Sidharth Rao, CEO & Co-founder, Webchutney
Most of the advertising agencies had tried to have an interactive agency in 1999-2000. but most of them floundered and shut down shop… We hope they will surely do a better job this time. Interactivity is not like where you can put a business head and 3-4 guys and have an interactive business. The Internet is far too vast to be considered that frivolous. Even we or any of the specialist players in the medium cannot say that we fully understand this medium. The Internet continuously keeps changing. It seems as if all the advertising agencies have a single-point agenda in their 2007 or 2008 plan – that they want to set up an interactive agency. But I don’t think that is the way to look at Internet. Do Indian (offline) agencies have the appetite to do something dramatically different? I don’t think so.
Most of the advertising agencies had tried to have an interactive agency in 1999-2000. but most of them floundered and shut down shop… We hope they will surely do a better job this time. Interactivity is not like where you can put a business head and 3-4 guys and have an interactive business. The Internet is far too vast to be considered that frivolous. Even we or any of the specialist players in the medium cannot say that we fully understand this medium. The Internet continuously keeps changing. It seems as if all the advertising agencies have a single-point agenda in their 2007 or 2008 plan – that they want to set up an interactive agency. But I don’t think that is the way to look at Internet. Do Indian (offline) agencies have the appetite to do something dramatically different? I don’t think so.
Sidharth Rao has been the idea lab, guiding force, evangelist of Webchutney for the last six years since the company’s inception in 1999 after he quit college at 19 to start the agency. He is 27 and has been a self-educated entrepreneur who started an interactive agency at a very volatile time in the Indian digital space. He survived the dotcom bust to have led the agency as one of India’s leading interactive consultancies today. From a two-person start-up, Webchutney is now spread across three cities and has a 75-strong team and offers a range of services across the Internet universe.
In a freewheeling conversation with Asit Ranjan Mishra, Rao talks about Webchutney’s success, the challenges of the Internet medium, viral marketing and online video advertisement, among others.
Q. What kind of brands do you think fit into the viral marketing strategy? Most consumer brands that have a clear proposition, most of the B2C companies make a perfect fit.
Q. When did you get the feeling that you were here to stay? Sudesh and I were very sure that we didn’t want to go back to the agency job anymore. So, we completely removed that option of going back. Yes, initially it was slightly discouraging to see the industry undergoing a downturn, but we were very, very sure about the future of this medium. There were enough reasons for users to keep coming in. It was just a matter of time when marketers would follow suit.
Q. But with the Internet becoming part of the mixed strategy of marketers, don’t you think offline agencies with Internet arms could provide them a better buy or you think marketers are intelligent enough to understand that Internet is a different ball game?
Yes, definitely it is. In an ideal world, if the advertising agencies caught up well on the interactive front, then yes, there is efficiency for the marketers. But have they bought it really well, no. You should really look at it from an advertising agency’s perspective. They classically talk to the marketing team of the company and they come from that perspective. Whereas when you look at the Internet and what Webchutney has to offer we actually end up impacting most departments in an organisation. Do we have products and services for the HR business, yes, we do have. Are we working with the corporate communication departments of companies today, yes, we are. Are we working with marketers, yes, we are. The interactive strategy for a brand, therefore, becomes very different for an interactive strategy for an organisation, that is why there is a roadblock for advertising agencies as they are completely habituated in talking with the marketers.
I will give you an example, one of the largest banks in India today faces the challenge with the emergence of social media, basically people posting their opinions on blogs, message boards and consumer opinion sites like Mouthshut.com. When you search for that particular brand on Google, you will see huge number of results about their bank service, their products, customer experience with their customer service department, etc. – is it the concern of a classic marketing guy, not really. It will actually be the guy who handles customer relationship in the organisation. Are the advertising agencies currently talking to that guy? I don’t think so. The focus of the advertising agencies is much on the classic communication and brand, whereas the Internet can impact it in a much bigger way.
