MxMIndia

Tag: Hungama

  • While the contest is open to all, participants must 30 years of age or less as on March 31, 2014

    Green Hungama Contest back at IAA Olive Crown Awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Green Hungama Contest, set up by Hungama Digital with the International Association of Advertisers – India Chapter’s annual Olive Crown Awards will see winners being awarded on March 14.

     

    As per a communiqué: the Olive Crown Green Hungama Award 2013 will be given for eco-sensitive communication that creates awareness for planet Earth’s well-being & sustainability. The entry for ‘Green Hungama Contest’ must be an original piece of work. However, for the sake of budget and other constraints like time, the entry can be a ‘scratch’ film made with borrowed footage or material. What will be judged at this stage is the creative ‘big idea’ and not the execution brilliance.

     

    This contest is open to all. The participant has to be 30 years of age or less as on March 31, 2014. The winning entries are awarded the Olive Crown and cash prizes worth Rs 1 lakh, that will be split between two winners — the Gold will have a cash prize of Rs 60,000, while the Silver is worth Rs 40,000. They will also get to showcase their work at Olive Crown Awards 2013 which will be held in Mumbai on 14th March 2014.

     

    Neeraj Roy

    Said Neeraj Roy, Managing Director and CEO Hungama Digital Media: “This is the fourth year we are partnering the IAA in this unique contest. It not only stokes the creative fires of young people and makes them conscious of a good cause, it also resonates with our audience and what we at Hungama are all about.”

     

    For details of sending in entries, log on to http://www.olivecrowngreenhungama.com/terms.html.

     

  • Without doubt, India is one of the most exciting markets for mobile adverting, and pushing it forward is the buoyant and increasing base of active mobile internet users, writes Hemant Jain

    Guest Column by Hemant Jain: Opportunity knocks in mobile internet

    By Hemant Jain

     

    A Facebook status update recently by a college graduate student read: I may be able to live without Facebook, but not without WhatsApp. If status messages and typical buzzwords on various social media networks are a thing to go by, then we have the writing on the wall. Mobile internet in India has already shown signs that it is growing and is only going to get bigger and more powerful.

     

    A look around any hangout space and it is evident that mobiles in India have fundamentally altered the lifestyle of today’s consumers across age groups. And it is no more the top executives who find it convenient to do business from their phones. The scope has widened. It is impacting the way we work, play, interact and live.

     

    Even more recently, to tap the growing e-commerce market in India and increase its access to consumers, Coca-Cola floated an online store for home delivery of its products. Coca-Cola’s move is an industry and sector first in the fast moving consumer goods sector in the country to set up a standalone portal. This development coming from a giant like Coca-Cola sends very strong signal for marketers as well as agencies working in the digital – especially in the mobile advertising space.

     

    As the smartphone usage in India rises, the internet consumption, as a direct corollary shows an upward movement. The smartphone consumption brings along with it the platform to introduce differentiated mobile media offerings that offers massive reach, unique ad placement, and impactful ad formats which augurs well for the mobile advertising industry.

     

    India finds itself in a unique space as far as mobile internet opportunity is concerned, all the variables for a successful equation are in place for this to happen. Starting from the cost of network access and handsets is going down, wireless networks are going up, and Indian consumers already display an insatiable appetite for digital services.

     

    Further, bypassing the personal computer experience and moving straight to widespread mobile access-simply makes sense for a large chunk of Indian users. It would sidestep a host of hurdles associated with delivering affordable internet services to a population that is geographically dispersed and relatively poor, in a country where infrastructure development has been an issue and reach of internet a topic thoroughly contested and debated across various forums.

     

    The Indian mobile Internet consumer:

    Numerically speaking:

    With more than 900 million cellphone connections, India is the second largest mobile market in the world after China. A recent report by Boston Consulting Group stated that the total number of internet users in India is expected to increase from 125 million in 2011 to 330 million by 2016. The report noted that, at present, around 45% of online consumers in the nation use only the mobile to access the Internet. This is expected to increase to 60% over the next three years.

     

    Even though typical Indian consumers have limited Internet access, they have a remarkable appetite for digital content. In fact, they consume an average of 4.5 hours of it daily across offline channels such as television, DVDs, and CDs. And what is really remarkable in this growth story is the fact that use of mobile to access internet has been on a constant rise in the country. A whole segment of business has grown around retailers essentially operating as physical iTunes stores, charging fees to load music and other content onto mobile devices. The net result is that while India is a relatively poor country, more than 70 percent of its urban consumers already spend about $1 a month on content and services through offline, unorganized retail channels-a market estimated to be worth more than $4 billion annually (according to various industry reports)

     

    India has taken a giant leap when it comes to the issue of cost and ease of access to Internet services. The country has seen enough development in devices, networks, operating systems, and operator strategies. The average price of smartphones delivering much richer content, including video, has fallen rapidly over the past sometime. This price tag is significantly less than the cost of PCs.

     

    It has also been observed that mobile devices are considered easier to operate than PCs, and the ability to access websites with a single touch or a voice command. Indian operators have also fuelled this upswing as theyare innovatively offering innovative rate plans for mobile data use, addressing criticisms of the prices of data plans and their perceived opaqueness. Operators have played it smart by offering a very low ticket invitation plan to let the consumer taste the ease of mobile advertising.

