C1X (Class One Exchange) has partnered with adGeek in Tawain. This relationship brings in over 100 premium publishers in Taiwan to be available on C1X's exchange platform.

Commenting on the association Swaminathan Iyer, VP & Head of Business APAC said, “It’s a unique opportunity to have the top premium publishers in Taiwan available on C1X SSP through the adGeek relationship. Now advertisers can access this unique supply on C1X DSP and other DSPs connected to C1X supply across the world. This partnership has put premium publisher supply in Taiwan which is not easily accessible from the outside, programmatically to be available globally .

The integrations will make these publishers also available on C1X Inventory discovery platform which benefits advertisers to access this premium guaranteed supply programmatically without any Deal ID or PMP.”

Stating about the partnership James Chen, Vice President of adGeek said that “adGeek partnered with C1X to provide a comprehensive solution for both our publishers and advertisers. C1X’s platform can provide a more complete solution to meet the digital marketing needs of our advertisers. At the same time our publishers can get better yield on their inventory. Consumers are consuming media differently today in Taiwan. Hence media buying has moved from website buy to audience buy. This has sparked the growth of Programmatic buying but advertisers are still looking for audience within premium sites. Hence, we partnered with C1X to facilitate PMP(Private Marketplace)/ Programmatic Guarantee buys for our advertisers and publishers.”

Further adding on the inventiveness of the C1X platform, he mentioned that “C1X has designed their platform with users in mind. Not only the UI is user friendly, its powerful forecasting tool along with 3rd party data targeting allows my team to do media planning effectively from a single platform. The report is useful for post campaign planning and contains data for future retargeting campaigns. In addition, C1X platform also can facilitate verification partners as needed to guard against fraud, brand safety and measuring viewability.”

Founded in 2014, C1X is a funded global corporation, headquartered in the Silicon Valley, with offices in New York, Dubai, Singapore, Tokyo, Mumbai, and New Delhi, and with development centers in San Jose, Chennai, and Bengaluru, find C1X online at www.c1exchange.com.

adGeek’s helps website publisher and advertiser achieve their objectives. adGeek’s goal is to create a win-win situation for all three parties. The advertising team of uses programmatic solution to help advertiser reach their target audience with the right message and in-turn reach their business objective. The publisher team helps websites optimize their traffic and monetize from it. www.adgeek.com.tw

New York Festivals World’s Best TV & Films Competition is Open for Entries; NYF Unveils New Categories for 2018

Magazine Feature, International Affairs Documentary, Use of Technology in Promos, Digital Documentary, Digital Reality TV Drama, and Tourism

New York Festivals® International Television & Film Awards 2018 competition is open for entries. Since 1957, NYF’s World’s Best TV & Films℠ competition has celebrated content in all lengths and formats and continues to honor exceptional content being created around the globe.

New York Festivals acknowledges the wide range of superlative content being made today. “There are no geographical boundaries for talent and innovation,” said Rose Anderson, VP/Executive Director of NYF Television & Film Awards, “so we have no boundaries on our entry process. We welcome storytelling across all platforms including all genres for all types of audiences”

With the popularity of video streaming and the increase in viewer consumption of short-form digital video, NYF renamed the existing Online group to Digital Short-Form and added 2 new categories as well: Digital Reality TV Drama and Digital Documentary.

“NYF provides opportunities for recognizing all of the innovations today’s storytellers use to engage their audiences” said Rose Anderson, VP/Executive Director of NYF Television & Film Awards. “This year in addition to adding new categories, we have made our 16 category groups more user-friendly and more current, incorporating the language that our entrants from every continent use today.”

Other new categories include Use of Technology in Promos, launched to showcase the innovative ways creative services teams use all facets of today’s technology (VR, AR, MR) to target their audiences; Magazine Feature in News Reports; International Affairs in Documentary; and Tourism in Corporate Image.

