Campaign Media360

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Media360
Under the media glare
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
While a majority of seminars and gettogethers
continue to raise a toast to
the creative side of the business, it’s
the yawning gap in the market that
Campaign attempted to close when
we launched our conference
Media360 several years back in the
UK.
Campaign India Media360 Summit
is an initiative to offer the media
function a prominent space under the
sun. Globally, Campaign’s flagship
conference, Media-360, is now in its
16th year. A leading media event
around the world, it brings together
industry leaders across brands,
media agencies, media owners and
technology companies who set the
media agenda for the year ahead and
beyond.
In its second Indian edition, the
topics this year in Mumbai ranged from
the re-integration of the media
business into a full service agency setup,
to debating if it was really a war
over content in the broadcasting and
OTT space. Other topics covered
included the increasing role of
transparency in the business of
media. There was also future gazing
where a leading media expert put out
some predictions on how the future of
media planning would pan out among
others. Read his views on the next
page.
This year’s summit also decided to
do a town hall appraisal of media
agencies at the hands of the CMOs.
Senior marketers from the financial
services business outline their
expectations from the media services
and also highlight the strengths of their
media partners. One can read all
about that on page 10.
This year’s edition of Media360 also
went beyond deliberations. Following
enriching debates and discussions
about the present and future of media
was an evening to celebrate the
excellence of media through the
inaugural edition of the Campaign India
Media360 Awards. Watch the evening
come alive through images and the
winners tally from page 21 onwards.
For those who could not be
physically present at the event, this
issue attempts to bring alive this
year’s Summit and Awards by giving
you a ringside view of great
conversations and grand celebrations.
Happy reading!
Prasad Sangameshwaran
Managing editor, Campaign India
3

Media360
The present, the future and some fun predictions
Wavemaker South Asia CEO, Kartik Sharma lists down trends he expects to see in the media fraternity in the coming years
Delivering the keynote, Kartik Sharma, CEO
South Asia, Wavemaker dissected the future of
media planning in three parts – things we are
seeing around us today and in the near future, the
distant future and some fun predictions. There
was a warning though - some of his predictions
may fail.
Before listing down the top trends of 2019-
2020, he had a quote to share:
“Goth is dead, punk is dead and rock n roll is
dead. Trends are dead. Nothing exists anymore
because the world is spinning faster than any
trend.”
The rise of AI
“We all know this. We all feel it in every aspect of
life, not only media. Anything and everything in
every part of the business you are doing, sees the
rise of AI. I also see the media planning and
buying industry is moving to AI and will continue
to do so even faster.”
Kartik Sharma
Voice search
“We believe in the next two-three years, voice
search will contribute more than 50 per cent of
the total digital adex. It’s massive. It’s already
invaded our life and we’ll see more of this.”
Uber personalisation
“Many of you marketers, advertisers and
agencies would have seen the concept of
personalisation at scale, where you personalise
messages for large cohorts of people, but you do
it at scale. I believe we’ll move one step forward
and we’ll have uber personalisation. If you have
an addressable audience of 1 million people,
you’ll have a different ad for each of these one
million people on digital. For example, a travel
company could show mountains to people who
like mountains. Another person could see rivers,
seas etc. We’re seeing a bit of this already, but
we’re going to see this reach a greater scale.”
Growth of wearable technology
“Today, many of you know that there are
companies coming up with foldable TVs and
smart phones. The wearable industry in India is
roughly at US$70 million and it’s going to
propel.”
He then listed and explained the ‘little more
distant trends’.
Automation for all media
“We are seeing this on digital and I believe this
will move to all media. Robotic process and
automation will be a reality. We’re seeing this in
banking and healthcare and there’s no reason
why it won’t be elsewhere. This has
implications on the future of
work. It will happen and we
can’t run away.”
Growth in short format sports
“With the rise of the IPL in the
first part of the century, we will see
15-30 minute sports emerge. We’re seeing India
move away from cricket too, to other sports like
tennis, football, volleyball etc.”