     

    This is good news for advertising and marketing fraternity that we have a new medium that presents itself as a potent contender to expand and share the ad budget pie. Mobile advertising is becoming an essential component of the media mix with the digital advertising market in India was pegged at USD 300 million for FY 2011-12.

     

    Current Trends in Indian Market

    Without doubt, India is one of the most exciting markets for mobile adverting, and pushing it forward is the buoyant and increasing base of active mobile internet users. This base is growing and growing fast. According to various industry reports, the mobile userbase in India is all set to touch 200 million mark in a short time. But, the more interesting thing is that as much as 40 percent of these mobile internet users have a single access point, that is, their mobile screens. Since, the mobile penetration in the country still remains a bone of contention, apps are playing an important role in improving the numbers of these mobile internet users.

     

    Developers will find out innovative ways to marry in-app purchases and smart advertising:

    Internet access largely based on mobile apps presents a major window of opportunity for smart and non-intrusive monetisation. Developers will have to take urgent action to monetize their app user base by plugging into telecom-billing for transactions and to create better and stronger mobile advertising solutions. Companies need to up the game be it is though better editing, visual merchandising or marketing.

     

    India being a nation of multiplicity, regional content will do a lot of good for the future of mobile internet. It should be presented in new ways: voice and single-touch mobile-Internet access are essential. Language content will be particularly instrumental in overcoming illiteracy and a lack of familiarity with the Internet.

     

    Mapping consumer’s mobile lifestyle and targeting a better reach

    Mobile internet usage will throw up a mine of data that will allow the advertisers and marketers to become even more aware about the personality and choices of these mobile netizens and offer them better apps and bundled advertising and monetisation opportunities.

     

    This would also allow the producers of good and services to leverage the power of m-coupons merged with hyper categorised offers backed by solid data. This will allow the bringing together of advertising, monetary transaction and distribution platforms on a single hand held device.

     

    A more edgy and smarter brand planning

    Coming of the mobile platform into being will eventually force brand custodians to offer more engaging and custom made campaigns on mobile. The message will have to blend seamlessly with that on other media while still maintaining its ability to remain sleek. Agencies can adopt new approaches to developing concepts, pricing, and measurements of effectiveness specific to the medium

     

    Slicing the mobile ad pie finely:

    Coupled with more edgier brand planning and a robust measurement system, the mobile ad pie may be divided more smartly based on language preferences, region – mobile advertising has the opportunity to move beyond just subscription and service based model to a more localised and customised ad selling platform.

     

    Minting the mobile money

    Regulators and service providers will have to find out more acceptable and safer ways for people to carry out monetary transactions on their mobile phones. Things like shopping coupons coupled with apps may be able to deliver the next level of experience and comfort for the shopper on mobile. We can already see that a lot of smart e-commerce players have already redesigned their portals in a mobile friendly way.

     

    The concept of m-wallets really need to take up and offers a lot of space to manoeuvre for both the customer and the seller.

     

    Challenges:

    It is time advertisers moved invested in the medium

    While the hope of a mobile boom is still high, advertisers are still experimenting with the media and this devote a miniscule budget. The revenue from mobile advertising is not keeping pace with the mobile penetration levels in the country and that leads to a crippling effect on the initiatives and innovations that are required for the medium to grow bigger and better. Various industry estimates place the share of mobile advertising at a tenth of the overall digital advertising spend of $400 million (about Rs 2,180 crore ). For the dominant players this is a cause of worry.

     

    Where is the measurement:

    Since, the ad share is low, innovation and dedication of all the stakeholders is also low at present. Advertisers right now cannot figure out how effective a mobile internet campaign is.” Most of the top advertisers in the country devote nearly only 5% of their entire ad budgets for mobile ads.

     

    The pain of absence of any robust measurement in the mobile advertising space is further causing these low budget for the medium. These low budgets stem also from low conversion rates for mobile ads where the percentage of users who go beyond just clicking on an advertisement to completing a transaction is not growing.

     

    New medium demands newer ad formats:

    To make both the customers and brand custodians hooked to the mobile advertising, it is high time that agencies really rake their brains and offer better ad formats that are non-intrusive while being effective at the same time. The newer formats have to be in sync with the mobile browsing experience.

     

    Educate the customer:

    Another major issue is the need to continuously engage and educate the customer about the various possibilities that mobile internet can offer as India has a huge potential in terms of a growing customer experience. E-commerce is expected to be a major driver to further provide pace to Indian mobile internet story. Therefore, the need is to build customer trust. Indian consumers still need a lot of weaning away from cash transactions and need to learn to rely on the reliability of online payment options.

     

    That is the only way how the huge potential residing in the India’s hinterland can meaningfully contribute to the growth of India mobile internet story.

     

    Infrastructure still a challenge:

    Lack of infrastructure has often been touted as one of the major roadblocks in uptake of digital medium in the country and this issue still has been the case running it for digital advertising and advertising on mobile. Though mobile operators have a far better reach compared to the pure play broadband penetration. However, low uptake of 3G hasn’t helped the cause of digital advertising and impedes the growth of mobile advertising in India.

     

    Conclusion:

    With the introduction of low price and durable smartphones in the Indian market, internet access has got a higher penetration and a new meaning especially to the youth of the country. Still, a lot of ground needs to be covered by all the interested parties – the government, the developers, the agencies and the manufacturers of products and services have to constructively work on this opportunity that promises a lot.