The 2018 Television & Film Awards gala will take place at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas on April 10, 2018. For the eighth consecutive year NYF and their official partner, NAB Show, will present the competition to more than 103,000 media and entertainment professionals from 166 countries, and 1700+ exhibitors.

Three outstanding entries were recognized in 2017 with the NYF Grand Award: “David Attenborough's Light on Earth” Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH; “MARS” National Geographic and “Super Bowl 50” CBS Sports.

Tony Petitti, Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball was honored with the annual New York Festivals® Lifetime Achievement Award. New York Festivals Specialty Awards honored the following international companies: Al Jazeera with Broadcaster of the Year; The Edge Picture Company, UK, with Production Company of the Year; and Fox Networks Group Latin America with the 2017 Program Promotion Team of the Year Award.

The deadline to enter the 2018 Television & Film Awards competition is October 15, 2017.

Entry details and competition rules and regulations can be found on the NYF Television & Film Awards website www.newyorkfestivals.com/tvfilm/. To view the complete list of categories, please click: Here

Dentsu Aegis Network today announces that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sokrati, India’s leading data-driven performance marketing and analytics agency, launching Merkle in the country – the first launch of the global data-driven performance marketing agency in the Asia Pacific region. Post-acquisition, Sokrati will be rebranded as Merkle Sokrati, further scaling Dentsu Aegis India’s data and performance marketing offering.

Founded in 2009, Sokrati is headquartered in Pune and employs a staff of 120 digital marketing professionals. The company develops its integrated marketing offering with the help of data analytics, CRM based marketing and the integration of offline data and hyperlocal marketing, with a focus on the automotive, telecommunications and banking and financial services sectors. It offers digital and performance marketing with deep specialisation in e-commerce, with service lines encompassing search and performance, social, retargeting, display and video production, and product ads.

Nick Waters, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific, said: “India is the fastest growing large economy in the world. It is on track for 400 million smartphone users, making it second only to China, and has emerged as a major e-commerce market. Sokrati’s strength in mobile, e-commerce, data, analytics and performance media provides an ideal basis from which to launch Merkle in India as we develop the roll-out plan for Asia Pacific. We will develop the unique M1 addressable media platform for India as a next step.”

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia, said: “Sokrati has strong ability in CRM and data to accelerate the launch of Merkle in India and further bolster our data practice, which is becoming increasingly critical in all aspects of our business. It will also give our clients added value as we bring CRM and data into the heart of our digital offering. With Dentsu Aegis Network India already being a leader in performance marketing services, with iProspect and the recent acquisition of SVG, the complementary addition of Sokrati will enable the network to take a clearly dominant position in the rapidly growing Indian digital advertising market. With Sokrati on board, we will now be more than twice the size of any of our competitors in search and performance. Out of 3,500 staff in India, about 1,500 will be digital professionals, and over 35% of our revenue – a market-leading statistic – will come from digital.”

Over the past four years, Sokrati was consecutively ranked Deloitte’s top 50 Technology Companies in India. In addition, it has won Google India awards, including Best Quality Accounts and Largest Increase in Overall Revenue, consecutively in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Zhengda Shen, President of Merkle Asia Pacific, said: “Given Sokrati’s strong credentials and proven capabilities in data & analytics, Sokrati will be in the ideal position to give strong footing to Merkle’s launch in the Indian market, in line with Merkle’s global growth strategy. India is strategic to Dentsu Aegis Network and is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world.

“Sokrati’s data DNA, analytics-driven and performance approach to digital marketing make it a natural extension for Merkle into the Indian market. Furthermore, they are focused on expanding their CRM capabilities and connecting these capabilities across media and channels. Merkle is in a strong position to support this expansion and Sokrati’s ecommerce-heavy client base is data rich, innovative, and ready to benefit from Sokrati’s push into cross-channel marketing.”

