MxMIndia

Tag: Samar Verma

  • The idea behind the association is to take a step ahead in delivering new content and formats to the audiences

    Sunny Leone buys stake in The Hauterfly

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sunny Leone has become an equity investor in Fork Media Group’s women’s digital publication, The Hauterfly. The idea behind the association is to take a step ahead in delivering new content and formats to the audiences.

     

    Talking about the association, Samar Verma, CEO & Founder of Fork Media Group said: “Sunny is someone who has celebrated lifestyle trends all along. She has been a pioneer in influencing the people around her and has directed millennials to always be a better version of themselves. Sunny’s investment and belief in our content platform is a great testimonial for the brand we’ve built. With her inputs, we look at bringing in a fresh perspective to the brand and creating newer opportunities for the brand and bringing never seen content to our two million and counting members.”

     

     

  • Mashable India will curate and localize the best of Mashable’s delightfully offbeat global content

    Fork Media and Ziff Davis announce Mashable India

    By A Correspondent

     

    Fork Media has announced a new agreement with Ziff Davis to operate Mashable India. The expanded partnership builds on Fork’s existing operation of other Ziff Davis brands, IGN and AskMen, in India.

     

    Mashable India will curate and localise Mashable content, while adding originally created unique content specifically produced for the India market.

     

    Said Samar Verma, CEO of Fork Media: “We’re excited to expand our partnership with Ziff Davis, having developed real traction with IGN and AskMen, we view Mashable as a game changer to our content publishing business. We believe Fork Media can drive Mashable India to its true potential with our integrated content, sales and marketing approach.”

     

    Said Adam Doree, on behalf of Ziff Davis: “As a new chapter for Mashable’s international expansion begins, Ziff Davis will be working with the very best media companies in the world as its partner operators – both existing and new to our partner group. In India, our partners at Fork Media are building a world class media company and their values are a perfect match for Mashable India.”

     

     

  • Fork Media has a slew of innovative native advertising and premium advertising products that are integrated on top tier publishers in India, UAE, Indonesia and Singapore

    Fork Media acquires majority stake in Rappio

    By A Correspondent

     

    Digital adtech company Fork Media has acquired a majority stake in Rappio Advertising, a startup that has a unique platform for digital audio advertising.

     

    Founded in 2016, Rappio offers a platform that enables brands to use their audio advertising formats, like ad jingles, promos, announcements, etc. to be played back as ringtones on end-user smartphones.

     

    Speaking on the deal, Nirav Shah, co-founder of Rappio said: “Fork Media and Rappio have a common vision for innovating and driving the advertising experience through alternate inventories in the digital medium. With their experienced leadership, innovative products and proven expertise, we think it’s a perfect fit to take Rappio to the next level”.

     

    Added Samar Verma, Founder and CEO of Fork Media said: “At Fork Media, we have always believed in collaborating with the best minds in the ad-tech space and have been able to deliver many differentiated offerings to brands through our past acquisitions. We believe Rappio can cause a disruptive opportunity for brands to take their radio spends into the digital medium with high degree of measurability, targeting and transparency”.

     

    Nirav Shah will head the business division within Fork Media as CEO and Founder of Rappio.  Rappio will operate out of Fork Media’s Mumbai headquarters and will leverage Fork Media’s sales and technology teams.

     

  • Aims to leverage Spid’s existing technology to offer advertisers & publishers with one of the largest audience platforms

    Fork Media acquires equity in wi-fi ad network Spid

    By A Correspondent

     

    Fork Media has recently invested in Wi-Fi ad network Spid Info Media Pvt. Ltd. The partnership is in line with Fork’s vision of becoming the leading player in the alternate ad inventory space and is synergistic with its vision of broadening its core offerings. Fork Media will leverage Spid’s technology for advertisers and publishers by offering them one of the largest audience platforms, targeting on-the-go consumers.

     

    Spid currently has a bouquet of over 1,200 locations including all major airports, QSRs like McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, and Costa Coffee, malls and other retail locations. This number is rapidly growing as it partners with ISPs and telecom providers to help monetize their inventory. Fork Media aims to use Spids platform to leverage the locational behavior of consumers and target them for relevant advertising.