     

    Hemant Jain is Senior Vice President and Head, Domestic Business at Hungama

     

  • Hungama App rolls out airplay for iOS and is compatible with iPhone 5

    Hungama App introduces adaptive streaming

    By A Correspondent

     

    Hungama has upgrading its app for iOS and Android with Adaptive Streaming for audio and video, Airplay for iOS and compatibility with the iPhone 5. The new build has facilitated an integration with Google Wallet. Now, music lovers all over the world can own their favourite music by a simple click of a button within the app to make the purchase.

     

    Ranked ranked #1 in the top music apps category on iOS and Android platforms in less than ten days of its launch, the Hungama App comes with a loyalty feature that rewards users for every action on the app.

     

    The adaptive version of the Hungamamusic app is available on the iOS and Android platforms.

     

  • Powered by Hungama.com, Vh1 Pulse is a music streaming application on Facebook which will enable fans to listen to Vh1's picks of international music

    Vh1 India and Hungama launch app for Facebook

    By A Correspondent

     

    Vh1 has announced its entry into the digital space with the launch of a new generation app, Vh1 Pulse. The app will enable fans to be in sync with their favourite tracks, any time of the day.

     

    Powered by Hungama.com, Vh1 Pulse is a music streaming application on Facebook which will enable over 1.7 million fans of the channel to listen to Vh1’s picks of the best international music.

     

    On the application, all songs will be picked by Vh1 and fans can listen to the playlist specially created which includes the best of all English music.

     

    Speaking about the new app, Ferzad Palia, Senior Vice President & GM – English Entertainment, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. said, “With a fan base of nearly 2 million ardent music lovers, this addition to the Vh1 India Facebook page is part of our philosophy of ‘Vh1 Everywhere’.”

     

    Siddhartha Roy

    Siddhartha Roy, COO – Consumer Business & Allied Services, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, said, “Social communities are the new media real estate for brands where they can increase interaction and engagement with their consumers. There is an increasing demand for international music and Hungama is committed at satisfying this need by powering this service via its platform and content.”

     

  • It's Children's Day, and a cross-section of stakeholders help us in this genre check of kiddie TV

    TV for Children: Growing, and how!

    Representational photograph (Kids participating in laughter therapy session in in Mumbai… Photograph by Fotocorp)

     

     

    By Ananya Saha

     

    There was a time, not so long ago in the 1990’s, when the Sunday slot of Mahabharata and animated series meant family viewing or kids genre. Kids were allowed to watch TV with parental permission. And today, kids genre in television media is the third largest after Hindi GECs at 27.6 per cent and Hindi movies at 11.9 per cent according to the FICCI-KPMG 2012 report.

     

    Anita Nayyar

    Acoording to Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, India & South Asia, the advent of Discovery Channel in 1999 saw a segment of kids watch it for education or interest. “Star World in 2004 had programmes like ‘Full House’ starring kids, but it was really post-2006 when kids became dominant. Their growing viewing needs and dedicated channels for them were addressed by various slots on various channels and some dedicated channels like Cartoon Network, Pogo, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Hungama, etc,” she points out. However, there is no denying the fact that there is not enough programming and print magazines for the young adult making them an underserved audience.

     

    Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP and Business Head, Sonic and Nickelodeon India concurs, adding, “In terms of getting their daily dose of entertainment, this TG needs to flirt with options available across multiple platforms – be it TV, online or print.”

     

    Sashwati Banerjee

    Apart from television content, on the print content, Sashwati Banerjee, Managing Director, Sesame Workshop Initiatives India PLC added, “Books / print is another matter. This is not a generation that is growing up with print awareness and it is reflected by the recent ASeR report which showcases that children in Grade 5 are reading at Grade 2 level. There is a serious crisis in education, and reading, comprehending and fluency are critical indicators to children’s lifelong learning. There is a large number of publishers in India, but very few publish children’s books and a still smaller number specialize in publishing children’s books. Recent reports have indicated that ebooks have a higher growth potential. However, wider access is still an issue as these books require high end mobile devices (cell phones and tablets) to access and use.”

     

    Nina Elavia Jaipuria

    Catering to infants to kids upto eight-years, Galli Galli Sim Sim has evolved in multiple ways since it’s inception in 2006. It evolved the format from the classicSesame Streetmagazine style to a more narrative ‘block style’ based on research that children in India are more used to stories or narration. Considering that access to television is limited, Galli Galli Sim Sim produced a radio programme, that is being aired by 10 community radio stations to reach populations with critical messages around health, hygiene, literacy and girl child education.

     

    Talking about Nicklodean and Sonic, Ms Jaipuria, said that Nickelodeon reaches out to 11 million kids pan India. “With media spends on kids channels approximately in the range of Rs 270cr, It is slated to grow further due to a slew of new channel launches in FY 13, she asserted. She also said that with the launch of Sonic in 2011, the investments in the kids genre has grown.

