MxMIndia

Tag: Hungama Digital Media

  • The MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd speaks about MOBisur, the efforts put into it, about Hungama Digital Services post JWT acquiring a majority stake, his focus for the company in the next two years and much more

    Mobile on voice is where middle India really is: Neeraj Roy

    Hungama Digital Media, along with singer and music composer Shankar Mahadevan, recently launched MOBisur – touted as India’s first digital talent hunt property. Taking time from the launch, Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. spoke at length with MxMIndia about this new brand property, the efforts put into it, and also about Hungama Digital Services post JWT acquiring a majority stake, his focus for the company in the next two years and much more.

     

    You say that it has taken nearly a year to conceptualize the entire brand property – MOBIsur. Can you share with us the efforts that went into building this property, how it all started, and the kind of research you may have undertaken and so on?

    This idea was conceptualized nearly three years ago by my colleague Anuj Bajpai who heads our voice business. As we moved into it, we realized the complexities, but at Hungama, we have a very deep rooted understanding about both consumers (because we have a lot of large consumer properties, which are all digital), and at the same time, we understand digital content. However, we still felt that something was missing and that’s where Shankar Mahadevan and his team came in because it was important that we run past them what we are thinking.

     

    Do you have a dedicated team working on this initiative…?

    Yes! It is driven by a voice team, but we have leveraged the entire group’s assets because there is a web interface aspect to it, there is a social media aspect because for any new service we launch, there is always a core product team. Once the product is approved and has a go-to market strategy at that stage, it moves from the product team to the operations team, which will then run this and ensure that it has momentum.

     

    Hungama launches digital talent hunt MOBIsur
     

    The mobile medium in the last many years have grown significantly, especially with 3G and now 4G coming in, there is great expectations from this medium. As wireless subscriptions continue to grow, billions of apps continue to be downloaded worldwide and India said to have the second largest mobile subscribers in the world.

     

    Taking into account the growing popularity of the digital medium, ITC’s Vivel FaceWash, along with Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and musician Shankar Mahadevan has launched ‘India’s first digital talent hunt’ – MOBisur.

     

    Mr Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. said: “The reach of Internet and Mobiletechnology has grown tremendously in the past few years. The aim of MOBisur is to create a talent-scouting engine in spaces that haven’t been explored in the past, via an entry ticket that is their everyday communication device.”

     

    This unique mobile- and internet-based talent hunt promises to give every Indian an opportunity to prove their singing talent. The property was launched by Shankar Mahadevan, Nilanjan Mukherjee, Head of Marketing, Personal Care Products Business, ITC Ltd; Bhushan Kumar, MD, T-Series and Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO Hungama Digital Media Entertainment in Mumbai on July 13. T-Series is the official music partner for the property, which elevates the talent hunt to an even higher platform.

     

    Mr Bhushan Kumar, MD, T-Series, said: “It gives us immense pleasure to be able to bring new talent in to the industry. As a music label, we are always looking for fresh talent and with a truly digital talent hunt; we have access to talent across the country. We are looking forward to releasing an album composed by Shankar Mahadevan for the winner of the hunt”.

     

    The entries for the digital talent hunt, MOBIsur is said to continue for the next 45 days and the duration of the property will be for three months. The marketing budget is pegged at Rs3-4 crore.

     

    Mr Nilanjan Mukherjee, Head of Marketing, Personal Care Products Business, ITC, said: “Vivel FaceWashis delighted to present Mobisur, an exciting and innovative platform to discover hidden musical talent. Vivel Face Wash MOBisur, in line with this brand philosophy provides a unique opportunity to aspirants to live their musical dreams.”

     

    5,000 talented female participants selected from entries submitted on the Vivel Facebook page www.facebook.com/itcvivel will make it to the second round.

