Whiskey and Phones

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

TV Ad Dollars Are Shifting
to Web Videos 

The companies that provide consumer products and services are always on the look out for creative ways to market their goods.

Television ads used to be at the top of the ladder.

Then, viewers started recording programmes and fast-forwarding through commercials.

Enter product placements - a Coca-Cola cup here, an iMac there.

Now, though, a key group of consumers - youth aged 18 - 35 - are watching less television altogether, be it live or taped and are spending increasingly more time with other media devices - phones, tablets, game consoles and computers.

The changing nature of media consumption has led some brands to adapt again, this time becoming the producers and sponsors of their own content. (You'll want to read on: I'm about to share two great videos!)

BuzzCity Tours : Oct - Dec 2014

Over the coming months our team mates will be at several conferences and workshops and hope to meet with you.

1. Istanbul – Webit Conference : 1st – 2nd Oct. 2014 (Dan) 
2. Johannesburg - Tech4Africa:  8th & 9th Oct. (Nick) 
3. Dubai - Gitex 2014 : 12 - 16th Oct. (Amit)
4. Mexico City – Devhr.mx : 21st – 24th Oct. (Dan & Isabel)  
   
5. London - Ad Tech London :  21st – 22nd Oct.  Come meet with our UK team  at  Stand No. 371  at The National Hall, Olympia.
6. Paris – Games Connection  :  29-31 Oct. (Sabrina)
7. New York- Ad Tech New York  :  5th & 6th November (Dan) 
8. Cape Town - Market Research in the Mobile World:  5th - 6th Nov (Nick)
9. Cape Town - AfricaCOM: 11th-13th Nov (Nick)
10. Pune - NASSCOM Game Developers Conference : 13th -15th Nov (Amit, Anil & Mario)
    
11. London - Apps World London : 12th & 13th Nov.  Our European team will be exhibiting our advertiser and publisher opportunities for applications developers. Please visit us at Stand No. 129 @ ExCel, London. 
12. Miami - M2Games Latam  : 3rd – 4th December (Dan & Isabel)  

TV Goes Online

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

If you're a television network and you notice that an increasing percentage of your core audience is spending less time in front of the TV, what do you do?

For MTV India, the answer was obvious.

Start producing content for mobile and the web.

"As a media channel, we can't ignore platforms where the youth (are)," MTV India's digital head Ekalavya Bhattacharya told MediaNama. "When a guy is glued to Facebook all the time, it doesn't make sense to ask him to switch to TV to just watch a show. It won't work."

BuzzCity Research: Mobile Video on the Rise

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

• Do you watch videos on your phone?

• How often?

• What do you like to watch?

These are among the questions that BuzzCity posed to some 5000 mobile users across 25 countries.

While we knew that video consumption is on the rise, the strength of the results surprised even us.

More than three-quarters of respondents told us that they use their phone to watch video. More than half watch at least a few times a week; 27% said they watch mobile videos every day.