BasicFirst, a personalised e-learning platform, has announced the appointment of AjayDev Singh as Marketing Head and Chief Digital Strategist. Singh has held leadership roles at Reliance ADAG, Percept and SVG Media.
On the appointment, Randhir Kumar, Founder and Chief Mentor – BasicFirst said: “As an e-learning brand, we are committed to helping students achieve academic goals by leveraging the unique combination of content-based learning and doubt clearing. Ajay Dev’s experience in the mainline and digital domains will be conducive to our growth, accelerating BasicFirst’s presence in the e-learning space.”
Columbus India has been appointed as the digital AOR for AIS Glass. The account was won following a pitch process across all the businesses of AIS Glass including architectural glass, automotive glass, consumer glass, AIS Windows, AIS Glasxperts, AIS Windshield Experts and AIS Car Fit Experts, and will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai and Gurugram offices. Sohail Khan from Columbus India’s Mumbai Office will be spearheading this relationship along with a multifaceted cross functional team from across regions.
Vikram Khanna
Commenting on the appointment, Vikram Khanna, COO (Consumer Glass & Architectural Institutional Business), CMO & CIO, Asahi India Glass said: “AIS is India’s leading automotive and building glass company. We are trying to establish direct connect with our consumers in Automotive, Home and building market with our brands – AIS Windshield Experts, AIS Glasxperts and AIS Windows. A strong agency for the ever-expanding digital space is required to keep us connected with consumers in digital world, and on-boarding Columbus India gives us that confidence to do so. AIS is happy to welcome Columbus India, a part of the Dentsu Aegis group… We have the confidence in this relationship to reach out to our consumers on the digital medium more closely and effectively.”
Nitin Sabharwal
Added Nitin Sabharwal, COO, Columbus India:“AIS glass is one of our most awesome wins in the recent past as this was one of the last pitches done by our late CEO Anurag Gupta himself and also due to the fact that we are actually helping AIS in their digital transformation across all platforms and digital assets.”
Deven Dharamdasani
Said Deven Dharamdasani, CEO, SVG Media: “It’s a matter of great pride for Columbus India to be the Brand Voice and the communication partner for AIS India. A brand that has been leading for over three decades in the glass industry to have placed their trust in us. We are excited to partner with them in their digital journey and hope to bring in the change in their social media brand communication and engagement with their audiences”.
Dentsu Aegis Network India has promoted erstwhile COO Deven Dharamdasani to the new role of CEO, SVG Media. The network took the decision following the demise of Anurag Gupta, former CEO – SVG Media, in July this year. Additionally, Nitin Sabharwal, former Chief Business Officer – SVG Columbus, has now been elevated to Chief Operating Officer.
Said Ashish Bhasin, CEO, Greater South, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman & CEO India said: “Anurag’s passing is a deep and a shocking loss for SVG, for DAN and for the entire Digital fraternity. Deven, Chirag, Ashwani and Nitin are integral to SVG and they understand and resonate with Anurag’s vision for the agency. I wish them all the luck and look forward to SVG’s growth under their vigilant leadership.” Meanwhile, SVG Media’s mobile business will continue to function under Chirag Shah, CEO, SVG Mobile.
SVG Media has announced a strategic partnership with US-based BirdEye customer experience and business reputation platform in India.
Naveen Gupta
Said Naveen Gupta, Co-founder and CEO of BirdEye: “We are incredibly excited about this partnership. SVG brings an unparalleled understanding and execution in the Indian market. This is the reason why the majority of the world’s leading companies cherry-pick SVG as their digital partner.â€
Anurag Gupta
Added Anurag Gupta, CEO of SVG Media: “The marketing tangent in India is fast evolving and there is a growing need for effective marketing technologies. The BirdEye product suite serves a holistic and focused approach towards revenue contribution across their implementations. SVG would bring its strategic market understanding and sales expertise to grow the business presence in India. We are very excited to be partnering with BirdEye and are looking forward to improving customer experiences in India.â€
This news could be looked at from two ends. That the Dentsu Aegis Network has completed yet another acquisition and become really big in digital. Or fro the Smile Group point of view, where the co-promoters Harish Bahl and Manish Vij have hit the jackpot yet again after selling Quasar to WPP in 2008. According to some industry estimates, the deal size is in the region of Rs 750 crore.
So let’s hear it from the DAN pov first:
Dentsu Aegis Network has announced the acquisition of SVG Media Private Limited, one of the largest independent digital agencies in India. SVG Media will join the network’s Asia Pacific digital marketingagency Columbus and will become SVGColumbus.