     

    The contestants who clear the first stage of the auditions will be given specific tasks by Shankar Mahadevan, who said: “When I conceptualised this property with Hungama, the thought was to give every Indian an opportunity to participate in a unique contest to try and reach the pinnacle of musical genius. Music is a powerful medium that can come from the most unexpected places.”

     

    Based on their performance in the tasks and the votes secured for each task, they will be chosen for the next round. There are three tasks in all and after clearing all three tasks the contestants make it to the final round, which is the On-Stage Performance. Ten finalists will be chosen to perform in front of Shankar Mahadevan and two other prominent personalities, where the final two winners will be announced.

    How different will the user experience be for mobile and internet users?

    In internet, there have been initiatives of this nature – they have been done in the past. Over the years, even the mainstream entities that do reality shows have created web interfaces for people to upload and so on. We are, in fact, going to be unveiling a lot of newer applications which will have stronger internet experience to it. So we have innovated on that front, knowing fully well that as a process it has been done. On the other hand, this was never done on mobile. In fact, mobile on voice is where middle India is, in reality. We needed to build this property and we had our limitations in terms of what we can do and not get cumbersome. At the same time, I needed to capture certain amount of information data to be ethically appropriate in the whole process. Overall, we have balanced it well and we are happy with the product.

     

    What about the duration of MOBIsur and its timeline and so on?

    There will be three different phases. The entries will go on for the next 45 days, wherein it is all about reaching out and getting as many people to participate. Then it goes through zonal rounds, which will then culminate into final round. The entire property is on, however, for three months. We didn’t think that we ought to have a real world angle to it in terms of going on-air and so on, but the way it is panning out, we might even consider that as the response has been very positive.

     

    Tell us about your marketing activities planned around MOBIsur?

    There is a fivefold approach to marketing. First, it starts with announcing the initiative through media and we then backed it up with a television campaign. Hungama has about 20 million consumers on the internet which are accessing our media properties, and we will obviously actively promote it there. We have also have 3.5 million social media community and we will promote it there as well. The most vibrant community is going to be the telco-ecosystem – one of the most unique thing we have done – because it is a universal number. We want every one of the telcos to take ownership of this as their own activity event/ product and that will be the one that will give us the maximum reach.

     

    Television promotion will be across channels, a lot of them music channels. Overall, my sense is that we should be putting in about Rs3 to 4 crore across mediums, in terms of the entire activations programmes, but a lot of that focus will be in areas where there is direct call to action. So don’t expect that skew to be driven completely by television, we will in fact do a lot more on digital and mobile mediums.

     

    Now, post JWT acquiring majority stake in Hungama Digital Services, what changes have taken place, especially on internal developments?

    JWT now has a 51 per cent stake in our business. There has been absolutely no change operationally, as it is the same team that runs the business, we are operating out of the same premises, we are handling the same clients. Clearly, over a period of time, we hope to be able to tap into and grow, leveraging their network onto other areas as well but, as of now it is business as usual.

     

    What about expansion plans into newer cities, any new verticals in the Digital Services business?

    Expansion is an ongoing process for us, the big focus is going to be to try and do as much of digital and physical promotional activations. The second area we are looking a little bit closely are trade-based marketing activations, which is the new area of growth for us.

     

    What are your views on India’s drawing a blank in digital at the Cannes? Does digital creativity lack steam in India?

    In fact, it is just the beginning in India, I think in the each passing quarter, you will find more focus on digital from both mainstream agencies as well as from brands. There are times when you have a good year or not so good ones, it’s alright.

     

    What are your plans for Hungama Digital Services in the next one or two year time?

    Our first objective is to make the new entity fully integrated; to align ourselves in certain manner and ensure that appropriate synergies are brought about. Our objective is to ensure that our existing clients benefit from a wider, more global network that exists for them. The third objective is that the team, about 120 people who’ve moved there, feel a renewed sense of enthusiasm and energy towards creativity. All of this has to happen in the current fiscal, then we gauge how do we scale this and go forward.