Q. But don’t you thing the space is too vast to monitor and especially influence the bloggers, or whatever you call them? And then they are also very averse to the very idea of being influenced. See, we don’t mean influencing the bloggers in the traditional way. Consumers become averse to a particular brand due to some bad experience or the other. Suppose our client, a bank, has screwed up somewhere in the handling of the customer, and every customer serving organisation has those challenges, the idea is to tell the client to resolve that problem, and once you have done that actually you end up projecting an impression of a company which has years to the ground and that delights the guy who was got completed agonised just a day before and that actually influences. Webchutney actually tries to resolve the issue, which could have otherwise gone unnoticed in the current scheme of things for a very long time.
Q. Webchutney seems to have mastered the art of viral marketing. But don’t you think there is a limit to which viral marketing could actually work for a brand? Absolutely. Viral marketing it not meant for all brands. You can’t do the same thing over and over again. The lesser known fact is that for every one successful viral marketing you produce, there is one that bombs. So, I don’t shy away from saying that 50 per cent of our viral marketing has bombed. There are so many viral marketing campaigns that you’ve never heard of because they never got viral enough. Virals can also not be adhoc, just for the sake of doing it. Viral may not be necessarily executed the way Webchutney executes them. The best virals are email jokes and forwards, the challenge, of course, is to integrate the brand message within that.
Q. But don’t you think at some stage viral marketing is too risky a proposition as it may go out of the hand of both the brand and the agency that has created it? Yes, to a great extent viral strategy is not a well thought out one, but it should be. I think no one has whipped it that badly and it is just a matter of time that somebody gets the backlash. Getting a brand to be really loved by a consumer is an ideal thing, but viral marketing is like any other marketing strategy vulnerable to being misfired. Had that happened yet, not to my knowledge. Can that happen, absolutely yes.
Q. You are also into search marketing. So, which business is bigger within your own company, search marketing or interactive agency business? We are arguably one of the largest search marketing agencies in the country, if not the largest. We club search in media as search is finally media under the banner of performance marketing. Forty per cent of our revenue, I am not talking about billing, comes from media today. Another 40 per cent comes from the creative services and web designing. The rest 20 per cent comes from other services like alternate marketing – viral, social media analysis, etc. We also have a knowledge management practice for a few companies.
Q. You have one investor, Russian Hills Venture. How much investment it has made in your company? Not too much actually. It happened way back in 2000. We ended up not using that investment very effectively. Since then both the investor and we have grown very fast organically. The knowledge the investor has is actually vast for us to tap.
Q. Aren’t you looking for any fresh investment when VCs are floating around everywhere? The funny part is there is so much of momentum within the industry itself that our growth has become self-driven. Our headcount has become 75 and we will be around 100 by March 2007. We don’t need any funding as such for that. Recently, we started an office in Kuala Lumpur. We want to look at Singapore and specifically the US for development projects. As and when our new business plan unfolds, there will be requirement of funding. But somewhere what we have definitely learnt is that it is not the right time in the interactive space to consolidate in a big way.
Q. What changes do you want to happen when it comes to video streaming of advertisements? I guess some of the agencies need to handhold a couple of marketers or couple of clients need to make a compelling case working with the right agencies and get the content of the video stream right to be able to excite others. But the problem is that MSN or NDTV are classic publishers and they have some inventory to sell. And most of the companies that are buying this media are only media buying agencies. With the risk of sounding arrogant, I don’t think they have the necessary expertise to understand the consumer content. Companies come and tell agencies to put their ad on YouTube. But it does not work that way. One needs to understand the YouTube audience and try and do something that will excite them to forward it to others.
Q. But there is a section of online publishers who think that online ads should not be sold on the clickthrough basis rather on a timeband basis, like on television. In fact, that is the idea behind Desktop TV. Do you think marketers will really buy into this idea? I am a complete disbeliever in this model. I don’t think it works that way, neither do I think it should be looked at that way. It is an intelligent idea of making it very simple for marketers because they are habituated with the concept of timeband and primetime, etc. but it completely destroys the fact that the Internet is the most measurable medium. At the end of the day, Internet is the only medium that lets you pay for view. The classic model is CPM, there could not be a better model for the Internet than that. Timeband is a very poor model for the Internet.