Duality of presence
“We are increasingly seeing people with two
different personalities – one at work, and one
post it. So how do you target two different
people? It has implications on how brands can do
that.”
Collapse of the ad based internet model
“We are seeing this with OTT players like Netflix
and Amazon Prime. And month after month
these models are growing and that’s because
people are avoiding advertisements too.”
Social influencers to nano influencers
“A girl in my company is a media planner in the
day and an influencer for a shoe brand in the
evening. She’s been able to help a few people in
her group move to fitness and running and buy a
particular brand of shoes in the process.”
Ad frauds
“Nine per cent of the total ad fraud globally,
comes from our country.”
Rise of terrorism
“The rise in terrorism is taken lightly. The not so
good future could be reality TV terrorism. It’s all
coming from a gamified world. In some ways
there could be a pleasure in violence and we
could see brands potentially taking this forward.”
Three predictions of the distant future
• Google, Facebook will offer free energy in
return of data.
• Pictograms replacing spoken words. We’re
seeing this with emojis ruling for the
younger generation.
• Facebook transforms from friendship into
an online subscription service.
4

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Media360
The increasing cry for media transparency
Panelists from CNN, Google, GroupM and Hotstar discuss ad fraud, fake news, viewability and more...
From left (Bhaskar Ramesh , Gulshan Verma , Sunita Rajan and Sam Singh)
Sam Singh, CEO, GroupM, South Asia set the
tone for the ‘increasing cry for media
transparency’ panel by calling it an easy topic.
Also joining him for the panel was Bhaskar
Ramesh, head of video and brand advertising,
Google, Sunita Rajan, SVP – ad sales, CNN Asia
Pacific and Gulshan Verma, SVP and head,
clients and agency, Hotstar.
The session began with each of the panelists
stating their transparency perspectives.
Rajan said, “When people read and talk about
transparency, they have an element of fear. I
don’t think it requires that fear, because it’s
something we owe to our audiences who are
people and not proxies. We owe it to our brand
partners too, and get them impact. It’s a topic
close to our heart at CNN, and in the world of fake
news, transparency is everything.”
Verma added, “Our perspective is straight
forward. Clients should know what they’re
getting – both from the ad format layout and also
from the context of what they’re getting.”
Ramesh’s take was, “We have been investing
in it for the last 20 years. It’s fundamental to our
business and the way we look at it – marketers’
goals haven’t changed, but the stakes and the
environment has changed a lot. We have more to
navigate together as a system together.”
Singh then quoted an article which stated that
US$ 1.6 billion was spent on ad fraud in India –
which is 50 per cent of total digital spends. And
then he asked the panelists what are their
companies doing regarding that.
Ramesh said that Google is using a
combination of machine learning and human
intelligence to tackle this, and have a taskforce of
10,000 people working towards it. He explained,
“We took down 2.3 billion ads in 2018, almost 9
million phishing kind of ads were taken down
even before they served a single impression. We
worked with White Ops and FBI to take down
the largest scamming entity with the code name
Thrive. We are using a bunch of machine learning
classifiers and coupling it with human
intelligence to tackle this. I think a broad number
is that almost 88 per cent of all take downs are
done by machines, but we need an army of people
to look at it and then take down fraud. It’s a
constant priority for us to tackle and are 100 per
cent committed to make the web safer.”
Verma stated that Hotstar’s policy of nonskippable
ads has been created to make sure that
advertisers are getting value.
“At Hotstar, we say ads will always be 100
per cent viewable. We don’t do skippable ads
because we think it’s an important service for
marketers who work with us and we have
designed our platform around that. We work
with a third party provider which tells people
whether it was in view, was it viewable for a
certain period of time, was it seen by a human
being. About the part of it whether it was with
the right context for my brand – we’ve chosen
to limit what we publish on our platform,” said
Verma.
Rajan stated that CNN is committed
towards brand safety by saying, “You can
spend a lot of money to invest in technology to
be vigilant, and we do that, but there will be the
occasional point in time when things slip
through. A recent report by Warc stated that
brand marketers care much more about brand
safety than any other metric in 2019. I think for
us as a brand, CNN cares about that and spend
time focusing on that.”
