Life ka Balla, a Twitter contest launched by Yuvraj Singh, saw major traction from the followers of Yuvraj. The contest was viewed by more than 1.6 million followers in less than 4 hours. The southpaw, who made an unbelievable comeback in cricket by scoring a magnificent double century in the ongoing Duleep Trophy, encourages the public at large to share their hard-fought moments of life on Twitter through this contest.
The contest has already received overwhelming response from the ever growing fans base of Yuvraj with post including ‘winning best student award’ to ‘climbing the Himalaya’ to ‘buying the dream house’ to ‘getting married and getting a child’. The responses were posted by people of all age group across the globe.
Yuvraj’s tweet: @YUVSTRONG12: Playing for Team India was always my dream. I planned for it and here I am! Truly one of my best #LifeKaBalla moments yet.
Mogae Digital has announced the launch of Star’s Laughter Challenge on Mobile. Set to go live on various mobile networks this week, the animated toony version of Star TV’s humour show will be available to Indian mobile users in easily accessible form of short two-minute videos, created with original voice tracks of various artists.
Commenting on the launch, Tanya Goyal, Executive Director, Mogae Group, “Animated Laughter Challenge jokes refresh the magic created by the original show. The animated caricatures add a new comic dimension to the existing jokes and users would love watching them again and again, that too right on their mobile screens. Mogae has invested more than 12 months into creating the animated Laughter content, specifically for mobile devices.”
Mogae recently launched its Talking Comics on various DTH platforms, which, the company’s communique says, Â have been received very well by viewers. Mogae’s mobile comics with over 2000 mythology, history and humour stories are already live across various telcos. “Our momics were created for the mobile. Hence UI and downloads are designed for good consumer experience,” Â she added.
Mogae has a 40-man studio dedicated to creating the mobile comics (momics) content at its Gurgaon HQ. “We will start a second round of creative development in Q1 2013 with another 2000 new stories to be created”, adds Ms Goyal.
Mogae Digital is part of the Mogae Group, co-owned by Sandeep and Tanya Goyal, erstwhile JV partners of Dentsu in India.
As part of a new global rebranding campaign, Accor’s ibis brand family of economy hotels is launching the world’s biggest virtual pillow fight, with the “ibis Pillow Fight Party” Facebook application. The campaign, developed by Media Contacts Singapore, invites netizens in Asia-Pacific to discover the ibis family and stand the chance to win hotel stays at ibis hotels in popular destinations in the region.
The campaign, which targets Facebook users in the Asia-Pacific region, invites consumers to discover the unique personality of the ibis brand family in a fun and creative way. The inspiration for the campaign is the brand’s iconic pillow logo.
The pillow fight runs until November 21, 2012 and all fans of the ibis Facebook page in Asia-Pacific can take part in the fun. The first step is to become a fan of the ibis Facebook page and connect to the ibis Pillow Fight Party application. Next, participants create customized pillows and craft personalised messages to their friends. Then, the mayhem begins, as players throw their pillows at each other to score points – each virtual “throw†earns one point, while each pillow thrown back at them nets them two points.
At the end of the six-week campaign, the top ten highest-scoring players will win a three-night stay at selected ibis family hotels in popular Asia-Pacific destinations including India, Bangkok, Bali and Singapore. In addition, each week one randomly “Mystery Pillow†also rewards one player with a hotel stay.
“We are very excited to celebrate the rebranding of the ibis brand family with the launch of the ibis Pillow Fight Party Facebook application,†says Jens Uwe Parkitny, Vice President, Digital Marketing & Distribution, Accor Asia-Pacific.
“Given the rapidly evolving social media landscape – and its growing importance for reaching consumers – in Asia-Pacific, we believe that this application is one of the best ways to introduce the ibis family to our target customers.â€
“In a way, the Facebook community in the region mirrors the ibis brand – energetic, savvy, connected and on-the-go,†Parkitny added. “We think this application will energize our Facebook fans and help them discover the ibis family in a fun way.â€
Gautam Dutt, Managing Director of Media Contacts Singapore, said: “We wanted to use social media to communicate the rebranding undertaken by ibis in an engaging and innovative fashion. We had a great time working on this application and we are hoping that Facebook users in Asia-Pacific will have as much fun in interacting with this as we had in creating it.â€
Today the ibis brand family has 178 hotels in Asia-Pacific, including seven ibis hotels in India.
The ibis Pillow Fight Party Facebook application can be played by Facebook users based in Asia-Pacific on desktop browsers and on iOS and Android mobile devices – and is available in English, Thai and Bahasa Indonesia. Fans can take part in the pillow fight and learn more about the ibis brand family by visiting the ibis Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/ibis).