Manish Vij (L) Harish Bahl (R)
Dentsu Aegis Network claims to be currently Google’s largest search partner in India, and the addition of SVG Media will further strengthen the Group’s leading search position in the market. This acquisition will also support Columbus’expansion in Asia Pacific – now in nine markets across the region.
SVG Media includes the flagship brands DGM, Komli and Seventynine. Founded in 2006, SVG Media comprises over 280 specialists across four major Indian cities Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. It offers diverse digital media competencies including online performance marketing, mobile app distribution, representations, social and web services through its flagship brands. The group has one of the largest client bases in the Indian digital media sector with over 700 monthly active advertiser campaigns locally, as well as international clients in Dubai, Indonesia and China.
Anurag Gupta,CEO of SVG Columbus & DGM, will report to Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia. Anurag Gupta, CEO of SVG Columbus & DGM, Chirag Shah,CEO of SVG Media Mobile & Seventynine, Deven Dharamdasani,COO of SVG Media Mobile & Seventynine, Akshay Mathur, Business Head of Komli, and Ashwani Mehta,Finance Controller,will join the SVG Columbus Managing Board, which will be chaired by Vivek Bhargava, CEO of Performance, Dentsu Aegis Network India.
Harish Bahl and Manish Vij, founder and co-founder of the Smile Group, will continue to focus on investments through the Smile Group and will no longer act as directors of SVG Media. It has also been agreed that the Smile Group will retain the TyrooTechlabs business.
Said Ashish Bhasin,Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia: “India is a significant market with rapid growth potential in its mobile and performance marketing business, and Dentsu Aegis Network India has a strong track record in the search and performance space to deliver this. Given its capabilities in data led search, performance marketing and mobile,SVG Columbus is ideally positioned to capture the fragmented long tail publisher market in India using technology and data. As a Group we have leading position in digital in India, particularly in search and performance and this gives us a clear leadership position in this area. We will now have over 1,300 digital professionals, accounting for over 35% of our revenues, well ahead of our competitors.â€
On behalf of SVG Columbus management, Anurag Gupta, CEO of SVG Columbus,,said: “We started out as a digital media group more than a decade ago, and for us to join forces with a clear market leader in digital, that is Dentsu Aegis Network, makes perfect sense. Their priority in placing digital at the forefront of their strategy and goals align perfectly with ours. We will continue to scale our offering in performance marketing and serving clients through the network and other agency networks. We are assured of their strong growth momentum, which will enable us to further enhance our scale as a business operationally and geographically. Their unique one P&L model also allows us to be part of that shared vision towards a digital world which will provide us with access to the latest industry technology and talent to deliver the best solutions for our clients.â€
Meanwhile, this is what Messrs Vij and Bahl have to say:
Manish Vij Co-Founder Smile Group: “We built SVG Media with the philosophy of profitable growth and market leadership. This philosophy is not the most popular in digital industry but has been very gratifying for SVG Media founders and key leadership. We understand that media consumptions habits are changing rapidly therefore will now focus on building the TyrooTech business and other media incubations.â€
Harish Bahl, Founder at Smile Group:“At Smile we are proud to have continuously built successful JV partnerships or exits with large global firms as, Airbnb, Yahoo, WPP Digital, Scan Group-Africa etc. SVG’s market leadership and exit to DAN is another feather in the cap for Smile. Our strategy of Investing, Building and JVs through one common platform, is uniquely attractive to global unicorns and entrepreneurs and has evolved over years of learnings. We hope to share few more exciting announcements in 2017.â€
SVG Media announced a new advertising media solutions offering for direct advertisers under its brand nNext. nNext, launched six months ago as a performance marketing platform, now offers end-mile results as the sole campaign goal.
nNext’s media solutions take advantage of technology to deliver transparent and more efficient campaigns for advertisers. The platform is able to offer live dashboards on media spends, automated hourly reporting and other significant enhancements. The technology stack at nNext is also developed in-house and is customizable to client’s needs.
nNext solutions are tailor made for branding, performance, programmatic media buying, remarketing campaigns on desktop, mobile and many other innovative digital platforms.
Nitin Sabharwal, Founder of nNext business said, “The biggest problem advertisers face is the lack of transparency when it comes to media spends. It is only when the invoice is raised that the clear picture emerges. nNext bridges this gap by giving a real-time access to advertisers. They know where and how their campaign is performing.â€
Yashasvi Vats, Business Head, nNext said, “I have been an advertiser for the past few years and understand the pain problem to integrate end to end. At nNext, we educate our clients about various technology solutions available to bring down costs to increase customer engagement. We integrate the marketing campaigns into the client’s CRM or Dialers to offer real time analytics and lead generation when it comes to performance.â€
nNext currently has mandates on a variety of product lines and channels from clients like Max Bupa Health Care, IndusInd Bank, Iffco-Tokio Life Insurance, Aegon Life and others.
