Starting, 23rd August, Sundays at 9:00pm

After the overwhelming response to the first season of the candid celebrity chat show, Zee Café is now back with season 2 of Look Who’s Talking With Niranjan. Watch him #CatchUp with his old celebrity friends over new conversations, starting 23rd August, 2015, Sundays at 9:00pm

The second season will present a new set of Niranjan’s friends, and each episode is sure to make you feel a little closer to the celebrities, as they reveal a side of them you haven’t seen before! The conversations will revolve around their lives, relationships, regrets and work.

Speaking on the launch, Ali Zaidi, Deputy Business Head, Zee Café & Zee Studio, says, “Look Who’s Talking With Niranjan is one of our flagship properties, which  has helped our viewers establish a connection with their favourite celebrities. With this show we have entered original programming complementing our line-up of shows. We are all set to bring in the new season and are confident that our viewers will enjoy it thoroughly.”

Commenting on the new season, host Niranjan Iyengar says, “Catching up with old friends is like reopening your favourite gift. I am very excited to present this gift to my fans. I would like to thank Zee Café and my friends who are part of this season for being extremely passionate towards making this show interesting. I am going to get my friends to share some stories and anecdotes, like never heard before.”

So get ready to witness the other side of your favourite big-screen celebrities with the new season of Look Who’s Talking With Niranjan only on Zee Café.

Tune into every Sunday with Look Who’s Talking With Niranjan, starting 23rd August at 9:00 PM only on Zee Cafe

Rainbows were splashed across brand logos from Coke to American Airlines following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to affirm same-sex marriage. Univision and NBC dropped the Miss Universe Pageant after racist comments by pageant co-owner Donald Trump. Retailers from Wal-Mart to eBay removed Confederate flags from their stores following a fatal shooting in an African-American church in Charleston, S.C.

It looks like many popular brands are scrambling to jump on the bandwagon and be publicly noted for their responses and positions on what they consider to be the “right side” of an important issue, but it hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when a good brand manager would do everything in his or her power to stay away from these big news stories, avoiding anything that was topical and could potentially be controversial. But in today’s world, we have not only real-time awareness of news and key issues, but also the expectation that organizations will respond appropriately in a real-time fashion.

Today’s marketer needs to be focused on content, conversations and community, which means not only interjecting marketing-related content into conversations with customers and prospects, but also authentically being part of general conversations that are top of mind with customers and prospects.

The companies that took an active response to these issues understood that their reactions were relevant beyond a specific demographic group and would be judged by their overall customer bases. They were aware that what they said and did would be noted by all of their customers.

Not every brand will get on board for any particular issue. Some companies likely found these actions inappropriate or even offensive. What’s important is that brands take the action that will resonate with their key audiences—including customers, employees, vendors, partners, etc.—rather than stay silent. What does this mean for you as a marketer?

Know your customers. Understand what’s important to them and how to ensure that they know where you stand.

Know what your brand stands for, and make sure that it’s clearly communicated in all that you say and do.

Enlist your employees. Employees raise the volume for organizations. Make sure that brand initiatives are fully understood and internalized by employees because they are the ones representing the brand to the outside world.

Be prepared. We can’t always know what issues will hit the news tomorrow, but we know that something will. It’s important that marketers are agile and ready to move quickly when that something happens.

The real question is, what happens next? After the flags are removed from the shelves, and the rainbows fade from Facebook posts and store windows, what actions will organizations take to further the discussion and encourage customer engagement? The brand values of fairness, inclusion and equal treatment need to be communicated every day, all day—not just paraded around on special occasions. Is your organization prepared for this new challenge?

Authored by Linda J. Popky,founder of Redwood City, Calif.-based marketing strategy firm Leverage2Market Associates and author of Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage With Marketing That Matters.

Source:ama.org

E-commerce has been around for many years now, however being PC-bound meant that it was only accessible to a small section of society. In the past three years all that changed with the explosive growth of smartphones. Today there are far more mobile-based internet users than PC based internet users.

E-commerce players know this and from the middle of 2014 have been promoting and offering discounts on purchases made through their mobile apps. In order to get users hooked to the app, players are shutting their sites and transitioning users solely to their apps instead. Myntra was the first to execute this in May ‘15, and Flipkart has announced plans to follow suit in September 2015.

If 2014 was the year when E-commerce finally came into its own in India, 2015 promises to be the year of the mobile shopping app. The Indian shopper is increasingly embracing shopping on the go, spurred by widespread E-commerce campaigns and easy access to smartphones that have seen an explosive growth in penetration. Sale periods are in sync with festivals and public holidays, and along with aggressive app launches and promotions, they have reinforced the growing trend.