     

    According to a recent E&Y study the children’s genre has emerged as the largest viewership segment after India’s general entertainment channel (GEC) sector. The segment comprised 18.3 per cent of the viewership among 4-14 year olds in 2011, as compared to 16.9 per cent in 2010. The study also states that advertising revenue generated by the children’s genre totalled Rs 2.4 billion in 2011, up from Rs 2 billion in 2010. This is attributed to the growth in the viewership in the children’s genre from 43 million in 2010 to 48 million in 2011. This segment focuses on its target audience through a total of 14 channels in the age groups of 2-4 years and 4-14 years, comprising the majority of the market, as well as 14-18 years.

     

    The market for kids programming is huge, and the audience in this segment is growing. No wonder then that this November Zee launched ZeeQ, a 24×7 edutainment channel for kids aged 4-to-14-years. There are talks and suggestions of a DD Kids given Doordarshan’s reach. Kids seem to be pampered in the true sense and it is positive pampering.

     

    Even as the category sees more entrants trying to woo the young audience, in terms of advertising pie, this genre ranks after general entertainment and sports. “We’ve seen a range of products and services making the kid the hero – from financial like insurance say an ICICI Smart Kids with the kid at the dinosaur museum or Bank of India with the kid putting his piggy bank in the locker to a flipkart.com with kid avatars of the elders contemplating a buy; simply because they are either targets or influencers and their starring role has the potential for breaking clutter. We’d estimate the kids ad-market between Rs.200crores to Rs.260crores. The pioneer in using kids to demonstrate pester power was Maruti Suzuki’s Esteem report card commercial,” elaborated Ms Nayyar.

     

    With evolving societal structure as well as keenness on kid’s development for the future, Ms Nayyar predicts that “edutainment” will be the biggest driver in the category growth. Kids today are also more exposed .They are more amenable to instruction through entertainment. According to her, the vehicles that will drive the growth will be television, print and online, with online gaining lead.

     

    “Word-of-mouth in this category has really been underestimated but here is a core audience for this marketing phenomenon,” said Ms Nayyar.

     

    Challenges

    Content creators and television channels for kids are increasingly experimenting with applications for cellphones and low-cost tablets and migrating content from a traditional linear medium such as TV to non-linear mediums to expand access to populations that need it the most as well as to enhance and enrich learning experiences for children. Notwithstanding the fact that the advent of digitization in India will be a key driver to the growth of the genre in the near future, mobile devices rather than the television set will be the primary driver to engage children in the future. “We’re seeing this change in theUSas well,” said Banerjee.

     

    But the genre is facing very many challenges even as it looks at growth. As Ms Jaipuria points out:

    – The kid’s category is still hugely under-indexed despite the category contributing 8% to viewership on an All India Level at 4+ age group. TV adsales are under 2% for this genre. Hence investments in the business are under pressure.

    – The fragmentation in the kid’s category is increasing by the day with over a dozen players existing currently. This makes it possible for the broadcasters to offer differentiated content across genres and platforms.

    – Kids as an audience are a tough bunch to target. They do not consume print and outdoor as primary consumers. A large chunk of the marketing investment is on BTL activities such as School Contact Programmes, Retail activation, direct consumer contact using multiple on-round vehicles which have an extremely high cost per contact.

    – Distribution and carriage remains a challenge for this category.

     

    Also, as Ms Banerjee explains, children today are “exposed to all kinds of programming especially in single TV homes. There is also extremely low awareness amongst parents on what children should view and what they should not. There is an imperative need to provide rating guidelines as well as awareness on how media affects children.”

     

    While the experts believe that the greatest challenge is the creation of original content, or even good adaptation, quality is a major issue. There needs to be a very clear understanding  of the sub-slice segment categories to contain the spill to international programmes, CDs and the online world as also increase the share of viewership of the media vehicle.

     

    Says Ms Nayyar: “A lot of content and marketing is done and created for the Sec A and B but we miss a whole other India which invests heavily to educate its kids to give them another destiny. Here, affordable print with in-school promotions with reach beyond the creamy layer would create a whole new bottomline. Also, regional is a huge emerging market; again content with localization and language are opportunities and challenges. Content as always will be both the game player and game changer!”

     

    The growth might also come from other content and entertainment avenues such as gaming. The only challenge is to tap into the potential with the right content.

     

  • Intel Capital has announced 10 investments at its Intel Capital Global Summit, with $40 million pledged in new investments to help innovative companies. The amount invested in Hungama.com has not been disclosed.

    Hungama.com has Intel inside

    By A Correspondent

     

    Intel Capital, Intel Corporation’s global investment and M&A organization, kicked off its annual Intel Capital Global Summit by announcing investments in 10 innovative technology companies, including a strategic investment in Hungama.com. Intended to help these companies grow to the next level, the investments reinforce the Global Summit’s 2-day agenda focused on company building. Totaling approximately $40 million, they cover a range of technologies from collaborating in the cloud and delivering enhanced digital entertainment to simplifying mobile payments and enabling new forms of device interaction.

     

    Hungama.com , which received an undisclosed sum from Intel Capital, launched India’s first on-demand digital entertainment storefront. The storefront boasts of over two-and-a-half million pieces of content across genres and languages, in the form of music tracks, movies, music videos & mobile content. Hungama Movies has over 5000 Bollywood, Hollywood, Regional Indian Movies and Television Series available in both HD and SD quality, powered by Intel Insider. With over 20 million users, the website is accessible from PCs, mobiles, tablets, connected TVs and other connected devices.

