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Tag: Hiren Pandit

  • Former Group M entertainment and sports specialist joins SE TransStardia Pvt Ltd as COO

    Hiren Pandit joins TransStadia as COO

    By  A Correspondent

     

    Sports infrastructure firm SE TransStadia Pvt. Ltd has announced the appointment of Hiren Pandit as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this, Mr Pandit was at GroupM and amongst the many roles he played there, one of them was to drive the entertainment and sports practice (ESP).

     

    Said Udit Sheth, Managing Director and CEO: “TransStadia has swiftly grown over the last four years. To manage this growth and further build the business we wanted to build a strong leadership team. I have known Hiren for some time now and believe his experience and passion are the right combination to lead TransStadia in achieving its objectives..”

     

    Said Mr Pandit, “I am passionate about sports and the commitment TransStadia has shown in this space is how I made this decision to join them”.

     

    TransStadia has diversified interests across sports academies,intellectual property rights, consulting and infrastructure. Over the last few years TransStadia has worked at the grassroots level to develop talent and has launched sports academies in various states.

     

  • Advertisers at L’Oreal, Nokia, Samsung, M&M and Vodafone jostling for ad spots on popular comedy programmes

    Advertisers serious about backing comedy

    By Vijaya Rathore

     

    Laugh and the viewers -and advertisers – laugh with you. That’s a formula working like a charm for broadcasters who are riding on the increasing popularity of comedy programming.

     

    And with a record 151 million people watching comedy shows on Hindi general entertainment channels in the first 10 months of 2012 -as per data from TAM Media – marketers at Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, Nokia, Samsung, M&M and Vodafone are jostling for ad spots on a variety of standups and sitcoms on Hindi, English and even regional entertainment channels.

     

    Popular shows like Comedy Circus now sell on a par with primetime soaps, pulling in as much as Rs 2.5 lakh for a 10-second spot. The year-old Comedy Central channel, which has 150 advertisers on board, is developing local content and is expanding its network beyond the top seven cities of the country.

     

    According to TAM data sourced from a broadcaster, the comedy genre was the second-largest contributor to ratings, after action/thrillers between week 49 and week 52 in six metros. Among English programmes, half of the top 10 shows were comedies in seven metros in this period.

     

    These include comedies like Everybody Loves Raymond, Last Man Standing and How I met your Mother.

     

    Reliance Broadcast Network, a part of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group, is working on producing Prime Nights, a stand-up comedy property. The company is currently engaged in discussions with sponsors. “We will do onground events and televise them in order to reach out to a larger audience,” says Tarun Katial, CEO, RBNL, which has a joint venture with BIG Studios. Says Abraham Koshy, professor at IIM-A: “The audience may enjoy seeing others’ sorrows on national TV, but such programmes may not be popular in terms of brand association. Brands prefer to associate with happiness.”

     

    “Every brand wants to get associated with comedy,” adds Rohit Gupta, president network sales, MSM India, which has channels like Sony Entertainment, SET Max and SAB TV in its bouquet.

     

    SAB TV is a Hindi channel focused entirely on comedy, and Sony TV has Comedy Circus, a reality-based stand-up comedy show that is one of its most popular programmes. Comedy Central, the English entertainment TV channel owned by Viacom18 Media, which completes a year this week, has done “exceptionally well”, according to business head Ferzad Palia. “The channel is expected to break even much ahead of the original business plan on the back of strong advertising and subscription revenues,” adds Mr Palia without sharing financial details.

     

    Endemol India, which was the one of the first production houses to bring in stand-up comedy shows on Indian television about eight years back, is experimenting with formats such as comedy panel game shows and sitcoms.

     

    “We plan to bring in new formats to India in line with the international markets that have popular comedy game shows and sitcoms. Talks are on with broadcasters,” says Deepak Dhar, chief executive, Endemol India, adding, “This is a staple diet for Indian audience.” Endemol boasts of shows such as Bigg Boss, Laughter Challenge, Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi, Jo Jeeta Wohi Super Star, Wipeout and Chottey Miyaan.

     

    Advertisers for their part have a sound reason for associating with the comedy genre.

     

    “When consumers are watching content in a good or happy state of mind, the message is clearly more effective. Comedy shows are often watched by families which helps a lot of brands get the message across in the right way to the right set of audience,” says Alok Bharadwaj, senior vice-president at Canon India. TAM data indicates that comedies are most popular with kids (between 4 and 14), the 15-24, 35-44 and 45-54 age brackets, which pretty much covers most of the Indian demographic.

