GOA: While most marketers are busy improving their creative and storytelling skills, R/GA vice chairman and global chief strategy officer Barry Wacksman believes that they should be focusing on more than just content. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com on the second day of Goafest 2019, Wacksman noted that audiences today are looking for experiences and not just stories from ads.

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific president and chairman Star and Disney India Uday Shankar made quite a splash at the company’s Investor Day last week in Burbank. Shankar, in his presentation to Disney’s investors, introduced Star’s streaming service Hotstar, delving into the strategy that powered the OTT platform to its numero uno status.

MUMBAI: Within two and a half years of its high-profile launch, Reliance Jio has hit the 300 million subscriber mark, according to a report by Press Trust of India. The target was achieved by 2 March 2019. Reliance Jio launched in September 2016.

In the ongoing Indian Premier League 2019, Jio has been celebrating its achievement of ‘300 million users’. Jio also became the fastest company to hit the 100 million subscriber mark within 170 days of its launch.

After officially purchasing 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion, Walt Disney had announced its plans to enter the OTT market with Disney+. The network has now announced November 12, 2019, as the launch date for Disney+ in the US Market.

The BARC's GEC chart for Week 14 didn’t witness much change in the hierarchy but there was a drop in impressions across markets. Dangal continued to rule Urban + Rural and rural. Sony SAB climbed to the seventh spot and Star Bharat dropped to the eighth rank in the Rural market. Star Plus maintained its top spot in the Urban market as the rest of the chart remained unchanged.

In the first line of the Bible, God is referred to as the creator. He is not-data driven but is certainly creation-driven. So, is data hell or heaven? asked Gordon Bowen, Founder and Global Chairman, McGarryBowen, at Goafest last week.

“Data is not to be disregarded. While it can be the friend, it can be the enemy as well,” he said.

“What is data capable of doing and what is creativity capable of doing? While major campaigns run on either or on both data and creativity, for McGarry Bowen, being creative, data-driven and to run on techability has become necessary,” he said.

Publicis Groupe will pay $4.4 billion in cash to acquire digital marketing firm Epsilon from Alliance Data Systems, as the French advertising group seeks to deepen its digital expertise and expand in the US.

Publicis announced the takeover in a statement two weeks after it confirmed it was in talks with Alliance Data. The owner of agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett Worldwide is focusing more on data analytics as consumer giants rely less on TV commercials and billboards and shift spending online. Epsilon runs loyalty programs and email marketing and collects data including transactions, location and web activity.

MUMBAI: The 2019 summer has a Cricket heavy season with the cash rich T20 league the IPL and the cricket World Cup taking place back to back on Star Sports. Some brands have a presence on both events. One of them is Policybazaar.com which has allocated 28-30% of its marketing spends towards Cricket.

“An increase of 30% is expected in our overall marketing spends, out of which 28-30% will be allocated towards cricket,” Policybazaar.com group of companies head of marketing Sai Narayan tells TelevisionPost.com.

MUMBAI: Cable TV and broadband service provider GTPL Hathway has slipped into loss in fourth quarter ended 31st March due to impairment loss worth Rs 65 crore from the implementation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new regulatory framework for broadcasting & cable services sector.

GTPL Hathway posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 28.1 crore in Q4 FY19 as against a net profit of Rs 18.5 crore in Q3 FY19. EBITDA was up 24% at Rs 103.6 crore compared to Rs 83.3 crore in the trailing quarter. EBITDA margin stood at 29.7% compared to 26%.

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Asia Pacific president and Star/Disney India chairman & CEO Uday Shankar recently made a presentation on the health of India business and the local media market at Disney’s Investor Day.

During his presentation, Shankar claimed that Star India captures 30% share of TV and digital video advertising each. It also takes 40% of the local TV affiliate or subscription revenue. He also revealed that the company is looking to maximise its ad revenue by building a cross screen advertising engine.