     

    “Business deals happen when Intel Capital brings together our vast global network with our portfolio company innovators,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. “Our annual Global Summit and the ongoing Intel Capital Technology Days provide our portfolio companies with unmatched access to the decision-making executives critical to revenue-generating sales or partnerships. The 10 new investments in innovative companies announced today stand to benefit greatly from these longstanding company-building resources.”

     

    Other than Hungama.com, the investments include secure content sharing platform Box; social radio platform Jelli; social game developer LIFO Interactive; mobile proximity platform NewAer; e-payment platform PagPop; cloud services provider Tier 3; 3-D game developer Transmension; and mobile advertising provider UUCun. Financial details of each investment were not disclosed.

     

  • MTunes Trending20 brings to its viewers a comprehensive analysis of audience preferences across 5 platforms

    MTunes HD launches ‘MTunes Trending20’

    By A Correspondent

     

    MTunes HD – the HD Bollywood music channel has announced the launch of a countdown show called ‘MTunes Trending20’, presented by Bharti Airtel. This is in keeping with the channel’s premise of delivering “music like never seen before”.

     

    Historically, countdown charts have been based on record sales. However, given the fact that music consumption is spread across multiple platforms these days, MTunes Trending20 brings to its viewers a comprehensive analysis of audience preferences across 5 platforms. The final chart will be compiled by leading media research firm Ormax Media.

     

    The five platforms will be Radio popularity compiled by Radio City, Digital downloads provided by Hungama, YouTube views & Heartbeats (weekly music research) by Ormax Media and audience preferences as recorded by MTunes HD. A normalized measurement formula based on TV Ratings Data, Radio Aircheck, SMS requests, downloads/usage tracking across mobile service providers and views count on popular internet video sites will be collated to generate the weekly chart.

     

    Presented by Bharti Airtel, the weekly show – scheduled to launch from August 04 every Saturday – will play the top 20 songs of the week. Through the week the top songs on MTunes Trending20 will also be highlighted on the daily play list.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Saravanan P, CEO of MTunes HD said: “MTunes Trending20 is a reaffirmation of our promise to deliver ‘Music Like Never Seen Before’ and strengthens a long line-up of path-breaking formats like Kal Ka Superhits, Handmade and MBox already on the channel. We have pioneered the industry by launching the World’s first HD Bollywood Music Channel and are committed to consistently drive growth for our stakeholders. This show will deliver the gold standard of Bollywood music rankings to the industry and is among several initiatives in the pipeline that will make the MTunes HD viewers feel the music!” The channel is reportedly pricing the property at a premium and is confident of changing the game for the genre with its unique concept and distinct proposition.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor, CEO-Ormax Media added: “Today, music is consumed across media – television, radio, internet, mobile phones and other digital devices. MTunes Trending20 is a unique property that captures the combined effect of all these media.”

     

  • What peers and commentators think about JWT's 51% stake in Hungama Digital Services + a report

    Can JWT create digital Hungama with stake buy?

     

    MxMIndia spoke to a cross-section of media professionals to elicit their views on the JWT Singapore acquisition of a majority stake in Hungama Digital Services

     

    Hungama’s telecom business is intact

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Make no mistake. Hungama hasn’t sold out. Of the 1000+ employees, only 120 will be off to the new company which will only be 51 percent owned by JWT Singapore. And the key telecom business is intact, as are various others.

     

    When on Wednesday, leading advertising agency JWT confirmed its acquisition of a majority stake in Hungama Digital Services, the digital and promotions marketing division of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. The size of the deal is not known, though the digital services division is said to have aggregated a turnover of Rs50 crore last fiscal. WPP reportedly earns revenues of over Rs 2500 crore from India and Hungama earned around Rs 450 crore last fiscal.

     

    The new entity which will be called Hungama Digital Services Pvt. Ltd.will be a full-service digital agency specializing in digital marketing and social media solutions. As part of the acquisition, Hungama’s activations arm, Hungama Promo Marketing will become a part of Hungama Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. and provide an engagement platform linked to online and offline deliveries.

     

    However, it is not known who from the existing team at Hungama Digital Media would move to the jv. “We haven’t received the new org structure,” a Hungama spokesperson told MxMIndia.

     

    Said Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, “With JWT, we are now part of the largest advertising network in the world. Hungama Digital Services is the coming together of two exceptional teams in a globally relevant market.” “With this partnership with JWT we hope to offer integrated digital and experiential services to our clients and prepare brands to connect, interact and now transact with their customers.”

     

    Hungama Digital Services has been a dominant player in the digital space for 13 years and is spread across six cities in India. In fact the creative services devision is what Hungama started out with over a decade back. The 120-strong team will continue to drive the agency, including servicing old and new clients and offer creative and promo marketing services, viral marketing campaigns, social media marketing and mobile marketing, applications, managing websites and video services.

     

    For JWT, it’s a good acquisition, an insider told MxMIndia. Said Colvyn Harris, JWT India CEO: “Digital is our next new frontier.The idea of the partnership is to build a digital offering for our clients so we can live up to being a ‘single source’ partner across all their ‘marketing solutions’ needs. What will be most effective in the future is a new set of talented, digital high end specialists who will add new skills and capabilities to what JWT already offers to its clients. We want all our clients to be leaders in their respective categories.”