The co-founders of Sokrati – Ashish Mehta, CEO, Anubhav Sonthalia, Enterprise Business Head, and Santosh Kumar Gannavarapu, Head of Innovations, will be joining the Dentsu Aegis Network leadership team in India. Anubhav Sonthalia will be the CEO of Merkle Sokrati and report to Vivek Bhargava, CEO of Performance, Dentsu Aegis Network India, and Zhengda Shen, President of Merkle Asia Pacific.

Anubhav Sonthalia, Co-Founder & Enterprise Business Head of Sokrati, said: “Our business is built on a highly data-driven culture, supported by the strong passion for digital and performance marketing from myself and two other founders – Ashish and Santosh. It is not often you meet amazing talent with the same drive and mindset, and we could not be more pleased to be joining forces with world-leading agency Merkle, as we expand our global footprint as part of Dentsu Aegis Network. It has been an incredible journey from the start, and we are all very excited about the next chapter for Sokrati.”

The deal is expected to close this week.

The Summit to focus on the Real Estate sector post demonetization, GST and RERA implications

Including a special session of ‘Inspiring Converations’ with DIlip Chabaria - Founder DC Design

The implications of GST and demonetization have affected every industry in the country. News18.com’s third edition of Global Indian Realty Summit (GIRS) 2017 in association with St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures and BMW Authorized Partner - Infinity Cars, is being held on July 27th at Four Seasons, Mumbai. The summit will enlighten attendees on the implications of the new reforms and RERA on the Real Estate sector in the country.

GIRS Mumbai brings together subject matter experts onto a common platform where attendees can participate in discussions. They will get to connect with expert speakers, who will share their knowledge on the current trends in the realty sector. The summit will prove to be instrumental in highlighting the implications of the new norms in the real estate market in the city.

The panel will comprise industry experts/practitioners such as Nagu Chidambaram (MD, St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures), Agnelorajesh Athaide (Chairman, St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures), Gulam Zia (Executive Director - Advisory, Retail & Hospitality, Knight Frank India), Srinivasan Gopalan (CEO, Ozone Group), Avikshit Moral (Partner, Juris Corp) and Harsh Roongta (Chartered Accountant & SEBI registered Investment adviser). The subject matter experts will share their insights on various topics including worthy real estate investments in India. Nationally recognized as the real estate expert, Manisha Natarajan, Group Editor, Real Estate & Urban Development of the Network18 group, will be the moderator for the panel discussion at the GIRS Mumbai.

With the implementation of GST from July 1st this year, analysts say that while there could be short-term challenges for developers in transitioning to the new tax regime, long-term benefits are expected for both, the developers and buyers. To further debate on the ‘New Normal in Indian Real Estate,’ Mr. Agnelorajesh - CMD of St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures will speak on the changing real estate climate in the country.

Commenting on the success of Global Indian Realty Summit 2017, Manish Maheshwari, CEO, Network18 Digital said, “With GIRS peddling up its presence now in Mumbai, we at News18.com aim to build a platform to facilitate insightful conversations between industry experts and investors looking to invest in Indian real estate. With the current structure being reformed post GST implications, there are factors that need consideration and our esteemed panellists will help us understand the workings better.”

The unique element of GIRS is the beautiful integration of the ‘Inspiring Conversations’ segment that draws out insights of successful entrepreneurs. At Mumbai GIRS 2017, the session will witness the presence of Dilip Chhabria - Founder of DC Designs. Dilip Chhabria’s love for cars started with his fascination for doodling them on every surface at his home. Realizing his hobby could culminate into a career too, Mr. Chabbria ventured into automobile space in India. Country’s ace car designer will share his entrepreneurial journey and provide key insights on how to differentiate oneself in a cluttered and competitive marketspace.

About the speakers:

Agnelorajesh Athaide (Chairman, St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures): A promoter of social entrepreneurship whose powerful and popular initiative www.inspiringconversations.in essentially encapsulates his passion and beliefs.

Nagu Chidambaram (Managing Director, St. Angelo’s VNCT Ventures): He is also the Director - Finance and Project Management for all the real estate initiatives of the group, and is a recipient of the National Award 2003 - Best Entrepreneur of the Year.