     

  • The site itself has been trying to tell advertisers that if they want scale, they'll have to shell out the hard cash for offerings like "sponsored stories", not to be confused with "sponsored ads"

    Can Facebook, the marketer’s online best friend ever become its ace salesman?

    By Delshad Irani & Ravi Balakrishnan

     

    In 2009, Facebook terminated the ‘Whopper Sacrifice’, Burger King’s social experiment cum marketing activation. Created by Crispin Porter Bogusky, the campaign’s premise was the more ties you sever the closer you get to your BK Whopper. The application as it turned out was a whopping success.

     

    Within a week 200,000 ‘friends’ were virtually burned out of existence from various lists. Facebook couldn’t handle the loss of those hard-earned friendships. Burger King, on the other hand, proved the point it set out to make – Americans sure do love their burgers. That same year, Swedish furniture giant Ikea spent practically nothing to create a campaign to promote its newest store.

     

    The agency Forsman & Bodenfors created a new Facebook account for the manager at the store in the city of Malmo and posted catalogue pictures of furnished rooms.

     

    Users could win furniture and other items in the photos if they beat their friends to the punch. All they needed to do was tag the pieces with their names first. Needless to say the prospect of first-to-tag-wins drove Facebookians crazy. The campaign was hassle-free, cheap and effective, just like the Scandinavian furniture it was advertising.

     

    Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. General Motors, the world’s fourth-largest advertiser and spender of $3.9 billion globally on advertising in 2010, haunted by questions related to effectiveness and ROI, pulled out its pretty penny, all $10 million of it, from Facebook’s paid-ad kitty just days before the social network’s stock went public.

     

    In addition to that sum, the automaker spends a reported $30 million on content creation for social media. These examples make Baccarat-crystal clear what we know already – you don’t have to pay big to make an impact via social media.

     

    In India, most marketers love talking about the worth of a campaign by the number of fans, or likes received on the most recent post. But even they are starting to ask a tricky question: what’s the real worth of their campaigns on Facebook? Worth more than a burger, eh?

     

    The site itself has been trying to tell advertisers that no longer will mere presence and innovative social media campaigns cut it. If they want scale, they’ll have to shell out the hard cash for offerings like “sponsored stories”, not to be confused with “sponsored ads”.

     

    For instance, products like Reach Generator guarantee that posts by a brand stand to be seen by 75 per cent of its fans every month or an estimated 50 per cent every week. Non users of the tool will have to settle for an average of only 16 per cent of fans viewing posts on a weekly basis. Not everyone’s buying though, believing that compelling content will win any day of the week.

     

    Anuradha Aggarwal, senior VP, brand communication and insights, Vodafone India said: “Since having high engagement scores is our goal, we focus on creating content on our Facebook page rather than on advertising. We focus on creating posts and apps to enable our 3.2 million fans to create conversations and experiences around the brand.”

     

    PepsiCo’s approach is to use a combination of both, posts/promotions on brand pages and display advertising. One of the cola maker’s prominent campaigns on the site was ‘Meet Messi in Miami’ where fans had to complete a series of tasks to win a chance to meet The Atomic Flea.

     

    During the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, Pepsi launched an online progamme as part of the ‘Change the Game’ campaign where fans could win a dream trip across the country for all India matches. The latter initiative was listed as one of the 19 best campaigns in the world by Facebook on their success stories blog, the only Indian effort to feature on the page.

     

    According to Homi Battiwalla, category director – colas, hydration and mango based beverages, PepsiCo India, it is too early to give a conclusive opinion on new advertising properties like sponsored stories and other offers. So the bottom line when it comes to the marketing on the social network is the game hasn’t quite changed. “The primary focus remains on organic content as we believe it results in better consumer connect,” said Mr Battiwalla.