6

Media360
The relevance of a reintegrated agency
will be different across industries
The panel consisting of Deepali Naair, director - marketing India and South Asia, IBM, Sujata Dwibedy, group buying and trading head, Amplifi, the
media trading division of the Dentsu Aegis Network and Rana Barua, group CEO, Havas India speak about the future structure of an ad agency.
From left (Deepali Naair, Sujata Dwibedy and Rana Barua )
Barua kickstarted the discussion by highlighting
the importance of different functions sitting
under one roof – the village as Havas calls it.
“The further you go away, it will create a
disintegration in the way we manage our
business,” he said to underscore his point adding
that his group had set up villages across 60
locations around the world.
Naair highlighted the fact the reintegration
model would pan out differently, depending on
the client’s nature of business.
“The relevance of reintegration will be
different across industries. It’s about CPG vs
non-CPG. Conceptually, with CPGs, the brand
guardianship remains with one creative team.
But in the services space digital is not just a brand
building medium, but also used as a channel for
customer acquisition,” she said and added that
there may still be relevance for not integrating in
the CPG space. “I do believe that reintegration is
a great idea in the services industry. The media
8
part of the business will take a lead in dictating
where and how the brand will go,” she said.
Dwibedy said that it was no more about
integration of media and creative but about
consumer connect. She said, “We are talking
about an ecosystem of consumer connectivity
where media, creative, data and tech are
seamless components of strategies that drive
business solutions,” adding that the media
function has a lot of access to consumer data
that inspires creativity and fuels business
growth.
Naair pointed out that agencies had lost the
opportunity to conquer vacant spots like market
research specialists did not evolve to become
data scientists. “Consumer insighting has
traditionally been the role of the mainline
creative agency. But creative agencies are not
running the social command centres at the brand
headquarters. That is where the insights are
coming from,” she said.
However she was firm that there is a case for
reintegration. “But I am not sure that the current
model is the right one,” she said.
Barua added that whether you call it
integration or working together, he firmly
believed that different functions must be housed
under the same umbrella to work together so
that they are experiencing the customer five
times faster.
“If we get this model right, over the next few
years we will get better talent as we have a talent
with multi-functional capabilities and not just
with a single role specialisation as a suit, planner
or digital expert,” he said.
Naair agreed that the current set of people
need training in new skills. “The kind of skillsets
in client organisations is also changing a lot,” she
said and added, “I don’t think you can predict the
model of the future so to speak.” Dwibedy
added, “It’s all to do with business growth
eventually.”

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Media360
CMOs discuss expectations from agencies
Abhishek Gupta and Nipun Kaushal spoke about what they expect from agencies, ad fraud, in-housing and more...
Abhishek Gupta, CMO, Edelweiss Tokio Life
and Nipun Kaushal, CMO, PNB Metlife
Insurance, listed down a few expectations from
their agency partners and discussed why they’re
not open to ‘in-housing’.
The session that was moderated by Prasad
Sangameshwaran, managing editor, Campaign
India, began with Gupta putting down what he
expects from his agency partners.
He said, “Agencies and (client) partners both
have a responsibility towards each other. We
need to start treating agencies as real partners
and give them clarity on objectives. We can’t just
use them for campaigns. We need to give them
real visibility. From the client side, we expect
agencies to continue with the fire they have at
the pitch. They can tell us what can be done.”
Responding to a question about what he
expects from media owners, Kaushal said,
“From the media owners, we go with what our
media agency partners recommend.”
A topic that was constantly discussed at the
Summit was ad fraud. Both the marketers
believed that as clients they haven’t faced that
issue because their agency partners didn’t have
the wrong intention.
Kaushal said, “I don’t face that challenge of it
going to the wrong pocket. I think it’s fairly
transparent. If you have the right partners and
respectable publishers, there’s no problem.
Something as dynamic as digital is always a
learning curve. Where we depend on partners,
even partners depend on us. There’s a lot to look
From left (Prasad Sangameshwaran, Nipun Kaushal and Abhishek Gupta)
forward to on digital.”
