With the entry of international players like Netflix and Amazon in the streaming industry, home-grown content platform Hotstar wants to assure that it’s retaining viewership. In a bid to do so, Hotstar recently joined hands with Bengaluru-based media analytics company, Zapr to keep a score of its audience. The duo will work together towards growth and development of a mobile audience for Hotstar.
Both the companies will combine their efforts to leverage the target viewers by offering personalized communication with preferred brands through advertising and offers. The company has already selected the first batch of advertisers to receive consumer analytics data which will be shared in the coming weeks. Zapr’s proprietary technology helps outline the offline media consumption behavior curated by analyzing millions of people, enabling content owners and brands to identify their offline audiences and re-engage with them on digital and mobile channels.
At the end of February, Hotstar crossed the 200 million downloads. In the transition from the broadcast world to the digital world, advertisers got a data bonanza from the company. However, in the process Hotstar was unable to engage consumers who’re actually paying attention to what they are saying.
With deep audience analytics from Zapr, the platform will now deliver public exposure these brands ask for. Hotstar will channelize techniques such as audience segmentation and deep user engagement to build these brands and will provide much more satisfactory results than ever before. Speaking of digital marketing move it has adopted, Ajit Mohan, CEO of Hotstar said,
Hotstar has the opportunity to build the world’s first platform on digital where consumers are engaged and immersed while at the same time delivering deep audience understanding that allows brands to talk to individuals rather than segments. We believe that we have a shot at creating the world’s premier truly personalized advertising service, which benefits both brands and consumers.
Over the past few years, Zapr has evolved as the country’s largest media consumption repository and audience cross-targeting platform. This partnership further bolsters Zapr’s position in the industry and across partners, brands, agencies, and broadcasters. The media tech company looks forward to accelerating the pace of research & development, growing product portfolio and building a deeper and long-lasting relationship with Hotstar.
Commenting on the picked up strategic partnership, Sandipan Mondal, Co-founder and CEO, Zapr Media Labs, said,
We are excited to partner with Hotstar and Star on our journey to build a world-class media-tech company out of India.
Along with the collaboration, Star India has acquired a minority stake in the company for an undisclosed sum. The data-driven company has been looking for funds worth $8-10 million for quite a time now. As per reports from ET, the broadcasting giant might have supplied the needed money as part of the primary and secondary investment. Star India rising as an investor dismisses the need for Zapr Media Labs to search capital for next phase of growth and hence will not be raising additional funds anytime soon.
Zapr claims to have an audience profile base of 30 million viewers, analysing television viewership across 600+ channels in India. Since its inception in 2012 by IIM Ahmedabad batchmates, Mondal, Deepak Baid and Sajo Mathews, the company has been funded by various angel investors including marquee entrepreneurs. The last funding for the company came in January 2016, with participation from Flipkart, Saavn, Micromax and Ambiga Dhiraj, Cofounder of Mu Sigma.
The company tracks what millions of individuals are watching on their televisions and use this data to answer various questions that broadcasters, advertisers, and media agencies grapple with. Speaking of data solutions provided by Zapr, Ajit Mohan added,
Advertisers are starting to realise how powerful this combination is, but we want to offer more. Can we offer them content and advertisements in a much more personalised manner? That is where this partnership with Zapr comes in.
We are sitting on a lot of data, which we want to analyse in order to create more value for our subscribers as well as advertisersWe believe we have a shot at creating the world’s premier truly personalised advertising service, which is a win-win for both, brands as well as consumers.
