Pro Kabaddi League (PKL)

Apart from cricket, we now  have viewers for Indian games like kabaddi. Star India will broadcast the second season of PKL across eight channels of its network. PKL I had 435 million viewers nationwide. It was one of the most-watched Star properties in the country. The finale alone recorded a reach of 86.4 million. Star is the title sponsor. Leading brands have signed up as associate sponsors. Star wants to develop multi-sport culture. Among all non-cricket leagues, it is kabaddi that perhaps resonates at the grassroots and holds great potential.

XBRL

XBRL is an open source royalty-free XML ( eXtensible Markup Language ) based information reporting standard. RBI in India has adopted this standard. This could be adopted with benefit in Digital India initiative.

XBRL moves the world from document management to information management. It satisfies the final objective of getting clean data. With XBRL, the data is focussed upon and not the document. The document, of course, would be scanned but instead of images moving back and forth, it is data that gets transorted for verification. The data could be shared seamlessly across the departments. The data can be checked electronically, making manual checking unnecessary.

KKT : Kan Khajura Tesan

KKT has been initiated as an entertainment-on-demand platform to engage with rural customers by HUL in 2013. Here they live in media dark areas, and such consumers total up to 200 million plus. Essentially, it is a mobile-radio channel, and can be accessed on any mobile irrespective of the operator. These consumers get brand communication of HUL brands on this channel along with the programme. The channel can be accessed. The channel can be accesses by giving a missed call to 1800-30-000-123 and the call  gets disconnected after two rings. The caller in return receives capsules of entertainment and Hindi film music. They have also added a devotional section. KKT is now opening up it for brands beyond HUL’s own brands.

Podcasting

Not a very beautiful name. Podcasting as a medium is almost a decade old. It is a name given to delivering radiolike shows directly to the mobile. It has seen many ups and downs. It attracts audiences and revenue. Advertisers run campaign on podcasts. However, the overall audience for podcasts is growing slowly. In audio programming, the share of podcaxts is growing. Podcast ads are effective, as these cannot be easily skipped. Auxiences are convinced of their authenticity. Podcasting is the future of radio, and just do not expect that future to come tomorrow. It is destined to be huge, both as a medium and a business.

Ignio : AI Product from TCS

So far IT firms leveraged their manpower to earn the revenues. Of late, there is a search for innovative technology that breaks the more manpower to earn more revenue model. Igmo is an artificial intelligence platform which was being developed for the last four years. It uses ‘netural computing ‘ — machine learning capabilities and the computing power of work in managing the IT infraztructure. It is called service as a software whereas the older platforms were software as a service. Ignio does a compliance check itself automatically where it was done using a set of people. Ignio takes a holistic view of the IT. Infrasture of the client. After analysing the data, it focuses on those tasks which require people, but which it can handle. If it cannot fix something, it puts it in a queue to be handled by a person. Thereafter, when a person handles it, it starts learning the same. It has a mobile application. It has its own Twitter account. It has been piloted with six customers early this year. There are modules of Ignio and many more will be added. Ignio spells out on plugging the capabilities you can download. You will be charged on the basis of what you use. Everyone will not use the entire capability. TCS expects the product adoption, rather than revenue generation at this stage. IT industry is busy putting innovations to break the old model of revenue growth. IBM put forward Watson, a super-computer. IPSoft of Chetan Dubey is also another product using AI. Ignio does not interact with the end user. It thus cannot be compared to Watkon. At present, the product will find application in infrastucture services and business process services. As it is developed further, many more areas of application can emerge.

LinkedIn : Rebranding Itself

LinkedIn some 4-5 years back was recognised as a job portal. It has successfully rebranded itself by being acknowledged as the professional content platform and one that provides opportunities related to career. It also wants to expand its identity by being a communication platform, and carries some 1 lac pieces of long-form content. Thus this publishing part changes the social media platform completely. The portal provides a basket of facilities which will help professionals, job seekers and recruiters. In May 2015, it had 30 milloin users. Thus it is the second largest market outside the US. Besides, it is the fastest growing one. LinkedIn Recruiter allows Indian recruiters to search and target profiles. LinkedIn Hiring Solutions are used by a number of companies.LinkedIn has made a lot of acquisitions — Newsle, Pulse, Careerify and SlideShare. In 2015, it acquired lynda.com.