Gupta added, “We are seeing examples of this
happening in the outdoor industry too and
there’s lot of opacity there. I believe that if we’re
working with the right partners, the intent is
never wrong.”
The panelists then discussed about in-housing
their advertising duties and whether media
agencies are suited with giving content ideas.
Kaushal stated, “Creativity has no boundaries
and the idea can come from anywhere. That
learning has to be given to all. On in-housing, it’s
about the commercials and it solely depends on
that. I do believe that specialists should be left to
do this.”
Gupta’s view was, “As long as the content is
right, differentiated and rooted in an insight, I
don’t care where it’s coming from. We have
experimented with in-housing for digital
buying. For conventional TV buying, we are
working with specialists. I firmly believe we
have to leave this to the specialists.”
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10

Advertorial

Media360
When we
audit, we
see a lot of
undisclosed
incomes
Vineet Sodhani, chief executive officer,
Spatial Access, has solutions to solve the
lack of trust issue between clients and
media agencies
Vineet Sodhani, CEO, Spatial Access, had tips
on how the client-agency relationship could
improve.
He started the talk by stating why the
relationship between the two has been going
downhill and why trust has become a big issue.
“We see frequent pitches. Part of this is
related to trust. Clients wanted to call for
pitches within two or three years of working
with an agency. Then, there’s the lower rate
issue. Every time there’s a pitch, either clients
are expecting a lower rate, or agencies
themselves are offering it. Agencies that offer
lower rates are generally picked. The talk
about servicing or strategy is secondary. When
we audit firms, we see a lot of ‘undisclosed
incomes’. And finally, quite irritatingly, we see
the finance team getting more and more
involved with taking marketing decisions. I
hate it when I have to deal with procurement
experts who buy media expertise like they are
buying a commodity.”
He spoke about two recent instances where
he saw a lack of trust.
“It’s a fresh case. A large DTH brand was
struggling with clauses. The clause was that the
contract didn’t allow media audit and was
extremely complicated. The head of the agency
was okay with the client calling for pitches every
two years but he wasn’t allowing an audit. When
something like this comes from a head of the
agency, it puts a lot of stress on the client-agency
relationship.”
“A lot of clients expect volume rebates from
media agencies. We were working with an auto
brand, where they were looking into the books
of the agencies. There was nine crore worth of
agency volume businesses (AVB) that were to
be returned to the clients.”
Another reason for lack of trust between
agencies and clients according to Sodhani was
when the media buyer is the seller too. He
explained, “We’ve had multiple instances where
agencies are buying in bulk and resell to clients
at another price.”
One of the other observations Sodhani had
was about clients not knowing the fact that only
54 per cent of digital media spends goes to the
publisher. 46 per cent was getting spent on
intermediaries like agency fees, execution fees,
tech, data fee and more.
He ended his talk with four points the industry
could do to get back the trust:
• Be transparent
• Pay a fair fee and impose a heavy penalty
• Go public with offenders and criminalise
• Create an ethics committee
14

Media360
‘Print plus digital is a bomb of a combination’
A panel that consisted of Ashish Bhasin, Ambi
Parameswaran, Kaacon Sethi and Rameet
Arora discussed the future of the Indian print
industry at Media360 India
Setting the tone for an enthralling session on the
Indian print industry, Ashish Bhasin, CEO,
greater South and chairman and CEO, India -
Dentsu Aegis Network, accused Mumbaikars
and Delhiites of not understanding the power of
regional print.
The panel which also consisted of Kaacon
Sethi, chief corporate marketing officer,
Dainik Bhaskar Group, Rameet Arora, COO
and head of digital brands, HT Digital Streams
and Ambi Parameswaran, independent
director, The Hindu Group, then shared a light
moment about how politicians are looking
to enter the newspaper publishing space and
vice versa.
Parameswaran said, “Owned, earned and
paid media has become a concept now. The
father of the nation (Mahatma Gandhi) is the
father of owned media. It’s good that the
politicians are following at least one his
principles in modern times.”
