Week at a glance: SCREENXX 2021 coverage; Festive season - Focus East

Notes from SCREENXX 2021:

SCREENXX 2021: Mapping the expanding OTT universe

Over the last one year, amid the global pandemic and lockdowns, we have all watched fascinated the growth of the digital entertainment sector – OTT to be specific. While the OTT had been burgeoning even before the pandemic hit us, we could say that this sector came on its own during the long months when people remained confined to their homes.

SCREENXX 2021: Discussions on Day 1 set the future course for the OTT sector

SCREENXX 2021, Adgully’s premier property for Digital Video and OTT, got underway on October 6 to a scintillating start. This year, the event is spread over two days. MX Player is the presenting sponsor and Powered By sponsor is Voot. The event is in association with Inmobi. Gold Partner is PTC Network, while Plum Body Lovin and Park Avenue Grooming are the Gifting Partners.

SCREENXX 2021 Day 2 – Growing the talent pool, audio streaming, video ads

Day 2 of Adgully’s premier property for Digital Video and OTT, SCREENXX 2021, saw a mix of actors, content creators, OTT platforms, media agencies and brands discuss further fortifying OTT as a space to nurture talent, exploring online video advertising and the rise of audio streaming.

Viacom18’s Gourav Rakshit’s 4 principles to take OTT from good to great

“OTT is at the cusp of becoming a mainstream disruptor of the media & entertainment industry in India,” said Gourav Rakshit, COO, Viacom18 Digital Ventures, while delivering the opening Keynote Address at Adgully’s SCREENXX 2021 Summit & Awards, held yesterday (October 7, 2021).

Ferzad Palia & Louis Boswell discuss the SVOD play and the best monetisation model

Subscription video on demand (SVOD) is witnessing a steep growth trajectory in India. According to GlobalData, SVOD service revenue in India is expected to grow at a robust CAGR of 15.9% – from $0.9 billion in 2020 to $1.9 billion in 2025. Day 1 of SCREENXX 2021 saw two leading experts – Ferzad Palia, Head - SVOD and International Business, Viacom18 Digital Ventures, and Louis Boswell, CEO, Asia Video Industry Association – come together for a Fireside Chat on ‘The SVOD play and the Best Monetisation Model’.

OTT viewership on smart TV in India has doubled in the last one year: Experts

India is one of the biggest markets globally for content consumption across screens. The pandemic period and lockdowns saw a tremendous growth in OTT content consumption and we saw families consuming OTT content together. This has led to the requirement of bigger screens to watch digital content and thus the demand for connected TVs with higher specifications and competitive pricing.

Beyond the Pandemic Push – How OTT players can build on the momentum

As things return to normalcy, there is need to sustain the tremendous growth seen in OTT last year. The panel discussion on ‘Beyond the Pandemic Push – Building on the Momentum’ at SCREENXX 2021 took a look at what kind of growth was seen in the OTT space during the pandemic times and how OTT platforms are strategising to hold on to the large numbers of consumers acquired during this period.

“Biggest advantage on OTT platforms is brand safety, compared to multiple platforms”

The growing audience base on OTT medium is creating a better field for brands to play and make it a stronger marketing medium. SCREENXX 2021, the largest congregation of the online video industry in India, brought together some leading experts to discuss on ‘OTT: A New-Age Marketing Medium’.

Focus East

Festive East: How Bata is gearing for a bumper shopping fest

This festive season, Adgully turns the spotlight on the East and North-East markets. As part of this initiative, Adgully spoke to Anand Narang, VP - Marketing and Consumer Experience, Bata India, to find out what the brand has planned for the festive season this year.

Festive East: We overcame pre-COVID levels in Oct’20 itself: Navarun Sen, CenturyPly

In conversation with Adgully, Navarun Sen, President - Panel Division, CenturyPly, speaks about the demand surge seen across India, the company’s online and offline strategies for the festive season and more.

