When Rupert Murdoch bought Star TV in 1992, his understanding was that people from all over the globe will someday watch the same programs, thereby creating a theory of “media globalization”. Based on these fundamentals, initially Star India beamed American and European TV shows in India, but it failed.
Within few years, Star TV had to reinvent themselves, and launched several Hindi TV shows which became huge hits. Somewhere in between, the team behind Star TV realized that localized content is the solution to fulfill entertainment requirements of Indians. Since, then, Star has launched 33 channels in India, in 8 different languages.
Taking this ideology one step further, Star India has launched a revolutionary advertisement platform for broadcasting localized ads called “Adsharp”.
What is Adsharp?
Adsharp is a new advertisement technology introduced by Star India using which advertisers and marketers can laser target their ads and show it only to local audience. For example, a car dealer having showroom in Pune can now use Adsharp and target their advertisements only for Pune residents.
Which Channels Would Support Adsharp?
As of now, such localized advertisements can only be broadcasted on Star Plus and Star Gold. Although its not still now clear as to which cities would be enabled for such laser sharp targeting of TV ads on Star TV network. However, starting tomorrow, Star TV is conducting several workshops and seminars in Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi and Ahmedabad to explain advertisers and marketers more about this new advertisement paradigm.
Infact, to try out Star Adsharp, they are offering local advertisement worth 1 Lakh rupee free as a trial for local advertisers. Here is a letter they sent out to various Businesses to showcase this new concept.
How Will It Help Advertisers?
Currently, there is no official or exact methodology to track the ROI of TV advertisements. When an ad is broadcasted on a national channel like Star Plus, it is shown to the whole of India, there by making it difficult for the local businessman to take advantage of advertisements.
Often small businessmen having presence in only one city or a couple of cities are at disadvantage because their advertisements when viewed in another state will have no impact on his local business. With Adsharp, localized businesses and local brands can take full advantage of the Star TV’s reach and advertisement platform for maximum benefits.
Cisco has been roped in to provide technical assistance to Star TV for implementing such geo-target advertisements.
With currently advertisement revenues of close to Rs 5000 crore annually, Star India is now looking for localized advertisements to boost it’s revenues.
Do you think that such a new concept will lure small businessmen towards Star TV network? Share your opinions by commenting right here!
Mirroring the concept of how Newspapers usually sell advert spaces,I.e. Indian Express ect. The local advertiser who’s target market is only a particular city and may be the neighbouring city provided Star reduce the price of advertising to a fraction of what it costs to advertise nationally it’s a brilliant option as he will get maximised viewership focused on the TV. Also our local cable operators in cities like Pune and Bangalore always had the option of advertising while the channel showed movies or songs as a advertising strip at the bottom.
This will also help Star increase their bucket of advertisers whom they haven’t yet had on due to the high pricing. If I have a restaurant in Pune and want to target the Pune people I have the perfect platform.
But will the pricing come down? Will star work on increasing the number of advertisers rather than only focus on the big multinationals?
Will create more local inventory, squeeze national inventory and make it more premium, subsequently more revenues for Star.
Is definitely a value for local advertisers, maybe a disadvantage for National advertisers.
QA for local ads will be needed.
This should ideally work as its worked for the Web & TV is comparatively a Huge medium with a much larger grassroots reach..
Plus targeting frees up more ad space availability generally leading to Ads getting comparatively cheaper ( assuming they allow this to happen) .. Which means more volume of Ads can go up..
We have been working with Web based Ad engines (and have our own product (Ad Server that delivers Ads to Web & traditional media like TV) and so far we have seen that targeting only increases the relevance & makes the medium much more effective !