Exclusive | Digital campaigns would be more effective: Hungama's Carlton D'Silva

On the ocassion of Spikes Asia 2012, while in conversation with Adgully, Carlton D’Silva, Chief Creative Officer, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, who was one of the jury members at Spikes Asia 2012 shared his thoughts and views about the entries, the on-going market scenario and more. 

 

Carlton has also been on the jury board of the Abby Awards (Ad Club of Bombay), Yahoo Big Idea Chair Awards, New York Ad festival in 2010 and the Adfest Asia in 2011. He joined Hungama in 1999 and has led the company to incredible level. With Carlton on board, Hugama has been on the winning grounds and has won countless awards like the PMAA’s, Abby’s and The Globes. With his lively, enthusiastic and dynamic team including visualizers, designers, copywriters etc etc, D'Souza has given brilliant work to both domestic and international clients. 

 

Sharing his feeling about how it was to be on the jury board of a global fest like Spikes Asia, D'Souza says, “It feels really great to be a part of fest like Spikes Asia. The work that we end seeing at Asia level is quite amazing and they give a new perspective on a market like Asia.” Speaking about his expectations that he had from a festival where best creative brains gather, he said, “One of the best things is that we end up meeting different individuals who have various different perspectives on the media but more than that, all the kind of work that we get to see at such a platform is outstanding because most of the times we are not 1.30 secs to see the kind of work from various markets and obviously every market has its own set of challenges but seeing them tackle those challenges is amazing. India being a vibrant market with regards to all sorts of challenges that we face, it was a nice opportunity for us to see and learn how to tackle various challenges. The work that we see at such level is exceptional and imperative and I believe that Asia market is growing at a nice pace." 

 

D'Souza judged for the “Branded Content and Entertainment Category” of the awards and so when asked about anything specific that he looked at, he said, “Well! Actually this was the first time that such a category was being judged at Spike Asia. I have had an opportunity of speaking on topics like Branded Content and Entertainment at many forums because of the fact that Hungama’s content has been really lively in all domains. It is the matter of fact that the kind of content that we produce sparks out a lot of opportunities to branded content also.” Adding further to his point, he said, “It was really amazing to see how various markets reach, react and approach to such a category. Also in India, very clearly we have seen a huge change in terms of ‘Branded content’ not only in terms of video but on other mediums like mobile etc as well.” 

 

Sharing his thoughts on the fact that the last couple of years have seen a sharp growth in terms of creativity on the digital platform he believes that it is a fact that brands are opening up to various kind of mediums. With more young people, the companies are really opening and moving towards mediums like web which is lot more quantitative and targeted in nature.” He believes that digital medium has a long road ahead for digital medium and with new technologies emerging we would end up seeing a lot more developments on the digital side. 

 

He believes that as per the market scenario the brand managers would want to spend their money in a much smarter and efficient way and digital is what they have been waiting for and there will be a huge growth on digital side in the next few years. Also, he is of the opinion that merging of medium would also give remarkable results like merging offline and digital with which, one can target a different but larger spectrum of people. What he means by this is that today what we can see is brands spending a lot on on-ground activities too and people record that on their mobiles and then those videos are being posted on their respective personal social and web pages. So this is targeting the audience on not only on the digital front but on other side as well. 

 

According to D'Souza, 'digital' led campaigns would become a lot more effective and popular in coming years. He believes when it comes to creativity, the challenge that we face is the demographics. The demographics here in India are much different than any other market. The variety of people we try to target are vaster in nature and also the kind of advertising that we do is really different. He says, “We face a lot of challenges here in India and hence we have spurts of creativity coming out and we have creativity for larger audience. We just cannot compare our (India’s) creativity with any other market.”