Week at a glance: Walmart-Flipkart deal; Growth of FTA channels; New hires

After weeks of speculations and leaked information, the deal is done. Walmart Inc has announced it has signed definitive agreements to become the largest shareholder in Flipkart Group. Walmart will pay approximately $16 billion for an initial stake of approximately 77 per cent in Flipkart. The remainder of the business will be held by some of Flipkart’s existing shareholders, including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Tencent Holdings Limited, Tiger Global Management LLC and Microsoft Corp. 

Free-to-air (FTA) channels have been growing from strength to strength, especially post the introduction of BARC India television ratings for rural India. Besides GECs, a large number of News and Music channels today are FTA, having made the switch from pay. Several broadcasters have also launched FTA movie channels. But given the growing viewership numbers and the demand for fresh content, what is keep the broadcasters from refreshing their content strategy for the FTA channels and introducing more original content? 

Over the years, Muthoot Pappachan Group has grown to become a significant entity in the Indian business landscape. providing solutions, services and expertise to millions of customers across the country in various domains like financial services, two-wheeler finance, micro-finance, affordable housing finance, health, life & general insurance, precious metals, automotive, realty, hospitality, IT- businesses and varied CSR-initiatives. Group CMO Sanjeev Shukla speaks to Adgully on the Group’s vision as well as the ‘Muthoot Blue League of Dreams’ initiative. 

Founded in 2010, iCubesWire had started with performance marketing operations. The company today has morphed into a leading Digital Marketing Solution and concept provider in India, providing a 360-degree environment to leading brands for their digital marketing needs. In September last year, iCubesWire had announced an innovation fund of $3 million to support early stage start-ups. iCubesWire has also launched an artificial intelligence enabled digital innovation, called Instatalk. They followed it up with the launch of a unified digital suite – Delta. In conversation with Adgully, Sahil Chopra, CEO and Founder, iCubesWire, speaks at length about the Delta platform, how brands can leverage Artificial Intelligence, growth of m-commerce, the road ahead and more. 

Dainik Bhaskar Group has been paving the way in using digital to gain greater traction in the regional media space. Meanwhile, DainikBhaskar.com and DivyaBhaskar.com have lined up an extensive digital coverage of IPL 2018. The real time IPL coverage on DainikBhaskar.com reaches out to millions of participants over every single day of IPL on its digital portal alone, with its first-in-class TV style scorecard, Live Contests, Video series and audience reactions as well as every hit and miss, records broken and unheard and hidden moments of the previous day. 

Just six years old, but beauty e-commerce portal Nykaa has been going from strength to strength and is now at par with other cosmetic brands in India offering a growing range of products. In conversation with Adgully, Hitesh Malhotra, CMO, Nykaa, speaks at length about the brand’s growth in India, the ideology, marketing strategies, future plans and much more. 

DAN Consult, the consulting arm of Dentsu Aegis Network, has successfully scaled up, winning large growth consulting assignments with corporates like Tata Unistore (Tata Group’s e-commerce venture), UAE’s leading e-commerce platform Noon.com, India’s leading regional newspaper group Rajasthan Patrika, and Rajasthan’s luxury hotel group Suryagarh Hotels, along with a few other clients who wish confidentiality. 

The W-Suite: Leena Duwadi started her career as a popular Radio Jockey from Nepal, before becoming a TV anchor and now the Editor-In-Chief of WittyFeed, India’s largest content marketing platform. Duwadi is responsible for managing 1,200+ pieces of content every month that is distributed through dozens of social platforms. At WittyFeed, she leads and mentors a team of new age storytellers who are inspiring millions of people around the world. 

Sheroes, a women’s community platform, sought to delve deeper into how women view and relate to aspects like finance, relationships, their attitudes around sex, and their everyday concerns, with its online survey on ‘Lives of Women’. The aspirations, attitudes and desires of Indian women are ever changing, especially in the digital era. 

Wavemaker, the new media, content and technology agency, has appointed Rabinder Thirumurthy, also known as Rabe Iyer, as CEO for Wavemaker MENA. The announcement was made by Ajit Varghese, Wavemaker’s Global President of Market Development. Rabe joins from a position as Managing Director of GroupM India media agency Motivator, based in Delhi. He is relocating to Dubai to officially join Wavemaker on June 10, 2018. 

NatGeo’s Swati Mohan is the new entrant in Global streaming giant Netflix in its bid to strengthen its presence in India. She joins as Director, Marketing, Netflix India. Swati was unavailable at the time of filing this report. Swati Mohan’s last role was that of Country Head of National Geographic and Fox Networks Group, India since April 2015. 

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has appointed Ajay Bhalwankar as the Business Head for its upcoming Marathi GEC. He has been associated with SPN since 2014. Prior to taking charge of the Marathi GEC, he was the Chief Creative Director at Sony Entertainment Television (SET) where his role was to provide creative leadership and direction to propel the channel amongst the top players across genres. Ajay has also served as content head for Hindi GECs at ZEE. 

Companies today are investing heavily in content production, including hiring journalists to give the content more credibility. The aim is always to produce high quality content that’s effective in fulfilling its objective, while cutting through the clutter. Don’t produce content for the sake of it because creating poor quality content will only add to the content glut, says Neena Dasgupta, CEO & Director at Zirca Digital Solutions. 

Every client, content creator and publisher wants their content to go ‘viral’, be seen, liked, and shared by millions on the Internet. But is it possible to design content to increase the chances of its virality? Shahid Javed Ansari, Founder & CEO of RVCJ Media, presents five best practices that can increase the likelihood of your content trending and grabbing attention, online. 

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has announced Google as the Creative Marketer of the Year 2018. The award honours brands that distinguish themselves through consistently outstanding creative storytelling. This year, Google is recognised for embracing creativity across their brand marketing, the application of new technology to creating effective campaigns, and inclusive storytelling. 

BARC India, a joint-industry not-for-profit body that publishes weekly TV viewership data for India, has completed 3 years in the market. To further strengthen its reach, BARC India is conducting road shows in 8 major cities across the country – Kolkata (15th May), Mumbai (16th May), Delhi (18th May), Guwahati (21st May), Chennai (22nd May), Cochin (23rd May), Bangalore (24th May), Hyderabad (25th May). 

BARC ratings for Week 18 of 2018 (April 28- May 4) [HSM (U+R): NCCS All : 2+ Individuals] saw the FTA channels remain firm. Rishtey continued with its good run and remains at the second spot this week. 

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited has reported consolidated operating revenues of Rs 17,253 million for the fourth quarter of FY18, recording a growth of 12.9 per cent on YoY basis. EBITDA for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 was Rs 5,062 million, translating into EBITDA margin of 29.3 per cent. Profit After Tax (PAT) for the quarter was Rs 2,310 million.