Festive East: Kalyan Jewellers fortifies its hyperlocal & customer outreach strategy

In conversation with Adgully, Ramesh Kalyanaraman, Executive Director, Kalyan Jewellers, speaks about how the jewellery sector is gearing up to meet festive demand this year, how the company is strengthening its omni-channel strategy and making the ‘phygital’ model more seamless, and more.

Festive East: “The footfalls are actually higher than ever this festive season”

In conversation with Adgully, Smita Murarka, Chief Marketing Officer, Duroflex, speaks about how the company is ensuring an omni experience for consumers, fortifying national presence through Experience Centers and more.

Other important stories of the week:

Major ad revenue boost for Viacom18’s key properties this festive season: Mahesh Shetty

After garnering huge traction on Voot with ‘Bigg Boss OTT’, the reality show has begun its innings on television. Meanwhile, Viacom18 is all geared with India’s first entertaining quiz show – ‘The Big Picture’, which will be aired on Colors. In an interaction with Adgully, Mahesh Shetty, Head - Network Sales, Viacom18, speaks about the expectations from Colors’ marquee properties, ad revenue growth expected during the festive season and H2 this year, the strong performance by regional channels and much more.

Aryan Khan incident won’t dent Shahrukh Khan’s brand equity, say experts

The drugs and Bollywood nexus once again came to the fore with the arrest of actor Shahrukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and seven others by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) from a cruise ship on October 2, 2021.

Bapu Ki Awaaz reverberates even today, BYJU’S new film shows how

To commemorate Gandhiji’s 152nd birth anniversary, BYJU’S, released ‘Bapu Ki Awaaz’, a special film that celebrates the Mahatma’s thoughts and ideals. Featuring veteran actor Padma Shri awardee Manoj Kumar, this film celebrates four real-life heroes who have gone above and beyond to carry forward the legacy and philosophy left behind by Mahatma Gandhi in their everyday lives.

Communications Seized with the server outage in Whatsapp, FB and Instagram

Once again the server issues hit Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram users at 8:40 pm IST on October 3, 2021, according to reports. The Facebook-owned trio of social media platforms went down. All the three platforms, Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram issued an official statement on Twitter, which was inundated with memes and fury about the social media services being down.

How brands reacted to global outage of Social Media Trio

While the Facebook-owned trio of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp faced global outage yesterday due to some technical failure, Twitter had become the savior in connecting to the globe.

Mark Zuckerburg loses $7 billon amid the social media outage

Amid a 6-hour outage of Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram services around the world, the co-founder Mark Zuckerberg took to the internet to apologize for the “disruption”. The interruption also lost Zuckerberg a lot of money, as his personal wealth plunged by $7 billion in just a few hours.

Home-appliance advertising in India to grow at 18% PA between 2020 & 2023: Zenith

Zenith forecasts that home-appliance advertising in 12 key markets – Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, which between them account for 74% of total global adspend – will grow ahead of advertising as a whole in 2021, expanding by 12.6% while total advertising grows by 11.5%.

72% of Indians intend to shop this festive season: Inmobi report

India is home to one of the longest festive seasons across the globe. Kicking off as early as August and continuing till the middle of January the following year, Indians have a reason to celebrate nearly once every fortnight during this period.

Youva sees a huge scope on social media to engage with their audience: Abhijit Sanyal

In this interaction with Adgully, Abhijit Sanyal, Chief Strategy Officer, Stationery Division at Navneet, speaks about the marketing strategy adopted for the ‘Get Well Soon India’ campaign, recovery and revival of stationery brands in FY2022, Brand Youva’s social media strategy to amp up its engagement with customers and more.

Twitter sells MoPub app for $1billion

Twitter on Wednesday stated that it has made a deal to sell app advertising speciality firm MoPub. MoPub’s selling amount will be put into building revenue-generating features at Twitter and promoting growth at the one-to-many broadcasting platform.