Week at a glance: Google’s India push; TV9 viewership row; Instagram Reels

Powerful shot-in-the-arm for Indian digital ecosystem: Experts on Google’s $10 bn push

Google & Alphabet CEO SundarPichai’s announcement earlier this week that the tech giant will invest over Rs 75,000 crore ($10 billion) in India over a period of 5-7 years as part of the India Digitisation Fund has the digital ecosystem in the country all excited. Pichai had also said that the investment would be made through tie-ups and equity investment, making it the biggest investment in a growth market.

Google to invest Rs 75,000 cr to drive Digital Transformation in India

At the sixth edition of Google for India, Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced the Google for India Digitization Fund - a commitment of Rs 75,000 crores (approximately US$10 billion) towards digitising the Indian economy, marking the company’s renewed commitment towards its ongoing initiatives in India. The Fund will be invested in the country over the next five to seven years.

With Reels, Instagram has positioned itself as all-in-one platform for content creators

Instagram has entered the short video space by launching ‘Reels’. The platform, that is looking to fill in the void left by the TikTok ban, allows users to create short videos, add creative filters, music and share the videos with their followers on their feed.

Decoding rebranding rules for the new normal

Fair & Lovely to Glow & Lovely, Dunkin Donuts to Dunkin, Kraft and Heinz to KraftHeinz, UrbanClap to Urban Company, Hutch to Vodafone – these are some well-known examples of rebranding in recent times. Adgully’s latest edition of #TwitterChat, held on Friday, July 10, 2020, saw some leading industry experts discuss the merits of the brand strategies behind these decisions.

How brands can increase ROI on meme marketing strategies

From a fun way to engaging people on social media, meme marketing today has become an integral part of marketers’ arsenal to stand out amid the clutter, especially for the digital-first generation and be relevant for their culture. In the last 5 years, memes have gained a lot of popularity. The Google Trends graph below showcases the growing interest in memes. 

Understanding the burgeoning world of online education

Government mandated lockdown has impacted delivery of traditional education services with schools and colleges shut. This has led to acceleration in the adoption of edu-tech services and created a new demand for online education. Edu-tech players like BYJU’s, Unacademy, Toppr, upGrad, Vedantu, who have often played a supplementary role in a student’s life, have gained a greater share of importance.

Those doubting us should do their homework: Barun Das, CEO, TV9 Network

Hindi news channel TV9 Bharatvarsh’s viewership growth in the last few weeks and the channel reaching the No. 2 position in the Hindi News genre in Week 25 as per BARC data has raised several eyebrows in the industry. The year-old channel has managed to surge ahead of the legacy news channels, and what’s more, the channel also managed to hold on to its No. 2 spot in Week 26 as well.

TV9 ratings case: Rajat Sharma calls for independent third-party enquiry

“Members of the NBA Board feel extremely let down” by BARC, wrote Rajat Sharma, President, News Broadcasters Association (NBA), in a letter to the BARC Chairman. The letter referred to the unusual ratings of TV9 Bharatvarsh. Sharma urged BARC to provide “some straight answers on how BARC plans to rebuild a broken system” and what has been done so far to rectify the old mistakes and loopholes. 

NBA Board asks BARC to share details of inquiry report of TV9 tampering

The TV9 viewership numbers case seems to get murkier, with broadcasters’ unrelenting push and the TV9 Network’s strongly worded response. In the latest development, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has questioned BARC’s quick investigation into news reports and videos purportedly showing tampering of panel homes to favour TV9 and declaring the videos as fake.

Brands love to leverage the unbelievable reach of Truecaller: Tejinder Gill

Truecaller today has grown to 230 million monthly active users globally, out of which 170 million are from India. The brand is quite popular and people have by and large understood the application and its usage. With the Indian Government banning 59 Chinese apps, an opportunity has opened up for other players to engage with their audience.

Design is not a self-serving self-expression: Ashwini Deshpande

The advertising industry has been offering design as part of the overall advertising services to their clients. There was no scientific process that was followed by agencies to create a brand identity or packaging as part of the design services. To get a clearer perspective and deeper insight on design as a profession and how it has evolved in the last two decades, Adgully caught up with Ashwini Deshpande, Co-Founder & Director, Elephant Design, on how her company has grown and how design has emerged as a highly specialised field.

