Week at a glance: Ad-Vantage Wk 5; E-comm wars; Airtel Ads foray; Rise & rise of OTT

Ad-Vantage Week 5: Pepsi’s Whattay banter & Cadbury+Google Maps+Easter connect

Adgully is back for Week 5 of the Ad-Vantage Quiz with Rajiv Gopinath. Adgully has launched an engaging quiz contest to reward readers who closely follow developments in the Advertising and Marketing domain. Our quizmaster Rajiv Gopinath, Chief Client Officer, Starcom, will share 10 topical questions every week on the latest developments in Business, Advertising and Brands. 

Will Airtel’s advertising foray give impetus to India’s $10 billion ad market?

Airtel recently forayed into the advertising business with their ad-tech platform – Airtel Ads. The telco has created a single platform to serve ads to its 320 million customers spread across its digital apps, DTH, connected box as well as call/SMS. There are two clear areas where Airtel’s advertising platform stands out. It has access to a rich set of customer data and can profile customers across a multitude of behaviours. Secondly, it boasts of a premium user base with latest ARPU at Rs 166, which is the highest in the industry. Airtel is poised to give a greater depth of reach to advertisers. 

Despite no ratings, TV News ad spends remain intact even as marketers test digital waters

In the post-pandemic world, understanding the underlying currents of consumer behaviour is critical to make agile and informed business decisions. As part of the knowledge series, Adgully in partnership with News Nation curated a panel comprising of marketers and media planners to discuss ‘Advertising on News Channels without TRPs’. The conversation began with the key question on whether brands changed their media strategy post the TRP blackout on news channels. 

HUL, WPP, Publicis, Havas, ASCI, AAAI, Diageo come together to Unstereotype ads

Convened by UN Women, the United Nations entity for Gender Equality, the Unstereotype Alliance has launched the India national chapter with a coalition formed to tackle harmful stereotypes advertising with support from EU funded WeEmpowerAsia Programme. 

Amazon topped in ad volumes across mediums in 2020: TAM AdEx

TAM AdEx’s overview of E-commerce/ Online shopping advertising across TV, Digital, Print and Radio in 2020 shows a 20% growth in ad insertions on Digital in Q4 of 2020,cpmpared to Q1; while on Television, a 17% growth was seen in Ad Volumes in Q4 vis-a-vis Q1. Ad Space in Print for the E-comm-Online Shopping category witnessed double digit growth in October-November 2020; on the other hand, Ad Volume for this category on Radio plunged by 36% in 2020 over 2019. 

E-comm wars: How Flipkart is making deep inroads into Amazon’s territory

As consumer behaviour went through a paradigm shift, KalaGato decodes how e-commerce majors Amazon and Flipkart battled it out last year. According to the KalaGato report, Amazon started 2020 with a substantial lead on penetration, however, Flipkart closed in by December. Both players grew reach, as more consumers shifted online during the lockdowns, however, Flipkart’s 20% growth left Amazon’s 5% growth (although on a much larger base) looking low. 

Kyle Jamieson is the most expensive player in IPL history: Cricket Bet India

Kyle Jamieson’s move to Royal Challengers Bangalore makes him the highest valued player in the history of the IPL auction, new research shows. Despite appearing in the auction just once, the New Zealand all-rounder has an overall IPL value of $2,045,387, placing him ahead of the likes of Jhye Richardson, Ben Stokes and Glenn Maxwell. 

What is driving consumption on Netflix and other OTT platforms?

Nikhil Dalal and Ujjwal Chaudhury of Redseer deep dive into OTT, one of the hot sectors at the moment, and share some latest trends that have emerged in the space and what has worked for this industry. 

“Insurance is a service that customers experience, and not a physical commodity”

Speaking to Adgully, Mehmood Mansoori, President - Shared Services & Online Business, HDFC ERGO General Insurance, explains the whole campaign logic and why it is important to educate and guide the customers of today to ask the right questions before they decide to buy an insurance policy. 

