MxMIndia

Tag: IMC

  • To spearhead the agency's growth and client’s retention

    Three Percent Collective appoints Amit Bidholia as Business Head

    By Our Staff

     

    Three Percent Collective, a Bengaluru-based Digital Marketing Agency backed by Malabar Group’s IMC, has appointed Amit Bidholia as the Business Head. Based out of Delhi, he will be spearheading the agency’s growth and client’s retention.

     

    Said Pradeep Singh, Cofounder, Three Percent Collective: “Amit is joining us at a time when Three Percent is at an inflection point in its journey. Amit’s experience in digital marketing will be an asset as we continue to grow. We are confident that his skills will only help us to grow faster.”

     

    Commenting on Amit’s appointment, CTP Ummer Kutty, Executive Director, IMC added: “Amit’s rich experience will further add to the momentum for the Agency’s growth story and will definitely add value to the joint venture we have.”

     

  • No longer an option, going digital for publications is now a question of how, and how best, to reach and satisfy consumers

    Digital is changing the publishing game: IMC panel

    By A Correspondent

     

    There is a revolution happening in India, and publications have to ride the wave. This has been the dominant theme ever since the digital eruption began, and the urgency has only grown. The message was echoed at the panel discussion on ‘The State of Digital Publishing – Challenges and Opportunities’ on the second day of the Indian Magazine Congress.

     

    Kirthiga Reddy, Director, Online Operations, and India Head, Facebook, said that according to the Indian Readership Survey, digital media has been growing faster and bigger than print media, and its drivers are technology and changing consumer behaviour.

     

    On the technology side, India has the highest growth rate in internet adoption. “We are in the midst of a smartphone, tablet, featurephone revolution,” she said. “On the consumer side, consumers want to find exactly what they want, when they want it, as the pressure of time is intensifying, and this is changing how people are doing things.”

     

    There are three big opportunities in social media, Ms Reddy said. One is reach, the second is two-way interaction, and third is using that interaction for unprecedented personalization. “On the Facebook platform for example, you can reach one billion people globally. Marketers need to think about platforms including the lowest end feature phones, as well as using the range of regional languages.”

     

    People do not just want to consume information, they want to interact and share it, she said. This desire to share is higher in India than the global average. Some best practices are to have a content strategy that leverages the power of each platform, it’s not about one content strategy for all. The most effective use of social media is when the company thinks of social media as part of everything that they do; it is not something separate.

     

    Moving on to personalization, Ms Reddy said that in five years from now, it will be unthinkable that an individual goes to a website and sees the same thing as other individuals. Consumers are going to demand personalization. No one is going to have the time to flip through pages and pages of matter which is irrelevant to them. One challenge to highlight at this time, she said, is education to help people navigate the new world of new and social media.

     

    Umang Bedi, Managing Director, South Asia, Adobe, said the global trend is to put digital first, and India has to keep in step. The way the world looks at content strategy is about taking content into a digital format first, giving the flexibility of creating content any time anywhere, and rendering that content and distributing it. Then it is about optimizing, personalizing and monetizing the content, breaking down the traditional silos. Adobe, he said, is very close to a solution for meeting the consumer need of personalized customization.

     

    “Mobile traffic has exploded in India, and everyone wants to put content in digital format. And every time someone goes online and interacts, they leave a digital set of signals. Brands need to listen to these signals, assimilate data and make decisions based on these observations which are tailored to each individual. Conversions grow by 4x or 5x when brands are able to differentiate themselves in this way,” Mr Bedi said.

     

    Punitha Arumugam, Director, Agency Business, Google India said that thinking about digital has to go beyond desktop and mobile, but the context is likely to become one comprehensive device – the Google Glasses – as early as by the end of the year. Adapting publishing to existing digital devices has to include developments of the future such as this, she said, which will change the way consumers interact.

     

    The advent of technology has ended up making consumers increasingly lazy, she said, and this also influences the way brands reach them. She cited the example of pizza company Red Tomato, which has a fridge-magnet application that can be used to order pizza instantly based on previously ordered choices. However, when reading a magazine online, consumers behave the same way as they do with magazines in hard copy, she said. Which is, they stop at pages, stop at ads, etc, in contrast with other online behaviour which is search-oriented.