Sethi followed it by stating how the
newspapers were the medium through which
Indians inspired each other during the run to
freedom. The panel then discussed about the
future of print and how it can compete with the
internet in the news aspect.
Sethi said, “Print has not been in the field of
breaking news for a long time now. Everything a
newspaper does now should be done with the
reader in the centre. Today, the reader is evolving
and therefore there should be different mediums
to reach out to them too. I’m very fond of the
concept of Bharat. It captures a socio-economic
culture very different from us assembled in this
room. This Bharatvasi deals in his own language
and is very comfortable in that. “
Parameswaran added, “We are
underestimating the power of print. Indian
From left (Rameet Arora, Kaacon Sethi, Ambi Parameswaran, Ashish Bhasin)
language newspapers cost more than English
language newspapers. In rural India, there’s
pride in reading a newspaper. Indian language
print publishers are upgrading to digital and also
upgrading their print product. That’s why we’ll
see both growing for the next 10 years atleast.”
The next topic of discussion was about why
Indian language newspapers don’t command
the same ad rates as English language papers
even though they’re growing at a faster rate.
Sethi was of the opinion that advertisers are
now seeing this and are willing to pay higher
rates. “We fought and lived with regional print
not getting ad rates of English newspapers. The
markets beyond the metros were getting big
too, but the problem we saw was myopia. Now,
we’re seeing them understand the power of
print in these areas. And more importantly, we
are also seeing that newspapers can do a lot
more for brands like sampling, door knocks,
events etc,” said Sethi.
Parameswaran then spoke about the IRS
and how it was created by the print industry
years ago. But somewhere down the line in the
last 15 years we lost the plot.
Bhasin who is the chairman of the MRUC
(Media Research Users Council), the body
that oversees the IRS, stated that the IRS was
released last year and was received well. He
also informed that the next one should be
released in the next two months.
HT’s Arora had this to say on the issue of the
growth of regional newspapers. “A few years
ago, Hindi print was suffering. Publishers
corrected that by refreshing their offerings
with better quality paper adding more colour
pages and so on.
However, he also reflected on the
conundrum of the regional media, while
comparing it to television ad rates. Advertisers
pay exorbitant rates to be on Hindi GECs,
while ad rates on English GECs are squeezed.
But in the newspaper space and on the
Internet, it’s exactly the opposite.
The session ended with Bhasin asking each
of the panelists to state what print can do to
continue to grow.
Parameswaran said, “Regional print has to
stay in touch with their readers. They need to
also ride two horses – digital and print.”
Sethi said, “The need to focus on hyper
localisation and put the consumer in the centre.
Print plus digital is a bomb of a combination.”
Arora stated, “Print publishers need to stop
competing with the internet. Print and the
internet can co-exist.”
16

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Media360
Make Love not War over content
The panel arrived at a unanimous decision
that there was no war for content in a space,
where there is ample opportunity for
everybody. So how will the scenario pan out?
Shekhar Banerjee, managing partner,
Wavemaker India moderated what he called one
of the biggest panels of the day on the war over
content largely triggered by the Netflix-Amazon
invasion and how the OTT players and legacy
broadcasting business would respond.
“War happens when there is a limited
resource,” said Kumar Deb Sinha, executive vice
president, The Story Lab, adding that in a country
of more than a billion people there were enough
and more viewers for everybody to tap into. “It is
an opportunity for everybody to understand
who’s their audience and then reach out to them
with the right content.”
Varun Duggirala, co-founder and content
chief, The Glitch, said that there is so much of
content out there and figuring out what do we get
rid off would be the focus. “It’s a great time if you
are a good creator. Interesting time if you are a
platform,” he said, adding that companies like his
were occupying the sweet spot in between.
Monika Shergill, head - content, Viacom 18
digital ventures said that we missed out on the
best times from American screens over the last
decade and a half as we were busy with our soap
operas. “We were telling the same stories in a
formulaic fashion, over and over again. OTT has
over the last 18 months exploded on the scene
and offered a great chance to creators.”
She added, “We can never be too rich or too
thin, right. Similarly, you can never have enough
of good content.”
