will tell buyers that the market is booming and most buyers will tell sellers that it’s a tough market! :))

     

    Our report however is based on closely tracked data, including inventory sold, impact properties hitting media, annual reports of media companies, secondary research on economic parameters and key categories, actual movement on pricing coupled with market intelligence on key deals.

     

    Real estate for instance has taken a severe beating…

    That’s right… but actually sometimes that’s when it’s really advertised!

     

    Your forecast for 2015 was a 12% growth. How has it been in 2015 looking at actual spends. And what about specific sectors… the forecast % v/s actual?

    By the time we close 2015, it looks that the actual growth will be at 13%, primarily driven by higher than expected growth on TV at 15%.

     

    You’ve mentioned automobiles to see have a good growth, but we have seen modest rise there with very new brands too cutting price?

    Yes, as a category, AdEx on automobiles are quite volatile, say compared to FMCGs which are fairly stable in terms of growth/ degrowth. But this year we have seen a healthy 25% plus growth in automobile spends. New brands cutting price also need to advertise it!

     

    “In 2018 we expect the internet to overtake television to become the largest single advertising medium,” the report says. Would this apply to India too? And if not, by when do you think will the internet overtake television?

    It does not apply to India at this point in time. But if quite a few things kick in well and collectively like 4G, broadband highways, consumer’s earning and spending potential – and this coupled with the marketer-advertising fraternity accelerating their understanding of this space then it is not impossible to expect it in the next 7-8 years. I must also point out that interestingly, this is not because of slow growth of internet but because in India TV is also growing and far from saturation point!

     

    Lastly, given that we are the world’s largest democracy, second-most populous country… with a smart and creative advertising fraternity and have very active marketers, isn’t a matter of shame that we are sooooo far behind China?

    Well, China’s GDP is five times of India and their currency ten times stronger! We need to accelerate growth on all fronts in our country and media, marketing and advertising are a subset of it. Collectively, we can and we will 🙂

     

    ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad expenditure will grow 4.7% in 2016, reaching US$579 billion by the end of the year. This will be a 0.8 percentage point improvement on 2015: 2016 being a ‘quadrennial’ year, when ad expenditure is boosted by the Summer Olympics, the US presidential election and the UEFA football championship in Europe. “The global ad market has enjoyed stable growth since 2011, with growth rates ranging between 4% and 5% a year, and we expect it to maintain this pace for the rest of the forecast period,” the report adds

     

    Interestingly, while television is currently the dominant advertising medium with a 38% share of total adspend (in 2015), in 2018, ZenithOptimedia expects the internet to overtake television to become the largest single advertising medium. According to the report, one of the reasons for television’s loss of share is the rapid growth of paid search, which is essentially a direct response channel (together with classified), while television is the pre-eminent brand awareness channel – and we expect it to remain so for many years to come.

     

    Audiovisual advertising as a whole – television plus online video – is gaining its share of display advertising. Television offers unparalleled capacity to build reach, while online video offers pinpoint targeting and personalisation of marketing messages. Both are powerful tools for establishing brand awareness and associations. Audiovisual advertising will account for a record 48.4% of display advertising in 2015, up from 44.1% in 2010, and its share can be expected to reach 48.9% in 2018.

     

    Also, in 2018 mobile advertising will overtake desktop and account for 50.2% of all internet advertising. Programmatic advertising will account for more than half of digital display advertising (53%) for the first time this year, and will increase its share to 60% in 2016. “We expect programmatic advertising to grow another 34% in 2016 and 26% in 2017, at which point two thirds of global display will be programmatic,” the report adds.

     

    At regional  levels, Fast-track Asia economies (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) are growing extremely rapidly as they adopt western technology and practices, while benefiting from the rapid inflow of funds from investors hoping to tap into this growth. China accounts for 74% of adspend in Fast-track Asia, so its slowdown naturally has a large effect on the region as a whole. The expectation is for ad expenditure in Fast-track Asia to grow 8.9% in 2015, and at an average rate of 8.4% a year between 2015 and 2018, down from 14.7% a year between 2009 and 2014.

     

    Adspend growth is slowing down in three out of the four BRIC markets that were responsible for much of last decade’s ad market expansion. India – the only BRIC market – continues to combine rapid growth and large scale, making it a distinct hot-spot of adspend growth. The market is benefiting from sustained, healthy economic growth and strengthening personal consumption. With adspends growing at double-digit annual rates here, ZenithOptimedia expects the market to expand by US$3 bn between 2015 and 2018.

     

  • From cashless transactions and analytics as a service to RFID and 4G… Presenting key trends in digital and analytics by PwC's Sudipta Ghosh

    Key Trends in Digital and Analytics: PwC

     

    Although these are not specific trends for Media and Entertainment, but given the reasonably significant role of telecom and digital and analytics in the media, we bring you this trends report by PwC India (eka PricewaterhouseCoopers).

     

    By Sudipta Ghosh

     

    Key trends in 2015

    Real-time Customer engagement/interactions – There is shift from determining the proactive offers / next best offers from simple cookie based or click stream based analytics to more valued, analytical, data enriched analysis. This integrates the customer behavior patterns coming from other data sources / historical transactions. There is a wave of technology adoption for responding customers in real-time with more meaningful offers. The trend needs powerful processing platform with capability to handle high volume of data with very high velocity. Enterprises are either evaluating or adopting the big data platforms for the same. We will see more adoption of the big data platform in 2016.