     

    According to media planners, comedy attracts advertisers from automobile makers to financial services providers and from shampoo brands to telecom companies.

     

    According to Hiren Pandit, managing partner with media-buying agency Group M, brands that use the humour element in their advertising prefer to ride on comedy. “However, brands cannot survive purely on the back of one genre and should plan the media mix diligently,” he adds.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2013, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

     

     

  • India may be out of the T20 Cricket World Cup, but advertisers continue to cheer

    India out, advertisers still in!

     

    By Ananya Saha and Robin Thomas

     

    India might not have made it to the semi-finals of the T20 Cricket World Cup, but the advertisers and sponsors of the event are still cheering. ESPN Star had sold inventories to about 34 advertisers and, according to industry estimates, the advertising revenues that the channel made for the T20 World Cup are already in the range of Rs 250 crore. Are they complaining?

     

    Mahesh Ranka

    Mahesh Ranka, Founder & CEO, Indus Sports and Sponsorship, feels that India’s performance would hit the advertisers. He said, “The ad deliveries in the World Cup will be lower given that India did not make it through. However, the advertisers and sponsors would have taken the factor of India not making it through before they signed up. The bigger issue is for ESPN Star, whose inventory might be affected.”

     

    It is no news that advertisers and agencies always plan with such contingencies, of India not winning or getting out of a tournament, in mind. And especially in the case of T20, India was going to play either five matches or seven. With just three games left, from a sheer quantity perspective, it does not seem a big loss to advertisers.

     

    Anwesh Bose

    Anwesh Bose, Senior Vice President, DDB MudraMax Media, said, “Advertisers and sponsors have got their value already. Cricket is a non-cancellable property, so nobody is going to withdraw the money they have put in. For the T20 World Cup, sponsors buy the inventory for the entire tournament.” He added, “The broadcaster, in this case ESPN Star, holds back about 10 percent of inventory of finals and semi-finals, which they sell at a very high premium. Now that India did not go, they might not be able to command the premium for the inventory.”

     

    With India losing, ESPN Star has definitely lost an opportunity that they would have capitalised on if India had made it through.

     

     

    Vivek Srivastava

    Vivek Srivastava, Joint MD, Innocean Worldwide, said, “If you are a brand that looks at tactical use of such opportunities then you might sound like prophets of doom at this eventuality. However, most strategically driven brands today have long-term sports marketing properties and a long-term perspective on leveraging them. They look at a long-term engagement via a mega sport like cricket. Our client Hyundai has a long-term vision about integrating the brand and engaging with India’s passion for cricket as well as other cricket-playing nations via a five-year official partner status with the ICC. While India missing out on a semi-final berth hurts the emotions, it is business as usual.”

     

    Agreeing with Mr Srivastava is Hiren Pandit, Managing Partner-Special Projects at Group M who opined, “Advertisers have got more mileage and viewership during the T20 matches, and India’s exit will be slightly disappointing for them. Most of the advertisers in cricket are long-term advertisers, all the deals have been done earlier. India’s early exit may have been a missed opportunity but it does not mean that advertisers will not continue to sponsor the sport. Viewership will be impacted by India’s exit but there will still be some viewership.”

     

    The industry believes that the viewership will only see a minor blip, if at all. According to Satish Menon, CEO, Sports 18, while advertisers may be slightly disappointed with the loss, it is not going to stop them from advertising or investing in cricket in the near future.

     

    Mr Menon asserted, “When (Team India) does not do well it does reflect on the viewership and so on. As far as the viewership is concerned there will be a marginal dip, not a huge one because cricket is a universal game and a lot of the cricket fans or viewers also follow other matches equally. So I don’t think India’s exit will have any major impact on viewership and especially because it is the T20 World Cup.”

     

    Sudha Natrajan

    “When India is not there in a tournament, there is between 25 percent and about 35 percent drop in the viewership as compared to when India is playing. This is the sort of trend you see in the earlier games. If the games are interesting, the viewership could even climb, despite India’s exit from the tournament. The problem however is the buzz and the interest level that the country has when India is playing as compared to when they are not playing. So more than the TVR, it is the overall interest that you see diminishing,” concluded Sudha Natrajan, founder, TMC Corporation.

     

    Given that it is the festive season in India, the advertisers might not mind a few losses.

     

     

    Clippings above (LtoR) from DNA, Hindustan Times and The Times of India