Strategic alliance with the investment unit of The Times Group, India’s largest media company, will support Houzz as it scales in one of world’s fastest-growing Internet and real estate markets

Houzz Inc., the world’s leading platform for home remodeling and design, today announced a strategic partnership with Times Bridge, the investments business of The Times Group, India’s oldest and largest media company. As part of its investment, Times Bridge will integrate Houzz content into all of The Times Group’s digital properties, including the flagship Times of India, helping more homeowners and home professionals across India discover the Houzz platform.

“From its unique design aesthetic and products to its professional talent and expertise, India has become an important part of the global design language Houzz is facilitating,” said Adi Tatarko, Houzz CEO and Co-Founder. “We’re delighted to partner with The Times Group and connect even more Indian homeowners, home design enthusiasts and home professionals with our global platform.”

Since Houzz launched a dedicated platform for India in January 2017, its local community of homeowners and home design enthusiasts has grown 50 percent. The Indian professional community on Houzz has also grown exponentially, to more than 80,000 active home professionals in over 60 categories, including architects, interior designers and product designers.

Rishi Jaitly, CEO of Times Bridge said, “Times Bridge’s mission is to bring the world’s best ideas to India and share India’s best insights with the world. In the last eight years, Houzz has proven itself as an iconic company. We look forward to harnessing the unmatched assets of Times Bridge and The Times Group to ensure Houzz’s platform empowers users and professionals alike across the length and breadth of a rapidly-changing India.”

Challenging the grammar of conventional entertainment and inspiring Nayi Soch, Star India brings in yet another disruption with ‘TED Talks India Nayi Soch’ on Star Plus hosted by Shah Rukh Khan.

In a global first collaboration that will make the transformative power of ideas easily accessible to audiences across India, Star Plus unites with TED - the global platform known for spotlighting and spreading powerful ideas that transform how audiences see their world. Mr. Uday Shankar, Chairman and CEO, Star India, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan and Mr. Chris Anderson, Head of TED addressed the press in Mumbai today and shared their thoughts regarding the show.

‘TED Talks India Nayi Soch’, is TED’s first collaboration with a major network to produce a television series featuring original TED Talks in a language other than English. The show will bring some of the best innovators and thinkers of Indian origin to the center stage, hosted by Shah Rukh Khan. The show captures an eclectic mix of speakers, thinkers and doers, who have questioned norms and brought forth cutting edge ideas that have the potential to inspire billions. All these ideas which originate from personal belief and self-motivation bear testimony to the ingenuity of Indians. Scientists, Authors, Thinkers, Entrepreneurs and Artists, this show provides a global platform to these speakers from all walks of life, taking their ideas to every home in India with the unparalleled reach of the Star Plus platform. It can also be viewed on Hotstar, Star's online video streaming platform.

Mr. Uday Shankar, Chairman and CEO, Star India said, “At Star we have always believed that conventional definitions of content exist only to be challenged. I have been a big fan of TED and felt that there is no reason why these ideas should not be made accessible to all Indians in a language of their choice. Television should offer a spectrum of content which includes not just the traditional definition of entertainment but also content that feeds the human passion for knowledge, which stokes curiosity and inspires people. The timing is perfect -. India is a young country with big dreams and potential. It is a time when the world is looking to India for the next big idea. I am excited by the Star TED partnership as it opens up a world of ideas and truly inspires “Nayi Soch”. Joining us in our endeavour is Shah Rukh Khan whose charisma and enthusiasm will be pivotal in connecting with our viewers."

Host Shah Rukh Khan adds, “It is a huge honour to host this show. When two giants like Star India and TED come together we're sure to fire up a billion imaginations. Bringing the power of ideas to people’s living rooms across India and reaching out to especially the youth of our country, is something that’s really exciting. I want our youth to be inspired to think of new ideas. Simple and unique ideas that pack a punch. Ideas that can change lives.”

Mr. Chris Anderson, Head of TED, said, “TED Talks India Nayi Soch marks an unprecedented step in TED’s ongoing effort to bring big ideas to curious minds around the world. Combine India’s impressive thinkers and its growing appetite for knowledge with Shah Rukh Khan’s global fan following and Star’s massive reach, and we have a real shot at offering millions of people the empowerment that inspiring speakers can bring. We’re delighted at this partnership. The Star team and Shah Rukh Khan have created riveting television that takes the TED platform to a platform to a whole new place."

My colleagues have created a great list of the top seven tips for digital advertising which will be discussed in this upcoming webinar. The list is important because it addresses the single biggest factor in digital ad effectiveness: the creative. You can have the best targeting in the world, the best ad format and placement, but if people do not respond well to your advertising you might as well have not spent the money.

The first item on the list is “Make people feel something”. The commentary states,

“Ads that evoke emotion are more likely to create positive brand associations that help drive preference,

and choice at the time of purchase. And this is more pronounced for digital.”

Let’s explore this statement a bit further.

Let’s see what Kantar Millward Brown’s Brand Lift Insights can tell us. Brand Lift Insights compares a sample of people exposed to an ad or campaign to a statistically matched sample who did not see it. Since the samples are matched at a very granular level we can assume that the difference in response between the two is only due to the ad exposure.

