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OYO raises $250 million in financing
● Hero Enterprise joins as a new investor along with existing investors – Softbank, Sequoia India, Lightspeed and Greenoaks Capital
● Company plans to expand presence in South-East Asia
OYO – India’s largest hospitality company – has raised $250 million (INR 1600 crore)* in a Series D financing round led by SoftBank through SoftBank Vision Fund with participation from existing investors Sequoia India, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital. Hero Enterprise has also joined the round as a new investor.
Speaking about the development, Ritesh Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OYO said, “In less than four years, OYO has become India’s largest hospitality company in terms of network presence and inventory. Travellers and city-dwellers alike have embraced our offering of hassle-free and affordable stay accommodation, available anytime anywhere, at the touch of a button. We are now focusing on further accelerating network coverage to consolidate our leadership in economy through OYO Rooms and mid-market category through Townhouse brands. We will also deploy fresh capital to take our made-in-India business model to international markets which are characterised by a similar supply-demand imbalance in real-estate and hospitality.”
Justin Wilson, SoftBank’s Board representative on OYO remarked, “OYO has solidified its position in India as the leading accommodation brand for consumer affordability and high quality standards. We're excited to continue to support OYO as they further expand their position in India and bring the OYO promise of affordability and elevated hospitality to other markets around the world."
Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Hero Enterprise, added, “As a business family, we have always set new paradigms; so OYO’s unique business model excites us. The differentiated thinking and ingenuity that Ritesh and his team bring to this industry gives us confidence that OYO can scale, innovate and set new benchmarks in customer experience. We are delighted to join other marquee investors in OYO’s exciting journey towards becoming a global brand.”
Sharing more details on the growth strategy, Ritesh elaborated, “The deal reinforces investor confidence in our unique business model and our view of the hospitality and short-stays opportunity in India. Our teams have developed industry-leading expertise undertaking the world’s fastest hotel transformations. We are developing capabilities to add 10,000 rooms to our network each month. Over 95% of OYO’s demand comes through our own channels with no commissions to pay, and the business has a solid growth outlook. The fresh capital infusion will support our organic expansion to newer markets in India and abroad. It will also enable us to bring additional resources to accelerate enhancement of customer experience and strengthen our technology stack.”
Mindshare develops ‘ANNA’ to move clients from ‘programmatic’ to ‘programmable’ media
Mindshare, the global media agency network that is part of WPP, has developed ANNA, the global media agency world’s first programmable approach to DSP and DCO control and is launching the offering with partners AppNexus and Jivox.
ANNA is a combination of people, process and technology that creates code that programs DSPs and DCOs as opposed to humans manually configuring them and moves Mindshare clients from the era of ‘programmatic’ media into an era of ‘programmable’ media.
In practical terms a media planner that would have previously set up tens of targeting strategies per campaign through a web based DSP interface – setting variables such as audience types, bids, locations, times and contextual settings - can now use ANNA to create code that configures millions of buying strategies instantly. ANNA is built on top of AppNexus’ programmable platform to achieve this.
At the same time ANNA also automates the loading of creative rules into the DCO system – which ties high definition media targeting to the precise and relevant creative served dynamically, in real time, to individual consumers across all devices and channels at unprecedented scale.
Adam Ray, Global Chief Innovation Officer at Mindshare FAST, said: ‘This one change from human-based DSP/DCO configuration to an integrated code-based DSP/DCO configuration will have profound implications for the industry. What’s beautiful about ANNA is not only the automation of the legwork associated with campaign configuration through the DSP/DCO but also that it enables new levels of complexity to be easily included in the design of both the media and creative elements of the campaign – something previously out of reach of manual configuration. This in turn leads to new and significant opportunities in how clients choose to communicate with their audiences and frees up the human element to spend more time ‘upstream’ with the data, uncovering insights, turning these into strategic actions and providing the rules that can be re-coded through ANNA directly back into both the DSP and DCO technology at the same time.The introduction of the AppNexus Programmable Bidder and the Jivox DCO decision engine allows ANNA to deliver unprecedented scale globally for our clients.
“At AppNexus, we focus on delivering a powerful, programmable platform on which our clients can develop unique solutions that drive real world results,” said Bobby Mohr, Senior Director, Global Accounts, AppNexus. “ANNA is a great example of this, and we are excited to support Mindshare as they leverage the AppNexus Programmable Bidder to deliver truly differentiated solutions for marketers.”
Diaz Nesamoney, Chairman and CEO of Jivox said: “ANNA is a significant win for brands and media teams. The integration between Mindshare FAST’s media approach and Jivox’s API will help streamline targeting and significantly improve messaging relevance via personalization, while providing brands with high quality creative. Brands that leverage ANNA will quickly see meaningful increases in campaign performance and workflow efficiencies.”
ANNA has also been developed to seamlessly integrate with GroupM’s mPlatform and Mindshare global clients joining the ANNA beta programme will be the first to benefit.
Mindshare, AppNexus and Jivox will be showcasing the new service at DMEXCO to key clients.
MEC and Maxus merge to become WAVEMAKER
The new billion-dollar revenue, media, content and technology agency to be created from the merger of MEC and Maxus will be named ‘WAVEMAKER’.
Making waves happens when media, content and technology come together - activating against our unrivalled purchase journey understanding for the clients we represent.
The brand mark WAVEMAKER reflects the agency’s heritage, born from WPP and GroupM.
