Week at a glance: Women leaders & COVID crisis; IPL player auctions; Start-up Stars

Have women leaders been more successful in coping with the pandemic crisis?

Adgully has endeavoured to understand the changes that have been taking place in the lives of women leaders in Marcom and what the impact of the pandemic has been. For this, Adgully has partnered with YouGov to embark on a country wide research to understand the ‘Impact of pandemic on Women in Marcom’. Industry partner is Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI).

Bullish IPL teams make record spends at 2021 player auctions

After a successful 13^th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) – played during COVID-19 times and outside India – all eyes were on the player auctions for the 14^th edition. The IPL franchises were bullish on player acquisition as could be seen from the amounts shelled out for the top rung players.

Fortune Oil’s Valentine’s Day campaign is a lesson in smart tactical comeback

Fortune, the edible oil brand from Adani Wilmar, has seized upon the opportunity to turn an unforeseen adverse incident into a smart topical marketing strategy. One would recall that not so long ago, Fortune was the target of memes and trolls when its brand ambassador, Sourav Ganguly, suffered a heart attack. Fortune oil’s healthy for heart proposition came under attack. But the oil brand very smartly handled the situation and temporarily held back the campaign where Ganguly was endorsing the brand.

“Today, differentiation in insurance lies in a state-of-the-art technology function”

Manipal Cigna Health insurance Company Ltd (formerly known as Cigna TTK Health Insurance Company Ltd) is a joint venture between Manipal Group, an eminent player in the field of healthcare delivery and higher education in India, Cigna Corporation, a global health services company with over 200 years of experience, and Indian conglomerate TTK Group. Manipal Cigna is headquartered out of Mumbai and has 47 branch offices covering major metros and towns.

Times Network issues legal notice to BARC; seeks Rs 431 cr damages, refund of licence fees

Times Network has issued a legal notice to the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) for illegal and fraudulent viewership manipulation and tampering of Television Audience Measurement and Television Rating Points (TRP), particularly of its English news channel Times Now by BARC.

Women leaders have sailed much better through the pandemic: Priya Patankar

In conversation with Adgully, Priya Patankar, Head of Communications, PhonePe, speaks about adapting to the rapid transition to digital during the pandemic times, maintain work-life balance while working from home, lessons in effective leadership and more. 

Live sports will lead the way in 2021 and keep sentiments upbeat: Vinit Karnik

In conversation with Adgully, Vinit Karnik, Business Head, ESP Properties, speaks about the growth of live events, virtual events and cricket in India for the year 2021. 

“The longer you are in this industry, the less perturbed you become during a crisis”

In conversation with Adgully, Akshaara Lalwani, Founder and CEO, Communicate India, speaks at length about the transformational change that the entire PR landscape has undergone in the past decade, facing the challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 crisis, and much more.

Start-Up Stars: How Chingari carved a niche for itself in the short video app space

Adgully is turning the spotlight on the entrepreneurs who fought against all odds to bring their dreams to fruition in our special series – START-UP STARS. We at Adgully wholeheartedly support the ‘Vocal for Local’ movement and over the next few months will be featuring all local/ homegrown businesses, brands and Apps.

Expect M&As, co-productions, even fold-ups in OTT space in 2021: Divya Dixit

Divya Dixit, SVP, Marketing, Direct Revenue & Analytics, ALTBalaji, highlights some of the key trends that will dominate the OTT video streaming landscape in 2021.

“Offering an ‘online theatre’ presents movie halls an opportunity for shared experience”

In conversation with Adgully, Vinit Mehta, Head of Sales, Indian Sub-Continent, Brightcove, speaks about what cinema halls need to do to garner revenues even as audience attendance remains thin.

ByteDance in talks to sell TikTok India assets to Glance

According to media reports, ByteDance is exploring the sale of India operations of TikTok to rival short video platform Glance. The discussions have been initiated by Softbank Group. Softbank is a common investor in TikTok parent ByteDance as well as Glance parent InMobi.

