MADHUMITA PRABHAKAR

How would it be if every third time you unlocked your phone, you won a reward from a clothing brand or in just a click of a button you could place an ad in a relevant newspaper anywhere across the country? Sounds interesting? Well, these are actual marketing strategies adopted by marketers to take companies one step closer to their customer. In this story, we bring to you five start-ups that are building innovative business models from common tools such as big data analysis, idle mobile screens (yes, you read that right!), multiple social media apps and media buying tools. Each company’s model is supported by a case study that explains the strategy adopted to implement its client’s campaign. 

TOOKITAKI gathers and filters web behavioural and social media data to help companies identify, connect and create higher levels of engagement with specific audience, and improve overall brand recall.

FOUNDERS

Abhishek Chatterjee and Jeeta Bandopadhyay

BEHIND THE SCENES 

The company filters data from over 150 sources such as blogs, social media sites and websites every day, identifies user behavior trends and builds customised campaigns, in real time. Given that customer trends change at a dynamic pace, the company doesn’t plan media in advance, rather it is dynamically modeled.

REVENUE MODEL

Before developing a campaign, the company identifies the marketing budget allocated by its client. Its revenues are generated through a spend model, where it charges based on the money it spends on the campaign, within the client’s budget.

PRESENCE: Kolkata, Bengaluru.

CASE STUDY

A home decor ecommerce company wanted to reduce its online transactional cost by at least 50 per cent. However, due to knee deep competition, the company struggled to achieve its desired cost per daily transactions consistently without shooting up its marketing budget.

IMPLEMENTATION USING TOOKITAKI 

Through data tracking and analysis, identify specific product or features popular with its target audience

Pull out relevant trends or discussions on social media and web platforms

Map product features to trends for effective media buying

Place relevant ads among target audience to maximise value

RESULT

40 per cent better return on investment, 70 per cent reduction in cost per sales over four weeks

KULIZA is a digital technology platform that enables marketers to build next generation digital properties such as brand websites, social and mobile applications.

FOUNDER

Anand Kuliza

BEHIND THE SCENES

Apart from building customised apps for individual clients, the company adopts five tools, Elevate, Echo, MobiChirp, Like Bag and Customised Facebook apps, to implement its service. Elevate helps brands identify, segment and target their most relevant Facebook fans across digital properties whereas customised Facebook apps focus on audience engagement. Echo converts on-site traffic into active referrals; MobiChirp creates marketing applications or concepts, which can be run on smartphones, tablets and desktops. Lastly, Like Bag is a tool that converts ‘Likes’ to leads through a series of social media engagement strategies.

REVENUE MODEL

The company charges based on a monthly or usage based subscription license for its product IP and on actuals for custom apps that it builds for brands.

PRESENCE: Bengaluru, the U.S. and Singapore

Case Study

Myntra, the e-commerce shopping portal wanted to enhance its customers’ shopping experience and convert its on-site traffic into active referrals on Facebook.

Implementation using Kuliza

To convert Myntra’s proactive website visitors into referrals, the company enabled its social commerce tool, Echo, which created frictionless sharing of purchase intent across the customers’ social network.

Results

Myntra generated 2.6 million referrals, 30, 000 referral clicks and created a database of over 4, 000 influential Facebook fans in six months.

VSERV.MOBI is a mobile ad network that operates in emerging markets. It allows developers (mobile/ game apps) and publishers to monetise their work through a developer first approach, and in turn, helps advertisers use these applications as a vehicle to reach their target customers.

FOUNDERS

Dippak Khurana and Ashay Padwal

BEHIND THE SCENES

The company has developed two tools, AppWrapper and AudiencePro.

AppWrapper allows mobile developers to create premium advertising and innovative pricing models (pay per play, daily subscription and try and buy users) on any app, without coding, in just one click. This tool helps advertisers reach users across platforms, with impactful and engaging ad formats.

By enabling audience profiling in a scalable manner through integration with telecom operators and blending it with existing ad network parameters, AudiencePro enables advertisers to target consumers using demographics, spending power, network usage, location, content relevance and device specific data.

REVENUE MODEL

The company adopts two revenue models. Firstly, advertisers looking to reach users on mobile, pay Vserv for showing ads on the developer’s app platform and Vserv in turn shares 60 per cent of this revenue with the developers or publishers where these ads are served. Secondly, as users hold micro-transactions on the developer’s platform, the developer pays a revenue share on the end user price (EUP), to VServ.mobi.

PRESENCE: India, Europe, the U.S., Middle East, Southeast Asia, Russia

Case Study

Samsung wanted to reveal Galaxy S4 features through a mobile ad campaign and engage its users in India during the launch.

Implementation by Vserv.mobi

Shortlist elements of the device that will appeal to users, evaluate various mobile activities to engage audience, include a call to action element to lead users to Samsung’s website

Since the popular mobile activity was found to be gaming, tweak the Brick Breaker game in such a manner that it allows users to play the game, and as they break each brick, the key features of the Galaxy S4 is revealed.

Result

Reached 14,76,309 unique users and generated over 64,88,046 impressions. 90 per cent of these users played the same game twice, creating a higher brand recall.

EUREKA MOBILE ADVERTISING is a mobile application that monetises the idle screen with precise advertising and marketing messages relevant to a brand’s customers, using its proprietary technology and advanced analytics tools.

FOUNDERS

Rahul S. Jayawant and Yogesh Sholapurkar

BEHIND THE SCENES

When a customer downloads the application, he/ she has to submit information related to their demographics and preferences. In turn, the company adopts its proprietary technology and analytics tools to help advertisers (who have partnered with Eureka) to place relevant advertising related content on its customer’s mobile screen. Upon every third unlock of the screen, the customer can avail rewards in the form of offers, deals and discounts, which can be redeemed later using Eureka loyalty points and used for an online or offline purchase. The customer can also interact with the ad by liking and sharing it, or visiting the brand’s website to browse further. The technology is currently available on Android phones with OS 2.2 and above.

REVENUE MODEL

The company shares up to 20 per cent of the advertising revenue it generates, with its subscribers, in the form of talk time, discounts, rebates or deals.

PRESENCE

Mumbai, the U.K.

Case Study

A global beverage company wanted to drive higher engagement for its products in the 16-25 age group. The company built an engaging mobile and web-based game featuring their brand. Eureka’s role was to bring the game in front of its target audience.

Implementation by Eureka

Using its technology and analytics tools, the company placed the game on the mobile screen of every target customer, for a whole month.

Result

The brand received a 100 per cent user view, achieved 7 per cent likes and recorded a CTR of 8 per cent.

MYADCORNER is an online platform that enables companies to place advertisements in newspapers and websites across India.

FOUNDER

Prateek Shrivastava

BEHIND THE SCENES

On one hand, if a company wants to place an ad in a particular region, the search tool on the website showcases various options related to newspapers and ad rates. It also calculates the return on investment (or the reach that the ad will receive), based on an algorithm. On the other, it also designs advertisements, based on a few available templates.

REVENUE MODEL

It gains a share of the commission from every booking it makes for an advertiser, in a newspaper or website.

PRESENCE: Pan India

Case Study

Webster University, an American non-profit entity, wanted to create more visibility and lead generation for its campus in India.

Implementation by MyAdCorner

With the help of media planning tools, the company identified high lead generating newspapers in target regions and helped place block ads in the low-cost branding sections of those newspapers.

Result

The University’s advertisement reached the relevant target audience while reducing its conversion cost and overall advertising spend.