Category: BLOGS

By Sriram Kilambi, President, Bloomberg TV India

A lot of us would remember this quote by Mahatma Gandhi hanging from our local grocer that went: “A consumer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us; we are on him. He is not an interruption to our work; he is the purpose of it. We are not doing a favour to a consumer by giving him an opportunity. He is doing us a favour by giving an opportunity to serve him.”

Indian consumers’ demand for goods and services has been growing with the integration of global markets and more importantly, there is growing quality awareness amongst the average consumers. As the Indian consumer matures, tastes are evolving rapidly and savvy marketers will need to keep pace with the change to survive.

The Mahatma’s words hold true for the Indian media as well. The media has to cater to the consumer’s varied needs and provide news that is useful, current and local. The opening up of the media landscape and the advent of international media houses saw the Indian players not just brush up their reportage but also the presentation of news.

If one looks at the business news genre, channels have realized that the Indian consumer is not satisfied with just news reporting but is more keen on understanding the effect of the news on their day-to-day life as well as on their profession and professional life. With globalization and opening up of the Indian economy, business news channels have broad-based their reportage to bringing on-board industry experts, bureaucrats and even international experts to analyze every incident, irrespective of it occurring at home or across the globe.

While news reportage is changing, players in the business news genre have understood that their viewers don’t want to be fed the stock and trade news on a 24×7 basis but also content that appeal to their intelligence and emotional quotient.

Bloomberg TV India, with the advantage of being a part of the global Bloomberg network, spotted this trend quite early and started tweaking its content to suit the consumers’ palate. Shows like Fight Back, The Assignment, The Date, The Pitch, and the recently launched mega debate series The Outsider with Tim Sebastian are testimony to the channel adapting to the viewers’ choice.

The Indian business news consumer, apart from demanding content suiting his choice, wants it on an as-it-happens basis. The internet explosion, advent of 3G, smartphones and tablets in India has made that possible. All telecom service providers are today offering 3G services, and media houses offer apps on smartphones and tablets which help the consumer to stay in touch with the happening around him/her in real time.

In a nutshell, the future for the media lies in keeping a finger on the pulse of the ever-changing needs of the consumer and staying in sync with it. Apart from that, media houses will have to ensure that the reportage and the presentation appeals to consumer and excites him enough to stay loyal. After all, the consumer is the king and we service providers have to bow to his wishes.

By Pawan Jailkhani, Chief Revenue Officer, 9X Media Group

Music is one of the oldest genres in the Indian television space. What started out as a two-channel category has now grown to about 60 national and regional music channels of which Hindi music forms a formidable chunk. Today, these channels are dishing out back-to-back movie songs, but their airtime was once ruled by the Indian pop music fraternity.

The early 90s were a defining period for the Indian music industry with artistes like Alisha Chinai, Anaida, Baba Sehgal and Lucky Ali becoming household names; but they faded into oblivion just as quickly as they rose. Many believe that the age of Indipop has passed for good; but has it? Every now and then, an album by the likes of Kailash Kher, Sonu Nigam, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan or the Pakistani group Strings makes us wonder. So here are six reasons why we think the genre may see resurgence:

1. Limited opportunities in Bollywood: A deluge of talent hunt shows has provided the platform to showcase India’s talent but has not provided the means to sustain them. While some break into Bollywood, the rest are left high and dry. Associating with fellow talent could help these artistes carve out a space for themselves.

2. Technological advantage: What once led to the industry’s downfall could well be its saviour. Social media, video sharing sites, online releases and viral popularity (eg Kolaveri Di) can be tapped to reach audiences.

3. Different people, different tastes: Global exposure and access to variety has led to immense fragmentation. There is a market for everything as long as the talent is good and differentiated.

4. Digitization: As digitization grows, disparity in distribution will diminish, compounding the need for differentiation among music channels. Finding and supporting new talent could be the next wave in the industry.

5. Independent artistes and bands: Many Indian rock bands and independent talent have developed a loyal fan base in their geographies. A music video could give them the exposure for national and even international recognition.

6. Copyright Bill: The new copyright bill makes it possible for artistes to generate royalty revenues from multiple avenues. This should generate more confidence in the industry’s ability to survive.