The traditional methods of consuming content are dead: Ayesha Chenoy

To have a deeper understanding on what’s brewing in the digital space, Adgully spoke to Ayesha Chenoy, Founder, RepIndia, who shared some interesting insights and spelt out her thoughts on how digital is going to rule the marketing world.

Brands are centralising their media around hyper-personalisation strategies: Dimpy Yadav

In conversation with Adgully, Dimpy Yadav, Head, Client Engagement, Xaxis India, sheds light on how the pandemic accelerated the speed of digital adoption, the growing importance of e-commerce advertising, digital ad spends outpacing TV ad spends in the coming times and much more.

Leadership has more to do with purpose than gender: Akanksha Sharma

In this interaction with Adgully, Akanksha Sharma, Head - CSR and Sustainability, Sterlite Technologies, gives her take on leadership and how women leaders have been better in handling the pandemic crisis. She also shares her mantra for maintaining a healthy work-life balance throughout this challenging period.

Sun TV Q3 FY2021 revenues up 19%; but ad revenues dip 9.4% amid COVID crisis

Sun TV Network, which operates satellite television channels across five languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bangla, airs FM radio stations across India, and owns the SunRisers Hyderabad cricket franchise of the Indian Premier League, and OTT platform Sun NXT, has reported revenues of Rs 972.34 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2020 as against Rs 814.97 crore in Q3 FY2020, a growth of ~19%.

TRP scam: Bombay HC hears Partho Dasgupta’s bail plea, reserves its order

The Bombay High Court continued to hear the bail plea of former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta yesterday (February 16, 2021). Dasgupta is currently under investigation by the Mumbai Police for his alleged role in the TRP manipulation case. After hearing the arguments and submissions of Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray and Senior Advocate AabadPonda representing Dasgupta, the single judge Bench comprising Justice PD Naik of the Bombay High Court reserved its orders on the bail plea.

Eyecare industry is expected to see a good recovery in 2021: DG Sunil

DG Sunil, Head of Marketing, Carl Zeiss Vision India, analyses how the eyecare industry has fared during the COVID-19 times, adapting to new ways of serving the consumers in the new normal, increased demand for contactless consultation and more.

Twitter brings voice messages in DMs to India

Twitter is where people go to discover, follow and have conversations that matter to them. To make it easier for people to have these conversations, Twitter is testing voice messages in direct messages (DMs) or voice messages in India. The experiment will be rolled out in phases to Indian audiences, making India one of three countries to have access to the feature alongside Brazil and Japan. 

Facebook blocks news sharing in Australia in response to new media law

Facebook has blocked sharing of news in Australia since Wednesday after the Australian government’s plans to make it pay media groups for content. Australians were unable to post links of news articles or view the Facebook pages of news outlets from anywhere in the world.

By 2022 end, digital spends would reach Rs 29,000 cr, just pipping TV: Rajiv Gopinath

Rajiv Gopinath, Chief Client Officer, Starcom, expects Digital to gather further momentum in the times ahead and sees it overtaking TV by 2022 end. He also shares the five drivers for the adoption of digital media going forward. 

#TwitterChat: Analysing the Essence of a true Woman Leader

We, in India, watched with considerable pride when Kamala Harris took oath as the first female Vice President of America earlier this year. There have been umpteen reports on how nations led by women leaders dealt with the COVID-19 crisis in a more efficient manner – be it New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Taiwan.

The responsibility of navigating the new normal is stronger than ever: Lakshmi D Rebecca

In conversation with Adgully, Lakshmi D Rebecca, Co-Founder, Red Bangle, speaks about the changing face of women leadership in pandemic times, how COVID-19 has widened the role and scope of women entrepreneurs, achieving work-life balance in times of crisis, and much more. 

WhatsApp rolls out in-app banner to nudge users to accept privacy policy update

WhatsApp will soon display an in-app banner that will seek to address users’ concerns on their controversial privacy policy update to begin nudging them to accept the update before the rollout begins on May 15.