Ashish Sehgal, chief growth officer, ZEEL,
said, “Consumers sit at the heart of the content
and will always be there in the future as well. The
different modes of distribution of that content
has brought the power of creating content in the
hands of consumers.” He added that earlier we
were restricted by the pipe and only whatever
From left (Ashish Sehgal , Monika Shergill, Varun Duggirala, Kumar Deb Sinha and Shekhar Banerjee)
masses wanted was getting produced. Now with
various forms of distribution, we can ensure that
we reach a niche consumer set.
In the US, cord cutting is a huge trend said
Banerjee. Is this already happening in India was
his poser to the panel. Sehgal responded that the
dynamics of the market were very different. In
the US, the content was in one language and
cable operators offered packs that were way
more expensive than what Netflix and Amazon
offered. “It’s the economics of it that drove cord
cutting in the US. Here it’s exactly the opposite,”
he said.
While there must be cord cutting at a very
niche level, the number of cords getting
connected were probably 10X of that, was his
point of view.
Banerjee shifted focus to the point that nearly
81 per cent of the viewership was being
controlled by the advertising based platforms
(AVODs) compared to global studies that
indicate that SVODs (subscription based
services) will capture 43 per cent of the market.
Duggirala of Glitch said that India as a market
was habituated to getting content for free or a
heavily subsidised rate hence subscription will
take time to grow. Shergill added that AVOD
will be a viable growing business but SVOD will
rapidly pick up pace because of the kind of
content that people are demanding and getting.
For the local OTT players AVOD is going to be a
very robust business, was her submission.
Sinha added that people will increasingly
stop paying for a platform, but for a programme
or a property. We are value conscious but if
premium content is available, the audience does
not mind paying for it. Even in the AVOD
platform advertisers will start contributing
more than what they are paying today.
Banerjee said that a baby Netflix was having
nearly one million subscribers and a turnover of
Rs 600 crore in India, while AVODs were riding
the wave on the back of free data offerings from
telecom players. What if the free data stopped?
Duggirala was of the firm opinion that the free
data would not stop as there were many offers
being driven on top of that. “The future will be
freeish data, where consumers won’t mind to
pay for the ish,” he said. Shergill said that India is
on the cusp of a second Jio revolution.
18

Media360
‘It’s all about
loving your
viewer’
Pratyusha Agarwal, CMO, ZEEL, emphasised
on the importance of establishing an
emotional connect with your TG
Pratyusha Agarwal, CMO, ZEEL’s keynote
address at the event was all about ‘loving your
viewer’. She began her talk by stating that
‘viewer love and viewer obsession’ is the answer
to all the problems a media house can face.
She explained, “In this world of options,
what’s possibly at the core of making the brand
connect (whatever the media), is brand love.
Defining your brand purpose and what role you
play in the life of your consumer/viewer is super
critical. It doesn’t matter which media you’re
using to reach out to them, it’s about the role
that you play in their lives.”
She added that while there are functional
benefits with each product and service, there
has to be clarity in pushing out the emotional
connect.
“I’m not talking about benefits like are you
taking dandruff off or not. Or am I giving you
the best ice cream flavour - but what’s that
emotional role you’re taking care of is the key.
We are like a service brand, so the stories that we
tell, and the communication we put out are
important. Our characters are the protagonists,
playing nano influencer roles,” said Agarwal.
She went on to give examples of what Zee TV
has done to spread the love with their
consumers. The channel built a website called
www.mysonikudi.com around its show
Kaleerein, which was like an e-commerce site
for brides.
The CMO of ZEEL explained the concept:
“Consumers believe that those characters
(on television) are the real influencers. They
look at them and figure how they’re navigating
their lives, relations and emotions.”
Weddings are the biggest worry for the
middle class. And the show was about the
wedding grooming schools in Punjab. We put up
a website which was like an e-commerce site for
brides. “Within 24 hours of the site going live, we
saw nano influencers to big influencers getting
involved. It started conversations, where the
brand made the point that it was wrong. It was
shown as a site parading brides. We used digital
technology to make the point,” she said.
