Mobile ad firm Affle gets two more US patents

Affle, which helps companies increase the effectiveness of their digital ads, said it received two more patents from the US, taking its total US patents to six. Patent 11157952 is using blockchain to create and store a list of fraud IPs and publishers to reduce scams in digital advertising. The technology creates an “immutable decentralized […]

Airtel takes on Google, FB in India’s online ad market

Bharti Airtel has announced its entry into the lucrative, Rs 30,000 cr digital advertising market in India, making it the most serious competitor yet to Google and Facebook, which together control about 90% of the market at present. While Google leverages its access to search data and Facebook taps its access to behavioral data on […]

Facebook rejects police request to block ‘drinker’s group’

Facebook has refused to block a ‘drinker’s group’ that the Kerala Police had requested to be taken down, according to local media reports. The social network reportedly told the police that the group was not in violation of its guidelines and cannot be taken down without proper justification. The Kerala Excise department is trying to […]

Zee Entertainment continues bounce from demonetization, Q4 ad sales up 24%

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, the largest Indian-owned media company, reported a strong quarter of advertisement growth in Jan-Mar, benefiting from a bounce-back from the lows of demonetization last year. Advertising revenue for the Jan-Mar quarter rose 24% on year to Rs 1,050 cr. With this, full-year advertising revenue growth has recovered to 14.5%. Subscription revenue […]

From Thursday, Google Chrome to turn off all ads on ‘intrusive’ websites

Google, the maker of the most popular web browser in the world, has decided to crack the whip on intrusive advertisements. Starting Thursday, said the company, all advertisements on websites that repeatedly bombard users with intrusive ads will be blocked by default. Before the blocking goes into effect, the intrusive ads will be ‘flagged’, presumably […]

PC Jeweller signs Akshay Kumar, Twinkle Khanna for pan-India expansion

PC Jeweller, the Delhi-based jewellery chain, said it signed up Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna as it gets ready for a pan-India expansion. The brand, which started 12 years ago with a single shop in Karol Bagh in New Delhi, today has close to 80 outlets. Most, however, are in North India, and […]

Facebook to start showing ads in Groups

Facebook, the biggest website in the world by amount of time spent, has started showing targeted advertising on ‘Groups’,  the social network’s equivalent of forums. The ads will be based on the interests of the user,  Facebook  said in a communication to group administrators. The move marks the coming of age of ‘Groups’, which Facebook […]

Reliance Jio Impact: Online Advertising rates decline in India in November

4G operator Reliance Jio’s trial services, which started in earnest about three months ago, has disrupted the online ad industry by massively increasing the total inventory without a commensurate increase in ad budgets. INTERNET EXPLODES Today, Reliance Jio has 50 mln users who, on average use about 1 GB of data per day. This creates 50 mln […]

Intex washing machine commercial features Madhuri Dixit On-Air

Intex Technologies put on-air its fully automatic washing machine TV commercial featuring bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit, who recently signed as brand ambassador for Refrigerators and Washing Machines for two years. The 20-second commercial will be broadcast pan-India across all major general entertainment channels, news channels and regional broadcasts. The commercial will cover the North Indian […]

Zee Cinema to show different ads in different states using geo-targeting

Zee Cinema will use technology from Amagi Media Labs to geo-target advertisements, or show different ads in different areas. “Zee Cinema will now give advertisers targeted access to over 158,600,000 viewers and coverage across 16 markets where Amagi has the capability to deliver geo-targeted content,” Amagi said. The 16 markets are Delhi-NCR, UP, Punjab, Rajasthan, […]

Arnab Goswami chides India Today for its ‘negative campaign’ against his channel

Throwing the latest viewership numbers in its face, Arnab Goswami, editor of Times Now proclaimed that his channel had returned to No. 1 and urged his rival (read India Today) not to waste its money on futile marketing campaigns. “Each time someone mocks or apes us, our viewership grows. There is a big lesson in […]

Jet, Etihad to sponsor Mumbai Indians

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced a new sponsorship deal along with Jet Airways naming both airlines as principal sponsors and official airlines of the Mumbai Indians cricket team. This is the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s first high profile sports sponsorship in the region. Crowned as champions of the 2013 […]

Digital advertising in India now about 10% of total – FICCI KPMG Report 2014

Digital advertising has reached about 10% of the total advertising market in India, according to numbers from the annual FICCI KPMG media and entertainment industry report. Digital advertising, including mobile advertising and online advertising, was the fastest growing segment in 2013 at 39%, followed by radio, which grew by 15%. Among the laggards were TV […]