About Accor
Accor, the world’s leading hotel operator and market leader in Europe, is present in 92 countries with nearly 3,500 hotels and 440,000 rooms. Accor’s broad portfolio of hotel brands – Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Adagio, ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget and hotelF1 – provide an extensive offer from luxury to budget. With more than 160,000 employees in Accor brand hotels worldwide, the Group offers its clients and partners 45 years of know-how and expertise.
About Media Contacts
Media Contacts (“MC”) is the global interactive media network of Havas Digital – the interactive division of Havas Media. MC provides data driven media solutions across all interactive channels: digital, direct response, relationship based media.
MC brings together professional expertise, proven strategic insight, and Artemis®, Havas Digital advanced proprietary technology platform, to maximize impact of the advertiser’s interactive media investment.
Since 1997, and in 42 countries in 54 cities across Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia, Media Contacts has been the trusted partner of more than 400 clients, including the market leaders in many industries, such as Air France, Danone, Expedia, Fidelity, France Telecom, ING Direct, Nike, Peugeot/Citröen, Repsol, Reckitt Benckiser, Sears, and Vodafone, amongst others.
Please go to www.mediacontacts.com for more information
Press contacts:
Accor Asia-Pacific
Chris Messer
Sustainable Development & Public Relations Manager
Online apparel brand Zovi.com has announced, in collaboration with Microsoft, the launch of an all-new shopping application built specifically for Windows 8-based PCs and tablets to coincide with the global launch of Windows 8. The app features innovative content presentation and provides a unique shopping experience.
The Zovi app is primarily designed for Windows 8 devices and tablets and will be available for free on the Windows Store. It enables users to purchase apparel and accessories for both men and women. Users will have access to high-quality images on the product pages for all items on display and can make payment via cash on delivery.
The Zovi app was showcased at the Windows 8 India launch on October 26. Speaking about the collaboration, Manish Chopra, CEO, Zovi.com said, “The Zovi app has been designed to leverage the aesthetic elegance and convenience of the Windows 8 User Interface to offer a unique experience in shopping for fashion and lifestyle online on Zovi.com.”
Commenting on the launch of the app, Amrish Goyal, Director – Windows Business Group, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. said, “Windows 8 provides a fast and fluid experience that makes apps shine. The Windows Store has an amazing array of apps at launch, and Zovi offers a compelling shopping experience.”
India has witnessed huge growth in e-commerce in the past one and a half years where customers online have been bombarded with innumerable offerings. But while many see the space as being crowded there are a few that are making a mark by way of their positioning. Like Crazeal.com, a portal that operates in the daily deals category space.
As Crazeal.com celebrates a year of existence in India there are a lot of things that are going right for the portal like it has managed to sell more than 5 lakh deal vouchers and the fact that it has worked with more than 3000 unique merchants across the country.
As it enters year two of operations, Ankur Warikoo, CEO, Groupon India is clear on the strategy to take the company far ahead. The strategy, he says, is to focus on the quality of deals as only then can it be in the business for a long time. “If you give the best quality of deals, customers will stay. We focus on one deal a day and make that special.†In an interaction with MxMIndia.com, Mr Warikoo says that Crazeal.com is in the market of products, travel and local services – and all three of them are growing at such a pace that for the next 1-2 years we are simply looking at consolidating base in the three.
1 How inspirational has been the journey for Crazeal in India as it completed a year of existence in India recently?
We entered the market just last year and have grown tremendously to reach the #1 rank in the daily deals category (as per ComScore data). We are experiencing super-normal growth quarter-on-quarter and repeat buying pattern of close to 50%. Additionally, we are recognized as the best destination for high quality deals, by our consumers, which is a fantastic achievement in just 12 months.
We have attained this mark within one year of our existence in India because of the deal quality! Groupon globally works with the best merchants and offers the best deal structures to our customers, while solving business problems for the merchants. This has been the same philosophy India has worked on.
We are strongly committed to the Indian market and are also launching our global robust technology to cater the needs of the merchants in India. The Merchant Center is an intelligent application that provides merchants a platform to evaluate and track their performance. The launch of this technological innovation in India will mark yet another milestone in our growth trajectory while setting unmatched global standards for the Indian e-commerce industry.