We need to invest in building a purpose-first driven business model: Amitabh Pande

In conversation with Adgully, Amitabh Pande, Marketing Head, IKEA India, speaks about the acceleration in e-commerce due to the pandemic, as well as a new trajectory of growth of online shoppers, which gives scale in a way that was not there before. He also emphasises on the need to invest in expansion and fulfilment capabilities to cater to the increasing demand that doesn’t come at the expense of the environment or society. 

As a leader, being nimble footed can be your biggest asset: Radhika Nihalani

In conversation with Adgully, Radhika Nihalani, CEO/ Founder, ThinkInk Communications & Think Talkies, speaks how the empathy factor has proven to be immensely crucial especially during the challenging times of the pandemic, what makes women best at crisis management, maintaining work-life balance and more. 

Post-lockdown, our organic traffic number has grown by 80%: Snehil Gautam, Housing.com

In conversation with Adgully, Snehil Gautam, Head of Growth & Marketing, Housing.com, Makaan.com & PropTiger.com, talks about the idea behind the campaign, their marketing strategy, a look back at 2020 for Housing.com and their future plans for 2021. 

There’s more emphasis on impact rather than just quality of insights in MR: Amit Adarkar

As part of our series on Talking Insights, this week Adgully features the conversation with Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India, who shares some deep insights into the growing importance of research for brands and businesses, the level of data collection digitisation in the post-pandemic world, codifying consumer behaviour change, and much more. 

Most of the start-ups fail in the conceptualisation phase itself: Anshul Agarwal

In conversation with Adgully, Anshul Agarwal, Co-founder, XR central, speaks about his journey as an entrepreneur, the opportunities in the XR market space, how the pandemic pushed the company to re-think and re-strategise its services and more. 

Gender biases don’t let women reach the boardrooms: Shradha Singh

Shradha Singh, National Programming Head, 104.8 ISHQ FM, doesn’t believe in mincing words when it comes to turning the spotlight on the deep-rooted biases that women still continue to face in the work place. 

Business-first digital and digital-first business is the future: Angad Singh Manchanda

In conversation with Adgully, Angad Singh Manchanda, Co-founder & CEO, Merge Infinity, speaks about how Digital is helping businesses scale up their operations, why brands need to focus on human assets to plan, strategise and lead initiatives rather than investing their valuable time in monotonous processes, and more. 

How digitisation is driving change in the Indian healthcare industry

Shyatto Raha, Founder and CEO, MyHealthcare, sheds light on the digital innovations in the healthcare sector and how the pandemic broke the tradition, where physical OPDs were the only channel. He also speaks about how digitisation and penetration of mobile Internet will continue to be the drivers of change for the Indian healthcare industry. 

“The virtual avatar of Sportstar Aces Awards 2021 excites us”

The Sportstar Aces Awards 2021 will celebrate the consistency of performance and the impact of sports stars in the decade between 2011 and 2020. The Awards aims to identify and reward the most deserving athletes irrespective of the popularity of the sport. Adgully reached out to Ayon Sengupta, Editor, Sportstar, and Suresh Balakrishna, Chief Revenue Officer, The Hindu Group, who spoke at length about Sportstar Aces and what to expect this year. 

Opportunities for women have been envisioned differently: Divya Kumar

In conversation with Adgully, Divya Kumar, Manager – PR, Communications & Sustainability, AirAsia India, speaks about the evolution of women in leadership roles and the defining qualities of a successful woman leader in today’s business ecosystem. At the same time she also draws the attention to the gender pay gap that continues to persist in the industry. 

Benefits of building live-action videos for business

The marketing landscape is expanding and competitive brands stay on their toes to stay ahead in the market. With the widespread use of technology and digital media, creative design agencies are coming up with innovative ideas to connect with the target audience. One of the most influential methods is live-action videos that have been gaining impressive traction in the marketing world, writes Dharmendra Ahuja, Founder & CEO, PitchWorx. 

Sportskeeda becomes the 2nd Largest Sports Website in India - Comscore

Sportskeeda, one of India’s top online sports platforms, recently announced that it has claimed the No. 2 spot on the Comscore sports website rankings in India. The milestone is particularly significant given its timing, coming as it does amid the plethora of problems being faced by the media industry.