The next example she showcased was about
how the brand used a character from one of its
shows as its face.
The channel used Zara Siddiqui for a video
around ‘Triple Talaq’. The video was spoke
about the importance of consent of women for a
divorce.
Explaining the video, she said, “We didn’t
brand it Zee TV. It was about the emotion that a
person goes through. Zara has a YouTube
channel and people follow her. She puts out her
POVs on that. It’s about taking the brands out of
‘here’s what I sell to you’, and use them as brand
ambassadors to have deep, meaningful
dialogue. It doesn’t matter what media you’re
coming from and putting it out on.”
She then spoke about the process behind how
the group used a hose pipe of data before the
launch of Zee Bollywood.
She explained, “We have data on the last 20
years and what shows have done well. We
looked at all that data, and wanted to launch a
new channel. We had inputs like South-dubbed
movies are doing well and afternoons are a big
slot etc... Data gave us a consumption trend, but
what gave us a deeper understanding was that,
while the world is getting too real, people are
looking for entertainment and the old world
Bollywood. We found there’s a huge gap of the
masala films. So, we looked to connect with
them in their language with Zee Bollywood.”
She ended with a piece of advice for all
marketers, “You have to connect to the multiple
tribes in this country. You also have to be aware
of that one consumer can be part of multiple
tribes. You can’t take the same ad and translate it
into seven languages. It’s not going to connect
with the consumer. They won’t see the love
coming through.”
19

Media360
Measurement of media: sample to census?
Romil Ramgarhia, MA Parthasarathy, Vikas
Khanchandani and Vivek Bhargava discuss
the pros and cons, data privacy and more...
Romil Ramgarhia, COO, BARC India,
moderated a session about the possibility of
media moving from sample to census with a
possibility of rival companies sharing data in
order to form a robust measurement system.
The session also featured MA Parthasarathy,
CEO, Mindshare South Asia, Vikas
Khanchandani, group CEO, Republic TV and
Vivek Bhargava, CEO, DAN Performance
Group.
Ramgarhia stated that the panel would
discuss the measurement from the perspective
of video and not from broadcast or narrowcast
because the lines are blurring between the two.
Parthasarthy stated the pros and cons of both
sample and census. He explained, “The biggest
issue is that a census is supposed to be a 100
per cent representation of a country, while what
digital gives us are selective representations –
they’re either representing the digital audience
of a country or a representative of a certain
section within the digital audience of a country.
So it’s not strictly something you can
call a census.”
Republic TV’s Khanchandani added, “If I
take broadcast as a medium, with its vast reach,
you need a fair representation of the universe.
So, today I feel sample is the best way to measure
the total volume of audiences that broadcast
delivers. Having said that, I do believe census is
the way to go in the future. It is a journey and
return path data is one of the foundations of
getting there. Depending on how we build this
return path data which has a fair representation
of geographies, markets and platforms will
drive towards using census as a way to be.”
Ramgarhia then asked Bhargava which
system will be more relevant going forward,
considering countries like the USA still use a
panel based system.
Bhargava was all for a census based
From left (Vikas Khanchandani, MA Parthasarathy, Vivek Bhargava and Romil Ramgarhia)
measurement system. “If census can measure
every single household, it’s definitely going to
be more effective advertising. When you go
back to US and some of the other countries, they
still use landlines. India doesn’t. So, when you
get a superior technology, most developing
countries leapfrog and use it. So, we can do the
same thing here – if we can figure out how we
can use D2H to actually give a return path, or
use mobile phones to act like audio sensors to
measure what kind of measure is being played
regardless of whether it’s on OTT or broadcast
– that will give tremendous amount of value to
advertisers, content creators and consumers.”
He added, “The problem is that we’re
projecting the behavior of 10,000 people based
on one user and hoping he presses the right
button when he’s watching that meter. Based on
this we’re going to spend 50,000 crore!”
With data available, Ramgarhia asked
the panelists whether viewers could be
apprehensive of this system because of
privacy concerns.
Bhargava believed that this point was a
problem that could easily be solved.