2 How would you analyze your growth – both organic and inorganic, over the past year?
I would like to present some key milestones:
Featured more than 15,000Â deals in 12 months
Average transaction value highest in the category
More than 5 lakh deal vouchers sold
Worked with more than 3000 unique merchants across the country
Sell a voucher once every 33 seconds
3 The space has seen a sudden spurt in activity with a number of players stepping in with their offerings. How uniquely is Crazeal positioned among its competitive peers?Â
Competition is always healthy as it leads to the overall growth of the industry. For me, the real competition for Crazeal are other Groupon countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hongkong. India has witnessed a huge growth in e-commerce in the past one and a half years and customers online have been bombarded with innumerable offerings. India became too crowded too soon and has been molded into a discount deal chasing set-up where merchants do not really understand how their businesses can benefit. The main objective of our channel is marketing. From day one, we have focused on having the right set of merchants on board. We start with city planning, doing merchant reviews followed by personal visits to experience what the merchant has to offer before closing the partnership deal eventually.
4 Will you be laying more emphasis around marketing & promotions activity going forward? What is the budget that you have allocated for the same?
Our strategy is to focus on the quality of deals as only then can we be in the business for a long time. If you give the best quality of deals, customers will stay. We focus on one deal a day and make that special. We are in the market of products, travel and local services – and all three of them are growing at such a pace that for the next 1-2 years we are simply looking at consolidating our base in the three.
We will continue to entice consumers with our experiential marketing campaigns. For the birthday week we launched a special consumer campaign to surprise consumers with irresistible raffles every day. Up for grabs were 5gm Tanishq Gold Coins, iPads, Shoppers Stop gift vouchers, Sony Bravia- LED TV, Tata Nano and more.
Previously, we have run ‘larger than life’ raffles including an all paid trip to Las Vegas for 2 at the Bellagio, and a free Harley Davidson bike which saw tremendous enthusiasm from consumers across the country.
We recently hosted a special screening for Hollywood blockbusters – Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises across 9 cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh & Pune) and gave consumers and exclusive preview of our ad campaign. The special screening involved Crazeal team manning the ticket booking stalls, addressing the entire crowd before the start of the movie and steering on-ground activities to give them a flavor of Crazeal’s personalized services. Multiple on-ground touch points were also created to increase its brand presence and engage with consumers in a fun way. The tickets were priced at a 50% discount and the hall was booked exclusively for Crazeal consumers!
Tell us a bit about your just-announced application Merchant Center. What is its USP? Â
As a commitment to the Indian market and to drive efficiency in operations, Crazeal has launched an intelligent application to provide merchants with a platform to evaluate and track their promotion performance.
Each of our vouchers are bar-coded and have a unique QR code that helps merchants recognize customers who have bought their deal. It can also be done through our merchant mobile applications available on the iOS and Android platform.
No internet company in India offers this kind of technology to their partners, free of cost!
Merchant Center enables merchants to
Track the number of vouchers their deal sells daily
Check how many vouchers are redeemed in each of their outlets in different locations
Get real time feedback from customers on their experience at the merchant’s outlet
Determine how many customers would recommend the merchant to others
Redeem the vouchers to enable their payments, on a real-time basis
5 How do you see the e-commerce space panning out in the near future in India?
Everyone is craving an eShare these days; corporates are looking at diverse product mix, merchants joining hands to offer strong value propositions and consumers shifting to online purchase for obvious reasons. This ePie surely has an opportune slice for all. And with 100 million internet users supporting the e-revolution, the total number of transactions in India is set to take a leap from the present 8-10 million to 40 million by 2015.
The daily deal websites comprise India’s fastest growing web vertical. The coupon business is 16.5% of the total e-commerce audience in India, growing at the rate of 629 per cent with 7.6 million unique users a month in November 2011, as per comScore report. This clearly shows that Indian consumers who were earlier apprehensive about shopping online are now browsing more often to make high value purchases and avail experiential offers.
Internet has played a silent but important role in giving a boost to India’s consumption story. With the advent of 3G, telecommunications and high mobile penetration, e-tailing in India has intensified closing many gaps between urban and rural consumer’s tastes, preferences and consumption patterns. Currently 60 percent of our sales come from six metros with remaining 40 per cent from non-metros. We see this trend catching up fast as consumers increasingly aspire to purchase brands and lifestyle products like never before.
Tier I cities has already seen an explosion in travel and products related e-commerce. They will now witness the next big thing called local commerce. If one thinks of it, this new category is the most frequently consumed category in offline retail, which will now move to online.
Tier 2 and 3 cities are lagging behind, but not in terms of growth. Products e-commerce has made major inroads driven by the ease of buying online and the massive assortment. Travel is following suit. However, local services might take some time as for that to develop as it requires a minimum number of high quality merchants to be present. With large restaurant chains now expanding and the food, wellness industry growing substantially there is a huge scope here.