Tim Castree, global CEO of MEC and Wavemaker, said: “Our purpose is to provide advertisers with the power to transform and grow their business through our Purchase Journey obsession; and importantly to do this through the integration of Purchase Journey insights and data with [m]PLATFORM, GroupM’s proprietary global audience technology. Our Wavemaker brand and positioning is a compelling manifestation of that purpose.”
Kelly Clark, global CEO of GroupM, added: “Wavemaker is an exciting new global agency brand with a powerful proposition for clients. Tim and his team have the full support of GroupM’s scale, resources and expertise.”
The brand, along with a new visual identity, will go live locally as the merger completes in each country, to be finalised by January 2018. Wavemaker will have offices in 90 countries and over 8,500 employees. Major global clients include L’Oreal, Vodafone, Marriott, Colgate-Palmolive and Paramount.
Introducing the LinkedIn Audience Network
A new way to reach even more professionals with your Sponsored Content campaigns
One of the biggest challenges for marketers is reaching the people who matter most to your business. While LinkedIn Sponsored Content has always let you reach a professional audience in the newsfeed, what if you could reach even more professionals by promoting your content beyond LinkedIn -- on other premium apps and websites where those same professionals also spend their time?
Today, we are excited to announce the LinkedIn Audience Network, a native advertising network that enables you to reach even more professionals with your ads by placing your Sponsored Content on high-quality, third-party publishers across mobile and desktop.
The LinkedIn Audience Network is designed to increase your marketing footprint beyond the LinkedIn platform so you can extend your campaign’s reach, deliver on your budget more easily and get your content in front of the right people, wherever they are.
To date, more than 6,000 LinkedIn advertisers have participated in our Audience Network beta program. On average, these advertisers have seen a 3-13% increase in unique impressions served, and up to an 80% increase in unique clicks. This means that advertisers running campaigns in the Audience Network are reaching new people they hadn’t yet engaged on one of LinkedIn’s owned and operated properties.
For example, Hiscox, a financial services and insurance provider, improved their campaign reach and performance by running their Sponsored Content on the Audience Network. “When we reviewed campaigns that ran on the LinkedIn Audience Network, we saw a level of engagement that was nearly 4X greater than the benchmark for the financial services industry,” said Gyawu Mahama, U.S. communications and marketing manager at Hiscox.
Understanding your campaign performance is crucial to measuring your advertising ROI. When you deliver ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network, you can download performance reports that include clicks, impressions, and engagement that your ads get specifically through the network. This allows you to compare your network performance to your onsite performance.
At LinkedIn, it’s our top priority to promote your content in a high-quality and brand-safe context. To that end, we’ve taken measures to ensure brand safety within Audience Network placements and give you control over your network campaigns, including the ability to block IAB categories and upload custom block lists.
Celebrate Akshay Kumar's 50th Birthday with 'Andaaz'on Zee Cinema
One of India’s biggest superstars, Akshay Kumar turns 50 this year and has done over a whopping 120 films in his glorious career.
With one of the highest number of hits and eight movies in the Rs. 100 crore club, Akshay Kumar’s films across genres have been consistently successful at the Box Office and have broken several viewership records on television as well. With a marvelous career spanning over 25 years, Zee Cinema will treat the Khiladi’s fans with his films every Saturday at 9 PM under the on-going property ‘Shanivaar Ki Raat Akshay Ke Saath’ On his birthday, Zee Cinema, World’s Largest Theatre for Hindi Movies showcases the romantic musical Andaaz for the first time on television on Saturday, 9th September at 9 PM.
There are lesser instances in Bollywood where a single film presents two female debutantes; that too competing beauty queens. However, director Suneel Darshan introduced Miss Universe Lara Dutta and Miss World Priyanka Chopra in Andaaz and gave Hindi Cinema two prolific faces. Suneel Darshan commented, “I had come across a picture of Akshay and Lara together in a magazine. Lara did not look like the text-book definition of Indian beauty and was very contemporary. And combined with her strong command over Hindi she was locked for the role. Priyanka Chopra once walked into my office for some work and the way she carried herself; I knew she was the perfect fit for the character. I realized that the entire perception of female beauty would change once the movie hits the screens.”
With Akshay Kumar in the lead, this was the first universal hit of 2003 and the rest as they say is history. The music album of the movie is another highlight and the composer duo Nadeem-Shravan gave popular hits including Rabba Ishq Na Hoye, Kissise Tum Pyar Karo, Yeh Pyar Toh Hai Ek Dhoka and Aaj Kehna Zaroori Hai that are still celebrated today.
Raj (Akshay Kumar) shifts to Dehradun with his family and befriends Kajal (Lara Dutta). Growing up, Raj falls for Kajal but fails to express his feelings. He leaves for his Air Force training and returns only to find out Kajal getting married to a businessman Karan Singhania (Aman Verma). Dejected, Raj shifts to Cape Town and meets a vivacious Jiya (Priyanka Chopra). Upon his family’s insistence, Raj agrees to marry Jiya. During a visit to her family, Raj encounters Kajal, now a struggling widow. While Raj pledges to get Kajal back to life, their growing fondness bothers Jiya who happens to be Kajal’s sister-in-law. What happens next changes their lives forever.
‘Shanivaar Ki Raat Akshay Ke Saath’ celebrates the magnificent journey of Akshay Kumar with his time-honored hidden gems that will telecast for the first time on television.