     

    Samar Verma, CEO – Fork Media, says about the acquisition, “Having Spid as a part if the Fork Media group is a strategic move for us. We see Wi-Fi as an alternative eco-system – a parallel economy, that’s growing rapidly. With the onset of 4G, a lot of telecom players are investing in Wi-Fi infrastructure to offset the costs involved in setting up 4G. Additionally, the Wi-Fi ecosystem takes location targeting to the next level by not only delivering relevant content to the consumer in and around a certain location, but also offering destination targeting. We are steering Fork Media to be less device-centric and more consumer-centric in our ad solutions. Therefore, this is an extremely important link in the chain for us in the consumer’s journey.”

     

    The acquisition of equity in Spid is a part of Fork Media’s larger expansion plans. It had recently made its foray into international markets with the launch of its operations in Dubai – targeting the GCC Region. Through its tie-up with Spid, the company is now better equipped to provide well-timed offers that consumers are seeking. Fork Media is now poised to tap the immense opportunity that exists in the digital marketing space in India. By acquiring equity in Spid, Fork Media will be positioned across advertisers, publishers, as well as ISPs.

     

    Harsh Nagpal, CEO, Spid, said, “Our partnership with Fork Media is a marriage of strengths. Fork’s reach and expertise in business development will enable us to leverage this unique proposition, further enabling brands to reach out to relevant audiences. With Samar and the entire Fork team’s collective experience and expertise, we foresee Spid deriving maximum value and growing manifold.”

     

  • Ant Farm has activated India's first premium audience network platform with a bouquet of publishers on board

    Rishi Khiani’s Ant Farm launches Fork Media

    By A Correspondent

     

    Ant Farm – an innovation sandbox that aims to create global brands ideated and built out of India – has announced the launch of its first venture in the advertising space, Fork Media. Founded by Samar Verma and Upen Roop Rai, both of whom recently stepped down from leadership positions at the Times Group, Fork Media offers advertisers innovative content-led marketing solutions, high engagement ad formats and exclusive access to the country’s leading publishers across the online, mobile and video platforms.

     

    “Our constant feedback from advertisers is that the typical ad formats prevalent on the web and mobile today are flawed. Users tend to tune out advertising; as a result click-through rates and engagement are trending downwards. We saw this as a great opportunity to create seamless, brand-led content propositions that give advertisers longer-term engagement with their target audience,” said Samar Verma, CEO & Founder, Fork Media.

     

    Upen Roop Rai, Managing Director & Co-Founder, Fork Media, said, “There is a genuine need to address challenges such as low benchmarks set on pricing, lack of innovation and broken ad formats. This is an exciting proposition for both the publisher for driving optimal revenue levels and the advertiser for creating longer-term engagement with its target consumer group. Our aim is to create meaningful, conversation-based advertising for premium brands. We have seen tremendous success in the past in creating synergies between brands and content, and we want to extend that philosophy at Fork.”

     

    Fork puts the brand before measurability and has created a unique index that helps advertisers reach out to their intended audience via the right publisher collaboration. It focuses on alternative revenue streams that can run parallel to the publisher’s existing monetization efforts. It has also created the biggest differentiator in the market with its core proposition – the content marketing arm Thinktank, which is the network’s in-house ideation, content creation and design cell.

     

    Even before the official launch, Fork has roped in clients such as HT Media, The India Today Group, The Hindu, and The Daily Mail. This collectively gives Fork a reach of over 25 million premium users across the online and mobile platforms. More publishers have signed on and official announcements will be made in the coming weeks.

     

    “When Samar first approached us with the Idea of Fork Media we immediately saw the potential. He has had one of the fastest growths in the online industry largely due to his disruptive ideas and aggressive approach to monetization. We are excited with the traction Fork has managed to gain in such a short period of time. It’s a winning proposition for any publisher or brand,” said Rishi Khiani, MD of Antfarm.