Week at a glance: Voot’s regional play, Hathway Vs TOI, E-Sports in India...

Viacom18’s video on-demand streaming service, Voot, is all geared to continue its strong growth momentum in 2018. While commenting on the digital landscape in India recently at a media roundtable, Gaurav Gandhi, COO, Viacom18 Digital Ventures, cited an App Annie report that revealed that since May 2016, digital video watch time had grown 4x times. In an interaction with Adgully, Gaurav Gandhi speaks more about the plans around PWA (Progressive Web App), international tie-ups, plans to build up partnerships in India, content strategy, campaign strategy and much more. 

U Cypher, a sports business company backed by Ronnie Screwvala and Supratik Sen, has joined hands with MTV for a month-long championship, ‘U Cypher with MTV’. The show, which premiered on January 19, 2018, airs on MTV every day from 10 to 11 pm. The league is a first of its kind, multi-platform, multi-player game E-Sports championship which comprises of 35 episodes. 

&Privé HD, the premier English movie channel from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL), has entered 2018 on a high note, lining up an array of critically acclaimed movies and properties. In addition to the movie premieres, the channel will also introduce three new properties (‘The Winning Side’, ‘Side by Side’ and ‘The Unforgettables at 9’). In conversation with Adully, Aparna Bhosle, Business Cluster Head – Premium and FTA GEC Channels, ZEEL, speaks about the performance of &Prive, the content strategy, new properties lined up, marketing collaborations and much more. 

On the sidelines of the Indian Readership Survey 2017, released last week in Mumbai, Adgully caught up with NP Sathyamurthy, Chairman – RSCI Technical Committee and Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group, to know more about the methodology used in compiling the data, industry expectations & concerns, and dynamics of the report. 

Crystal-gazing into 2018, Chetan Asher, CEO, Tonic Worldwide, affirms that the year ahead definitely looks bright. He noted, “The Indian economy is poised to see a robust growth of 7.2 per cent in 2018 and we will see its positive impact on advertising too. From a digital perspective, we are seeing digitally-led campaigns gaining ground and this will significantly rise in the coming year.” 

Global paints and coatings company AkzoNobel, makers of Dulux paints in India, recently unveiled Heart Wood as the Colour of the Year for 2018. Speaking to Adgully, David Teng, Director, Decorative Paints, India and South Asia, AkzoNobel, described 2017 as “fantastic year but with lots of unpredicted reforms”. He added that 2017 was top gear year for the industry because most of the companies underwent recovery state from the demonetisation that happened in end of 2016 and then again in the middle of 2017 when GST was introduced, which continues to have an existing impact. 

We are barely a month into 2018 and there is already news regarding Hathway Digital Cable TV and Times Network being at loggerheads. Hathway switched off the signals of all the channels of Times Network since January 11, 2018 citing a disagreement between the two parties on honouring an existing agreement. Meanwhile, in a bid to find a solution Times Network has blamed Hathway for placing unreasonable demands and arm twisting. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced big changes in the platform’s Newsfeed algorithm, which would essentially show less content from brands and publishers and more content from friends. Reacting strongly to this move by Facebook, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman, News Corp, in a statement appearing on the News Corp website, wrote, “If Facebook wants to recognise ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies.” 

Five people have been arrested in Bangalore for trying to tamper with the BARC viewership data. The arrests were made by the Cyber Crime Police following a complaint lodged by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), stating that viewership data was being hiked through illegal means. As per media reports, those arrested include Raju, a TV serial producer, along with Suresh, Jemsy, Subhash and Madhu. 

With brands increasingly partnering with social media influencers, industry experts are calling 2018 as the year of ‘Influencer Marketing’. Influencer marketing is the new buzzword in the cosmopolitan world of social media, where it is almost impossible to have a tête-à-tête with a marketer without discussing the power of influencers in brand communication. A Zefmo report, titled India Influence Report 2018, states that 92 per cent of the marketers will resort to influencer marketing campaigns because of their effectiveness. 

Nick Law has been appointed as Chief Creative Officer of Publicis Groupe and President of Publicis Communications. The choice of Nick Law signals Publicis’ on-going commitment to creativity and technology at the service of marketing and business transformation. Law is joining in from R/GA, where he has been the Global CCO. He had joined the agency in 2001. 

Major changes are being introduced to Gunn Report, the global index of creative excellence in advertising, to reflect the way the industry is evolving. Gunn Report, which came under the ownership of global marketing intelligence company WARC at the end of 2016, will be re-launched next month as part of the integration of Gunn Report into WARC. The most significant change will be the introduction of Gunn 100. From this year, the renowned Gunn Report rankings, identifying the most creativeads, agencies and brands based on their performance in creative awards shows around the world, will be produced in alignment with the prestigious WARC 100 – WARC’s annual rankings of campaigns and companies based on their performance in effectiveness and strategy awards. 

Kyoorius Group has announced that it has formed a partnership with The One Club for Creativity, the leading global non-profit organisation behind The One Show, ADC Annual Awards and other programming, to serve as the club’s official representative in India. Under the agreement, The One Club will also contribute to the composition of the jury for all future editions of Kyoorius Creative Awards, as well as provide the club’s high-integrity judging process and proprietary back-end voting technology platform.

BARC ratings for Week 3 of 2018 (January 13-19) [HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals] saw the see-saw battle continuing between Zee Anmol and Star Bharat, with the former moving past Star Bharat to claim the numero uno spot. Shows from Zee TV, Colors, Star Bharat and Zee Anmol dominated the top 5 shows on Hindi GECs. 

Food Food channel has joined hands with Veeba for a new show, named ‘Veeba Cook Off’, which started airing on the channel from January 26, where popular celebrities and personalities will be judging the contestants from popular culinary schools on the basis of talent, taste and technique; and announce a winner every episode. Adgully caught up with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor at the launch of the show where he shared some more insights on the show format, content strategy for the channel going forward, goals and his vision for 2018.