MxMIndia

Tag: Akhil Almeida

  • Will be responsible for branding, communication, and digital marketing functions

    Aegon Life appoints Akhil Almeida as marketing head

    By Our Staff

    Akhil Almeida
    Akhil Almeida

    Digital life insurance Aegon Life has announced the appointment of Akhil Almeida as head of marketing. He will be responsible for heading the branding, communication, and digital marketing functions.

    Said Almeida: “Aegon Life is now a 100% digitally focused company. We’re on a journey to radically enhance the insurance buying experience – combining innovative and relevant products, consumer-centric experiences at the right price. We’re leveraging data and consumer insights to support product development and sales efforts, increase awareness and market innovative products.”

    Added Satishwar Balakrishnan, MD & CEO, Aegon Life: “Akhil is a highly skilled leader with experience in leading marketing initiatives for consumer-led brands in India. He has closely studied consumer preferences and evolving digital behaviours, which will help us develop strategies to reach our target audience, keeping the brand essence alive and agile. We look forward to the expertise he brings to the table, which will help us in enhancing Aegon Life’s positioning as India’s first and only fully digital Life Insurance Company.”

     

     

  • … after the Government of India banning Chinese apps

    Time spent on Instagram & Facebook leapfrogs: Kantar

    By A Correspondent

     

    In the wake of the Government of India banning 59 popular Chinese apps, Kantar has released insights on the impact of this ban on consumers’ digital behaviour. The ban as we know, came into effect from June 29, 2020.

     

    Summarising the learnings, Akhil Almeida, Vice President (Insights), Kantar, said: “Although consumers lost access to some of their favourite short-form video sharing apps, the bulk of consumers switched over to alternate platforms in an almost seamless manner. We saw that overall time-spent online was not as strongly impacted as one might have expected, given the size and scale of the affected platforms.”

     

    Key Learnings:

    A. No significant impact on Engagement

    The app-ban impacted platforms with a sizeable following. Given that users were spending hours every week across these platforms, one would have expected to see a dip in the overall time spent online once these platforms were no longer accessible. However, the avg. time-spent dropped only marginally (-6%), indicating that consumers were switching over to rival platforms much faster than anticipated.

     

    B. Big wins for rival platforms

    :: Instagram and Facebook saw an immediate increase in engagement.

    > Avg. Time/Day on Instagram more than doubled (2.3X), and Facebook too saw a significant 35% jump in time-spent on the platform with the bulk of this additional engagement being driven by smaller town consumers.

    > Among the youth audience aged below 24 yrs., Avg. Time/Day on Instagram grew by 35%

     

    :: Sharechat, India’s very own video sharing platform which focuses content around regional languages also witnessed a 2.5X increase in time spent.

    > This has primarily been driven by the younger faction of internet audience (aged below 24 yrs.). They have more than tripled (3.4X) their Avg. Time/Day on Sharechat since the ban came into effect.

     

    C. YouTube is still King

    The most impressive gain was seen on YouTube. Already the most popular digital video platform in the country, it saw a further 25% increase in time-spent!

     

    D. OTT also gets a boost

    Other players also enjoyed their fair share of rise in engagement levels. Hotstar, India’s leading Video OTT player saw their daily time spent grow by over 25%. Time spent in the video OTT space grew by 40% overall once the ban was imposed.