“There are healthcare institutions that have
few 100 million users, there are financial
institutions that have 100 million plus accounts
with their data. If anyone ends up sharing what I
watch on television, preferably I wouldn’t want
it to happen, but I’m okay with it. We can
maintain confidentiality of health, financial
information, for the fear of privacy – I think it’s a
lesser problem. We have to figure a way to keep
it secure and I don’t think it’s a problem we can’t
solve,” said Bhargava.
Parthasarathy added, “I think the average
consumer knows that nothing in life is for free.
For some convenience there is a trade off. The
only explicit thing and I think it’s getting better
over time is how strongly do we actually
manage or monitor consent. I give data to a
hospital, because I go there with the hope of it
being for my benefit and the institution knows
what went wrong with me previously. I hope
and trust them not to sell that to someone else.
The problem with data in the media space is
that you don’t know what people are doing
with that data. The consent and data protocols
have to be there.”
20

Media360
THE ONES THAT SHONE
Here are the winners from the first edition of
the Media360 India Awards.
Entrant Entry Entrant Metal
Performics.Resultrix DBS iWealth Campaign DBS Bank Silver
iProspect #InLOVEwithSWITZERLAND Switzerland Tourism Gold
Arena Media #LGFridgeJeeto LG Refrigerator Bronze
Bennett Coleman & Co The Times of India - Flirt with Your City The Times of India Silver
Performics.Resultrix The Memory Project HDFC LIFE Gold
Sony BBC Earth - MSM Worldwide
Factual Media
Blue Planet II - Indian TV Premiere Sony BBC Earth Silver
Viacom 18 Media Dance Deewane Energy Dance Floors Colors Gold
Bennett Coleman & Co The Times of India - Flirt with Your City The Times of India Silver
iProspect #InLOVEwithSWITZERLAND Switzerland Tourism Silver
iProspect Mutual Funds Sahi Hai AMFI Silver
Mahindra Rise #LadkiHaathSeNikalJaayegi Mahindra Rise Gold
Mahindra Rise Experience Formula E in 360 Mahindra Racing Bronze
Tonic Worldwide
Columbus India (Dentsu Aegis
Network Company)
MTV Woofer - India’s First Television Music Show For Stressed-out
Dogs
MTV India
Silver
Max Life Chasing The Holy Grail in Digital Marketing Max Life Gold
VRL Media Red Label Awareness Campaign Red Label Silver
JetPrivilege Fly for Free using your JPMiles JetPrivilege Bronze
Performics.Resultrix Isse Apni hi Gaadi Samjho Uber India Bronze
Motilal Oswal Financial Services
Think Equity. Think Motilal Oswal
Motilal Oswal Financial
Services
dentsu X matrix Mutual Funds Sahi Hai Association of Mutual
Funds in India
Tonic Worldwide
When Nutralite enabled users to become sous chefs to Sanjeev
Kapoor
Nutralite
Tonic Worldwide Filmykaant - India's first Artificial Intelligence NLP Hinglish Chatbot Sony MAX Bronze
Sony Pictures Networks Handmaid's Tale launch AXN India Bronze
Tourism Australia UnDiscover Australia Tourism Australia Silver
iProspect #inLOVEwithSWITZERLAND Switzerland Tourism GOLD
Netcore Solutions
Swiggy’s Email Marketing Campaign Sets a New Record with 7% CTR
on a User base of Millions
Swiggy.com
Tonic Worldwide Bollywood ka PHD Sony MAX Bronze
VRL Media (Vijayavani) Savlon Braille Savlon India Gold
Tonic Worldwide
MTV Woofer - India’s First Television Music Show For Stressed-out
Dogs
MTV India
Tonic Worldwide Cool Currency : World's first virtual currency for Millennials Flying Machine Bronze
Agency of the Year: iProspect
Campaign of the Year: #inLOVEwithSWITZERLAND (Switzerland Tourism)
Silver
Silver
Bronze
Bronze
Silver
21

Media360
Snapshots from Media360
22
View the full gallery on www.campaignindia.in