Exclusive | Addressing need gap in M&E research: Ormax's Shailesh Kapoor

Today, brand managers and marketers are paying a lot of attention on the kind of celebrities they rope in for their brands. The celebrities are an indicator of the brand values and what the brand stands for. Similarly, celebrities also think twice before they endorse products or services. In sync with this insight, media and entertainment consulting firm Ormax Media recently launched Celebritix –a celebrity evaluation software. Celebritix will help brands to evaluate and select the best celebrities for endorsements and film tie-ups, based on the fit between the brand and the celebrity.

 

The software will allow the users to create a brand profile by assigning weights to different attributes that best describe the desired personality of the brand. The attributes have emerged from client interaction and asking brand managers on what attributes do they evaluate their brands. Based on the brand profile, the software will recommend celebrities that best fit the brand, using a proprietary metric called the OCX (Ormax Celebritix) Score. 

 

Adgully caught up with Shailesh Kapoor, CEO-Ormax Media as he talks about Celebritix and Ormax Media in detail.

 

Providing insights into the creation of Celebritix, Shailesh said, “It was in the middle of last year that we questioned ourselves whether we could identify some common need gaps of research in the entire media industry whether it was television, advertisers, radio or films.  We wanted to address gaps that no existing media research had spoken about. For this, we spoke to a lot of advertisers and media agencies like Group M, Fulcrum, Maxus and people from different domains. We realized that one of the consistent things that emerged out of these conversations was that a lot of effort went into film associations. That was the initial thought. We realized that there have been past attempts to create certain products; which have not been able to fly off or sustain. We thought of giving it a fresh approach and make something which could be available to the entire industry.”

 

 Elaborating further, he said, “With all the various inputs that we received, around November-December last year, we decided to create the template for a product. We then conducted qualitative research to understand the various attributes that brands look for. Thus, the foundation was laid. We approached advertisers, brand managers and media agencies with the product. When we explained the product and the basic principles , the responses we got were extremely exciting and optimistic. In February, we started building on the concept and now the process of sharing this with the fraternity and getting their subscriptions will start off.”

 

Talking about the duration of the research metric , he said, “One of the key learnings was that the market is very dynamic. So, we needed something that was quarterly. Once in a year is too slow, once in six months was also not good enough.”

 

The insight for launching the syndicated research-based software was to allow brands to make informed celebrity choices, based on consumer research. For brands who have signed up specific celebrities already, it allows them to look at their profile and identify ways of using them to the best advantage of the brand. Some of the attributes mentioned in the Celebritix list are vivacious, adventurous, bold, intelligent, youthful etc. In all, there are 20 attributes on the basis of which brands can select celebrities .

 

Celebritix currently features a total of 36 celebrities from Bollywood and cricket. Every quarter, up to 10 new celebrities will be added to the tracking, based on market trends, box office and cricket performance. The research covers 4,000 respondents every quarter, across 20 attributes, in the target group of 18-44 yrs., SEC ABC, across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Lucknow. 

 

Speaking about the research methodology used, Shailesh said, “Most of the research was telephonic. People were asked to evaluate celebrities on the basis of certain attributes and that is the score. It is straightforward. What you see is what the research data is. Every quarter, there will be a research conducted. The current research happened over May-June. The next will happen over August-September.”

The Ormax Celebrity Score(OCX) Score can also be used for selection of films for associations, based on the fit between the star cast and the brand. Additionally, subscribers will have access to two other modules – Stars India Loves (SIL) and Box Office Forecast – that will allow them to take informed decisions on film tie-ups.  

 

SIL is Ormax Media’s monthly star popularity research product running since November 2010. In Box Office Forecast, the users will get an indicative estimate of the likely opening day performance of the film at the domestic box office, based on campaign tracking, category trends and normative data. The forecast will be available up to 12 months before the release of the film. 

 

“Celebritix is targeted at brands and is celebrity specific. Most of our other offerings are either film research or television research or radio based. Technically this is our front offering for advertisers and media agencies. In that sense, we are going a little beyond TV, radio and films that we have been doing for a long time. We have been active in this domain too but not on such a large scale.” quips Shailesh.

 

He adds , “Ormax is a two -fold process which would interest both media agencies and advertisers. The pricing and the packaging would differ of course. It is more a choice of whether it is an agency package or brand package.”

 

Talking about some of the challenges that were faced during the process of launching Celebritix, Shailesh said, “We have gone through a very rigorous process of understanding the market and involving them in creation of the product. For the next six months, we have to just keep the faith and keep going. In Cinematix and some of our other products, we have seen that a lot of time is required for clients to get a sense of the product. There is no hurry. In the next six months, we would push in the right direction, get the feedback and then the challenges will arise. It is a huge market out there.”

 

Sharing insights into the expansion plans for Celebritix , he says, “Syndicated products always get extended depending on how many people subscribe to it.  The number of markets and celebrities will increase along with the subscribers. We intend to include South Indian celebrities further.  This would take place once the product is off the ground and a few subscribers are in . Also, stars like Parineeti Chopra, Arjun Kapoor and sports-persons like Zaheer Khan ,Sania Mirza and Saina Nehwal would get added in the next round of research. All our products have gone through a logical expansion and this would happen with Celebritix also.”

 

When asked about the future domains that Ormax would venture into, Shailesh said, “Right now, we have 21 odd products. We have a fair amount of things and we intend to focus and build on them for the next six months. This is easily our last launch for a while. After this, the focus would shift to building on what we already have rather than creating new things.”