Media technology brand Komli Media announced that it has renewed its partnership agreement with Twitter for India till March 2017. Komli signed this partnership for the first time with Twitter in 2012.
Under the renewed agreement, Komli will continue to help Twitter expand its Promoted Products suite of advertising products and emphasise on the company’s monetisation efforts. Komli would be reaching out to the huge Indian mid-market segment and help them target potential customers on Twitter giving them high life time value per customer and eventual return on investment.
Manish Vij, Founder & CEO, SVG Media, said “These are exciting times for us to be in the digital and mobile marketing industry. The Indian market is growing and fast emerging as a significant opportunity distinct from the developed markets in the U.S and other geographies. Komli has delivered amazing results in past few years and we are absolutely confident about our success in the coming year tooâ€.
Komli Media is driving Twitter advertisement campaigns for some of the biggest Indian brands including Levi’s, Cathay Pacific, Zoomcar, Swiggy and Adani  to count a few.
Akshay Mathur
Speaking about the development, Akshay Mathur, Senior Vice President, Komli Media said, “We are delighted to extend our partnership with Twitter, particularly at a time when social media usage in India is exploding and an unprecedented number of brands are investing in Twitter to reach out to their audiences. Through this partnership we are looking forward to delivering again on our commitment to create a long term value for Twitter in this region. This partnership also makes us the only player with a complete digital and mobile marketing portfolio and the partner of choice for marketers operating in this region.â€
Aliza Knox
Aliza Knox, Vice President, Online Sales, Asia Pacific and Latin America, Twitter, said, “India is one of the fastest growing markets for Twitter worldwide and we are excited to announce the extension of our strategic business partnership with Komli locally. The partnership will provide additional on-ground support to Twitter’s clients and prospects in India, working in parallel with our direct sales team, to strengthen Twitter’s presence in the market.”
Tyroo Technologies, a part of SVG Media, announced its renewed focus to strengthen its retargeting business in India and regional markets like Japan, South-east Asia and Middle-east. Tyroo also aims to expand its retargeting business to other international markets like Europe. The company said that its retargeting business has influenced Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of nearly US$ 100 million for its clients in 2014-15; and has been driving re-engagement with over 90 million unique users during the same period.
Tyroo is an industry leader in mobile-focused performance marketing and its mobile-focused retargeting business helps advertisers re-engage their visitors on mobile apps and mobile web. The company is working with several clients in ecommerce space across various countries, including one of the largest e-commerce companies in Japan and largest fashion commerce company in South-East Asia; besides a strong clientele in India and Middle- east.
Tyroo has devised a two-pronged strategy to grow its retargeting business – generate more business and relationship value by influencing higher GMVs with existing clients and win new clients in countries of current operations and newer markets like Europe.
Siddharth Puri, CEO, Tyroo Technologies, said, “Our retargeting business performance over the last few quarters has encouraged us to double our efforts in expanding our reach and taking a greater share of the market. We have invested a lot in building a consumer-friendly retargeting platform and growing our reach globally and are able to offer advertisers an unbeatable proposition in growing their sales through retargeting.â€
Retargeting is a critical marketing tool for performance marketers as it is used to capture consumer’s attention at any stage of consumer purchase funnel. Globally, e-commerce companies are estimated to generate over $1.7 trillion GMV through marketing activities including retargeting.
Tyroo’s retargeting solutions are mobile-first and are a direct result of the company’s focus on building mobile publishers and integrations across mobile supply ecosystem. The solution also promises higher cart value as a USP, as Tyroo’s retargeting algorithm segregates user segments based on cart values and other inputs, which allow dynamically controlling the Cost of Acquisition (CoA) of a user, based upon its lifetime value for the brand. The ads served through Tyroo’s retargeting solution are highly personalized with high capacity to create unique offers specific to each user or segment.
SVG Media has announced the appointment of Akshay Mathur as Senior Vice President of Komli Media, effective immediately. In his new role in Komli Media, Akshay will lead business operations as well as Sales & Marketing functions and will be responsible for its P&L. He was most recently the Senior Director of Sales at Komli Media, leading up to Komli’s merger with SVG Media last month.
Akshay joined Komli in 2011 and has a total of 13-years of experience in both digital and print sales. Before joining Komli, Akshay was a part of the revenue monetization team and focused on the telecom industry in Yahoo Inc. He has earlier worked with The Times of India, The People Group and The Jaypee Group in various sales and marketing roles. He had also founded an e-commerce and web solutions company, Orion Technologies in the year 2000.
