MxMIndia

Tag: Tata Photon

  • Every mid-week, Ranjona Banerji writes about a grouse… either spewing venom or tongue-in-cheek. Or both 🙂

    Ranjona Banerji: Getting a bum deal from Yahoo India

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Last month, I dumped my Reliance internet connection (dip in connectivity and more importantly, rude service) and opted for Tata Photon. But my grouse is not with either of them. It is with Yahoo India. The Tata Photon opens with a Yahoo India page (I can’t shut it down too quickly because then Mozilla Firefox won’t reload and I can’t go back to Google Chrome because it slows down my machine and particularly did not like this website… so who said the internet was all plain sailing!).

     

    The page is dominated by Bollywood nonsense (celebrities who married young, star break ups that hurt us more than it hurt them) and then a sprinkling of political news in the next segment and only cricket news in the next.

     

    I am now inured to the stranglehold which Bollywood has on our lives. But I still question a news source which can look no further than the lowest common denominator. I also don’t quite know if the average internet user in India wants only Bollywood and cricket and nothing else. Has Tata Photon done any such research about its average user?

     

    Out of curiosity and since the damn page was open, on Tuesday evening I ventured further into the Yahoo India page and decided to see how it treated other news. In the sports category, there were only cricket, tennis and football, in that order. I went to tennis since that’s my area of interest. There was a story about Maria Sharapova, nothing at all about Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic’s French Open battle and Nadal’s historic seventh French Open title.

     

    Instead I see a story about how reality TV star, Kim Kardashian, “flashed her bums” during some family tennis match. I went no further into the story, credited to ANI, but it is wrong on so many levels. For one, the English. It is not “flashed her bums”. Bums when it applies to the buttocks is a singular entity, like bottom. Unless Kardashian has cultivated a collection of homeless drunks which she brought along to a family tennis match.

     

    But more than the grammar, it is the intent which is offensive. I understand that sex is a human impulse which beats all others (well…). But why should this daft little story find itself in a sports section of a well-known website? Is there any connection with tennis at all? If I wanted to fulfil my baser instincts on the internet there are enough explicit sites for my guilty pleasures. Yahoo India is not the preferred choice for anyone, unless that it is intention? The Yahoo.com website has an excellent, up to the minute and comprehensive sports section. Is Yahoo India so far away from there?

     

  • Mumbai Indians, Pune Warriors Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Daredevils are doing good business according to bookmyshow, the online agent for five IPL teams

    IPL 5: Online ticket sales picking up pace

    By Ameya Chumbhale

     

    If ticket sales of the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League are anything to go by, India is certainly not cricket fatigued.

     

    Mumbai Indians, which began its online sales on March 1, claims to have sold close to a third of its tickets already. Some of these tickets are priced as high as Rs40,000 – the most expensive among all teams.

     

    Pune Warriors (PWI) and IPL winners Chennai Super Kings (CSK), as well as Delhi Daredevils are also doing good business, said bookmyshow’s chief executive officer Ashish Hemrajani. Bookmyshow is the online agent for five IPL teams, including Mumbai Indians (MI).

     

    Online sales are critical to the success of the IPL as stadium sales usually commence only a few days before the match. “Last year, we sold close to 60per cent of our ticket inventory online through thermal printing which enables us not to have restriction on quota for online sales. This means the system allows us to print tickets similar to international practices and also allows the Mumbai Indians fans to choose their own seats,” said an MI spokesperson.

     

    Hemrajani says bookmyshow has already sold 50,000 tickets this year. “Mumbai and Pune are doing really well, while ticket sales of Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab have picked up over the last two days,” he added.

     

    The inaugural match on April 4, between the CSK and MI in Chennai, is sold out. Chandrabhan, general manager, marketing at Chennai SuperKings said online tickets for the second and third matches are also sold out. CSK has kept 60 per cent tickets for on-ground sales as “Chennai is known for fans queuing up to buy (movie and cricket match) tickets,” he added.

     

    Since the first IPL season, on-ground ticket sales and television viewership have moved in tandem, say media planners. “Both went up for the first three years of IPL, and both came down last year. The link is very strong between the two,” said Ajit Varghese, managing director (South Asia), media agency Maxus and Motivator.

     

    Multi Screen Media, the company that operates Sony Max, which broadcasts IPL matches, has signed six sponsors till date. Among them are Vodafone, Pepsi, Hyundai, Idea and Tata Photon. It had nine sponsors last year. MSM, according to sources who did not want to be named, has sold only about 50-60 per cent of the ad inventory until now as against 75-80 per cent around the same time in 2011.