     

    Cashless payments and related analytics – There is a great adoption of cashless payment methods (online, payment wallets, etc.) in India. The adoption will improve over time. Most of the cashless payment methods have ability for further improve the customer acquisition by extending appropriate offers. Analytics will play a great role in determining the offers that can be extended to these methods.

     

    Telecom transformation due to 4G – Introduction to 4G services will cause disruptive adoption of mobile internet in India. Companies like Bharati and Reliance are geared up to swipe the 4G market. The introduction of the 4G services provide a great challenge to the service providers to handle the generated huge volume of data effectively. It is estimated that there will be around 30-40 TB of data that will get generated on daily basis. Telecom service providers need to gear-up to manage and handle this data and use it for their benefits. The QoS parameters and analytics will also play a great role from regulation perspective to ensure the quality of service.

     

    Shift from ‘Data as a Service’ to ‘Analytics as a Service’ – The trend started with off-loading the data processing services to the private cloud or to the hosted environment and then derive the intelligence in local data center using Analytics solutions. Customers are now looking to avail the analytics as a service solutions. Niche companies or the companies with rich domain expertise are now providing analytics as a service in collaboration with IaaS vendors.

     

    Adoption of Big Data platforms – During past couple of years many customers evaluated the new/emerging technologies/platforms required to handle the structure and unstructured data. During second half of 2015 we observed that many customers start adopting the big data solutions/platform. The trend will continue and grow further in 2016. Many customers also have adopted the ‘Data Lake’ strategy for starting the Big Data initiatives. Customer are taking the staggered approach to build the data lakes and at the same time identifying the analytics initiatives that can be derived out of data collected in the data lake.

     

    IoT Devices, Human and Machine Interface – There were many enquiries and evaluation happening on adoption of data generated through IoT devices like Fitbit, Nike Fuelband, Apple Watch, Heat Sensors, etc. The blueprints are getting defined for integrating the IoT data into generic Analytics platform and derive meaningful intelligence out of it. Customers are also evaluating the scope KPO automation through Human and Machine interfacing solutions. The solutions use the technology for audio, video, images, text and other unstructured data analytics.

     

    Key Trends in 2015: Retail Analytics

    Retailers are increasingly using omni channel marketing to improve the customer experience as they shop across various channels like store, web and mobile platforms. There has been a huge growth in cross channel data volume and now Retailers have access to variety of data which include not only the demographic information but also past purchases, call centre interaction, social media interaction etc. Retailers are leveraging analytics tools to enhance customer loyalty by creating a personalised shopping experience that customises coupons and offers to match customers’ needs. Retailers are increasingly using segmentation based on purchase patterns, price sensitivity and customer lifestyle to identify the most relevant customers for targeting, which results in more relevant offers. Segmentation helps focus marketing on the customers who will most likely buy the products or services and avoid markets which will not be profitable. Retailers are adjusting their product mix from store to store-based on the preferences of their customers. This  help retailers improve their inventory allocations by understanding customer demand and their choice patterns resulting in increased revenues and margins

     

    Using analytics, retailers are able to determine the optimal pricing of products and services. The price elasticity not only help in only finding identifying the products that are most and least price sensitive but can also be used with optimisation to identify the optimal pricing. Increasingly number of companies are adopting open source analytical tools to provide descriptive, prescriptive and predictive analysis of the fast increasing volumes of data which are both structured and unstructured in nature in order to reduce the total cost of ownership

     

    More retailers are introducing mobile apps for integrated loyalty programs. Consumers no longer have to clutter their wallets with physical cards anymore. Instead, they can use their smartphones to track and redeem their rewards through mobile applications.

     

    Emerging Trends to watch out for in 2016: Retail Analytics

     Fraud detection and prevention will be an important concern for retailers  looking to build security and preserve consumer trust. Using analytics, retailers can identify unusual patterns of product and inventory movement.

     Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and readers will increasingly provide substantially more data on product movements and locations for retailers to analyse. Retailers will be using analytics to optimise their inventory and reduce their transportation costs.

     Workforce analytics will help organizations effectively plan their future workforce needs to increase labour efficiency and improve schedule effectiveness. Analytical tools would be used for workforce acquisition and labour scheduling based on when customers are most likely to visit a store.

    ï‚· Retailers will increasingly adopt multiple IoT technologies in the coming years to reshape the customer experience, to drive loyalty and to focus on inventory. The use cases in retail will include sensors on products, interactive consumer engagement, automated store lighting, shopper intelligence, perishable tracking, fleet operations tracking etc.

    ï‚· There will be an increase in video analytics as powerful processors are becoming available at affordable price points to video surveillance manufacturers. Video surveillance with analytical models can be used for effective in store promotions, stock out analysis and tracking customer movement inside the store.

     

    Rise and growth of e- commerce or digitisation of retail has been one of the key trends in the retail sector. As this digitisation continues in the new year, companies will turn to analytical solutions to both manage and make sense of the huge amount of data being churned from these transactions. Companies will require insights into the consumer behaviours to try and personalise user experience as competition will hot up between various e-commerce retailers. These companies are already investing in significant social media management to promote their services and will also turn to analytics to gain insight from that data regarding their product perception and target market. App based analytics solutions will be at the forefront of this growth as the market will shift from laptop to smart phone based solutions. New age analytics solutions like using CCTV for eyeball tracking, Planogram optimisation, single view of customer to create shopper profile and anticipate needs better, analysing supplier and employee performance and compliance (attrition analytics, workforce planning),  are all seeing an uptake in the Indian market.

     

    Sudipta Ghosh is Partner, Data and Analytics at PwC