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Audience measurement bodies like TAM and BARC India are there to help broadcasters understand what India watches. (Website)
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More options for couch potatoes<br> The remote wars are set to heat up! The already crowded television space saw new entrants in 2015 across various genres. The Hindi GECs made way for &TV (ZEEL), while the English entertainment space saw launches like Colors Infinity (Viacom18), Star Movies Select HD (Star India) and MN+ (Times Network). The sports genre saw Sony Kix (Sony Pictures Networks India), Star Sports HD 3 and 4 (Star India) and Ten Golf HD (ZEEL). Kids too could choose from the inclusion of Toonami (Turner) and Da Vinci Learning (Da Vinci Media). Niche genres saw broadcasters launching offerings like a real estate channel MagicBricks Now (Times Network), lifestyle channel Living Foodz (ZEEL), home shopping channel Best Deal TV, jewellery shopping channel Gemporia TV and HD versions such as AXN HD, Comedy Central HD, FX HD and Zee Cafe HD. Not far behind, pubcaster Doordarshan too launched DD Kisan for farmers. Others like India 24×7, Miniplex, and a bunch of regional launches, kept the TV space buzzing this year.</br>
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The IPL debacle<br> The IPL story was the perfect potboiler with a concoction of scandal, drama, exits and entries. The spot-fixing scandal spilled over to 2015 and the IPL Governing Council had to float tenders for two new temporary teams (till 2017) as the Justice RM Lodha Committee suspended the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings for two years. The brand further suffered a hit when title sponsor PepsiCo decided to end its association with the property due to the controversies. But the brand ducked the googly and roped in Vivo as its title sponsor till 2017, and set up two new teams — Pune and Rajkot — owned by Sanjiv Goenka’s New Rising Group and Intex Technologies respectively, which bagged players from the banned teams in a reverse auction process. Broadcaster Sony Pictures Networks India too showed its support by increasing ad rates by 15% for the upcoming season. But will the IPL be able to regain its fans’ lost trust? We’ll have to wait and see. </br>
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India’s meek roar at Cannes Lions 2015<br>After last year’s 27 metals, India’s 945 entries sent in 2015, against 979 entries in 2014 — at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — were able to fetch only 14 metals in 2015. However, as one saw the best campaigns from across the world vie for awards across 16 categories, India ended its six-year Grand Prix drought with BBDO winning the newly-launched Glass Lion for its ‘Touch the pickle’ campaign for Whisper sanitary napkins. India’s win in categories such as PR, Outdoor, Media and Press (with 18 shortlists in Press alone) further cemented its dominance in the field. What was worrying was our poor performance in new media categories like Promo & Activation, Innovation and Mobile Lions. It’s now time to introspect and reinvent, as Indian creative heads, armed with their best work, will head out to the French Riviera in 2016.</br>
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Controversies galore<br>Questions on food safety in India have been raised time and again, but when the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) slapped a nationwide ban on Maggi in June, the matter was back in the spotlight. FSSAI had alleged the snack contained excessive quantities of lead and monosodium glutamate, and soon Maggi was taken off the shelves. The list of food items facing scrutiny grew as brands like Mother Dairy (with allegations of detergent found in milk samples), Starbucks, with products like sauces and syrups under surveillance, among others, also made their way to the FSSAI’s hit list. If this wasn’t enough, Aamir Khan’s statement on the intolerance debate saw one of his endorsed brands Snapdeal face the flak. Hashtags like #Appwapsi and #NoToSnapdeal trended online while the brand suffered 85,000+ app uninstalls. Many debated on whether a brand should suffer because of its ambassador and vice versa.</br>