     

    “We have greatly expanded our digital capability across the region, and we are not standing still. JWT will continue to hire new digital experts and explore possible acquisitions across the region this year,” said Michael Maedel, President, JWT Asia Pacific.

     

    See earlier report: JWT acquires 51% stake in Hungama Digital

    Raghav Anand, Segment Leader-Digital, Ernst & Young (The observer and often advisor)

    Raghav Anand

    I think Digital is an extension that every creative arm should have, but the real efficiency comes from how well it is syndicated with the overall collusion. Most of the agencies which have bought digital companies have not been able to integrate them into the overall setup, and hence not been able to leverage the synergy. So, how well you integrate and leverage the synergies will really decide whether it’s a fantastic acquisition or not. Apart from that, the other important things is that companies like Hungama are not just agencies, they are more of digital workflow companies which do a lot more than advertising and creative. They integrate into mobile and few other things. So it’s important for an agency to fully leverage them.

     

    Arvind Sharma, Chairman of the Indian Subcontinent, Leo Burnett (He recently acquired Indigo, a digital agency)

    Arvind Sharma

    Setting up an outfit from scratch has its own merit as you don’t have to pay a hefty acquisition price. However, I think this is a chicken and egg situation as the challenge is that when starting from scratch, you lack the scale and expertise in the beginning which is a handicap when attracting talent or meeting the needs of a client. You get stuck in sub-optimal size and scale. Particularly in Digital, one needs technical expertise and should be armed with a suite of capabilities to meet the clients’ demand. Therefore, it makes sense to acquire an agency of 150-plus people who are specialists, especially in the digital category which is witnessing a lot of interest from clients too. It immediately gives you scale and expertise. Also today clients want gamut of services under digital. They are not looking for few pieces of digital work; hence having an in-house digital agency helps in delivering.

     

    Mahendra Swarup, Former CEO, Indiatimes, Chairman, Smile Interactive (He’s worked with Pepsico, Indiatimes, Smile Interactive whose Quasar was acquired by WPP, and is now a well-known VC)

    Mahendra Swarup

    I think Digital is not an easy space to get into for traditional agencies. And at this point of time, digital agencies’ valuations are pretty realistic, so it’s always good for the traditional agencies to take over an existing team which understands digital. Also, the digital space is going to start growing at a fast pace, although at this point of time, it has a very low share of the total spends. But it will probably end up growing almost by 75 to 80 per cent year on year. So, it’s a big growth area. Also, I think organic development of a digital agency within an existing traditional agency is just not possible, the existing teams will not understand this space at all. So it’s more an acquisition of knowledge and competence, rather than of revenues. It’s only a question how do they (traditional agencies) get into a space which they will then grow faster.

     

    Alok Kejriwal, CEO & Co-founder of Games2win (He’s a contemporary of Mr Neeraj Roy…)

    Alok Kejriwal

    Whatever be the nature of the investment, I think it is brilliant that Hungama Digital has managed to get a partner like JWT. It shows that people who have been around and helped build the digital landscape over the last 10-12 years have finally begun to see the fruit of their labour as it has been one long arduous battle. Neeraj Roy has fought many battles to get media owners and brand planners to get convinced about the digital platform for India.

     

    Creative people are not like cement bags where you can go to the market and buy them. They are like yogis in the mountains. So when you get hold of a yogi, you’d do anything to keep him. It’s not one size fits all. JWT has a large client portfolio while Hungama has the digital capability. There are some cutting-edge creative digital agencies in the world that are the ones trying to set shop inIndia. For them to buy it makes a lot of sense, but then there are existing creative agencies inIndiathen why buy an outside agency when they are cutting-edge themselves? If you look at Quasar, which is a WPP company, they too are doing a good job. So it varies according to the needs of the marketplace.

     

    Mahesh Murthy, Founder, Pinstorm (He embraced digital early and is known for his forthright views on everything!)

    Mahesh Murthy

    India is one geography in the world where MNC agencies are absent among the large digital agency houses. The basic reason is perhaps their unwillingness to give up on their bread-and-butter – that is media kickbacks and TV film production over-billing. Both of these tend to disappear when you move online and digital-first agencies like Pinstorm have built large practices by focusing more on new technologies and processes, having avoided the kickback-led business that still drives mainstream advertising. Given India’s importance on their global client rosters, the MNCs here have finally figured out that if they can’t build a digital business themselves, they’ll try to buy one. I personally don’t think these random purchases will make much of a difference.

     

    Vikas Tandon, Founder & Managing Director, Indigo Consulting (Indigo was acquired recently by Leo Burnett)

    Vikas Tandon

    It is no surprise at all. The pace of change in the world today is stupendous, and digital media is causing consumer behaviour to change very rapidly. There is no time to build the expertise from scratch, and scale is also critical to success. Another compelling reason is there is not enough digital talent out there – a lot of the experience and expertise resides in entrepreneurial outfits. Hence acquisitions make eminent sense.

     

    Karl Gomes, Co-founder – AgencyDigi (He co-started the agency after a great run as a digital CD)

    Karl Gomes

    When it comes to digital, any news is good news. In fact if you look around in the media marketplace, there have been similar news developments that have happened in the recent past. The focus for agencies should be about coming up with the right idea and focus on the consumers and brands. In today’s world you have to collaborate. My only worry with these acquisitions is I hope they don’t treat them as another division but they work together and in a synergistic fashion. They need to be sitting together on the table when a brief comes across to them rather than just approach it passively. So, an acquisition like this should be good for both the people buying them and for people selling them. We have been approached by agencies but we are completely funded by clients and their business. So we will continue to run independently.