By Vikas Nowal, Vice president, DDB Mudramax & National Head, Clear Channel Mudra

Out-of-home, in the last decade or so has really worked hard to come into its own as a lead medium, a significant element of a client’s marketing spend, with specific strengths to offer, rather than simply an amplification mechanism for print and TV communication.

OOH by definition has become increasingly undefined, and therefore the game has transformed into first grabbing attention, then engaging the viewer then delivering value that is measurable and enables another format to close the loop, or drive action.

Integration is no longer about taking various media formats alone, it also means tailoring your message to capitalize on these formats, and let each feed off the other to amplify your information dissemination.

An important aspect is visibility combined with interactive elements – through technology, social media and creative advancements, to ensure that it works harder to deliver value.

Considering the high clutter and media bombardment, leading to fatigue, it is important to ensure communication can garner attention. Digital engagement, social media extensions, SMS integration are some of the ways to ensure audiences remember your message, as well as build in some amount of measurability into the outlay as well.

My submission to most clients has been, if you’re spending money on the medium, let it work harder for you, to take your message further. Ensure you use the inherent strengths of the media – reminder, frequency and reach to relevant audiences, by minimizing the weaknesses – blind spots, lack of nimbleness, foggy ROI models.

By Upen Rai, COO & Executive Director, Ant Farm

One wished that it was simple as one big idea and the pace of the digital industry could change – the only common thing is change! Followed by adoption and application. To dwell on the one big idea may really not be the ideal way as most of the thoughts and ideas every day/night is that one big idea until the next one stares us in the face!!

What does the industry thrive on? It’s only one common factor and that is people, audiences, traffic, and engagement with them. My bet is on mobile. With over 900 million subscribers it’s a matter of time before mobile actually runs our lives – how do we keep the audiences engaged with their devices and how do we help them perform better in whatever field they are related to…

Today most application developers are busy finding that ‘niche’ to operate in and help ease the burden of the consumer; however, there is no universal app which can multitask. During such instances, the big idea will come when one single app can multitask for you – from tutoring, to local, to finance to dating to recipes etc all rolled into one big idea. That will be the day when the mobile will become the mother of all utility devices.

So you will have less clutter on your screen, not have to download a newer app all the time and all you need to do is download this one app; and multitask! This coupled with the ease in bandwidth and lower cost is a sure-shot winner – move this on to digital and you are set – populate this on Social and get the fans going…

So developers out there, here is your chance.

Go for it!

By Ashwani Singla, MD & CEO, PSB, South Asia

PR’s biggest challenge through the years has been its ability to link its impact to the success of the business or even to the change of public perception, the heart of its value proposition. An invaluable management tool used to create preference has been commoditized. The game changer for PR would be to find the answer to its most significant challenge: How does public relations become an invaluable management tool for the CEO?

I believe the answer to this lies in what I call “the science of persuasion”. We need to put this to work. Let’s break it down. Preference is created when people make a choice consistently for a company, its product or service in comparison to others, which means that they have been persuaded to act in preference to the peers. How does this persuasion happen? Rarely have PR professionals focussed on understanding why and how people they want to persuade make choices?

How often do we have answers to some crucial questions and by any means these are not exhaustive. What’s important to our stakeholders? What are their concerns? What do they think? What do they feel? What will make them change their mind? What do we need to do? What do we need to say? What are their trusted sources of information? Who do they look for advice? What and Who would they follow?

This is where Science comes in, the science of public opinion. The science of human behaviour and the science of communication. Sadly, PR has neither studied nor invested in the science and is today paying the price for it. It’s ironic that the founding fathers of the profession were behavioural scientists.

Persuasion is a combination of actions of a company supported by communications. PR has for too long focussed on communications and has little or no role in how the company acts or behaves. I say this from my experience at Penn Schoen Berland (PSB). We have introduced these concepts at PSB to our clients and the response has been very encouraging.

PR needs new a new approach, rooted in science to win hearts and minds.

By N S Rajan, Managing Director, Ketchum Sampark

In a world in which society and business are largely based on the flow of information and ideas, PR professionals will have to gear themselves to the tectonic shift in the way PR in India will be practised in the coming years as we become one global community.