Lockdown Lessons:

Lockdown Lessons: Life’s a series of curve balls - Atul Sharma

In conversation with AdgullyAtul Sharma, Managing Director, Ruder Finn India, speaks about how the lockdown has been a period of immense learnings and a time for taking stock of the company’s infrastructure contracts and right sized them to create win-win solutions for Ruder Finn and its partners.

Lockdown Lessons: “COVID-19 is an opportunity for SMEs to play the catch-up game”

Mohanraj J, President and Business Unit Head, Duroflex, shares with Adgully how he has been facing the pressure test of the lockdown, the opportunities opening up for the SMEs, the new financial management mantra for the COVID-19 time and much more.

Lockdown Lessons: “Quick learning, action & decision are the key differentiators”

Subir Palit, Country Head, Greenply Industries, tells Adgully how he and his company have remained positive and productive during the tough lockdown times and also learned to achieve much more from limited resources.

Lockdown Lessons: Biggest rule of business is to stay in business - Abhayanand Singh

In conversation with AdgullyAbhayanand Singh, CEO – Golden Ratio Films & Chairperson – Singapore South Asian International Film Festival, speaks about how he and his team are strategising on how to head back to work in this ‘new normal’, armed with the formidable lessons learnt during the lockdown period.

Lockdown Lessons: Stay Connected, Stay Organised, Stay Focused: Khyati Shah

In conversation with Adgully, Khyati Shah, SVP, Corporate Marketing, Kinara Capital, speaks about her key lessons from the lockdown period and how all the old adages that she had heard from her mother ring true, especially in these times.

The case of keeping 2 yards’ distance - Predicting changing consumer behaviours

TBWA India’s Bianca Joseph and Krishnan Subramanian analyse how consumer behaviours are changing due to the pandemic, especially the impact of physical distancing and the craving for real experiences. 

TV advertising reached near normalcy levels in June 2020: TAM AdEx TV

TV advertising has reached near normalcy levels in June 2020, with ad volumes on television back on track, as per TAM AdEx report. The report reveals that comparing the data for 2019 and 2020, the ad volume difference has become minimum in June 2020. Ad duration in June 2019 stood at 31,000 hours vis-a-vis 29,000 hours in June 2020.

Celeb endorsement on TV picks up in June, records 63% rise in Ad Volumes

Continuing with its analysis of TV advertising in the COVID-19 era, the 6th edition of TAM AdEx’s report reveals that TV Ad Volumes continued to stabilise in the June-July’20 period, with Week 26 witnessing the highest Ad Volumes among weeks ranging from 23 to 28. Comparing Week 28 to Week 23, there has been a growth of 31 per cent in Television Ad Volumes. Average Ad Volumes/Day for the months of June’20 and July’20 remained almost equal at 982 hours and 987 hours, respectively.

The teaser campaign that kept the nation guessing!

The creative showcased products from different corporate houses but had the same message which intrigued netizens for the last 3 days. These messages across all the important junctions, teased audiences about a big launch on 13th of July for which the readers were asked to store up on beverages and snacks. Eminent personalities like Anant Rangaswamy, Suresh Raina and others also tweeted about the campaign. #13thkitayyari quickly became the 2nd most trending subject on the 10th of July.

Will ‘The Socho Project’ expose the music industry’s mafias?

The ‘N’ word – Nepotism – has been very much in circulation after the tragic death by suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. While a lot has been written and debated about the plight of industry outsiders in Bollywood, singer Sonu Nigam also took to social media to highlight how two major “mafias” were controlling the music industry in India.

Can Indian apps successfully tap into opportunities after Chinese app ban?

The ban on 59 Chinese apps by the Indian Government, has opened up a world of opportunities for homegrown players to fill in the void. The ban also includes hugely popular TikTok app. Soon after the ban, TikTok users were switching on to Indian apps such as Roposo, Mitron, Chingari, giving a boost to a more Atmanirbhar app economy.

Making India a global content powerhouse – how to tap the audience?

Content has not just been king, but also a lifesaver for people confined to their homes amid the pandemic and nation-wide lockdown. All industry reports showcase how content consumption has gone up during these times – content that spans regional as well as global space.

Growing business organically on Social Media - Fact or Myth?

If you’ve been in the Digital World long enough, you’ve probably witnessed that driving organic social traffic is getting harder by the day due to algorithms. Some experts might argue that organic social media is dead. Truth be told, organic social traffic has been on the decline in the past few years, but that doesn’t mean it is dead or a thing of the past. 

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