Gulam Zia (Executive Director, Advisory, Retail & Hospitality, Knight Frank India): With over two decades of experience across the entire gamut of real estate services -- transactions, project management, advisory – Zia is a well-known personality in the industry. He is also a member of the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors).

Srinivasan Gopalan (CEO, Ozone Group): He has formerly served in the capacity of the COO + CFO with The Wadhwa Group. Having joined the Ozone Group in mid-2014, he has taken the company towards a 2.5X sales revenue growth, in just 2 years through his excellent strategic guidance and leadership.
Avikshit Moral (Partner, Juris Corp): He is enrolled with the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa and has been practicing law for over 9 years now. He is involved in drafting and negotiations of various commercial contracts, advising on society law related matters and advising various high net individuals on issues pertaining to personal law and inheritance.

Harsh Roongta (Chartered Accountant & SEBI registered Investment adviser): He works as a financial coach & counsellor and is active in the area of financial awareness and financial literacy. Twitter handle- @harshroongta.

“It is important to understand that in today’s complex and proliferated World Wide Web, getting to the right audience at the right time becomes the most important aspect .That is when you can claim to reach out to an audience when they are receptive. This whole process actually looks easy but complicated technically given you have multiple stakeholders within your stack, your publisher partners, your advertiser partners, your large DSP partners, ATDs etc; all of the mentioned have to be on the right time at the right place to ensure you have a process that is fully fool proof when it comes to intelligent buying. Platform like ours makes that possible.” Said Mukundu Kumaran, Founder and CEO C1X.

In an interview with MediAvataar India, Mukundu takes us on an insightful ride within the programmatic world. He answered question on various technical aspects of what all marketers are thinking and should adapt in order to make their life much straightforward and effortless digitally.

Here is the complete Q&A…..

MediAvataar: What made you start this venture in the first place?

Mukundu: I have been in the adtech space for over 10 years and prior to that in the CRM and Data ecosystem addressing some of the complex problems the industry was facing. With that experience on hand I thought there is a lot of problem solving opportunities in the adtech space which remained unanswered.

Thanks to my experience at Yahoo! where I was driving both product and engineering for Yahoo’s adtech offerings. During this period the complexity was constantly developing and not much had evolved in addressing the core aspects of the marketing community, which in today’s world attributed to data to make smart decisions in their advertising spends. I had to answer a few questions around these, which is when I realized the importance of transparency and audience discovery. These two points directly impacted smart decision making for marketers and I decided to focus on building a platform that had all aspects of the ecosystem covered in one roof, which is a very difficult thing to do.

With that as my bullets, I built my gun to shoot.

Given I knew data would address the audience discovery side of the problem, I decided to focus on bringing price efficiency as my core weapon to bridge the transparency issue. With that our offerings were born in 2014.

MediAvataar: What do you think is the USP of C1X and various platforms developed under it?

Mukundu: With the two core aspects addressed within the product my third vision of ease of use had to come up front. This is a key constituent in the mix given marketers are not technologists and if they had to become one then they needed to put in use a platform that had all the elements of technology and marketing embedded in one. So it became paramount that we built a UI that was super friendly and ensured even a peon in office could carry out instructions during emergencies.

With that we built our ease of use mantra into the front end of the stack and I believe that is a big USP today given you could build a great product but getting something great and not put to use would have been miserable. So today we have a great product and testimony is the number of marketers who use our products globally. We today address over 1000 brands globally.

MediAvataar: What it takes to facilitate intelligent buying?

Mukundu: You what we have built, that I have answered in the first two questions every aspect of intelligence gets addressed and therefore I can confidently say today that our platform enables intelligent buying.

Outside of that, it is important to understand that in today’s complex and proliferated World Wide Web getting to the right audience at the right time becomes the most important aspect that is when you can claim to reach out to an audience when they are receptive. This whole process actually looks easy but complicated technically given you have multiple stakeholders within your stack, your publisher partners, your advertiser partners, your large DSP partners, ATDs etc; all of the mentioned have to be on the right time at the right place to ensure you have a process that is fully fool proof when it comes to intelligent buying.