Q. Now, let’s talk about you. You are only 27 and heading a successful interactive agency. How do people react when they know your age? In your business, you must be interacting with people almost double your age. Do they look at you as a kid? This is funny actually. I look much older. So, people are surprised only when they find out my age. It used to surprise people more a couple of years ago. But most people don’t realise I have been in this business for eight years. People are quite surprised on the success of Webchutney. But my stand is that if you can’t get it right in eight years, then you must be a real fool.
Q. But do you think your age somehow has been an advantage to better understand this medium, which is driven by an audience of your age? Yes, because the way I look at the Internet is not necessarily only from the business angle. For me it organises my life, for me it is a lot of exciting content that I want to read, I am first a consumer. Since the Internet is our generation thing, it keeps me interested. So there it makes a perfect fit. You also see in Webchutney, the average age is 25. There are only three people who are over 30 years old. And that helps. If something is a phenomena on the Internet, then it is first understood here.
Q. So, your main concern is that it is not interactive. Anything on Internet has to be interactive. Right? Or immersing, very, very engaging.
Q. How did the idea of WebChutney strike you when you were just 19? Sudesh, the other founder and National Creative Head, and I met at Grey where I was a copy writer. Sudesh was the art director. We wanted to start a designing firm. It just happened that I got an opportunity to work with an Internet company NetAcross. In just 2-3 months’ time, I got very interested in the Internet, which was obviously overhyped at that time. But there were not many Internet agencies and Internet was more about technology then. In fact, in our early days we realised that we are selling to CTOs, not to marketing managers or brand mangers. But we were very sure that it would change. Sudesh and I started with the idea of actually focussing on Internet design and communication on the Internet and over a period of time, we tided over from being purely a technology playground to a communication playground.
Q. During your early years, it was the time of dotcom bust. Several big Internet companies bit the dust. Did it not worry you? I still remember the first day when we started working from a small office in Malviya Nagar (Delhi), it was the day of Nasdaq meltdown. Honestly speaking, when both of us started off, we did not have any business plan as such. We were two young kids at that time. Yes, the whole industry underwent a downturn. But it really really affected us because we were too small. I don’t remember taking money for the first two years and same goes with Sudesh.
Q. So, how did the mindset of marketers change over a period of time? The early days must have been very difficult. I am amazed at the pace the industry has exploded in the last 18 months. Suddenly, online is really, really big. The year 2006 was a milestone as far as industry growth was concerned. We have grown almost 150 per cent year-on-year, but this year we have grown 400 per cent. This is because of increased client interest. There was a lot of momentum, I think, that was waiting to unfold and it happened in 2006. In the last 18 months, we have seen the emergence of e-Business manager as a designation in the marketing department of big companies.
Q. Recently also what we have seen is not marketers’ interest, but a lot of online agencies have also come up… Yes, but that’s purely following suit. Once you have users hooked to the Net and suddenly online strategy becomes a must have, then obviously new agencies are gunning to grab a share of this burgeoning market size.
Q. Offline agencies also seem to be realising the potential of the online medium. I know at least a couple of agencies that are in the process of starting their online arms. Do you see here a case where too many guys are chasing too small a market, or do you think the market is expanding fast enough to accommodate everybody? To reply to that, there are some eight travel portals, all of them well-funded. Are there that many users to sustain all of them, I don’t think so. Will it consolidate somewhere, absolutely. Similarly, interactivity looks like a very lucrative business. As far as traditional advertising agencies are concerned, yes they see it as a natural extension of their business and they have to. I think the market is big enough to sustain five or six large interactive agencies. If you really look at the online media buying business, it’s a Rs 300-crore market. Add to it the ad sales and marketing of Rs 150 crore. So, we are talking about a Rs 450-crore annual billing. At present, it is so fragmented that no one controls more than 8-9 per cent of it.