While organizations will need all the assistance to be able to effectively communicate in a world built on dialogue and transparency, the transition from a policy of being closed and communicating by press release, to building genuine human interactions and conversations which is the need of the hour, is far from easy. Guidelines and parameters need to be established and communicated, spokespersons need to be coached and technologies need to be implemented. Of all the professions, PR is better equipped to be able to do this effectively. Yet practitioners also need to extend their capabilities into new domains such as technology and new media besides analytics in order to be able to deliver on this.

The future of marketing as a whole lies with integration. Agencies that master the 360-degree approach to strategy, ensuring consistent messaging across all platforms including advertising, design, social media and traditional marketing activities, will be the leaders in their field. As the lines between traditional PR and advertising are blurring, a holistic approach is more vital than ever. PR practitioners need to represent themselves effectively, proving their ability to keep up with shifts in the industry.

The increasing importance of mobile and social networks mean that PR professionals must evolve their communications beyond the traditional press release and increase the channels through which they are delivered. With all these shifts in the methods and means of communication, the key to credibility is adopting and adapting to new ideas.

If PR practitioners are going to continue to work closely with their marketing brethren and generate significant results for their Organizations or clients, they need to get more comfortable with analytics.

The measurability of outcomes requires communicators to sharpen their analytical skills, because “big data” is here to stay, and it is strongly informing communications. Knowing how to organize and crunch data, correlate results and correctly interpret and apply data are core skills that enable communicators to turn the masses of data available to us into valuable business intelligence and ROI metrics.

The next few years will see organizations being forced to take the blinkers off and put money behind PR professionals who can get the word out to a wider canvas not only tactfully but more importantly with results. That will separate the men from the boys.

By Prabhakar Mundkur, Executive Director, Percept / H

When the Russians invented the Sputnik in 1957 everyone thought this was an innovation in space technology with military applications. As it turned out in retrospect, it was an innovation for communications. It became the first satellite in space, just the size of a basketball, which weighed about 183 pounds, and took 98 minutes to orbit the earth in its elliptical orbit.

The idea of wireless itself is not new. Remember your first radio transistor? Radio waves transmit music, conversations, pictures and data through the air over millions of kilometers. Radio waves are invisible and completely undetectable by humans. Whether we are talking about a cellphone, a cordless phone or a thousand other technologies all of them use radio waves to communicate. Even things like radar and microwave ovens depend on radio waves. So is this the end of where wireless can take us?

All of us have a few dusty power cord tangles around our home. Behind the TV, behind the audio system, behind our desktops… How often have you followed that one particular wire through its various snarls right to the power outlet hoping you are going to pull out the right plug? So I guess you know what I’m getting at. What if you could use those same radio waves that transmit to your cellphone, TV, and wi-fi, to transmit power to your devices? The idea is futuristic but it is not entirely new. The electric toothbrush is a first step in this direction. The toothbrush’s daily exposure to water makes it potentially dangerous were it to charge through a ordinary power charger. Electric toothbrushes recharge through inductive coupling, which again is not new.

So imagine a world without power cords. Now add that to your existing digital world of TV, computers, cellphones, iPods, iPads, Facebook, Twitter and other media.
The future of the internet and internet-based technologies may well be cutting our umbilical cord with the power outlet!

By Jasmin Sohrabji, CEO, Omnicom Media Group

Not sure if I am best qualified to speak on what could be the one big idea that could be a game-changer for news television, and would rather term my thoughts on the subject as ‘back to basics’ than a game-changer! Maybe it exists and maybe it does not…but whenever I switch to a news channel, I see a very qualified anchor engaging with a bunch of people, most of whose point of view I have little or no interest in, and who are definitely not the reason I come to this news channel for! Why can’t we have what was one of the cornerstones of print journalism – The Editorial? I made an effort to read my daily newspaper every morning every single day of my life and stayed loyal to the paper. Why? Not because I need to get the daily news… that I could get anywhere. I did it because I valued the newspaper’s stance on news and its politics. I did it because the newspaper’s editorial helped me shape my own thinking. I read the news to be informed and to form my own perspectives.

News on TV has become a ‘come share your thoughts, everyone’ platform today and frankly, viewers would rather stay loyal to a stronger editorial from the lead editor/anchor than the ability of the news editor to bring guest panels whose point of view viewers have not bought into. Like I said at the start, maybe it’s there and maybe it’s not; but when I switch to my news channel of choice, I should stay on not for the guest panel, but for the very insightful editorial I am about to hear.