The Indian M&E industry, with revenues of about 805 billion INR (17.2 billion USD) in 2011, is set to grow robustly over the next few years on the back of steady macro-economic growth, rising spending power and positive demographic indicators. The industry revenues are expected to reach 1,764 billion INR (37.6 billion USD) by 2016, with a CAGR of about 17% from 2012 to 2016, according to India Entertainment and Media Outlook 2012.
According to the study, which was released by CII and PwC during the Media and Entertainment Summit 2012, the television and print segments continue to be the largest contributors to the industry, accounting for 66% of the total revenue. Internet access contributed 14%, up from 11% in 2010. However, the contribution from the print and film segments have reduced marginally, as year-on-year growth rates have been lower than the industry average. The internet access and gaming segments have been the fastest growing, with annual growth rates of 57% and 33%, respectively
The report further lists that the Indian E&M industry has been one of the fastest growing, followed by countries such as China, Russia and Brazil. Going forward, the industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17% between 2012 and 2016, to reach a size of 1,764 billion INR. Internet access, advertising and gaming are projected to be the fastest growing avenues, each growing at a CAGR higher than 20%. The revenue from advertising is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.4% to reach INR 525 billion in 2016, significantly up from INR 279 billion in 2011.
The television segment is expected to retain its position as the largest E&M segment in the country, with an estimated CAGR of 15% till 2016. Given the high penetration of mobile internet in the country, robust growth has been projected in internet access till 2016 (given the current under-penetration), which will overtake the print sector by 2013, in terms of industry revenues, and become the second-largest segment in the Indian E&M industry. The print segment is expected to grow at 9% for the next five years, and claim 17% of market share by 2017.
The report recommends that given the high potential growth, the industry should focus on collaboration and innovation to achieve the target numbers.
L to R: Uday Kumar Varma, I&B Secretary, Chandrajit Banerjee, DG, CII; Andy Kaplan, President, Worldwide Network, Sony Picture Television; Amit Khanna, Chairman, CII National Committee on M & E and Chairman, Reliance Entertainment; Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India and Ronnie Screwvala, MD, The Walt Disney Co
By Ananya Saha
CII Media and Entertainment Summit 2012, India – The Big Picture discussed critical issues such as cause and effect of market-driven approach in the media and entertainment (M&E) sector, censorship hurdles, and the roadmap for $100 billion Indian M&E industry. The two-day conference saw the who’s who of the sector take a close look at the critical role that M&E plays in India.
“We are drunk on our own volumes: largest number of newspapers in circulation, largest number of television viewers at 400 million, 100 million digital consumers. Digital, in particular, is an indictment of our creative and strategic limitations – we have 600 million mobile screens and yet we do not have a unique content proposition for the medium,” Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India, said in his keynote address, adding, “Our ability to convert that into corresponding value is disappointing.â€
“Media and industry is a globally growing industry – but our participation in that eco-system is zero and India is hardly factored into the global thought process of technology or content,” he added. Similarly, on the domestic front, the industry is yet to fully unlock the potential of the vast Indian market.” The size of India’s Media and Entertainment industry, which includes television, print, radio, digital media, was pegged at $15 billion at the end of 2011. The industry is growing at around 14 percent a year. “At this rate, we will still take 15 years to get to $100 billion. Obviously, we want to get there much faster. The question is: Why and how do we do that?” Mr Shankar quipped.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma, Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, The Walt Disney Co MD Ronnie Screwvala, Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd CEO Sudhanshu Vats, Sony Picture Television President for the worldwide network Andy Kaplan, News Corp Sr Executive VP David Hill, NDTV Group CEO and Executive Director Vikram Chandra, Times Television Network MD and CEO Sunil Lulla, Sony Entertainment Television CEO Man Jit Singh, Times Group CEO Ravi Dhariwal, Prasar Bharti CEO Jawahar Sircar, eminent journalists such as Nik Gowing, Vir Sanghvi, Vinod Mehta and Aroon Purie shared their views at the summit.
Uday Kumar Varma, Secretary, MIB, recent decision of the government to allow 74 per cent FDI in DTH, IPTV, mobile TV etc. are some of the steps that have been taken in this direction and underscored that those steps would be game changers. He said that many positive steps would be taken in revamping the FM Radio to enhance its reach and content. The empowered Group of Ministers are looking into some of the grey areas in the auction of 839 new FM radio stations across over 290 towns and cities in the country. “We hope to complete the auction of the first tranche of the stations by the end of the financial year,” he added.