Q. But do you see interactive agencies tackling such social media challenges? We currently have a practice in Webchutney to monitor, analyse and influence some of the social media content. Does that mean a company can come to us and say that can you get consumers really, really interested in our product on the Internet, no, we can’t do that. But can we monitor what is being said about a particular brand or product, can we analyse it in such a way that there are actionable ideas around about what can be done, yes, we can. And can we try and influence the negative opinion, I think yes. Webchutney would be the only interactive agency which would know on its fingertips the top 100 people who blog in India, we would have had a relationship with them in some way or the other. I hope that they would be willing to engage in a dialogue with us.
Q. But do you think there is lack of understanding among the traditional agencies about the online media space?
Most of the advertising agencies had tried to have an interactive agency in 1999-2000. but most of them floundered and shut down shop. Will that happen now? No, I don’t think so. We hope they will surely do a better job this time. Interactivity is not like where you can put a business head and 3-4 guys and have an interactive business. The Internet is far too vast to be considered that frivolous. Even we or any of the specialist players in the medium cannot say that we fully understand this medium. The Internet continuously keeps changing. It seems as if all the advertising agencies have a single-point agenda in their 2007 or 2008 plan – that they want to set up an interactive agency. But I don’t think that is the way to look at Internet. Do Indian (offline) agencies have the appetite to do something dramatically different? I don’t think so.
If you ask me who are the biggest challengers to Webchutney today, they are all independent companies like us. If you put the independent agencies together against the interactive arms of the traditional agencies, then we will be three times the agencies pieces. Interestingly also, if you look at PR, direct marketing, outdoor and other alternate media pieces, generally agencies have trailed in these areas for a very long time before actually catching up. The top agencies in India in these domains mostly are independent ones. It is also true in the case of online interactive agencies. But also to say they will catch up finally. It is not rocket science at the end of the day. But they will take a fairly long period of time. But if your question is whether we are worried to fight against them, then at least not right now.
Q. There is a lot of action on the creative advertising front. MSN-NDTV Media promoted online video advertisement, Desktop TV is being touted as the next big thing on online advertising front. But your agency does not seem to be too interested in such creatives. What is your take on online video ads? I think it is a great possibility. But my concern is how marketers are executing it currently. The possibility of streaming content over Internet, be it audio, be it video, was always there. Rich content is essential for the web, but it has to be suited for the web. Unfortunately, marketers think that they can serve their TV commercials on the Internet. I don’t think the medium has to be looked from that angle. The Internet is not the medium where content can be pushed like on television. A lot of viral marketing bombed because it just made good ads and it was not necessarily viral. You see so many good ads on television. But if you receive it on your email, would you like to forward it to your friend? I think in 99 per cent cases you won’t. And that’s the fine line between viral ads and video streaming on Internet. NDTV Media or MSN India has done a great job in introducing it, but I think they are leaving marketers clueless by not telling them how to use it effectively. Not that we are doing a great job either, we are too busy in our own things, but it has to be clearly visualised.
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Scrolling up or down: Where is India's digital news business headed?
As advertisers tightened their purse strings, media players faced a muted growth on their digital platforms in Q1 FY24. Veterans from the industry share the cause & effect of the situation
As the first two quarters for the fiscal year 2023-24 come to a wrap, news publishers are not only experiencing tectonic shifts in their print and broadcast media business, but their digital arm too is facing dynamic consumer shifts.
In an increasingly converged world, besides making sense on ROI matrices, digital offers extended reach at a very low cost, an ability to engage with the viewers in a two-way conversation, co-opt them into the content creation process, empower them by giving them a voice and retain them. The cost and business efficiencies clearly operate at many levels, says Sanjay Trehan, a digital and new media advisor.