     

    In the publishing space, magazines need to be frenemies rather than enemies, Ms Arumugam said, highlighting that collaboration can help the industry as a whole, and thereby benefit individual brands as well. She also added that measurement needs to include online readership as well as the traditional offline numbers, and the next IRS, in collaboration with Google, would be tuned to reflect this.

     

    The discussion was moderated by Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of Cybermedia.

     

  • Notable panellists from the fourth estate gathered at the Indian Magazine Conress to put forth their views on the topic 'Church vs State: Has the wall between editorial and business breached?

    IMC 2013: Editorial vs business: the debate rages on…

    By A Correspondent

     

    It’s been an oft- debated topic at most industry forums but one can be assured of a new twist to crop up each time the subject comes alive. It was no different at the Indian Magazine Congress where notable panellists from the fourth estate gathered to put forth their views on the topic ‘Church vs State: Has the wall between editorial and business breached?’

     

    Flagging off the discussion, Khozem Merchant, India Head at Pearson began by saying that the shape and tone of print media has undergone a drastic shift in recent years with the emergence of paid content. A concept that was pioneered by the Times of India, paid content has changed the way the business of newspapers operate while managing to reinforce the state of the advertisers in this country, he said. While on the one hand it has underpinned the economics of this industry on the other it has subjugated the craft of journalism. The good thing to have happened is that there has been a spurt in the rise of niche magazines; this on the back of the Indian print industry managing to do well in recent times, said Mr Merchant.

     

    Terming the debate an irrelevant one, Hormazd Sorabjee, editor, Autocar India said, “In my opinion, the debate is not a valid one. Where we are concerned, we are not influenced at all by the advertisers. We have moved to an era today of high cover pricing and still have audiences who read us. We will in way allow our practices to be compromised.”

     

    But while maintaining editorial integrity remains a priority, for Mr Sorabjee there was a need to reach out to the advertising community as well. “We need to offer advertising solutions that have a reading value. While we do need advertisers to sustain the business the editorial-advertising division cannot be breached.”

     

    Taking off from where Mr Sorabjee left, Krishna Prasad, editor-in-chief of Outlook said that according to him, the Church vs State wall had been breached the reason for that was due to content. While everybody was focusing on the business side of the trade, Mr Prasad highlighted that nobody cared to talk about the core of the business – training journalists in mastering the art. “The fact is that content and journalism are two key facets that we need to focus on. But in India, the market leaders have played a damaging role in getting the toothpaste out of the tube. It is essential that we do not continue to dabble in business beyond a certain limit.”

     

    According to Indrajit Gupta, editor, Forbes India his magazine has always tried to provide journalism that is respected. But he cautioned that it was necessary for editors to see business realities as well. “Before we launched our magazine we spent a fair amount of time researching and understanding what the market reality was. If the focus for magazines happens to be content, then you have to keep the consumer at the centre. The onus lies on both the editors as well as advertisers to make this a reality. But it is essential that instead of reach magazines should be sold via engagement,” reasoned Mr Gupta.

     

    Answering a question on whether editors needed to play multiple roles, Mr Sorabjee said that it was essential for editors to be seen as well-rounded figures. Where his magazine was concerned, it shared a close association with the advertisers as it was a niche offering. After all we are being measured by our readers, which is good but the business reality is that we need to have innovation to enhance value.”

     

    Mr Gupta said that most brands do not carry the conviction that is desired out of them. Adding he said: “While most editors are reluctant even business managers have failed to show creativity. This may lead one to be held ransom by the advertisers. This is the case especially with Events and other such offerings that lack differentiation. At the end, it has to be an editorial-driven activity.”

     

    Adding on to his earlier point, Mr Prasad stated that the troubling part with India’s media growth investment has been its investment in journalism that has been abysmal. “While it’s a fact that owners are making revenues they need to plough it back in the business.”