     

    For automakers like Mahindra & Mahindra, Facebook is good for what it was born to do in the first place. Well, that and to spy on “old acquaintances”. According to Vivek Nayer, senior VP, marketing, automotive division, Mahindra & Mahindra: “Rather than looking at Facebook for advertising reach, we’ve leveraged it for what the platform is inherently good at; building communities. Today at 5 million, we are the largest automotive community on Facebook in India”

     

    In the case of Unilever, the company moved from almost accidentally stumbling on the power of the site – after noting a lot of action on its first Cornetto Luv Reels page long after the promotion was over – to it being a key pillar to the launch of Fruttare, its new range for the summer. Sapan Sharma, general manager – ice creams, Hindustan Unilever, said: “There’s an advertiser login where you get all the details. In the first 10 days of launch, 1.2 lakh fans signed up and there were 1.2 to 1.5 lakh conversations.”

     

    Arch-rival P&G is not lagging either. According to a company spokesperson: “In just less than two months, we have over 690,000 fans for our Thank You, Mom campaign. This makes it the largest, most engaged-with Thank You, Mom community globally.” For the launch of Olay’s premium skin care range, Olay Regenerist, a Facebook waiting list was created, with both fashion journalists and consumers signing up for an exclusive trial on the site; in less than three weeks, over 11,400 people had registered.

     

    But as the eight-year-old Facebook enters a new league as a listed company, it needs to, and rather urgently, scale its revenues to sync with its audience. Minute, often ineffective, right-rail ads aren’t exactly a juicy bone to dangle in front of existing and potential advertisers; thus the introduction of premium ads and better placement.

     

    According to Siddhart Rao, CEO of digital agency Webchutney, the sweet spot between organic and paid promotion is the one that will yield maximum benefit to brands looking to extract value from social media marketing platforms like Facebook. “One cannot work without the other,” he said.

     

    S Yesudas, managing director – Indian subcontinent, Vizeum, said: “I do not think all marketers know what to expect from the medium. The hurry to be on to the bandwagon gets them there. The fact that Facebook offers free advertising inventory for brands to test the medium gets overlooked. In my opinion, the medium can be successfully used to build relationships with the consumers.

     

    Targeting can be done based on profile information, relationship status, interest or based on certain words in profiles or status messages. But the truth is the brand communication will always compete with the updates, videos, etc from friends.”

     

    Indeed, it’s complicated; the relationship between advertisers and Facebook. Especially when one moves from the fluffy world of engagement to hard sales. Many retailers in the West like JC Penney, Gamestop and Gap pulled the shutters on their stores on Facebook this February.

     

    Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer – founder – MD, BC Web Wise said: “Ironically Wade

    Gerten, the founder of 8thBridge – the flower store that was responsible for the coinage of the term F-commerce as it was the first to open shop on Facebook for 1,800 Flowers – has admitted that sales never really materialised for their first or other F-outlets, adding that F-commerce deserved an F. Given the fact that F-commerce (Facebook commerce) has failed in the west for retailers, it appears that Facebook would be an engagement vehicle. Peer recommendation and product ratings are not integrated. Should it launch a brand intelligence tool which can be used by consumers – which exposes peer comments and recommendations that can be accessed by the FB community – then the ball game will change.”

     

    Venkat Mallik – president, Tribal DDB & Rapp India says Facebook’s ability to deliver sales impact has been a bit of a mixed bag: “There need to be more strong case studies demonstrating the sales or brand impact from the use of Facebook led engagement.”

     

    However while Facebook may not itself be a platform to sell it can impact sales according to some of its satisfied customers. Unilever’s Mr Sharma for instance believes there’s a definite co-relation between high levels of engagement and products sold.

     

    According to Carlton D’Silva, chief creative officer, Hungama Digital Media, “Opinions of family and friends matter when making purchase decisions decisions and Facebook activity will provide a lot of data to consumers, which can be leveraged in places where they make these decisions, causing a significant, if not direct impact on purchase behaviour.”