Day 1 of the summit saw Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha make a scathing attack on trial by media and said that most often such debates are based on half- truths and imaginations. Nik Gowing, Presenter, BBC World News said, “Media is greatly influenced by technology and speed in which the information travels. Political leaders and corporations have to realize that to become a leader in the technology driven environs, where they would be put to scrutiny not necessarily by the media but also by public at large, through twitters and other social media, was an onerous task.” Vinod Mehta said, “What we require is blending good business practices with news collection and dissemination, which is a formidable task of media industry.” Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, Times Group, said that media is judged by its contemporary relevance and trust it builds with the general public.
Broadband penetration to reach 600 mn by 2020
Speaking on the panel for ‘The Game Changers: Taking M&E industry to $100 bn’, R Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Information Technology and Chairman Telecom Commission said the government is taking proactive steps for enhancing the broadband penetration in the country from the present level of 20 million to 600 million by 2020 so as to cover the entire breadth and length of the country.
“The government is investing Rs 20,000 crore over the next few years for strengthening the broadband network in the country. In its wake, such massive investment will give a boost to the digitization, cloud-based services and convergence to reach out to the common man in the far flung areas,” he said. The government’s role, he stressed, would be that of a facilitator and the last mile movers would be cable and telecom service providers.
Manjit Singh, CEO, Sony Entertainment Television maintained that advertisement and subscription income from media business should be at a 50:50 basis and a business model based on these parameters would help penetration of broadband, inflow of more FDI and the government would stand to gain from realization of more taxes. The ratio of TV advertisement to GDP in India is abysmally poor as compared to developed countries and hoped that the stress on subscription would give a sustainable and healthy revenue stream to the media business. Narayan Rao, Executive Vice-Chairperson, NDTV said, “For the ambitious target to reach 100 bn, the industry needs to recognise three things: advertisers need to recognise that as audiences have grown, and thus, rates also need to grow; the broadcasters need to get rid of carriage fees; and the broadcasters need to look at alternate sources o revenue, which can currently come only from subscription revenues.â€
TGBCL’s MD and CEO Sunil Lulla said the industry needs to dream a collective dream to reach the $100 bn mark. “The industry needs to collaborate, partner and compete for a healthier industry status,” he said. Smitha Jha, Leader, Entertainment & Media practice, PWC India, observed that the game changers in the media industry would be advertisement, subscription and infrastructure and policy framework. In India, she said that the consumer spends only $7 per month as subscription as against US$ 500 in the US. Also, to help industry to achieve the potential, infrastructure has to be toned up, such as rolling out of 3G and 4G coupled with strengthening broadband network.
Policy Conundrum
Rahul Khullar, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) stressed on the need for a separate regulator for content and carriage. He also said that the Indian market should not be compared to Western markets and stressed on the fact that India is a price-sensitive market. Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO, Tata Sky pointed out, “We are most heavily taxed business in the industry. We pay close to 30-35 percent as taxes, exclusive of the import duty on set-top boxes.” Agreeing with Mr Nagpal, SN Sharma, CEO of Den Networks said, “Taxation is going through the roof, and ultimately consumers will have to bear the costs.”
Anuj Gandhi, Group CEO, IndiaCast, opined, “As we progress with digitisation, it is important that the issue of carriage fees is sorted out. We need to get the ARPUs right to be on the path to reach $100 bn-industry.” The panel also pointed out how the policies in India have not found the regulation support. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, Contributing Editor, Business Standard said that tax holidays can do wonders for stabilising the industry. She also pointed out how regulation is required in the areas of cross-media monopoly; how 50-60 percent of media buying is concentrated in the hands of one agency and the ownership of news media.
In response to the worries voiced by the panel, Mr Khullar said that the regulator is aiming at bringing out a white paper on cross-media ownership, which will be done with prior consultation. He also said that as digitisation progresses, the industry should foresee and prepare on changing business models.
Managing M&E in digital era
As digitization takes last steps towards sunset date, issues related to convergence have been taking centre stage at various discussions and forums. The panel on convergence issues chaired Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media was of the view that consumption and monetising of content, global IT systems, infrastructure and policies that deal with convergence need to be developed to provide clarity to industry players as well as consumers.
Vikram Chandra, Group CEO and ED, NDTV, said, “With convergence and real-time interactivity taking shape, the only question that remains to be answered is how do we monetise the properties.†Vijay Lazarus, President, IMI pointed out how in absence of policy regulations, music became the first victim of technology in the form of piracy. “But then knowing there was no turning back, the music industry also embraced technology,†Mr Lazarus pointed out.
The panel agreed that innovation in convergence will result in monetisation.
The last panel on Sports and Entertainment focused on whether sports broadcasting in India is only about cricket or is there an opportunity much beyond which lies untested and unexplored. “The government, corporations, media and civil society should come forward to support sports beyond cricket with a long term roadmap,” maintained Atul Singh, CEO, Coca Cola India. He also hinted that dependence on one form of sports is not the ideal approach since that would lead to unbalanced growth of sports in the country.
