<div>In India, like elsewhere in the world, consumption patterns are often geography specific - certain products and services are popular or cater to only a particular region. Thus, to appeal to a wide range of people, geographic or geo-targeting of advertising has become an essential feature in the digital world. But instead of internet or mobile, Bangalore-based Amagi Media Labs came up with a unique platform, Smart TV Advertising, four years ago that allows geo targeting on television. Simply put, it means if viewers in Delhi and Bangalore are watching the same TV channel, they will still see different ads, depending on their geographical location.</div><div> </div><div>Amagi was founded by Baskar S, Srividhya S. and Srinivasan K A. In an interview with <strong>BW Online's Tanuja Chatterjee, Srinivasan K A </strong>(Srini) talks about Amagi's journey so far, their clientele, their strategy and growth plans in the near future.</div><div> </div><div><strong>Can you explain the concept of Smart TV Advertising?</strong></div><div>Successful and smart advertising begins with delivering relevant information. Amagi works towards making large advertising reach all over India. Regional SME brands which are present in only a few states and cater to minimal consumers, find it very expensive to advertise themselves nationwide. For instance, I am a Gujarat-based detergent company having my product distributed all over Gujarat and Rajasthan. So if I want to come on television today, I have very few choices that can fetch me the viable reach I want. To go national it would be way too costly for me to advertise my product all over India. My key holding market is in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Rest of the advertising will be 80-90 per cent of wastage. The whole world is going towards targeting: online, newspapers, radio and others. Amagi offers the advertisers a phenomenal reach to its customers at a very low cost. Now it is possible for consumers to buy a product aired on television only in Gujarat, or Rajasthan or Delhi and advertisers pay only for that.</div><div> </div><div><strong>What inspired you to conceptualise the idea of 'limiting' TV advertising?</strong></div><div>Earlier we (Baskar S., Srividhya S. and I) started a technology company named Impulsesoft in 1998 which was later acquired by SiRF Technology (a US based semiconductor firm) in 2005 for its technology leadership in Bluetooth. That gave us an initial structure to spot the research and marketing strategy for Amagi. Suppose you want to do something new and change the way a certain industry functions, you need to consider multiple options. There hasn't been much technological change in the television media from past so many years, except DTH, if you will. Broadcast is being carried out more or less in the same manner in which it started. Technology plays a prominent role in our lives. Television being the largest media, from advertising prospective, has a lot to offer to advertisers as well as consumers. Can we get an option for advertisers who have the reach of TV but will get the kind of targeting that internet will provide. If you marry these two you have, what we will call smart advertising on television. We tried to make use of that USP of TV and make it much more fruitful for people.</div><div> </div><div><strong>What kind of research did you engage in prior to Amagi's launch?</strong></div><div>We started off by gaining knowledge about this domain extensively. We spent a lot of time talking to various advertisers associated with different categories such as real estate, FMCG and so on. That gave us a complete idea of the direction where we were heading. With smart advertising on TV, a huge number of businesses who have never been on TV have been able to advertise on premium TV channels at fairly low budgets - almost as low as a radio spot.</div><div><br /><strong>Did you deliberately plan to start with small companies and then proceed towards big firms?</strong></div><div>We started in 2008 (in Bangalore). Till late 2009 we were involved in creating our business model and setting up our commercial deployment. In 2009 we started with our drive in Hyderabad, with couple of channels and then moved on to more. At the moment we have covered 62 cities across India; in some particular states we even cover the villages around the place. We are in talks with more companies and even had a meeting with one of our clients in Singapore but it is too early to comment on that.</div><div><br /><strong>Can you name some of the SMEs with which you are working already? </strong></div><div>Some of the SMEs that we are working with are Infraline Batteries , which targets Delhi and UP, Womenskart.com, EaseMyTrip.com, Melasma beauty cream, Naturoveda, which is one of the leading SMEs in Kolkata. We deal with SMEs that have an approximate value of Rs 300-500 crore. We also cater to education and are associated with companies such as Framebox Animation, IAMS and others. These SMEs are not pan India but in their area they are huge brands. We give these local and regional products to advertise themselves on the national platform all over India.</div><div><br /><strong>Has the focus been largely on national channels (Aaj Tak, Zoom TV) or regional channels (for instance Maa TV)? </strong></div><div>Dominantly the focus was on national channels. Regional channels were mostly an add-on to us. We focus on national television channels and regional advertisers. Our target is to bring these FMCG companies and other regional players to the Hindi speaking markets.<br /> </div><div><strong>What kind of challenges did you face with advertisers as well as the television channels, initially?</strong></div><div>From the channels' perspective, there was initial scepticism that will this cannibalise their sales. We said that we will make it more efficient: today an advertiser is forced to buy an all India commercial slot, even if he wants only Gujarat and Rajasthan. Channels were concerned that their advertiser will spend only 20 or 30 per cent of his (advertising) budget if they are only buying slots for specific regions. Channels were worried that is this an option that is going to kill them (in terms of sales)...</div><div> </div><div>It took us one and a half years to tie up with our first television channel. Over the last few years we have been able to bring 95 per cent of our regional advertisers on TV, who have never been on television. Some advertisers are desperately looking for an option to get themselves introduced to their target audience. They are willing to put their budget accordingly. From the advertiser perspective, when products are being offered at a local radio rate, people tend to raise questions like 'are they advertising it illegally?', 'How can it be really possible to advertise and avail the concerned product at such low rates'? and similar queries. So clearly we need to focus on educating (people) and marketing (our products) simultaneously. </div><div> </div><div><strong>What is the technology behind producing target based, smart advertising on television channels? </strong></div><div>Initially, we target the ads locally, very much like split-runs on newspapers where you can buy ad space on a local edition instead of buying ad space on national edition. We have partnered with a number of TV channels to buy spots nationally from them and then use our technology to split those spots by region and sell these regional/local spots at a fraction of the national rate. So, for an SME, a TV ad spot can now cost up to 80-90 per cent less compared to a national TV spot, often making it even cheaper than a radio-spot locally.</div><div> </div><div>We use the finger printing technology in which we barcode the content (regional advertisements). It is an audio visible barcode that is added to the content that is to be aired. When the barcode is coming in , it is be able to recognise that automatically to carry out all the regional acts. </div><div> </div><div><strong>How do you plan to grow organically now?</strong></div><div>In the next couple of months we are adding some big channels on our list. We have started looking overseas; in fact we just did a couple of trials on large broadcasters in Singapore last month. We have started our distribution in South America, the US and Singapore.</div><div><strong><br /></strong></div><div><strong>Where is Amagi headed in the near future…</strong></div><div>Every year we have grown 5 times more than the previous year. On an average we have grown 4-5 per cent year on year. We have grown up to 20 times from the last three years. In my opinion, media is completely value for money, and the consumers are very particular about each penny they spend. People are quite brand cautious, so I want my product's advertisement to be aired on big channels. National television is very inspirational. We are adding 100-150 advertisers on our list. This medium has been able to offer a wide reach and content to its customers.</div><div> </div>
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