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There are 2 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India" IAMAI 4th Digital Marketing Conference: A Comprehensive Coverage and Analysis of Session 1 - Are Standards and Norms Required to Ensure The Next Round of GrowthWe were at IAMAI’s 4th Digital Marketing Conference yesterday at the ITC Grand Central, and though we planned to get these posts up yesterday, the content was incredibly vast to sit and analyse at the end of the day. So seeking apologies for the delay, presenting the what and who of the first session of the conference before moving on to the four others in the pipeline later. Session 1:Standards and Norms: Are Some Norms and Standards Required to Ensure the Next Round of Growth?The session moderated by Anupam Mittal, Chairman & MD of People Group, spoke on whether there is a need for standard accepted measurements and metrics on all aspects of digital media marketing. So we were looking at standards and norms in terms of audience measurement, ratings and accreditation , credit recovery, online advertising standards and others. Do we Need Standards and Norms in Digital media to Scale Ahead?The resounding answer of the panelists was yes, which to me somehow beat the purpose of having a panel asking the question. The discussion though had interesting perspectives on the current state of affairs and how standardization fits in to the picture. So Anupam Mittal who opened the session stressed on how it will lend credibility and improve legitimacy of the business, Farokh Balsara of Ernst and Young pointed out that there has to be systems and norms in place for audits to happen and performance evaluated. Harish Bahl and George Gallate voiced vociferously that we have in fact missed the bus and quickly need to set standards rolling. While Parag Bose pointed out it is important to have standards so that Internet planners get off their over-ambitious expectations from the web. Mittal spoke on how this is the right time to discuss considering that over the last few years the industry has began to come together, which is the first step towards standards. Some of the salient points that he included in his opening adress included:
So How Can Standards Be implemented?The question itself was suggested by Anupam Mittal when he begant he session, saying that while it is important to decide if there is a requirement the more pertinent question is the implementation if there is a need. The following were the recommendations that were put forward by the panelists in this regard. Harish Bahl ( MD and CEO of Smile Interactive Technologies)
George Gallate (Global CEO of Euro RSCG)
Farokh Balsara (Head - Media and Entertainment, Ernst and Young)
Parag Bose (COO Mudra Group)
As we can see, the suggestions bordered on the mundane and the oft said than getting any conclusive or should I say tangible set of recommendations as Anupam Mittal suggested the panel arrive at the beginning of the session. Though what can be expected is some news on the headway on this front in the coming months perhaps. What are the Hindrances Towards Standardizations and Norms?While a lot of obvious reasons came up during the discussions, some of the more serious ones that stand in the way of standardization are: 1. Publisher Integrity: Harish Bahl controversially brought out the problem child of digital media - the fraudulent publisher. He pointed out that there is a serious lack of integrity among publishers. The reson for this being the tremendous pressure on sales guy to bring in the moolah. So he commits practically impossible numbers and then works backwards to meet the commitments which essentially puts a question mark on the integrity of the industry. 2. Banners and Creatives Standards: The creatives side is often given the wrong end of the stick, for it is actually a very small part of the entire campaign budget. Harish and George spoke on the ridiculous and unorganised production quality in digital media. Harish mentioned that in an actual scenario we have a few 100 variations of the creatives you have. Because of the above reason the quality suffers and people think that digital is not creative and that the medium is B grade. George insisted on improving production standards and bringing the glamour back in the industry if it is lost and stressed on education as the driving point for this. 3. Lack of Awareness: Taking off from the education requirement that George mentioned, Farokh Balsara and Parag Bose brought the picture of lack of awareness and over expectation in the open. Balsara noted that Internet doesn't get its share because advertisers believe that internet is about transactions or for those who have a sizable internet presence. Parag Bose spoke on how brands and marketers over emphasize on measurementstop comparing media and compare media ridiculously, which they don’t do with other media. He also spoke on how no one really knows how to put together a digital brief in agencies to highlight lack of awareness. And that the solution to this was to tell planners to stop comparing media. The Other Set of Ancillary Debates That HappenedThe entire panel with its wealth of experience brought out quite a few numbers, instances and anecdotes on the table which made the entire session most interesting including contradictory view points. Harish and George for instance spoke loudly (not literally) on the need to set the ball rolling and that we have already missed