In the survey we ask, “Overall, how much do you like this ad?” and when we cross tab the responses to that question against brand metrics for 2,125 campaigns we find big differences in response. The increase in ad awareness is almost double for campaigns in the top 20 percent by likeability to what it is among the bottom 20 percent. Brand awareness, favorability and purchase intent are all higher with the difference statistically significant at the 99 percent level.

Now it might be that you don’t care about building positive associations to drive future brand choice. What you want to do is drive buying decisions now. The same comparison finds that if the campaign is perceived to deliver points relevant to the individual, that will improve the influence on purchase intent but not by a lot. A separate analysis comparing programmatic campaigns to the total database finds that the only measure that moves more strongly in response to programmatic is purchase intent, which is good for ‘call to action’ ads and not so much if you also want to build your brand.

Ultimately, if you want to drive sales now and into the future the best way to do so is to ensure that your brand is both likeable and relevant to the target audience and one easy way to do that is to test your ads ahead of time. Rather than trusting to luck (the probability of success and failure are not stacked in your favor) why not start a program of digital testing to improve your odds of success?

Written by Nigel Hollis, Executive Vice President and Chief Global Analyst at Kantar Millward Brown.

Calcium and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness will join forces this year to support New York Festivals Global Awards® Young Globals competition & internship program.

Both agencies will partner as official corporate sponsors as well as mentors for the next generation of young creatives by providing internship opportunities to the 2017 competition’s winning team.

"The Global Award is one of the most relevant awards because, simply stated, we are a global industry. And the Young Globals are our future. It is where the next generation of talent gets to thrive and present itself. Of course, we’re committed to that,” said Steven Michaelson, Founder / Chief Executive Officer, Calcium.

“What an honor to support the next generation of creative thinkers stepping up to the next level of creative excellence,” said Kathy Delaney, Global Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Health/Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness.

The Young Globals, now in their 4th year of championing young creatives, is the only college/portfolio school competition for healthcare advertising that offers students an opportunity to submit their creative work based on a challenge brief provided by the sponsoring agencies. The competition provides students with a chance to take on a truly topical issue in an attempt to earn a prestigious Global Award, as well as the experience to test drive their career in healthcare advertising. Launched to identify and recognize emerging creative talent from around the world, Young Globals introduces students to the rewards of working in the healthcare and wellness advertising industry.

“The Young Globals provides a program for young creatives to discover the world of healthcare & wellness advertising via a test drive in the real world of healthcare agencies. No other competition provides an internship experience of this magnitude,” said Fran Pollaro, Executive Director of the Global Awards. “We’re extremely grateful for Calcium and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness for partnering with us this year and offering this wonderful opportunity.”

The Young Globals competition is open to all college and university students, including portfolio centers, who are exploring advertising, marketing, art, design, creative writing, technology, or similar areas of creative focus.

To enter the Young Globals, students must create a speculative campaign based on a challenge brief provided by the sponsoring agencies. Students interested in exploring healthcare advertising as a career may enter either individually or as a two or three-person team.

This year’s creative challenge brief for the (fictional) National Opioid Addiction Prevention Council and invites student entrants to develop a unique and compelling multi-channel experience (print, social media, digital, etc.) for their project Push Back on Opioid Abuse. The challenge is to raise awareness about opioid addiction and target the audience that feels personally immune to the possibility of becoming addicted to opioids, and underestimates how quickly an addiction to prescribed opioid medications can happen.

The Young Globals award winners will receive a Global Award, have their work showcased at the 2018 award ceremony, and be given the opportunity to experience a paid internship in the summer of 2018 (minimum of one month based on their availability), at the sponsoring healthcare advertising agencies.

All entries submitted to the Young Globals will be judged by the sponsoring agencies’ international award-winning healthcare advertising chief creatives and their team.

The deadline to enter the Young Globals is January 31st, 2018. The entry fee is $40.00.

‘Gaana Originals’, a platform to promote non-film music, which was launched last month seems to have hit the high notes with Gaana consumers as the first 6 songs have crossed 20 million streams on the Gaana platform in just 5 weeks.

With the success of Gaana Originals, Gaana has crossed another milestone of 40 million monthly active customers in Sep’17.

Out of the first 6 songs, ‘Tum hardafa ho’ by Ankit Tiwari and ‘Aaja Meri bike Pe’ by Tony Kakkar have crossed more than 4.5 million streams each. Promptly followed by Millind Gaba ‘Main teri ho gayi’ with 3.5 million & ‘The Ankahee Project’ by Sona Mohpatra that has witnessed 3 million playouts. The latest songs ‘Camrye Waleya’ by Neha Kakkar with 2 million & ‘Bas Ek Baar’ by Sachin Gupta with 1 million streams are gradually gaining popularity on the platform.

Ankit Tiwari’s Tum Hardafa Ho has already made it to Mirchi Top 20 and various other industry top charts across radio stations and TV music channels. In the next 6 weeks, 6 more songs will be released under Gaana Originals including songs from legendary singing sensations like Sonu Nigam and Shaan.

Prashan Agarwal, COO, Gaana said, “this is an initiative to empower artists who can showcase and exercise their freedom & creativity without having to worry about the boundaries defined by limited film releases. 20 million streams in just 5 weeks is the biggest appreciation of this initiative from our customers, as most of these songs have grown better than few of the top Bollywood hits.