TV ad market to expand

JWT plans big-bang digital India foray

JWT India is making a major push into digital media business at a time when India Inc is rapidly increasing it’s spend on the digital media. According to a study by industry chamber Assocham, companies in the country plan to spend 30%-40% of their marketing budget through the digital media platform this fiscal due to increasing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This will amount to about Rs 1,200 crore, the study said. JWT has already hired Max Hegerman from Tribal DDB India to head its digital media solutions, which will have completely new teams in Delhi and Mumbai. JWT has already hired 25 people for this division and plans to expand the team. Harris said the digital business is growing 50% a year and has the potential to grow faster. "We are looking at clear leadership in the digital space," he said, adding that the company is eyeing acquisition opportunities in this space.

Does the corporate industry spend more on outdoor advertising than the Glamour industry

Growth of digital format has increased the pace of growth of OOH medium in India. The traditional mediums are the ones which have been relied upon the most by the advertisers over a long period of time. Their idea of using OOH as a reliable and lucrative medium is just happening slowly. Lots of corporate branding is seen on the outdoor mediums. The glamour world did not advertise much on the medium but nowadays we are seeing them also promote movies on the really big medium.

Movie funding: Indie filmmakers look for money on Facebook

In the era of credit crunch, social networking sites like Facebook and other online communities are fast emerging as tools for independent filmmakers to crowd source their film projects. Sanjay Suri-Onir's recently released film 'I Am' is India's largest crowd funded movie with more than 400 producers from over 45 countries. Happy with the success of the 'I Am' experiment, Suri is now crowdsourcing his next film 'Chauranga' again through Facebook. He has already put up some 60 posters of the film and is looking forward to pull in some talent also. Paris based Indian filmmaker Prashant Nair, who debuts with his film 'Delhi In A Day', also sought help from the French government and online communities to pull in resources for his small budget movie, starring veterans like Lillete Dubey, Victor Banerjee and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Prashant is looking forward to perfect this method in his next film 'Amrika', which is again based in Delhi and takes a look at the Indian perception of the country. An open forum, moderated by Reliance Entertainment CEO Sanjeev Lamba and including panelists like actor-producer Sanjay Suri, director Ketan Mehta, Russian director Vicktor Geinsberg and Nair, discussed various methods of co-production and crowd funding on thee sidelines of Mumbai Film Festival.