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The year of start-ups<br>The sheer number of start-ups in 2015 caught our attention, with top honchos from the world of communication turning entrepreneurial. The agencies launched this year included digital agency The Social Street founded by Pratap Bose and Mandeep Malhotra; ad agency Paperboat by Arijit Ray; digital firm Arre launched by Ronnie Screwvala, B Saikumar and Ajay Chacko; triggerbridge (S Yesudas, Ajit Nair and Amit Tripathi’s digital venture); and ad agency 21n78e (Sudhir Nair and Navin Karkera). Among other ad agency ventures were The Mob (Chraneeta Mann and Nitin Suri), What’s Your Problem? (Amit Akali and Praful Akali) and Sideways (Abhijit Avasthi’s ad agency). Media agency Tango Media was set up by Sandeep Goyal while Kaustav Das and Anil Ralph Thomas flagged Ralph&Das. Clearly, a lot of agency folk had had their share of networks. There was even Vigyapanti, an ad agency launched by the stand-up comedy group All India Bakchod.</br>
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#GharWapsi<br> Top-rung comebacks dotted this year. We saw Worldwide Media’s Tarun Rai return to JWT after a span of seven years. Virat Tandon returned to India as Mullen Lintas’ CEO after a three-year stint with the Mullen Lowe Group in Singapore. A rapid mover was Dentsu Aegis Network’s Rohit Ohri who relocated to Singapore as CEO of Dentsu Asia Pacific (excluding Japan), but quickly announced his plans to return to India in a new role at FCB Ulka which he will assume in January 2016. Cheil India brought Sonal Narain on board as the chief strategy officer. She was earlier head of planning at Ogilvy Singapore. Then there was Vikram Sakhuja who returned to India to join Madison Media, from GroupM UK. Times Network brought Ashit Kukian back into the network as president, revenue, from Radio City. This is Kukian’s second stint with the network after 10 years. Sagar Mahabaleshwar returned from Singapore to India and joined Cheil India as CCO, from Bates CHI & Partners. Hyperlocal — 2015’s word of the year?</br>
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The hyperlocal segment fired up in the e-commerce space, indicating a clear shift from product to on-demand services like grocery, plumbing, laundry, handymen etc. Newcomers like Grofers, Faasos, Jugnoo, PepperTap and Swiggy changed the services game with biggies like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal following suit. Flipkart recently launched Flipkart Nearby and Amazon launched Kirana Now to mark their presence in this space. Snapdeal has already launched its home services offering which includes carpentry, pest-control, cleaning and plumbing. Much to the concern of unicorns, these hyperlocal firms also saw an unprecedented flow of venture capital money, that outnumbered many other sectors. For example, Grofers alone raised $166 million this year, of which $120 million was recently acquired in fresh funds.
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No longer my baby<br> 2015 saw some high profile exits in the start-up space, most notably, those of founders themselves! Many quit their founded ventures either due to management changes or mergers and acquisitions. The limelight was, however, stolen by Housing.com’s CEO Rahul Yadav, who was finally fired from the company he co-founded, following a bitter tiff with investors and board members. He has however struck back with his new venture, Intelligent Interfaces. HomeShop18’s CEO Sundeep Malhotra quit the company he founded in 2006 to launch an interior and home design venture, Renomania. In another marked exit, Yebhi.com co-founder Danish Ahmad didn’t just exit the e-commerce venture but the whole industry altogether, and started ShopCity, an anti e-commerce site which guides consumers in locating their preferred fashion brands at the nearest offline store. Following its sale to cab aggregator company Ola, TaxiForSure co-founders Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna quit the company. In a management rejig, Rocket Internet backed Jabong and FabFurnish saw some major changes. Jabong.com co-founders Praveen Sinha and Arun Chandra Mohan stepped down while FabFurnish co-founders Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal also exited the company.</br>
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Exercising its place in consumers’ lives<br> People might have waited in queues for a visit to the international clothing store H&M which entered the country this year, but what made news is the home-grown FMCG/healthcare company Patanjali Ayurved, founded by Baba Ramdev. Launched in 2006 in Haridwar, the company made headlines in 2015 as it gave competition to Indian and international giants. Till recently, Patanjali had spent minimally on marketing and zero on advertising, relying largely on word-of-mouth via yoga classes. But things changed. TVCs, created by DDB Mudra, have donned the idiot box this year, helping the products fly off the shelves. Then, the company’s tie-up with Future Group and Reliance Retail has only fuelled its ambitions of generating 250% revenue growth in FY16.</br>
Virat Kohli grants brother Vikas Kohli legal rights over Gurugram property: Report