According to a study by Reuters Institute, India is a strongly mobile-focused market where 72 percent readers access news through smartphones and just 35 percent via computers. However, despite the glittery user penetration numbers, advertisers, it seems, are not finding it worth investing their money in digital news publisher platforms.
For NDTV, the revenue was down by 35 percent in Q1 of 2023-24 due to lower advertising spends both on broadcasting and digital. Nevertheless, despite low advertisement spends, digital business remained profitable. For Network18 as well, revenue was flattish during the quarter as a weak advertising environment had an impact on the digital segment.
Jagran Prakashan Media’s Q1 FY24 digital revenue stood at Rs 14.43 crores as against Rs 16.78 crores in Q1-23. Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Jagran Prakashan Limited, stated in the financial results that “Digital business had nearly the same revenue as in Q1 of the previous year partly because of unfavourable market conditions and partly because of inability to monetise the consumer base to the expected level.”
The Indian Express experienced a slowdown in ad revenue in the last two quarters but subscribers and events business performed well, according CEO Sanjay Sindhwani.
Focussing on sector-wise advertisers, Sindhwani underlined that the IT sector, which spends majorly on digital, has been severely impacted in the economic slowdown. The auto sector has supply chain issues where their order books are full but delivery is an issue. Now, because they are overbooked, advertising is not required for them, he said. Edtech is somewhat tumbling now, which has also resulted in layoffs and cost-cuts. In fact, the whole startup sector has been cost cutting heavily. Gaming was still big but has not seen much growth in the recent past due to regulatory issues and their restrictions on advertising.
For Republic, over the past year or so, there has been a significant shift in direct advertising towards digital publishers along with the always-growing network demand, shared Tapan Sharma, Head of Digital, Republic. The network’s revenue has also grown alongside the continuous growth of revenue in the industry.
Sharma believes the drop in advertisers is happening because advertisers and agencies have now become more aware, vigilant, and methodical with digital ad spending and campaign management. They are looking for better Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and improving campaign efficiency.
“As a result, publishers who have not prepared themselves well to address the ever-evolving media planning and buying environment may be facing the challenges of monetising via advertising,” added Sharma.
Digital business sustains on two factors - Advertisers and subscribers. On one hand, where the advertisers are declining, publishers are generating quality content to increase their subscriber base who are ready to pay for paywalled content.
Trehan added, “For content behind paywalls to work, it has to be exclusive, differentiated, value-added and premium in nature viz. data and research. The more one has this kind of content, the better will be their subscription traction. Based on this Karmic principle, NYT today has about ten million subscribers, perhaps the most of any publisher in the world.”
The advertising revenue is further split into two - direct and programmatic. Publishers who have been heavily dependent on the latter have faced declining revenues because they have lost the traffic due to certain changes in Google and Facebook’s policies.
Pradeep Gairola, Business Head- Digital, The Hindu, has seen a positive growth in subscription revenue but not a large one. Fifty percent of their revenue comes via subscriptions and paywall content. The direct to programmatic advertising ratio for Hindu currently is at 70:30 split.
But there are obstacles for publishers who are more dependent on subscribers than advertisers too. Major one being, the subscriber revenue is not about acquisition but retention. And, Indian publishers have retention rates much lower than international publishers.
Gairola highlighted, “When we approached the business ages ago, we lacked the wisdom that this is not an acquisition business but a retention business. Retention depends a lot on what kind of audience you have been able to acquire. Secondly, what have you done to ensure that the audience builds a relationship with you and builds a habit around you.”
It is a pertinent industry problem because Indians are accustomed to free content. Unlike other countries, news in India has always been fragmented as an industry and has never charged a penny to its readers. This is also why The New York Times, The Guardian, and other international publishers have higher retention rates.
According to Sharma, the newspaper industry has not really made any significant increment in the subscription fee for the past many years. Whereas a digital news consumer was never asked to pay anything to read or watch news by Indian digital news publishers at large.