Mr Singh cautioned the corporations not to look for immediate results and dividends from sponsored games other than cricket. David Hill, Senior Executive Vice President, New Corp said, “Sports is predominantly a middle-class indulgence and with India’s middle class touching one billion by 2025, sports will receive a lot of attention in the future.” Referring to the lack of corporate support in India, Harish Thawani, Executive Chairman, Nimbus Communications said that corporates allot adequate budgets for CSR and massive commitment for advertisements but hardly any when it comes to sports.
While there is no doubt that the Indian M&E industry is seeing unprecedented growth, the question is whether the industry will be able to shed policy inhibitions and grow to the $100-billion-stage by 2016.
The Internet Economy Watch Report for the month of September 2012, released by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) indicates a marginal growth of 7 percent in online booking of air tickets when compared with the numbers of corresponding month last year. Air tickets booked online in September 2012 were 1.55 million as compared to 1.46 million in September 2011. The growth rate is the lowest when compared with the numbers of the previous months of the current financial year. The online bookings on irctc.com witnessed y-o-y growth of 17 percent with 5.77 million online bookings in September 2012 as compared to 4.92 million in September 2011.
Source: IAMAI/ Online Travel Portals
According to the data captured from prominent e-tailing sites in the monthly tracker, the online user visit to mobile phone and book segment has increased by 17 percent and 27 percent respectively, when compared to the numbers of corresponding month last year. A significant increase has been registered in the online user visit to branded apparel segment. The number of hits has increased to 5.99 million in September 2012 from 4.62 million in September 2011. The online user visit to footwear segment increased from 3.94 million in September 2011 to 4.49 million in September 2012, a y-o-y increase of 14 percent.
Source: IAMAI/e-Commerce sites
In September 2012, the number of resume uploads on job portals and profile uploads on matrimonial sites has indicated a y-o-y growth of 6 percent and 13 percent respectively. While the number of resume uploads in September 2012 was 1.75 million as compared to 1.65 million in corresponding month last year, the number of profile upload on matrimonial websites was 1.18 million in September 2012 as compared to 1.04 million September 2011.
Source: IAMAI/ Vertical Classifieds
The monthly internet tracker by IAMAI is based on absolute numbers captured from various relevant sites, and encapsulates online usage for E-tailing, Online Travel and Vertical Classifieds.
Sunny Leone emerged as the ‘most dangerous celebrity’ in Indian cyberspace this year, followed by Katrina Kaif; according to security technology company McAfee. For the sixth year in a row, McAfee researched popular culture’s most famous people, finding the riskiest celebrity sportsmen, actors and politicians across the web to reveal the 2012 rendition of ‘Most Dangerous Celebrity’ research. In the India ranking this year, Sunny Leone displaced Katrina Kaif, who owned this title in the 2011 edition of this annual research.
Commenting on the findings of the report, Lubna Markar, Sr. Marketing Manager India & South Asia, McAfee,said, “Cyber criminals continue to leverage top celebrities to lure people to websites with malicious software. This year too, we saw cyber crooks leveraging Bollywood stars whereby the maximum number of malicious software laden sites pertained to Sunny Leone. This testifies her top position as the most dangerous celebrity in Indian cyberspace in 2012.”
Cyber criminals follow the latest trends, often using the names of popular celebrities to lure people to malicious sites designed to steal passwords and personal information. Fans looking for results on search engines using strings such as ‘name of celebrity’ combined with words like ‘free downloads’, ‘hot pictures’, ‘screen savers’, and ‘videos’ are at risk of running themselves into such sites. This year, searching for a celebrity name with “sex videos” and “free downloads” as part of the search term resulted in the highest number of risky sites.
The study for ‘Most Dangerous Celebrity’ used the McAfee SiteAdvisor site rating which indicates the sites that are risky to search for celebrity names on the web and calculate an overall risk percentage. The top 10 celebrities in India from this year’s study with the highest risk percentages are:
Rank
Celebrity
1
Sunny Leone -This sexy Canadian model/actress who made headlines with her presence in the celebrity reality show Bigg Boss, ranks first with 9.95% chances of luring people into clicking on malicious links.
2
Katrina Kaif – India’s ‘chikni chameli’Â was the most dangerous Indian celebrity of 2011, but has slipped down to the 2nd position this year with a risk percentile of 8.25%
3
Kareena Kapoor – The 3rd Most Dangerous Celebrity and winner of six film fare awards has a 6.67% possibility of making users fall into a trap of malware laden websites.
