Update Geotarget is India’s only regional-focused, Narrowcasting TV advertising free-to-air platform. As we know that the audience’s attention span is getting shorter and brands are challenged with creating effective messaging in short formats. Especially during the IPL season in India, broadcasters and brands will try to penetrate and reach regional households to convey the brand messages and connect with the audience in Tier II and Tier III, non-metros.
Update Geotarget is trying to enable the brands to create high impact and avoid spillage of information with Set-top Box (STB) based solutions and Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) Insertion Ads.
Prabeer Patankar, President, National Media Sales, Update Advertising and Marketing
Update to Update Geotarget (UG) Journey
As the FDI regulation was passed in early 90s, there came the entry of Cable platform in India. Before that India was predominantly served with government education propaganda based Doordarshan channels.Cable platform and movie channels gave new lease of life to audience at large with “entertainment” at its heart. It paved the way for the satellite entry into the country along with a ready template to build their FPC in their nascent stages, like 4 movies per day, afternoon female movies, night new or fresh movies & so on. From large metros to small, the cable TV boom spread across India like never before.
Our Managing Directors’ vision recognized the potential for advertising and that’s how Update Advertising (Update Ads) was born. Since then, Update has actively worked towards the evolvement of the platform & giving it a cutting edge-
- From providing Analog breaks and through switchers to providing computers when they started adopting computer based serviced channel management.
- Developing Opportunity To See (OTS) Update tool – which provided actual availability of channels in 300 class1 towns on a weekly basis (Channel Census Tool)
- TAM, strategic tie-up was just the beginning of our grand vision. By the mid-90s we entered the corporate space offering solutions across 4 metros for HUL, which provided the first 3rd party monitoring & measurement support.
- We revolutionised the way viewers across the country enjoyed cable TV, by distributing switchers to major cable operators across India.
- Launched automated online monitoring services that enabled our clients to monitor their activity across 14 diverse markets, across 100+ networks
Update from its inception has always thrived to bridge the gap between corporate and unorganised cable channels and give a perfect platform for marketers to connect to the last mile audience Pan India.After TAM monitored Cable Regional for over 20 years and then in 2016 Feb it was shut down and industry migrated to BARC; Update pro-actively decided to get the Cable perception of authenticity intact.
Update partnered with one of Big 4 audit companies, Ernst & Young (EY) and after a good 11 months of rigorous audit across Pan India Update got the process & system certified from EY with no exceptions.
Shift to BARC brought an end to measurement of regional cable. And we decided to move away from transactional relationships with clients, vendor to client to the role of that regional/ hyperlocal specialist partner.2017 April led to TV disruption caused by digital access to sat tv which brought in a large no of hyperlocal channels for the local viewer. Update curated close to 2500 channels across markets and genres which a marketer could now grill down to…. states… districts… towns…cities. This led to birth of Update Geotarget. We could now engage with the clients right at the planning stage of their campaigns and provide solutions based on communication objectives and expected outcomes.
2019 TRAI NTO made Cable channels mandatory and part of the base pack of the operators thus ensuring 100% availability for cable across cable universe & paved way for brighter future of cable
Update Geotarget multilingual offering during IPL- benefit to consumer
For Marketer or Media planner the country is evaluated on fixed dynamics- HSM, South, MAHA, WB, All India. But what about diversities across 700+ districts, 8000+ towns, 100+ dialects, 35+ languages?
All the answers to the above are, Update Geotarget with its 2 broader offerings:
- Cable Channel centric (only catering to 2500 Cable channels on STB)
- Set Top Box (STB) Centric (all channels subscribed by an individual or a home-Satellite, DD & Cable)
STB Solutions like Bootup, EPG, Volume + Menu Bar are not specific to cable channel or any specific channel but it’s across all the channels subscribed on set top box.
Example, our set top box solutions and EPG IPL packages that we have promoted in the market are STB driven properties and are channel agnostic. These are not bound to any particular channel but will appear when the remote is operated irrespective of the channel being.This doesn’t have any relation to a Cable channel, if a person gets a TV transmission at home via Cable compatible STB; then he is bound to get these properties by default.So, if you have taken any of the STB options during the IPL match day it will appear on the Star Network, whenever the remote is used for surfing channels.Whereas cable channel solutions which we offer for frequency are a separate product offering, these can be geo targeted at district, city, SCR, state level
Benefits of brand associating with Update
At a fraction of spends you get high to very high Household reach.
For example, our EPG per day cost is 1/15th of the Live cricket 10 secs cost that an advertiser bears for 10secs of glory. Only Cable platform gives Geo Targeting options unlike DTH counterparts where advertisers need to buy PAN India. (and anyways paid DTH is lower than half of the Cable transmitted Homes in India)
- Cable Channel solutions ensures geotargeted channels offerings ensuring minimal channel spillage; cost efficiency leading to better ROI and most importantly high frequency leading to better OTS.
- Set Top Box (STB) Centric (all channels subscribed by an individual or a home-Satellite, DD & Cable)
- Geotargeted
- High/Instant Impact solutions
- Best for Call for Action (CFA)
Performance Advertising and its rise in Lockdown
Performance advertising unlike brand campaign is more focused on specific objectives where a deep analysis of a market is used to determine communication objective n medium selection to get the measurable result. The term used in digital – tactical advertising in print and TV and surely its relevant.This is where we leverage our positioning as a hyper local specialist and provide customised solutions for clients’ objectives based on specific geographies.
For example, when fintech decided to launch their app Pan India in 2018, they selected update geo target to target their P1 markets for the launch. Online Retail store pickup only advertises to our platform and so does Edutech client.
We deliver where it matters unlike the old school “Spray & Pray” methodology.Later based on insights of a market survey they identified top cities contributing to their revenue and decided to focus on those cities. Basis the response received from the top cities.
Broadcaster using Narrowcaster like Update, your thoughts
As mentioned above gone are days of old school “Spray & Pray” methodology.
Digital has brought the mind-set of narrow casting, ROI, minimum to no spillage in mind of the advertiser. But Digital penetration will take its own time to penetrate in our country unlike other countries.
For India, as quoted by big research recently, TV is still the first thing bought in a house and family entertainment is still top priority beyond metros & will be. As our culture is deep rooted in our hearts. And in this scenario, if there is a TV platform like Update Geotarget provides geotargeted last mile reach; it’s a perfect win for broadcasters.
We have had the top 4-5 broadcasters as our clients for the last 5-10 years and consistently use us on a monthly basis to connect & drive eyeballs to their channels. Even our counterparts- DTH players use our platform to reach the last mile. That speaks THE POWER OF our PLATFORM, which is close to 30 years but still young & strong.
Geotargeting on TV possible- Local cable ideal economic AV solutions, please elaborate
TV IS A NATIONAL MEDIUM, where satellite channels are broadcast across the country. TV by virtue of its traction is an expensive medium, however satellite TV is still limited to major languages, wherein we have a good option for Marathi, Bengali and South, other states are still considered via Hindi speaking satellite channels
North East, UP, MP, Gujarat which are part of HSM and covers the major part of the country, lack in delivering content in Maithili, Rajasthani, Haryanvi, as well as Marathi, Gujarati channels are handful as compared to Hindi channels.If you look beyond the 800+ channels of the BARC universe.
We have curated 2500 hyperlocal geotargeted channels which air locally relatable, regional content. Content is based on local preferences and trends in the local dialect.We have channels in Hyderabadi, Kokani, Bundelkhandi, Maithali, Marwadi, Haryanvi, Kashmiri, Mizo, Assamese, Manipuri languages. These are hyperlocal geotargeted which are very cost effective, and they still bring in advantages of TV & a/v.
