On day 2 of Goa Fest, experts spoke about collaboration and how it can work wonders for campaigns, helping them reach millions and shaping brands.  

This session narrowed down the connection between content creators and collaborators and the need to foster a thriving creative community.  

OMS Digital, a part of the Times Group presented the ASCI Creators Session, titled 'Creator Calling Creator.’  

The session was moderated by Subhash Kamath - Former CEO, BBH & Publicis Worldwide, India and Former Chairman - ASCI. The panellists included Rajdeepak Das - Chief Creative Officer and CEO, Leo Burnett, South Asia; India & Chairman, Creative Council, Publicis Groupe - South Asia; Shreya Agarwal - Head of Filter Copy, Pocket Aces; Smruthi Rajagopalan - AGM Maybelline, L’Oreal and Prableen Kaur Bhomrah, Beauty, Fashion, Body Positive & Lifestyle Influencer.  

Das started with an interesting observation about creativity: "The best thing about the best Creativity happens when you don't have many options or resources.” 

Conversely, he said that the worst type of creativity happens when you have a lot of options. 

Speaking from the perspective of creators who have to speak on behalf of brands, Bhomrah said, "Our followers are the inspiration that drives us. They give us validation. When I started, some brands asked me to do things I didn’t believe in. I stood against it and that's when I started my no-filter journey. And now the brands have come back to me, asking me to do a no-filter campaign."  

Rajagopalan chimed in and said that there are influencers who came to the brand and told them that they will not promote a product because it wasn't working for them.  

When asked about the collaboration of agencies, creators and influencers, Bhomrah observed, "We have a lot of successful campaigns which came out of collaboration. The agency partner has recognised that this platform is a great one for the brand to reach the target audience. Some of the biggest brand campaigns have happened through collaboration with brands like Cadbury and Pepsi. 

“Earlier, we used to work with the brand directly because it will eliminate one feedback loop in the middle but we realised that the agency understands where you are going and they will push for you harder,” he said.  

Das reacted to the statement, saying, "Brands take time to build. In times like these, you need multiple mediums to create brands. A shoe is a shoe and jeans is a jeans till an agency get into it. And that's how we make brands. If we get mediums and creators, we have to have a brand structure." 

Das also said that agencies are the brand's custodians, and now influencers have also become that. -

agencies are the brand's custodians, and now influencers have also become that.  

Rajagopalan spoke on medium and how they are using it to reach consumers. "I think in today's time, you have to think about mediums, the time spent on one creative is very small. The consumers don’t go only on one platform."  

Speakng on ideas and how one can have a successful collaboration, Das added, “Ideas can come from anywhere, the only thing that matters is how we make it big. For that to happen, all the collaborators need to have one goal - to make the idea big.”  

In summary, the conversation underlined the power of creators coming together to collectively exchange ideas, share knowledge, and elevate their craft.

Shemaroo is likely to invest Rs 75 crore in its broadcast and OTT business, media networks have reported.

The money will be utilised for ShemarooMe, CEO Hiren Gada was quoted as saying.

In FY24, the company wants to expand its TV and OTT businesses along with introducing new offerings, reports said.

The company has registered an annual growth of 23.3 % in digital media and 66.5 % in traditional media in the financial year ended 31st March 2023 compared to the previous fiscal.

ShemarooMe, the OTT Platform, released 14 titles in the fourth quarter.

Meta has carried out its last phase of lay-offs, according to media reports.

The company announced in March that it will start letting go off employees. Over 20,000 employees have been already given the pink slips.

The staffers affected are in departments like marketing, site security, enterprise engineering, content strategy and corporate communications.

Meta has said that these steps are aimed at improving efficiency.

Affle through its subsidiaries (“Affle”), today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire 100% ownership of YouAppi, a global gaming focused programmatic mobile app marketing platform. YouAppi Inc. was incorporated in the USA in 2011 and they have a strong ground presence with teams based out of USA, Israel and Japan.

Affle is a global technology company with a proprietary consumer intelligence platform that delivers consumer recommendations and conversions through relevant Mobile Advertising. Affle powers unique and integrated consumer journeys for marketers to drive high ROI, measurable outcome-led advertising through its Affle2.0 Consumer Platforms Stack which includes Appnext, Jampp, MAAS, mediasmart, RevX and now YouAppi.

YouAppi delivers a comprehensive range of programmatic mobile app marketing solutions with real-time results optimization for the fast-growing gaming industry globally. YouAppi's programmatic mobile app marketing platform deploys AI & ML-powered proprietary technology with sophisticated algorithms and granular audience segmentation for many of the leading global companies.

Commenting on this development, Anuj Khanna Sohum, MD and CEO of Affle said “We are excited to announce this acquisition and welcome the YouAppi team on-board in the growing Affle family. We see a lot of synergies to strengthen YouAppi as a Consumer Platform business in the fast-growing & resilient gaming vertical. YouAppi is well aligned to our CPCU business model on both iOS and Android platforms to unlock greater consumer conversions for leading game developers globally. We appreciate YouAppi’s entrepreneurial culture and strong execution focus on tech innovations, profitable growth and financial fundamentals.”

“Becoming a part of Affle allows us to accelerate the YouAppi vision and strategically align our complementary technology capabilities and combined business models, delivering greater value for our customers globally," said Moshe Vaknin, Co-Founder and CEO of YouAppi. “YouAppi is ranked amongst the top 10 platforms for North America in the Appsflyer Remarketing Index and is amongst the fastest-growing companies in the 2023 Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific list. This is the result of the dedication, trust and hard work of our team, and the loyalty of our customers. We look forward to driving fast-paced innovation and greater profitability together with Affle.”