the bus in terms of not setting standards. Anupam Mittal on the other hand opened the session by stating how now the IAMAI is in a position to speak for the industry and how therefore it is the right time to discuss standardization on this platform. And that it was important for the industry to come together cohesively as it has now for standards and norms to be discussed. George also gave the example of China’s mobile market which killed itself by not regulating itself, and how Indian digital media is heading the same path. Farokh Balsara compared the current Indian scenario to that of the US in 2004, when the standards were essentially put in place there. There were questions from the audience as well as that have been doing rounds before the event as well, as to why don’t we accept IAB’s standards (something I have also stressed on and therefore covered on WATblog before personally). The panel though felt that an Indianised version of metrics and measurements is required instead of blindly following the IAB standards. In between the session, Balsara, mentioned that the basic problem is that the Internet, the most measurable medium is also the least understood one. Anupam concluded the session with the same thought that let us all make an effort to understand this most measurable medium. It was interesting to note though that the same about the need for a TAM like measurement system is needed to bring in advertiser money into digital in the previous IAMAI event at Bangalore, and here they had a complete session on how to go about it. Related Posts Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Rohit Sharma Zapak COO Shares MMO, Offline, Movie Mechandising Strategy With WATBlogZapak recently announced its tie up for movie merchandising with the kiddy movie Hari Puttar which was also in the news for being sued by Harry Porter producers. This isn’t the first time that zapak has got into movie merchandising. Even earlier it had done a similar deal for the movie Bhoothnath for which it sold over 50,000 merchandise packs. Even for Hari Puttar Zapak is selling merchandise packs priced at priced at Rs 149 and Rs 199 and has tied up with 3000 toy and stationery stores in more than 77 cities where all the products will be made available. We got in touch with Rohit Sharma COO of Zapak Entertainment to better understand how did movie merchandising fit into the overall scheme of things at Zapak. Here is the interview.
Why is Zapak moving offline with movie merchandising as a business? What is the objective there? Worldwide gaming merchandise contributes significant revenues for Gaming companies especially MMO developers and publishers. Now that we are ready to launch Crazy Kart, our first MMO and also 2-3 title in the next 12 months, we believe that setting up a distribution network for merchandising business will help us capture the entire value chain. That is our key objective of setting up the merchandising distribution network. However with the distribution infrastructure in place (5000 retail outlets in 0ver 50 cities), we are approached by a lot of production houses to create online/offline movie merchandise for them distribute the same. Because our TG is kids and the youth, we feel it fits well with our strategy and takes our brand to the retail level and ready to leverage once we launch our MMO gaming merchandise
What kind of deals and margins are being seen in the movie merchandising and distribution business for zapak? Distribution and merchandising margins are in line with industry margins How much % of total revenues does zapak expect to come from these merchandise sale? (going forward next 1 year, 3 years?) 10% in year 1 going upto 15-20% once we launch our MMO’s in the next 3-5 years
You recently started selling disc’s offline for games how has been the response to that? We have had a tremendous response with the gaming CDs, especially because of our disruptive pricing of 49 Rupees and extremely high quality of games. There is an extremely favourable response from both the trade and the consumers
How much % of total revenues does zapak expect to come from these disc sale? (going forward next 1 year, 3 years?) The percentage that I mentioned above includes cumulative percentage share for both movie merchandise and gaming CDs. For us it is one business line
What is the current break up of the revenue at Zapak.com (Ads vs Downloads)? Right now is primarily ad supported. We will start getting subscription/transaction revenues once we launch our MMOs.
Are you seeing any interesting trend in the user behaviour at Zapak? With over 5 million registered users on our site, we are seeing a trend of increase in repeat visitors on our site. Although we add almost 8-10K new users everyday, we are able to attract our existing users to come to back to us. This is primarily because of fresh and high quality gaming content Another major trend is that although our core TG is the age group of 12-25. We are seeing an increase in the number of users in the age group of 6-12. The kids segment contributes almost 25% of our audience today. The third trend is that with the launch of Zapakgirls a dedicated gaming site for girls with over 200 games, we have now almost 18% of our users as girls.
PS: We had also done a Video interview with Rohit on WATShow a while back. The same can be viewed here>>
Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult More Recent Articles
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