     

    Compiled by Shruti Pushkarna, Johnson Napier and Tuhina Anand

     

  • JWT acquires 51% stake in Hungama Digital

    From the MxM Infodesk

     

    Leading advertising agency JWT has acquired a majority stake in Hungama Digital Services, the digital and promotions marketing division of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. Although the joint communique issued does not state it, MxMIndia learns that the JWT stake in Hungama Digital will be 51 percent.

     

    The new entity which will be called Hungama Digital Services Pvt. Ltd.will be a full-service digital agency specializing in digital marketing and social media solutions. As part of the acquisition, Hungama’s activations arm, Hungama Promo Marketing will become a part of Hungama Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. and provide an engagement platform linked to online and offline deliveries.

     

    Neeraj Roy

    Said Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, “With JWT, we are now part of the largest advertising network in the world. Hungama Digital Services is the coming together of two exceptional teams in a globally relevant market.” He added, “India is at the cusp of a digital revolution with the advent of 500+ million consumers getting online in the next 3-4 years. From augmented reality to developing applications for connected devices, Hungama Digital Services has been at the forefront of digital technology. With this partnership\ with JWT we hope to offer integrated digital and experiential services to our clients and prepare brands to connect, interact and now transact with their customers.”

     

    Hungama Digital Services has been a dominant player in the digital space for 13 years and is spread across six cities in India. The existing team of 120 people, who will join Hungama Digital Services, will continue to drive the agency, including servicing old and new clients and offer creative and promo marketing services, viral marketing campaigns, social media marketing and mobile marketing, applications, managing websites and video services.

     

    Colvyn Harris

    “Digital is our next new frontier.The idea of the partnership is to build a digital offering for our clients so we can live up to being a ‘single source’ partner across all their ‘marketing solutions’ needs. What will be most effective in the future is a new set of talented, digital high end specialists who will add new skills and capabilities to what JWT already offers to its clients. We want all our clients to be leaders in their respective categories.” said Colvyn Harris, CEO of JWT India.

     

    With this acquisition, Hungama Digital Services along with JWT Digital capabilities will be a digital thought-leader with delivery capability in digital ideation, production, and social media.By our association with many of India’s largest clients, Hungama Digital Services will be able to create the right traction and critical mass within the digital and business community in India.

     

    “We have greatly expanded our digital capability across the region, and we are not standing still. JWT will continue to hire new digital experts and explore possible acquisitions across the region this year,” said Michael Maedel, President, JWT Asia Pacific.

     

  • Customers can now learn to speak fluent English within the comfort of their homes

    Airtel DTH launches iEnglish

    By A Correspondent

     

    Airtel Digital TV, the DTH service by Bharti Airtel announced the launch of its new interactive service, iEnglish to help customer hone their English speaking skills within the comfort of their homes.  These English language tutorials are based on an audio-visual format with animated characters and quizzes for easy comprehension.

     

    Priced at Rs30/month Airtel Digital TV subscribers can now avail the benefits of this offering by simply pressing the iTV button on their remote control.

     

    Commenting on the launch,  Shashi Arora, CEO- DTH/ Media, Bharti Airtel, said: “Interactive services on  digital TV platforms are not merely value added services but ‘infotainment plus’. Our new interactive service, iEnglish will enable customers become skilled at day-to-day spoken English by enhancing their learning through entertaining, yet educational activities.”

     

    Powered by Hungama, South Asia’s leading digital entertainment company, and Aptech, a pioneer in providing education and training, iEnglish would help consumers understand specific scenarios and commonly used English expressions for daily communication. Apart from teaching correct pronunciations of words, it would also help customers learn new words and phrases, proper grammar usage and an opportunity to gauge their competencies.

     

    Ninad Karpe, MD & CEO, Aptech Ltd said: “With India poised to emerge as one of the successful player in the field of mEducation, we are excited to launch our first mEducation offerings on Airtel Digital TV”.

     

    Neeraj Roy, MD & CEO, Hungama added: “The DTH platform is emerging as a new tool for more interactive forms of entertainment and learning. We will continue to innovate and create products with ease of access for our consumers.”

     

    Besides iEnglish, Airtel Digital TV currently offers several interactive services such as iExam, iKidsworld, iDarshan, iRadio and iFasal.

     

    Airtel digital TV – the DTH service from Bharti Airtel – has over 7.2 million customers and is one of the leading national level DTH service in the country. Airtel has also HD services to its portfolio.

     

  • The main challenge for the industry is to seamlessly blend and enable technology to become user-friendly, finds session on Converged Future.

    @FF12: Time to experiment with technology

    By A Correspondent

     

    Now that digitisation is set to come into effect from July 1, the convergence of media assumes greater significance. This was the topic of discussion in the second session on Thursday at FICCI Frames 2012.

     

    In a session moderated by Neeraj Roy, MD & CEO, Hungama, Sanket Akerkar, MD, MicrosoftIndiatalked about “The Converged future – Multiple platforms, technologies &transforming applications for media and entertainment”. The theme of his keynote address was significance and emergence of digitisation.