     

    “GM is slashing its advertising budgets by $ 2 billion, of this only $10 million or 0.5 per cent was on Facebook. They have also announced they won’t advertise on Super Bowl, either. Further, what should be noted is that GM has 8 million fans already. I am sure that they are going to continue with the engagement plans for acquired fans. It would be foolish to assume anything beyond, or assume Facebook has failed for GM, it would be just that advertising further is currently not the best bet in its media plan,” said Ms Aiyer

     

    The users of Facebook both on the agency and the marketer side each have their wishlist ready.

     

    “The analytics are available at a lag of 7 to 15 days; I’m sure it can come earlier. I’m sure there will be a time when we can talk to people from a specific city or market,” said Mr Sharma

     

    “They are hugely data rich. If in some way they get to using some of the data millions of people put in their hands on a minute to minute basis, sky will be the limit for them.This will surely come in with resistance from the users, unless they persuade them. They have to walk this path very carefully,” added Mr Yesudas.

     

    Most brands have a clear agenda from marketing spends on social media platforms like Facebook – greater outreach among target audiences through personalised interaction and engagement, leading to higher impact on conversions and sales.

     

    “It’s a perfectly reasonable expectation from a social communication platform with 900 million members,” said Mr Rao of Webchutney, “but whether brands invest enough thought, time, resources and action to engage audiences meaningfully is another question.” And one helluva question it is. Because for every whopper of a Scandinavian success story, there are at least a dozen marketing campaigns that have fallen flat on their face. So, ask not what you can do on Facebook but what Facebook can do for you.

     

    Source: The Economic Times
    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

  • PMD badge in recognition to Hungama's commitment in the digital marketing space

    Hungama earns Facebook’s ‘Most Preferred Marketing Developer’ badge

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Digital Services division of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt Ltd was conferred with the Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) badge by Facebook. PMD is given to developers that have demonstrated value-added capabilities in one or more of the following qualification areas: Pages, Ads, Apps, and Insights. The badge is for companies that have clearly demonstrated unique capabilities that help marketers scale and achieve efficiency and extend measurably beyond the functionality of Facebook’s native tools.

     

    Commenting on this Siddhartha Roy, COO, Consumer Business & Allied Services, Hungama Digital Media, said: “Being among the few companies worldwide to earn ‘Preferred Marketing Developer’ badge underlines our ongoing investment in providing cross-channel interactive solutions to clients across various verticals. In a digitally connected world, it is important to engage the consumer where he spends most of his time; the social media platform, especially Facebook, has emerged as the new media real estate where brands can build greater engagement and interaction with the consumer.”

     

    Hungama Digital Media helps brands build awareness, engagement and loyalty, using a full range of digital skills, including campaign strategy and creative development, website design, online media planning and buying, viral marketing, social media strategy and optimization, mobile marketing, search engine marketing, gaming. On social media, specific to Facebook, the agency provides page management and publishing, community management, applications development, social plugins, advertising (ad creation, auto bid optimization, target segmentation, creative, conversion tracking, reporting), monitoring and reporting (insights).

     

    Hungama has built digital campaigns for clients that include Mahindra & Mahindra (Automotive), Mahindra Racing, Bacardi, Yum Restaurants, LG and Nokia amongst others; that utilizes the Facebook ads API such as Bacardi Together Club, Black List Application, Celebrate Life, ICC World Cup Fever, Zinger Application, Create Your Comic Strip, Valentine’s Day, to name a few.

     

    Hungama Digital is the No.1 Digital Advertising agency in 2011 according to The Economic Times Brand Equity Agency Reckoner 2011. The parent company, Hungama is the largest aggregator, developer, publisher and distributor of Bollywood and South-Asian entertainment content in the world. With partnerships with over 305 content creators, across record labels, studios, broadcasters Hungama has licensed worldwide exclusive digital rights to over 2 million music and video titles. Hungama has successfully managed more than 2,000 mobile and digital campaigns for as many as 300 brands globally.