Platform like ours makes that possible.

MediAvataar: What drives you to take the business to the next level, product wise?

Mukundu: Innovation is a constant, it’s like life. One has to constantly look at innovating what is on the offer and on the table that particular day. Imitation is easy but to be one step ahead we have to constantly innovate and improve. So I am constantly working with my data and product teams on how we could innovate within or partner externally to bring in what would be break through offering for the advertising fraternity, sometimes even offline advertising fraternity. We already work with the largest holding company on some of their offline efforts and that’s where my energy is focused on.

To that effect we have launched a seller side solution for our ecommerce partners and have already some of the biggest names in the world like Shopclues and Zaastra in India and South Africa and announcing another 10 partners in the next quarter.

On the advertising front we are launching the world’s first SSP focusing on the fly contextual capabilities, which is 99.99% accurate and is disruptive in nature given that we will have over 350000 categories addressed and in over 20 languages in the first phase of our launch, which is on beta as we speak.

MediAvataar: Why do you think demand-side platform is the need of the hour?

Mukundu: I am not saying DSP is the need of the hour, I am saying that transparency, audience discovery and ease of use, is the need of the hour.

DSP is just one side of it, we can do the same on the SSP side too so neither of these are the need of the hour. Need of the hour are those three magical words which we have in our one stack offering that would remove the pain points from a marketer’s daily life when it comes to spends on digital advertising.

MediAvataar: How technology is transforming when it comes to programmatic and the way modern marketers should think?

Mukundu: How do you think all the above issues are getting sorted? It is only because of technology that these are getting sorted, right? Automation reduces costs and increases efficiency. And if that is brought into action in digital advertising then you get what you are seeing, which is programmatic advertising however when you see everything that gets addressed on a single stack then that is magic and we are producing magic on a daily basis with our offerings and modern marketers want magic.

It’s like how in today’s world pilots only monitor the plane and the actual flying is done by computers, right? That is how an A380 flies, fully automated and absolutely safe. Marketers are like pilots, they have to be on the seat to look at everything that is happening but the automation is the real hero unless you have some serious issues on automation and the pilots/marketers take over the controls, which is next to never in most cases.

MediAvataar: SPs, DSPs, ad exchanges and trading desks all working together to serve ads in an RTB environment, it is easy to lose sight on how all the pieces fit together. How do you keep it focused and still fragmented?

Mukundu: You never lose sight, which is why engineering writes such lovely codes on products that are detailed out. Without knowing the process how can you automate? That’s what is known as understanding the eco-system end to end, which is why it is very difficult to build something like what we have built and I am lucky to have a team that actually understands the entire ecosystem end to end and that is how we are able to address all the stake holders you have mentioned flawlessly on a single platform.

MediAvataar: Tell us more about Real Time Bidding (RTB).

Mukundu: Real Time Bidding is a process where buying and selling of online ad impressions through real-time auctions, occurs in the time it takes a webpage to load. Those auctions are often facilitated by adexchanges or supply side platforms.

MediAvataar: How the role of an entrepreneur changed the way you used to look at things professionally?

Mukundu: I continue to look at things professionally. You cannot mess around with a vision and when you have 15M$ that people have bet on your venture, everything becomes professional automatically, you are not only answerable to the ecosystem but also to the growing number of employees and above all your investors. So everything an entrepreneur deals with in his daily way of life on the professional front is mature, collected and focused.

MediAVataar: What is your vision for your company/product in five years to come?

Mukundu: First is to become the next unicorn in the adtech space. I don’t know what will happen in five years but our immediate goal is to expand into Australia, China and Europe in the next 12 months and in the next 24 months fully stabilize our offerings across board and in the next 36 months hit a top line of a billion dollars globally.

I will probably think of what we should do in our 60th month when we are in our 24th.