     

    According to industry sources, MSM is charging around Rs5 lakh per 10 seconds and they expect it to rise if television viewership goes up in the first seven to eight matches.

    MSM president Rohit Gupta confirmed that the company had signed six to seven sponsors and some of them have come on board for deals valued at over Rs40 crore.

    “We have sold nearly 70 per cent of the ad inventory and expect it to reach 80 per cent before going into the tournament,” said Mr Gupta who is confident of filling up the ad spots, as it will take only a sponsor or two more to do so.

    Generally, associate sponsors get a certain percentage of the ad inventory as a part of the deal.

     

    Source: The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • There are a few advertisers who have raised concerns over low returns against large investments on IPL

    Has IPL become too expensive for advertisers?

    By Rishi Vora

     

    After Rahul Dravid announced his retirement from international cricket on March 9, senior journalists, fellow cricketers and fans pondered over the future ofIndiaas far as test cricket was concerned. While that’s an issue selectors for the Indian cricket team have to sort out soon, officials from IPL and Multi Screen Pvt Ltd have to come up with real quick ideas to woo key advertisers, so that they remain invested in the property, especially after the 10 per cent hike in the ad rates for Season 5.

     

    The 10 per cent hike in ad rates means that advertisers will have to pay upwards of Rs5 lakh per 10 second spot. Last year, afterIndia’s fabulous performance in the World Cup, MSM hiked ad rates by about 25 per cent.  The season delivered an average rating of 3.91, lowest ever in four seasons.

     

    So season 5 was always going to be a challenge considering the slowdown andIndia’s continued poor run inAustralia. However, despite these challenges, MSM has managed to rope in a few sponsors already. Pepsi, Vodafone, Tata Photon and Idea have been signed on as sponsors and, furthermore, the broadcast partner is in process of finalising a few more deals.

     

    But, as a matter of fact, there are a few advertisers who have raised concerns over low returns against large investments on IPL and two amongst those – LG Electronics India and Godrej that have been sponsors from the start of the tournament have decided to pull out this year. They don’t think it’s worth the money anymore.

     

    LG Electronics India’s Chief Marketing Officer, L K Gupta told MxMIndia: “It is true that we’ve opted out of IPL this year. While it is the single largest property on TV, the fact of the matter is that there is only a certain level to commit marketing funds and the return we get in terms of TRPs does not really justify the high level of spending. Last year we felt the pinch, so we decided to stay out this year.”

     

    Godrej too is said to have opted out on similar grounds.

     

    Maruti Suzuki, which as a policy spends about 23 per cent on sports every year, of which cricket commands a reasonable share, has always restrained from being associated with IPL. Shashank Srivastava, Chief Marketing Officer explained his stance: “We invested in the World Cup last year. We don’t invest in IPL because for a company like ours, one needs to put in a lot of spike. IPL gives you good reach. In terms of viewership, it gives you good returns for 5-6 weeks which is something ideal for new launches or new product offering. So the money which goes in on buying IPL, and in return what you get for a brand like Maruti is not much.”

     

    A senior media professional who requested anonymity said that India’s richest league commands nothing less than Rs65 crore for presenting rights and Rs45 crore for being an associate sponsor. He said: “This is serious money you’re talking about. They (MSM) have increased by 10 per cent on ad rates, and they are under tremendous pressure to cut down further.”

     

    Nitin Jain, Co-Founder, DoMor Communications said the broadcast partner will eventually have to come down to last year’s price which was around Rs4.5 to 4.75 lakh per 10-second spot. “I’m sure the broadcaster is in talks with many clients, but from what I understand, it is going to be a game of who blinks first.”

     

    Buying his point is Nimbus sports COO Yannick Colaco who said: “I think advertisers are just waiting to see if the rates can be brought down. It’s pretty usual for advertisers to do this as a practice to get better deals out of the broadcaster.  IPL is a big tournament and advertisers will eventually look to advertise on a property of that scale, so I think it’s just a matter of time before they (MSM) sell out and a formal announcement is made.”

     

    It is learnt that MSM has initiated talks with Cadbury, but it is not entirely clear if the chocolate brand has signed the deal officially. On-ground sponsors for season 5 are DLF, Hero Motocorp, Karbonn Mobiles and Volkswagen.

     

    Set Max officials could not be reached but it is said that this year the attempt is also to sell smaller packages of 20-25 matches to cash in on advertisers with limited budgets. Also, it is not leaving any stone unturned in promoting the mega event. It is believed that a whopping Rs45 crore is being spent to bring the IPL fever back among viewers.

     

    It will be interesting to see how things turn out to be for all stakeholders of the mega property.