4
Priyanka Chopra – This former Miss World who has been the reigning queen of Bollywood occupies the 4th position on the Most Dangerous Celebrities list with a risk percentile of 6.5%.
5
Bipasha Basu – With Raaz 3, this Bengali bombshell has moved up the ranking from 8th in 2011 to the 5th position in 2012. She has a 5.58% percentile of leading users to a malicious site.
6
Vidya Balan- After her ‘Dirty Picture’, Vidya Balan has a 5.33 % chance of leading users to malicious sites. The versatile Indian actress has marked her presence even in the cyber space.
7
Deepika Padukone – This sultry actress of ‘Cocktail’ fame, was the 2nd most dangerous celebrity in the year 2011, but has plummeted to 7th  position this year, with a 4.92% chance of being led to a malicious website.
8
Salman Khan – One of the most sought after stars in Bollywood, Salman Khan has redefined the trends of the Hindi film industry with his roles in movies such as Dabangg and Ek Tha Tiger. With a risk percentile of 4.83%, he is on the eighth position in our Most Dangerous Celebrities ranking.
9
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan – Touted as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, is the ninth most dangerous celebrity in India with a risk percentile of 4.58%
10
Poonam Pandey – The Kingfisher calendar girl who was also amongst the top 8 contestants in ‘Gladrags 2010’, has a risk percentile of 4.25% and is the tenth most dangerous celebrity
#1 Work out where your readers are going to be in the future. The eyeballs should decide where the advertisers go. Monetize the space accordingly.
#2 Think of advertisers and readers jointly. The content that they value will help develop content accordingly on various platforms whether it is mobile or tablet.
#3 Look at all the new technologies that are coming in, such as augmented reality, QR codes, mobile payments. Get the right blend of technologies to work with the audiences.
#4 Bundle all the digital subscriptions to drive home more revenues, and give more opportunities to the advertisers.
#5 Experiment and research to work out the digital model according to the market you operate in. Only trial-and-error can help you decide on the right model.
Mark Challinor is Director of Mobile Platforms, Telegraph Media Group, London
Print readership is declining the world over. And digital subscribers are rising. Does this mean that the digital medium would lead to closing down of print editions? Not according to the speakers and attendees at that The Digital Innovation Summit 2012 by INMA.
Yasmin Namini
While Newsweek made a smart move by announcing its move to the web-only space, the news print industry is taking it slow and steady. Yasmin Namini, Senior VP – Marketing and Circulation and GM, Reader Applications, The New York Times pointed out how NYT has been gaining readers with their innovative paid digital content, such as, repeated payment gateways screen and 10-articles-free-per-month-limit after which subscription is necessary. NT registered 56.6 lakh subscribers till Q3 of 2012. She said that NYT has been using cross-bundling approach to optimise profitability.
Mark Challinor
Mark Challinor, Director of Mobile Platforms, Telegraph Media Group,Londonwas upbeat about the usage of personal mobile devices and iPads. He said, “There are more iPhones sold in the world (4.6 seconds) than babies born in the world (4.2 seconds). This gives us a clear idea of the future. Today’s 2-5-year-olds learn to operate the iPhone and iPad much before they learn to tie shoelaces.” He supported the fact that remains important, and the future of newspapers depends on reinvention of news industry.
Indian newspapers too are smart enough to invest in their digital properties to receive huge dividends in the future. Earl J Wilkinson, Executive Director and CEO, INMA shared smart bets forIndia, “Make consumer pay more, now and create digital company outside your current company, in case the existing structures do not support digitalisation and be willing to cannibalize yourself.” He also cautioned against making digital an excuse to stop investing in print.
vasant-gokhale
Vasant Gokhale, Head, Mobile Services, ABP Pvt Ltd shared the mobile strategy that his company had adapted for the non-resident Bengalis. With an aspiration to reach out to wider Bengali audience settled out of East of India, Ananda Bazaar Patrika started its paid digital content three months ago targeting only non-resident Bengalis. The standard service of $5 per month and exclusive packages were launched to create a subscriber base around Durga Puja. Mr Gokhale shared “We have been growing 30% month-on-month, without spending a penny on marketing. The growing base is the result of our unique Bengali content and offering.”
Bharat Gupta
Bharat Gupta, Executive President – Marketing, Jagran Prakashan Ltd said, “With our unique content mix, out Hindi website has been gaining more traffic. We find Facebook very helpful in engaging our users, targeting new demographic areas and making headlines of the print publication viral.” He added that the main focus for his publication on social media was “not to gather the ‘likes’ rather get spoken about on social media.” Puneet Gupt, VP and Head of TOI.com shared how The Times of India digital story has seen growth thanks to engagement, rewards and response to consumer tastes.
