Hotstar, Zapr to develop mobile audience engagement service
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Rebecca Hawkes
| 08 March 2017

Star TV-owned over-the-top (OTT) platform Hotstar and Bangalore-based media tech company Zapr Media Labs have formed a partnership to drive mobile audience analytics in India.

In what the companies are calling a ‘trail-blazing move’, Star has taken a strategic minority stake in Zapr to help create an understanding of mobile audiences that can be used by brands to create personalised communication and offers. More robust audience analytics and better accountability for results in the mobile marketing world are the partnership’s aims.

The OTT platform registered more than 60 million users during the month of January, and it claims some of the highest daily engagement among its followers.

Zapr’s proprietary technology platform measures television viewership across over 600 channels in India, providing targeted digital analytics and insight into offline consumption behaviour. Now it plans to invest further in research and development and grow the team across cross platform data sciences, analytics and product management.

“In the transition from the broadcast world to the digital world, advertisers got a data bonanza but in the process had to give up the ability to engage consumers who are actually paying attention to what they are saying,” said Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan.

“Hotstar has the opportunity to build the world’s first platform on digital where consumers are engaged and immersed while at the same time delivering deep audience understanding that allows brands to talk to individuals rather than segments. We believe that we have a shot at creating the world’s premier truly personalised advertising service, which benefits both brands and consumers,” Mohan added.

Sandipan Mondal, co-founder and CEO, Zapr Media Labs, said: “Over the past few years, Zapr has grown into one of the world’s largest media consumption repositories and audience cross-targeting platforms and this partnership further reinforces the incredible response we have received from our partners across brands, agencies and broadcasters.”