Week at a glance: Netflix lowers price; Magicbricks’ bot play; TikTok’s woes

As Netflix lowers its price, is its commitment to pureplay SVOD a sound strategy?
Netflix has had the highest subscription rates amongst its OTT competitors in India and has been stead fast about its prices point. Now, the OTT player is out to change the game as it launches a mobile-only plan at a price point of Rs 199 per month.

Ashish Bhasin re-elected President of Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI)
Ashish Bhasin, CEO Greater South, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman & CEO India, has been re-elected as President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) for the year 2019-20. The announcement was made at the AAAI Annual General Body Meeting, held today.

Ameya Lokhande moves on from Happy mcgarrybowen
Ameya Lokhande of Happy mcgarrybowen has put in his papers. His last role at the agency was Senior Vice President. He had joined the agency in October 2012.

Did Magicbricks pose Bots as loyal customers in its ads?
On July 23, 2019, Times Group owned Magicbricks, an online portal for buying, selling and renting flats, released a print ad in The Times of India on page 5 of the Mumbai edition featuring what seemed to be a tweet by one Tara Sultana, which claimed, “Tara and 16 lakh owners trust Magicbricks to sell their property. So, what are you waiting for?”

BARC amends norms for reporting single events, leadership claims in PrimaVU rating
Amid the row over landing page and shift to reporting data for Pay and FTA separately, BARC India announced its latest offering earlier this month – PrimaVU, which is aimed at measuring viewership from premium homes. PrimaVU is a separate product and not part of the currency panel measurement.

ShemarooMe is riding on many platforms that already have subscribers: Hiren Gada
Film trade analyst Komal Nahta will be seen in a different role as he takes a walk down memory lane with yesteryears stars for ShemarooMe’s chat show, ‘Komal Nahta… Aur Ek Kahani’.

The dynamics of branding at IPL: The best options for marketers
IPL today is the most popular and followed cricket league and was ranked the 6th most attended as compared to all other sports leagues in the world. The brand value of IPL in 2018 was estimated to be a staggering US$6.3 billion, according to Duff & Phelps.

Digital leveraged for optmisation or transformation? DANs findings from CMO survey
Dentsu Aegis Network’s 2019 global survey of 1,000 CMOs and senior-level marketers in 10 markets – including Australia, China, and Japan in Asia Pacific - highlights a growing challenge for marketing leaders, as they seek to move beyond optimisation and drive business transformation through digital.

Will Hima Das be able to peel away brands from cricket?
Dubbed the Dhing Express, Assamese sprinter Hima Das’ sensational run in track & field events is making brands stand up and notice the teenage athlete. Das bagged 5 Golds in three consecutive weeks at the Nove Mesto and Metuji Grand Prix recently.

With 76.4 mn MAUs in June 2019, ZEE5 continues its strong run
ZEE5, the digital business of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL), reported 76.4 million global monthly active users (MAUs) and 6.6 million daily active users (DAUs) in the month of June.

GroupM and Lifesight Launch India’s First Online To Offline Attribution Playbook
GroupM India and Lifesight, a location intelligence platform and data company, have co-created a playbook answering key questions advertising clients have on online to offline attribution and outlining ways in which marketers can use intelligence on consumers’ online behaviors to impact offline sales. This is the first-of-its-kind attribution study in India with examining the conversion of online ads into offline sales.

The conventional part of the OTT market has become challenging: Vishal Maheshwari
Viu India recently completed 4 years and has emerged as a preferred destination for localised original content. The platform has cemented its position in the Indian OTT space as the one-stop destination for millennials. Over these four years, Viu has built the largest original content library with focus on regional markets and has so far, produced more than 50 Originals.

Landing page row: Will BARC committee’s report find a way out?
Will BARC India’s two-man committee formed to address the landing page issue find a way out of the imbroglio that has plagued the broadcast industry? That is a question that every broadcaster is asking.

No need to fix minimum entry level net worth for MSO registration: TRAI
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released its recommendations on ‘Entry level Net-worth requirement of Multi System Operators (MSOs) in Cable TV Services’. The regulator stated that “There is no necessity for fixation of a minimum entry level net worth for MSO registration. As at present, any individual, company, corporate firm or LLP that fulfils provisions of the Cable TV Rules may be granted MSO registration.”

Import duty on newsprint: Who benefits & the fallout for print media in India
India Ratings and Research (Fitch Group) believes the 10 per cent import duty on the newsprint papers announced in the Union Budget FY20 on July 5, 2019 would lead to an improvement in the realisations and volumes of domestic newsprint producers. With imports having become expensive, the share of domestic newsprint in the total consumption is likely to increase.

Will Government scrutiny impact TikTok’s brand equity?
TikTok, the social media video app from Chinese tech company Bytedance, is under the radar of the Indian Government yet again. This time, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, a political and cultural organisation which is also an affiliate of the RSS, has alleged that TikTok has been misused for anti-national and pornographic content.

Hotstar most penetrated OTT entertainment app; Jio leads Live TV: Study
4 out of 5 smartphone users are having at least one OTT Entertainment platform which they are using for entertainment. This is in addition to the ‘casual’ entertainment over YouTube and other UGC (User Generated Content) platforms like TikTok.

DAN Programmatic Launches AI Powered Audience Insights Engine
DAN Programmatic, empowered by the Data Sciences division of Dentsu Aegis Network, has collaborated with AMNET, the network’s programmatic arm, to launch ‘DAN Explore for Programmatic’. It is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based insights engine for programmatic audience performance, which merges with their flagship insights Engine – DAN Explore.

Satishwar Balakrishnan appointed CFO of Aegon Life Insurance
Aegon Life Insurance, pioneer of digital insurance in India today announced the appointment of Satishwar Balakrishnan as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company. Satishwar brings with him a rich experience of close to two decades in the Insurance and Finance Industry. He joins Aegon Life from IndiaFirst Life where he was the Chief Financial Officer.

MIB mulls mandatory Aadhaar verification for purchasing DTH equipment
TRAI received a reference from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) dated December 27, 2018, wherein TRAI has been requested to give its considered recommendations on desirability or otherwise of KYC for Set Top Boxes in DTH services and, if desirable, then the process for the same.

MyTeam11 bags title sponsorship rights of India tour of West Indies 2019
In a significant announcement, MyTeam11, one of India’s leading fantasy sports platforms, was announced as the Title Sponsors of the upcoming tour of the Indian cricket team to the Carribean Islands, by Cricket West Indies. The tour will now be rechristened the ‘MyTeam11 International Series’ and will begin in Florida, USA.

BARC Wk 29: Star Plus, Dangal TV lead platforms; add more viewers
BARC India started reporting the viewership data for Pay channels and FTA channels separately from last week (Week 27), bringing about a major change in the TV viewership ratings landscape. 

IE Digital taps into Instagram for engaging storytelling for Wonderchef
Wonderchef, the brand of premium cookware, appliances and kitchen tools founded by celeb chef Sanjeev Kapoor and ex-CEO of Sodexo India Ravi Saxena, has taken an unusual storytelling format for its digital campaign on Instagram.