Grzegorz Piechota
While Grzegorz Piechota, News Editor, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland shared how the future of journalism and communities in digital age depends on campaigning and bringing the society together through causes; Marcelo Benez, Advertising Director of Folha de S Paulo, Brazil talked about where digital solution fit in the multi-media advertising mix. According to him, digital and print will co-exist in the future and help with the growth of each other. The group recently launched a magazine exclusively for Tablets, called Fohla 10 that can be consumed through various digital devices.
Pit Gottschalk
Mr Benez noted, “Of the total advertising pie in the country, television still claims the maximum share of 64.8%, newspaper follows with 11.7% and internet gets 5.2% of this ad pie.” Thus, to get maximum benefit, he advocated that a news company should be able to deliver their content on all platforms. He also said that the news company should engage advertisers not only through content but multi-platform special projects as well. Concurring with his thoughts, Pit Gottschalk, Director – Content Management, Axel Springer,Germany, said that news companies need to integrate digital as much as in their companies.
Talking about his brand, Bild, Mr Gottschalk said, “Our digitisation strategy focussed on our three strengths: content, classifieds and marketing. In 2004, we defined our core strategy and created portfolio of market leaders in various geographies corresponding with our core strengths.” He further added that Bild used the classic newspaper strategies to monetise, and “we have reach 47.49 million readers everyday from 12 million few years back.” Bild’s goal of generating 50% of all income digitally has been reached, according to Mr Gottschalk.
The one-day conference ended on high note with speakers agreeing coherently on the fact that opportunity to gain advertisers and readers will arise from print and digital integration. While it might be a long-term strategy for India given the fact that cover price of printed newspapers is so less but this is just the right time to get digital.
Digital media conglomerate Smile Vun Group (SVG) and Gruner+Jahr’s (a Bertelsmann division) Indian entity, Networkplay, have announced the sales transaction of the mobile ad network, Seventynine.
Seventynine will be an independent business unit under the Networkplay umbrella, with its management reporting directly into the board. The co-founders of Seventynine, Chirag Shah and Deven Dharamdasani will continue to lead the business post the buy-out.
Seventynine was launched in April 2012 by Smile Vun Group with an extensive focus on rich media inventory especially videos and HTML5 to enrich user experience. The mobile ad-network recorded its first milestone in July 2012 when it clocked record growth by serving 700 Mn ad requests within three months of operation.
Seventynine is currently serving 1.8 Bn ad requests and focusing actively on building inventories across mobile applications and mobile web. Apart from a phenomenal ad-platform, Seventynine also possesses Seventynine App Analytics Service and Predictive Analytics Engine.
Manish Vij, Founder, Smile Vun Group, commented on the buyout, “SVG is committed to introducing path-breaking businesses in the digital media industry and accelerating their journey to success. Our seven months association with Seventynine has been extremely successful leading it to be the fastest growing mobile ad-network in India. Seventynine has great potential as a business and we are certain that its association with Gruner+Jahr will provide a global platform for the business to grow further. This alliance is the beginning of our relationship with Gruner+Jahr.”
Dr Torsten-Jörn Klein, President, Gruner+Jahr International said, “The expansion of Networkplay in the mobile space through the acquisition of Seventynine is clearly following our strategic commitment to grow our mobile business in the Indian market. G+J believes that in the Indian market, one of the fastest growing digital markets, the mobile segment will gain increasing importance. G+J is looking forward to further expand in that area together with Networkplay and the Seventynine team.”
Commenting on the development, Seventynine’s co-founders said, “We are excited about our association with Networkplay and being a part of the international Gruner+Jahr and Bertelsmann family. We would like to express our gratitude to Smile Vun Group for believing in our vision and goals and helping us grow at such a phenomenal rate. We are certain that association with Networkplay would be an impetus for our business and aid our objective of becoming the leading player in the mobile advertising space in India and beyond.”
Seventynine is G+J’s second digital acquisition in India after Networkplay, which was acquired by G+J earlier this year. Gruner+Jahr intends to strengthen its digital presence in the Indian market and Seventynine’s acquisition will help G+J and Networkplay fortify their competence and position in the mobile space. In the new group, Seventynine’s immediate focus would be technology, product and expansion in South East Asia and Middle East.
Mogae Digital has announced the launch of Star’s Laughter Challenge on Mobile. Set to go live on various mobile networks this week, the animated toony version of Star TV’s humour show will be available to Indian mobile users in easily accessible form of short two-minute videos, created with original voice tracks of various artists.
By A Correspondent
By Johnson Napier
By Mark Challinor