“Additionally, the sheer amount of content we are generating, we are not able to communicate or showcase the same to the reader. We haven't been able to establish to the reader how we add value,” shared The Hindu executive.
Further Sindhwani added, as a news publication, if one has to do credible content then it costs money. Customers need to appreciate and value good content in order to be able to pay money for it. The sooner the audience will understand that, the sooner they will be able to differentiate between free content and paid quality content.
Trehan also observed a trend of upward revision of subscription rates for digital when bundled with other value offerings. As more and more products are being bundled along with the main offering, rates are being hiked. Games, puzzles, premium content, exclusive videos are now becoming a part of the 'All Access' subscription.
Sharma believes news subscriptions in India will see significant growth over the next two to four years and publishers will certainly need to focus on offering discrete quality content consistently for paid users.
“The Indian digital news readers are now much more evolved and so is the industry. Within the next few years, the industry will experience habit creation amongst the users of paying for a digital news subscription. This has already started happening in the metros and will further grow in the rest of the markets,” he added.
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Twitter suffers massive outage for 2 hours
The problem reportedly started around 6.30 am on Thursday
Thousands of Twitter users were not able to login to their accounts on Thursday morning as the social media site experienced a massive outage for nearly two hours. The problem, which started around 6.30 am, lasted till round 8.30 am.
Users were unable to log in on Twitter website. However, the microblogging site was working fine on mobile phones.
According to outage tracking website Downdetector.com., User reports indicate Twitter is having problems since 7:13 EST" . Some users also reportedly complained that their Twitter notifications were not working.
In India, Twitter users are getting this message while trying to access the website: “Something went wrong, but don’t fret — it’s not your fault. Let’s try again," with options to refresh or log out.
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How 5G is set to draw more advertisers to emerging tech & gaming
The gaming industry, the fastest-growing space in digital advertising, has the most to gain from introduction of 5G, given that India is a mobile-first country in every segment, say industry players
The 5G spectrum auctions, set to begin on July 26, will see a total of 72,097.85 MHz of spectrum worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore put under the hammer. With Adani Data Networks now also staking its claim, in what was already a heated contest between Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and VI (formerly Vodafone Idea), the amount is expected to exceed Rs 1 trillion, according to various industry experts.
The impact on the telecom industry aside, India’s subsequent adoption of 5G is expected to have huge implications on India’s growing digital economy, as well as its booming advertising and entertainment industry, which is expected to reach Rs 4,30,401 crore by 2026 at 8.8% CAGR, as recently reported by PwC's Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2022-2026.
Mitesh Kothari, Co-founder and CCO, White Rivers Media, believes that consumers now understand internet technologies better than ever before. People who were cost-driven are becoming experience-driven and are actually willing to pay more for a better experience.
“5G is set to bring an immersive AR/VR, 4K video and mobile gaming experience to entice consumers. Plans clubbed with digital services are more likely to penetrate as people are more willing to pay for an ‘all-included’ experience. And, of course, 4G is going to be around anyway, so the ones who cannot afford 5G will always have an option,” he says.
On the impact of raised prices on the Indians who are about to come online, Ashwarya Garg, Co-founder, HYPD Marketing Technologies, said, “We have grown from 250M internet users to 900M internet users today. While the country today has 4G, there are still areas and localities where only 3G prevails. And in a few places, there is only 2G. It is roti, kapda, makaan and the internet today. So, there is no question about a dip in internet adoption,” he says.
Garg further says, “With the release of any new technology, there is a race for faster and quicker adoption. We will surely see a lot of ATL/BTL and influencer-led activities, campaigns specifically designed to educate and adopt on the 5G networks. We should expect a lot of activation via gaming creators, YouTubers, and artists popular on OTT platforms, all of whom would educate them about the end use case.”
