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<ul><li>The Indian <keyword id="6357332" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="gaming" source="Orion">gaming</keyword> industry has been witnessing a good growth for the past few years, a trend that was only further boosted by the pandemic where people stuck at home took to gaming to keep themselves entertained.</li><li>More and more brands are realising the scope in-game advertising has.</li><li>We speak to <keyword id="4686822" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vaibhav-odhekar" source="Orion">Vaibhav Odhekar</keyword>, Co-Founder &amp; COO at POKKT to understand the ecosystem better and to gauge advertiser’s response and why they are excited about gaming as an effective marketing tool.</li></ul>India’s gaming industry has been witnessing healthy growth that has only been further boosted by the pandemic. In fact, a recent report by a report by Boston Consulting Group and Sequoia stated that India’s $1.8 billion gaming market is growing rapidly on the back of mobile-first games. The report further stated that mobile gaming could triple to a $ 5 billion market opportunity by 2025, with over a 300 million user base, a number that will grow further due to the ease of access, a spike in new adoption, and leading companies actively shaping market evolution with increased marketing spends. The rise of gaming is also opening up a new touchpoint for marketers. Brands want to follow their consumers and the last few years have shown us more and more are spending an increasing amount of time on gaming, not just on consoles and PC but also on their smartphones. In-game advertising has been giving brands a way of connecting with an engaged set of audience. This has given rise to companies specializing in in-game advertising that are trying to come up with novel ways through which brands can use gaming to connect with their consumers without hampering their experience. POKKT, a mobile video advertising platform has had a strong focus on rewarded Video Ads within Mobile Games. It has worked with over 200 brands which include HUL, P&amp;G and McDonald’s amongst other brands. To understand the ecosystem better and what lies ahead in this dynamic segment, we spoke to Vaibhav Odhekar,Co-Founder &amp; COO at POKKT who took us behind the scenes. Excerpts: Q) What kind of increase has there been in brands showing interest in in-game advertising? The gaming industry is no longer just a domain of boys and men as it witnesses huge participation from women over a period of time. This trend has further attracted brands across sectors to promote via in-game advertising as it gives them a diversified platform. Over the last several years, there has been a major increase in interest in dynamic in-game advertising, with worldwide companies embracing and spending more on it. Brands in the sports, automobile, leisure and entertainment industries are especially excited. This rise has helped us get a larger bouquet of advertisers who are now regular spenders. While earlier, it would be focussed towards top-30 spends, contributing to the bulk of the spends, we now have around 100 + brands spending every quarter with us. Q) Can you share some data about POKKT's scope of work? The kind of brands you have worked with so far, the quantum of business and why brands should look at you if they want to connect with a gaming audience? Our company is one of the largest aggregators of gaming content. Being in the industry for 7 years, we have gained trust from advertisers and as a result, across these years we have had double-digit to sometimes triple-digit growths. The gaming audience is in the right frame of mind to be receptive to advertising messages. Today there is a huge diversification of the audience, so whatever the target audience is, it can be found in some form of gaming. Q) Within mobile advertising, what part of the pie is going towards game advertising. What kind of growth do you anticipate in the next few years? It is much more diversified now. FMCG continues to be the biggest category, but other sectors such as QSR, Mobile / Electronics / Auto / Digital - New Age / OTT are some of the other categories which are seen increasing their spending. Digital advertising should itself grow around 30% and we definitely plan to improve that. Q) How have you been measuring the effectiveness of these ads? What sort of ROI are brands looking for? It has become simpler for brands to track the effectiveness and ROI of in-game advertisements, because the ad targets–gamers–are active participants, KPIs like targeting and completion rates can be easily tracked. The advantage of digital is its measurability at every level and across parameters. Every campaign is measured from impression to completed views to click and engagement levels. We measure viewability, we measure in-target, engagement levels. This is over and above all the regular parameters like time of day, location, handset, frequency, app name, carrier etc. So depending on brand objectives, various measurement criteria are deployed. Data has become the king and the main reason for that is its linkage to measurability across multiple parameters. Q) What has the consumer response been to the ads, considering ads can hamper the overall experience? The consumer journey is the key for rewarded videos, majority of gamers love rewarded ads because they need not pay real money, they can pay through watching ads to get access to items that help them keep playing further in the game &amp; progress faster. Additionally, rewarded ads also engage with gamers by giving them the option to engage with ads. When it comes to progressing in a game, 74% of Indian gamers prefer to watch ads than to pay in-app purchases, according to a Gaming Report. Q) How are brands coming up with innovative ways of placing their ads within the games where it's a win-win for all stakeholders? Blended in-game advertising, a form of in-game advertising without clicks, can be an incredible tool for boosting brand awareness. With today's advanced ad technology, brands can deliver programmatic campaigns that align with both players' interests and remain compliant with all data privacy regulations by taking advantage of the extensive targeting options available. Any in-game object can be used for advertising, including billboards, banners, player jerseys, etc. This is the new ‘native’ form of advertising in games. Q) Gaming is still a growing segment in India. How are you convincing brands to advertise? Over the past 2-3 years, there has been tremendous innovation in gaming. The smartphone penetration wave has fueled casual gaming. With the increase in mobile game usage, brands can now use gaming applications as an effective and diverse marketing channel. Publishers and advertisers benefit from symbiotic relationships involving in-game advertising. These brands use in-game advertising to communicate with users in an interactive and engaging way. Q) Are brands open to experimentation when it comes to advertising on these platforms? Brands are definitely excited. In advertising, ‘something new’ has become the key word for such experiments as gaming becomes an ideal platform. A wide range of creative solutions is available, ranging from rich media ads to mini games and in-game integration. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years, with brands increasingly integrating their marketing efforts into the game in a non-intrusive manner.