The number of smartphone users who use shopping apps has jumped to 54% in May 15, from just 21% a year back. In comparison, the growth in popularity of shopping websites has been moderate, increasing from 28% to reach 45%.

Consumer Trends & Insights

In the early days of online commerce, a widespread belief was that women will adopt and drive mobile shopping. However, up until a few months ago, it was actually men who were driving the adoption and growth in mobile shopping. Data from real-time smartphone usage tracking provides insights on consumption patterns of smartphone users and reveals some unexpected facts about the reach of mobile shopping in India.This could be attributed to two key factors: the male appetite for technology and the fact that men are often the ones who make the payment.

The majority of E-commerce products viewed and bought are electronics items, a segment that young men drive. The other possibility is that even when women make a purchase decision, they ask men to compare costs or complete a transaction.

In the past 2 to 3 months however, we see that women have caught up and today they spend 16 mins a month more than men on mobile shopping apps.

ENGAGEMENT ON E-COMMERCE APPS

Our data shows that users in non-metros are slightly more engaged on shopping apps than users in metros. The former has limited shopping alternatives, especially in the electronics and apparel category, although the latter has a higher spending power. The cash-on-delivery option is also a driver of small town adoption for shopper apps.

While time spent is similar across India, it’s not similar across all handset price bands. Specifically, users with more expensive handsets, those exceeding INR 15,000, spend 1.6x the time on shopping apps compared to those with cheaper phones. Higher time spends can be loosely correlated to higher spending power in mobile shopping.

News returns in its purest avatar, featuring ground-breaking stories from around the world

Emmy Award-winning journalist and co-founder of the international media company VICE Media, Shane Smith is back with VICE - season 3 on HISTORY TV18, premiering on Friday, 7th August at 8pm.

The show features VICE correspondents travelling across the globe, bringing to audiences fourteen hard-hitting episodes dealing with cultural, political and environmental issues alike. VICE stands out for its content, off-beat style and bold approach, with its journalists going to the edge to highlight often underreported and overlooked news stories.

In its third season, VICE smashes barriers of decorum to cover stories on current global topics like the outbreak of Ebola, shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the rise of synthetic drugs and religious tensions spiraling out-of-control in France. Closer to home, the show investigates the commercial surrogacy industry in India and our country’s struggle to provide adequate clean water and sanitation systems for its growing population. With courageous attitude, Shane Smith also travels to Antarctica this season to investigate the West Antarctic ice sheet and see how the continent is melting.

VICE's fearless approach is incomparable on television, and showcases some of the scariest, weirdest and most absurd customs and practices known to humanity.

Tune in to VICE (season 3) starting 7TH August, Fridays at 8pm, only on HISTORY TV18

Havas Media today announced the win of the Integrated Media Mandate of ClubMyCab in a multi-agency pitch. The account will be handled from the New Delhi office.

ClubMyCab is a ride sharing app that makes ride sharing safe and fun. The biggest obstacle to ride sharing taking off in a big way in India is that people don’t feel safe sharing a cab or car with strangers. ClubMyCab believes that sharing works best with people you trust – friends, colleagues and neighbours – not with strangers.

ClubMyCab allows you to create these trusted “clubs” of known people who travel the same routes as you and start sharing with them. Examples of clubs could be - your home to office, home to airport, office to airport, etc. – essentially routes that someone travels on frequently. ClubMyCab helps you reclaim 3-4 hours of your life everyday by travelling in comfort and being able to catch up on many other things – chatting with friends, reading a book or just grabbing a nap.

Speaking on the appointment Pratul Chopra, Founder-CEO, ClubMyCab, said, “Ride sharing is still a nascent concept in India and requires building customer awareness towards the benefits. We are therefore partnering with Havas Media to take this message to our customers. We believe Havas Media’s vast experience and established infrastructure in customer communication design and delivery will be of immense value to ClubMyCab.”

Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media Group-India and South Asia said, “ClubMyCab is an innovative concept and very necessary in the daily lives of Indians. Comfort, affordability and above all safety are the key drivers in travel today and ClubMyCab offers these. More so travelling in a more social environment helps beat the traffic grind and also allows for a happier disposition and hence higher productivity. We look forward to partner with the team as they scale in India.”

“ClubMyCab offers an interesting and timely proposition also ensuring people are in their comfort-safety zone as they commute. Apps and the digital frontier are witnessing exciting growth in India. The Havas Media unique digital offering is perfectly suited to connect and engage with this audience, encouraging evolving customer behaviour”, added Mohit Joshi, Managing Director, Havas Media Group-India.