Juhi Hajela, VP of Global Marketing at now.gg, points out that despite its massive growth and future potential, with only 47 per cent internet penetration, India is still growing its connected base. “Over the years, we observed that mobile internet connections emerged as a driving force for internet access in India. As a mobile-first country, improved mobile data connectivity will bring a new wave of consumers to utilize the high-speed internet.”
New Ball Game
And the gaming industry, which is the fastest growing space in digital advertising, has the most to gain, given that India is a mobile-first country, across every segment. Experts like Rohit Agarwal, Founder and Director of marketing agency Alpha Zegus, point out that in a country where mobile gaming dominates over 80 per cent of the online gaming and esports segment, there is no doubt that data speeds and data charges hold tremendous value in the growth of this industry.
“The industry has already seen a CAGR of about 37% in the past couple of years, and telecom operators like Jio, VI, Airtel, etc. have accelerated the growth with the introduction of 4G at a highly competitive price point. In the next five years, the CAGR is expected to hit close to 40%, and in my opinion, over 20% of this would be driven by the introduction of 5G, as 5G will allow gamers from remote parts of India to play high-quality games with ease,” says Agarwal.
This would allow tournament organizers to organize more localized events with higher participation and will be able to reach a wider viewing audience. This, in turn, will give brands more sponsorship opportunities, not only to reach out to a bigger audience base but also to experiment with more complex advertising formats which would otherwise be very data dependent.
Gaming creators and streamers will benefit from this improved speed. That would also mean 3G, 4G connectivity will become highly affordable, allowing more consumers to access it.
“India is heading toward becoming the top gaming country in the world. We expect that with 5G auctions, the existing internet service that is already affordable will become faster, allowing Indians to follow their gaming passion. However, limiting device specifications is a real challenge for some players,” says Halja, concluding, “We believe that mobile cloud gaming solution is an excellent fit for the industry, allowing gamers to pursue their passion without being limited by low-end devices.”
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Razorpay row: Cause for concern for other digital payment brands?
Industry experts say while online payment firms have to be sensitive about user data, the controversy is unlikely to have a lasting impact on brand image
The recent controversy surrounding Razorpay sharing AltNews donor data with the police has once again raised concerns around user privacy in digital domains. The internet has been standing divided for the past few days discussing the legalities and the impact of Razorpay’s move but could it have a lasting impact on the brand image or digital payments at large in the country? Marketing experts disagree.
Speaking to e4m, an industry expert mentioned that the agitation was not certainly only against Razorpay as a brand but about privacy laws or the lack of it. “The brand image might not get impacted in the longer run. Social media controversies die out as soon as they blow up. But yes, they must be making an effort to ensure their existing users and partners that their personal data is safe,” they added.
Rashid Ahmed, Head of Digital, Infectious Advertising had a similar response. “If there's a legally valid request by relevant authorities in India, it would be required of a business or service systems provider to provide requested user information, in accordance with the law. Most large digital enablement service providers have fairly thought through and detailed usage and privacy policies, and a request for data would likely have required a sign-off in consultation with their legal teams. Since the payment gateway provides services to a large number of businesses, it is unlikely that a volume of users who chose not to use the gateway will make any significant impact on the overall base.”
Privacy concerns to grow
However, the concerns around user privacy will only mount with increased user awareness. In fact, it’s not the first time that Razorpay or digital payment gateways have gotten into such a situation. Just a few weeks ago, Razorpay had complained that the company was unable to reconcile receipt of Rs 7.38 crore against 831 transactions as hackers and fraudulent customers stole the amount. And in May 2018, Paytm had come under fire for a similar situation after Cobrapost reported that it had shared personal data of users in Jammu & Kashmir with the Indian government. Albeit, the platform had denied any such claims.
Samsika Marketing Consultants MD Jagdeep Kapoor pointed out, “Privacy is going to be a concern but the platforms, which will keep working ethically and protecting the user data will see no harm in the long run. Brands really have to be sensitive about user data.”
Subscription-based news platforms safe
Asked if the whole controversy could bar people from subscribing to news outlets as data sharing with payment partners would be inevitable, the experts said that the decision would solely rely on the content that such publishers produce, and not on payment gateways.