Real Sports from the house of JetSynthesys has signed Indian cricketer Veda Krishnamurthy. The agreement aims to further strengthen Veda’s brand as a cricketer and an entrepreneur globally. Headquartered out of Pune, JetSynthesys is a new-age digital entertainment and technology company with a global foray into gaming and esports, digital entertainment, wellness, and livelihoods.

Veda Krishnamurthy is a household name in the Indian cricketing circuit, having represented the country in over 50 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 76 Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is). Her flamboyant style of play and fearless attitude have won her a legion of fans, making her one of the most popular players in the Indian cricket team.

Talking about the association, Rajan Navani, CEO and Founder, JetSynthesys said, ‘’We are honoured to welcome Veda to our Real Sports family. Veda has been an inspiration for many, and we are excited to work together to further enhance and stimulate her vision globally. We at Real Sports have always cared about our clients and brands alike and aim to bring strong partnerships to life. We hope to accomplish the same with Veda and look forward to some great work together.’’

Excited about the new development, Tarish Bhatt, Chief Business Officer, Real Sports said, “We are delighted to have Veda Krishnamurthy onboard. She embodies the spirit of cricket, and her performance on the field has inspired a generation of young cricketers. We are confident that her association with Real Sports will help create the right brand presence for Veda and reach out to the desired audience.”

Real Sports has a roster of eminent sporting personalities and works with some of the leading athletes across India, Europe, Oceania, and Asia-Pacific. Recently the company onboarded ace badminton champion, Saina Nehwal. The partnership between Real Sports and Veda Krishnamurthy is a perfect match, bringing together a brand that has been at the forefront of the sports marketing industry for decades with a cricketing icon who has captured the hearts of millions. With this association, Real Sports aims to strengthen its position as a leading sports marketing brand in India and globally.

Sharing her thoughts on the partnership, All Rounder Veda Krishnamurthy said, ‘’I am thrilled to be associated with Real Sports, a brand that has been synonymous with quality sports marketing and am optimistic about this venture with them. I genuinely believe that Real Sports shares my goals and ideals for the brand perception that I am envisioning. I look forward to leverage their industry knowledge and expertise for projects and collaborations in the future.’’

At the 10^th edition of Google Marketing Live, held on May 23, the technology behemoth announced the launch of several new generative AI advancements and tools for Google Ads, Performance Max, Product Studio, and Search Generative Experience (SGE) in Search Labs. The company hopes to encourage advertisers and vendors to easily create customized product imagery, improve ad relevance, scale campaigns, and better manage creative assets.

In one of the blog posts announcing the release of the tools, the company noted “In e-commerce, eye-catching images are a business’s digital window displays — and merchants with the right mix of imagery online can get better results. In fact, while many product offers on Google have just one image, we see an increase in both impressions (+76%) and clicks (+32%) for product offers that include more than one image (as per Google Data, Global, April 6th, 2023).”

It continued, “Our new Product Studio, designed with Google’s AI Principles top of mind, brings the benefits of generative AI to businesses of all sizes, helping them easily create unique and tailored product imagery for free and get more value from the images they already have.” These features include adding custom product scenes; removing a distracting product background; quickly increasing resolution.

Meanwhile, Performance Max is meant to be one of the best examples of how AI-powered campaigns can drive growth for business. “Advertisers who use Performance Max achieve on average over 18% more conversions at a similar cost per action, which is up from 13% roughly a year later. We’re bringing generative AI to Performance Max to make it even easier for you to create custom assets and scale them in a few clicks. Just provide your website and Google AI will start learning about your brand to populate your campaign with text and other relevant assets. We’ll even suggest new images generated just for you, helping you stand out to customers across a wider range of inventory and formats. This capability will also be available through the new conversational experience in Google Ads. Global testing will begin later this year.”

Regarding the announcements made at Google I/O around new generative AI capabilities coming to Search, the statement noted, “These new experiences will make Search smarter and simpler, and Search will continue to be a jumping-off point to the best of the web, including your business. As the future of Search evolves, the future of advertising will evolve too — bringing more opportunities to grow your business and showcase your brand. This new Search Generative Experience (SGE) can be found in Search Labs, a place to access Google Search experiments. At I/O, we showed how ads will appear above and below this new experience. Now, over the coming months, we’ll experiment with Search and Shopping ads that are directly integrated within the AI-powered snapshot and conversational mode. We’ll also experiment with new formats native to SGE that use generative AI to create relevant, high-quality ads that are customized to every step of the search journey.”

Google also announced advances to its Merchant Center, dubbed Merchant Center, while noting the number of businesses using Merchant Center has doubled in the past two years. According to the release, “Merchant Center Next is a simplified version of the platform, built to make it easier for smaller merchants to get started, find customers online and grow their businesses. And while we’re simplifying, the features that larger retailers rely on aren’t going anywhere. One way we’re doing that is simplifying how to set up a product feed. In the past, merchants setting themselves up on Google for the first time had to manually add their products, prices, images, descriptions and other details. In Merchant Center Next, we’ll automatically populate a merchant’s product feed with the information we can detect from their website (merchants can always edit what gets pulled in, or turn this off) — making it easier to quickly show their products across Google.”