New Hindi Cinema

A film has to be entertainig. At the same time, it could be intellectual cinema. The film has to reach the audiences. There are lot of stories having multiple characters or an ensemble cast. Tihis could be understood as a product of a writer who is city-bred and sees rows of flats and would like to narrate what is happening in some of them. Still we do not have writers and directors drawn from the interiors of India.

A new idiom has come to describe the cinema which is difficult to classify either as alternative or mainstream. It is an anti-dumb cinema. It is expanding the genre of mainstream cinema by being more inclusive and meaningful.

Video Online Ads

Online videos carry ads and this is the fastest growing category of internet ads. Its growth rate is 30per cent year. Facebook and Google compete with each other in other type of ads. These days they are competing in the space of online video ads ( Google with YouTube ). In terms of the audience size, they are neck-in-neck. Facebook has around 1.3 billion. This  competition means that user will see more ads, but zt the same time they will enjoy a rich ranges of video programming.
Internet is expected to overtake TV advertising in 12 key market by2017.It represents 28 per cent of global spending.
Facebook video ads create general brand awareness. They could be pre-roll ads that marketing companies prefer to ensure their messages are actually viewed. YouTube is a flexible marketing platform. The ads runs before, during and after a video programme is shown. Facebook will have to satisfy the content owners that it is a viable alternative to YouTube. YouTube charges advertisers when on advertisement has been viewed. Facebook charges once three seconds of video has been delivered. It is a less friendly models.

Ad Spending in India

The total advertising expenditure in 2015 is estimated to be Rs 54,320 crore, as compared to Rs 47,490 crore in 2014. The FMCG sector contributes most to this revenue — Rs 8000–9000 crore and is the number one spender. The telecom-mobile sector spends Rs 5000 crore each year, and should retain its number 2 position. Currently, the auto sector is the third hivhest spender — Rs 1500-Rs 2000 crore. The e-commerce companies spent Rs 1483 crore, and with a growth of  15-20 per cent, the e-commerce might overtake the auto sector to become the third largest spender.

Digital Banking

Digital banking has to respond to the consumer behaviour. Banks have to assess the needs of the consumers in real-time. Big Data is the most widely used mantra, since it analyses, based on life styles, the requirements of the consumers so that they can be offered the right product at the right time. The data that is processed is both demographic and financial. Social media platforms provide a wealth of data. The banks can use both the internal data and external data. Based on your past choices, the banks try to predict about the future choices. Internet either on the computer or mobile opened up vast avenues for digital banking. The loans are being approved online. In case of an existing customer, there is pre-approved amount being shown on his account. He has just to click on agree to get the amount in his account. In an emergency situation such as hospitalization, how convenient this becomes.There is an app that divides the bill equally among friends at the food outlet. Digital banking is not just used to acquire the the new customers but it tends to serve the existing customers better. SBI uses USSD interface for customers not having a smart phone. SBI’s InTouch branches has just two staff members. An account can be opened at an InTouch branch through the use of machines in 12 minutes, with a debit card being given bearing the name and photo of the customer. There is gamification table for planning investments and expenses. There is dreamwall to look up options available to finance the customer’s needs. A remote expert is a bank official to advise a customer. InTouch Light is another digital branch of SBI which has just account opening facility.

Traditional banking through cheque payments and the use of counters is still strong. Perhaps, banks are not proactive in educating the customers about the digital initiative.

Digital banking by digitizing the processes end to end will improve productivity and sales and would bring down the manpower costs. It will lead to higher CASA balances. There would be alerts before an account becomes bad.