Kapoor highlighted, “Any industry these days: be it the payment gateways or publishers, or hotels, are taking a lot of user data. You cannot avoid sharing your data and therefore the onus to safeguard it lies on these companies. If a publisher is not tampering with your personal data or sharing it outside, I don’t think users will not subscribe.”
However, Khan felt that the subscription-based model might take a hit. “Many transacting users also have their financial details such as cards, tokenized and set up with their preferred gateways. So, this may also propel businesses to opt for multiple payment gateway service providers.”
Additionally, publishers and any such service providers might look for multiple payment gateways to give users the choice of preference. “Businesses requiring digital payment gateway services will likely opt for multiple service providers, to mitigate against service unavailability, or user preference where gateways is concerned. Many transacting users also have their financial details such as cards, tokenized and set up with their preferred gateways. So, this may also propel businesses to opt for multiple payment gateway service providers,” Khan said.
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1 year of Google News Showcase in India: 130 publications part of the programme
Google News Showcase now supports 8 Indian languages.
Tech giant Google has signed deals with 80 media partners representing more than 130 publications for Google News Showcase, an online news experience programme. Launched last year in India with 30 publisher partners, Google News Showcase has completed one year in the country.
The tech giant's partners include Times Group, The Hindu Group, HT Digital Streams Ltd, Indian Express Group, ABP LIVE, India TV, NDTV, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Deccan Herald, Punjab Kesari, The Telegraph India, IANS, and ANI.
"This time last year, we announced a package of investments to support India’s news ecosystem, including launching Google News Showcase - our new product experience for readers and licensing program for news publishers," Google's Kate Beddoe, Director, News Partnerships, APAC, and Durga Raghunath, Head of India News Partnerships, said in an official blog.
"Since Google News Showcase launched in India last year, we’ve signed deals with more than 80 partners representing more than 130 publications, including national, regional, and local news organizations like Times Group, The Hindu Group, HT Digital Streams Ltd, Indian Express Group, ABP LIVE, India TV, NDTV, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Deccan Herald, Punjab Kesari, The Telegraph India, IANS and ANI. We continue to work towards adding more partners."
Google News Showcase has also expanded to more languages over the past year and now supports a total of 8 languages, including Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Bengali - along with English and Hindi. "We’ve also continued our work providing training and resources for news businesses and journalists, for example, GNI Startups Lab, GNI Newsroom Leadership Program, and GNI Advertising Lab," the blog reads. Update
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Amazon miniTV to premiere short film 'Sorry Bhaisaab' on December 16.
Directed and written by Suman Adhikary and Sumit Ghildiyal, the film has Gauahar Khan and Sharib Hashmi in lead roles
Amazon miniTV announces a short film – Sorry Bhaisaab, produced by Arré Studio featuring popular actors Gauahar Khan and Sharib Hashmi in lead roles. Directed and written by Suman Adhikary and Sumit Ghildiyal, Sorry Bhaisaab will premiere on 16th December for free, exclusively on Amazon miniTV on Amazon’s shopping app. The film is a relatable humorous take on the desires, motivations and aspirations of the middle class and their eternal quest for things to make their lives better.
“At Amazon miniTV, we always try to bring fresh, engaging and relatable content for viewers. We are delighted to partner with Arré Studio once again to bring yet another heartwarming and entertaining short film. This is a great addition to our library of award-winning short films”, said Harsh Goyal, Head of Amazon Advertising.
“Sorry Bhaisaab showcases the desires and aspirations of a common middle-class family with a relatable plot. This short film is a very special project for us, as at Arré, we endeavour to narrate different and unique stories that touch audiences’ hearts and entertain them thoroughly. We are delighted to collaborate with Amazon miniTV on this since it will give the film a wide reach across see millions of Indians from all parts of the country.” said Niyati Merchant, Co-Founder and COO, Arré................
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