Welcoming Akshay to SVG’s leadership team, Manish Vij, Founder and CEO, SVG Media said, “Akshay’s rich experience, client relationships and his deep understanding of Komli’s business and the internal environment make him the natural choice for leading Komli’s next phase of growth under the SVG umbrella.  We also welcome other senior leadership of Komli Media by retaining the team and culture of the organization.
NetworkPlay, an SVG Media company, announced winning an exclusive mandate from Airtel Digital TV to monetize all their digital advertising inventories. Airtel Digital TV is the DTH arm of leading global telecommunications provider Bharti Airtel. SVG Media is the largest Indian Ad-Tech company with brands like Tyroo, DGM India, Seventy Nine & NetworkPlay in its portfolio.
In addition to DTH advertising, SVG media delivers performance, mobile and native advertising to digital marketers and advertisers and helps leading publishers monetize their digital assets.
Anurag Gupta, India MD, SVG Media said, “NetworkPlay has been working with Airtel DTH since their launch in India. Today, we are extremely delighted to take our relation to the next level with this exclusive partnership, which further strengthens our position in the industry as a leading digital ad-tech company.  NetworkPlay’s technology will help in significantly growing the advertising revenues for Airtel Digital TV.â€
“With the increasing penetration of HD technology, coupled with an overall growth in the DTH sector, the business is expected to multiply as more brands have started to explore DTH as a platform to reach out to the television audienceâ€, he further added.
A day after adtech firm Komli Media spun out a separate company RevX, it sold its India business to Gurgaon-based SVG Media for an undisclosed amount.
Under the terms of the deal, Komli India will function independently alongside the existing businesses of SVG Media — Tyroo Technologies, DGM and SeventyNine. About 100 employees will join SVG as part of the deal. Komli India, SVG’s fourth acquisition, brings in 60 million unique users taking SVG’s reach to 150 million internet users in India.
“Social was a very important piece for us as commerce today happens through mobile. Komli had the social piece, and so we acquired it,” said CEO Manish Vij of SVG, who said SVG was in talks with Komli for the past five months.
SVG’s revenue from all businesses stand at over $50 million, which it claims is third only to Google and Facebook. The combined entity would reach 150 million Indian internet users across all devices, with 60 million coming in from Komli.
“They are probably looking to streamline on a strategy that works best, instead of doing multiple things. That may be the rationale behind hiving off its business units,” said Neha Dharia, a senior analyst at UK-based research firm Ovum.
Earlier this year, it sold its South East Asia operations to Malaysia’s Axiata group for $11.5 million, and just this week, it spun out its mobile remarketing platform RevX as an independent entity with $4 million in funding. “All companies go through various phases in their journey. We wanted to change approach, go more regional and invest more in technology,” said Amar Goel, founder and CEO of Komli Media.
Ad network DGM India signaled a business and organizational reinvention with the unveiling of its new brand identity, underscored by a new logo that signifies growth, network, vibrancy and a strong desire to redefine the boundaries of digital advertising.
DGM India is part of SVG Media, the largest Indian digital media network. SVG media has consolidated the India business of 3 companies – DGM, Tyroo & Network Play into a single unit – DGM. The new brand identity also reflects this consolidation.
DGM India said that it has organized its business into five distinct business verticals, each of which is focusing on cutting-edge innovation strategy for growth. The CPL (cost per lead) vertical caters to the offline businesses and it integrates call center and CRM support with online advertising to deliver hot leads to advertisers. The GoVentures unit has a very sharp focus on giving advertising options to advertisers operating in the newly developing on-demand hyper local services by helping clients source leads through various DGM-owned B2C marketplaces. DGM’s other business verticals are CPS (Cost Per Sale), Display and DTH advertising. The company is also offering videos and content for brand advertisers as part of its Display vertical offerings.
Anurag Gupta
Anurag Gupta, Founder & MD, DGM India said, “Today’s launch of our new brand identity marks the beginning of the next phase of our journey. With digital advertising as our DNA, we are today ready to push the innovation frontier as we seek to redefine its boundaries whilst operating profitably at a very large scale.â€
Manish Vij
Manish Vij, Founder & CEO, SVG Media said, “We see exciting times ahead as we have recently concluded the consolidation of our ad-network business. DGM India’s new brand identity signals our intent to creating and delivering true innovations that will help marketers generate significantly higher ROI on their digital marketing efforts.â€
Ad network DGM India signaled a business and organizational reinvention with the unveiling of its new brand identity, underscored by a new logo that signifies growth, network, vibrancy and a strong desire to redefine the boundaries of digital advertising.