     

    To illustrate how connected we are today, he cited an example of how a teenaged son of a friend uses Xbox to connect with friends he was with at school and play games. Though this may common enough, he added that the group of friends used the very same environment to connect and do their homework. This can also be taken as learning life lessons of surviving in the digital world.

     

    Mr Akerkar said that the consumer lifestyles are controlling the conversation, citing the example the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. The industry has to takes its cues from what the consumers want. According to him, even ads will now be consumed as per the consumers’ choice and the advertisers can’t dictate the place and time for the consumption. Now the people are going to become the content creator and content consumer. The main challenge for the industry is now to seamlessly blend and enable technology to become user friendly.

     

    Jonathan Bill, SVP Internet and Data Services, Vodafone joined the conversation to discuss how the telco-eco system can offer better opportunity to the media and entertainment industry to monetise the services.

     

    Mr Bill said thatIndia’s telco-eco system is a hyper competitive market which the lowest price points in the global market. It generates the lion share of revenue in the entertainment stream for Vodafone.

     

    Mr Roy said that technological progress has enabled applications that recognise the customer preferences, be it the Internet or the phone.

     

    Mr Akerkar agreed and added thatIndiawill have 25 million smartphones by the next year and this connectivity gives the opportunity to the industry to experiment in creating applications for the users. He said that the technology is moving ahead at such speed that one only needs to use their imagination to think ‘what next innovation’.

     

    All the speakers were in agreement that once the digitisation bill comes into effect, the choice of content available to the user will be limitless. As Mr Akerkar said, “the challenge will be to separate content, be it mainstream or user generated into what is relevant or not.”

     

    They also discussed the feasibility of creating video content for mobile devices. Mr Bill was of the opinion thatIndiahas huge possibilities as it is the largest internet video consumption market. Mr Roy said thatIndiais poised to become the largest internet market in the next 3-4 years, surpassing evenChina.

     

    The speakers discussed how even gaming had huge possibilities if one was to look at co-developing games along with films. Mr Akerkar said that there was a business model waiting to happen if one figured how to reduce the initial cost of investment and figure out how to connect a known brand (film) and gaming.

     

    But the biggest challenge is the transition to the digital eco system. It is not enough to rely only on advertising revenues. Mr Bill said that the way forward is moving from free Internet content to paid content.

     

     

  • The channels have an exciting line-up of Disney’s best loved, award-winning programs and interactive contests with more than 5000 prizes up for grabs

    Mega New Year celebrations on Disney channels

    By A Correspondent

     

    Disney Television Network, the number 1 entertainment destination for kids and their families, is set to celebrate the New Year with its varied programming. Disney channel will end 2011 with the award winning Disney classic movie UP on December 31 at 11 am.

     

    UP is a heart-warming comedy adventure about a 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds ofSouth America, along with an overly optimistic 8-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell. The movie won the Academy Awards for the Best Animated Feature and the Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2010.

     

    In his very first voice acting role, renowned Bollywood actor Anupam Kher has voiced the lead character Carl in Hindi. Commenting on his role, Anupam Kher said: “What makes this movie exciting is that it’s a fantasy film with believable characters. Carl can be from any part of the world or country. He is an ordinary man who fulfills an extraordinary promise and that truly makes him special.”

     

    Families can “kick-off” 2012 with the uber-cool soccer star David Beckham in conversation with famous Disney duo, brothers Phineas and Ferb on “Take Two with Phineas and Ferb” on January 1. The show is a series of fun interviews where the brothers talk to celebs like David Beckham. They have many more exciting ones already in the pipeline for the New Year.

     

    Adding some interactive fun and learning for the young ones will be an exciting contest inspired by Disney Junior’s popular interactive show, “Jake and The Neverland Pirates”. The show features comic and host Cyrus Broacha as the voice of “Sharky” along with musician Sid Coutto as the voice of “Bones”. The talented duo is also seen on the show with an entertaining live-action routine which has been locally produced inIndia.

     

    Beginning January 1, young viewers can brush up their counting skills every Monday to Friday by tuning into “Disney Junior Jake Contest” from 11 am to 12.30 pm and win more than 1000 cool prizes including Jake’s special Doubloon memorabilia, tee shirts, bandanas and DVDs.

     

    Disney’s action, adventure and comedy destination for boys, Disney XD will be revving up the content pipeline in the New Year starting with Disney classic blockbuster ‘The Lion King’ on January 1, 2011 at 12. A brand new fun-filled show about a creative and quirky hero – “Scaredy Squirrel”, inspired by the popular book series by Melanie Watt will start on Disney XD on January 9, 2011.

     

    In the new year, the channel will create a strong destination for Marvel-branded characters and stories with the launch of Spider-man on weekdays. While the excitement on popular show “Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil” is already on the upswing with a spectacular contest where fans can win over 100 cool prizes every day, including skateboards, Playstations, camping sets, snorkeling sets and Ipods.

     

    Hungama TV will ring in the New Year with new episodes of popular show “Guzura”, which follows the chubby little dinosaur and his misadventures as he interacts with humans and other animals.

     

    The channel will also feature exiting contests with over 1000 goodies waiting to be bagged by Hungama fans.