The gaming audience is in the right frame of mind to be receptive to advertising messages: Vaibhav Odhekar, POKKT

<ul><li>Sophisticated bot attacks are posing a significantly increasing and evolving threat to the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions.</li><li>HUMAN’s MediaGuard will be immediately rolled out and made available to advertisers who are leveraging <keyword id="2734866" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="pokkt" source="Orion">POKKT</keyword>’s in-app video advertising capabilities across Southeast Asia, East Asia, India and the Middle East.</li></ul><keyword id="9913550" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="anymind-group" source="Orion">AnyMind Group</keyword>, an end-to-end commerce enablement platform, and <keyword id="12261168" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="human-security-inc-" source="Orion">HUMAN Security, Inc.</keyword> (formerly White Ops), the global leader in collective protection against sophisticated bot attacks and fraud, today announced a partnership that sees AnyMind Group’s mobile video advertising platform, <keyword id="12261167" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pokkt-mobile-ads" source="Orion">POKKT Mobile Ads</keyword> (POKKT), adopt HUMAN’s MediaGuard® for ad fraud detection and prevention throughout POKKT’s in-app video advertising offerings. With sophisticated bot attacks posing a significantly increasing and evolving threat to the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. HUMAN’s MediaGuard® will be immediately rolled out and made available to advertisers who are leveraging POKKT’s in-app video advertising capabilities across Southeast Asia, East Asia, India and the Middle East. They can now tap into fraud-free environments for their in-app advertising at no extra cost, ensuring cleaner, better quality and cost-efficient advertising to reach an increasingly mobile audience. <keyword id="4686822" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vaibhav-odhekar" source="Orion">Vaibhav Odhekar</keyword>, Managing Director of India and the Middle East for AnyMind Group and Chief Operating Officer of POKKT said: “Our customers have trusted us to provide them with the best quality advertising and with HUMAN’s MediaGuard® bot protection now seamlessly integrated and available to advertisers across the region, we have now added an additional layer of protection and can move forward together to drive the industry forward.” HUMAN is accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for end-to-end coverage against sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) for desktop, mobile web, mobile in-app and connected TV (CTV). This includes accreditation for pre- and post-bid detection and mitigation of SIVT, which is notoriously challenging to detect as fraudsters attempt to mimic genuine user behavior. The partnership with AnyMind Group ensures that customers and partners will be protected from emerging forms of SIVT--background ad activity, hidden ads, app misrepresentation/spoofing, measurement manipulation and more--while guaranteeing always-on fraud filtering and measurement across the POKKT Mobile Ads platform. <keyword id="12261166" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ryan-james-murray" source="Orion">Ryan James Murray</keyword>, HUMAN Asia Pacific Director added: “Markets throughout Asia-Pacific on aggregate are experiencing the fastest growth in commerce on mobile devices compared to any other region in the world. Protecting the integrity of the opportunity for advertisers to engage with real humans in such an intimate and open environment is of the utmost importance to us and our partners. The partnership with POKKT ensures a supply chain free of fraud and unwanted automation. We expect the partnership to indicate to advertisers and agents alike of the significant value present across POKKT's reach and that results derived are assured to be generated from humans only. We are excited to work with POKKT in the fight to break the economics of cybercrime.” Today, HUMAN verifies the humanity of more than 10 trillion digital interactions per week, offering enterprises a platform with unmatched visibility into fraudulent activity across the Internet. HUMAN achieves this scale through its continued expansion in cybersecurity, now offering a suite of products to protect the complete digital customer journey: BotGuard™ for Applications, BotGuard™ for Growth Marketing and MediaGuard®. With new partners and enterprises now able to leverage the company’s Human Verification Engine™, comes an even deeper understanding of the cybercrime landscape, enabling HUMAN to adapt continuously, staying ahead of adversaries and offering their clients collective protection against threat models they have yet to encounter.

AnyMind Group partners with Human Security to help clean up in-app ad fraud

<ul><li><keyword id="4686822" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vaibhav-Odhekar">Vaibhav Odhekar</keyword>, Co-founder and COO, POKKT writes how fraudsters steal from advertising budgets in a variety of ways, requiring advertisers to pay for impressions that were never made. </li><li>He further lists down some techniques fraudulent actors use and how brands can combat it. </li></ul> South Asian economies are largely mobile first. Smartphone penetration is in hundreds of millions and the growth has been phenomenal. So internet / digital advertising has by and large meant mobile advertising in this part of the world.. <keyword id="3258948" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="in-app-ads">In-app ads</keyword> are a major part of the mobile ad story: It is estimated that in-app mobile ads were responsible for generating 30% of all mobile advertising revenue in 2014. In monetary terms, this meant $4.6bn in 2016 and over $6.8bn at the end of 2019. Mobile media--from games to streaming video--is evolving rapidly, and advertisers have to adapt to stay relevant. At the same time, they have to deal with a number of issues plaguing the industry on a whole. For years, the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model dominated, where publishers are paid for every click on an advertisement put out by the advertiser. However, over the last decade, a growing number of individuals and automated software programs are driving false phone impressions and clicks, exploiting the PPC model. Fraudsters steal from advertising budgets in a variety of ways, requiring advertisers to pay for impressions that were never made. These are some of the techniques fraudulent actors use: Ad viewability Ad viewability refers to how readily a user can actually view an ad on a webpage. Viewability creates a challenge for website publishers and advertisers alike: owners naturally want minimal disruption to their native content on account of ads. Advertisers, however, prefer maximum possible visibility for a particular ad. This creates a grey area leaving advertisers liable to abuse: ads might be placed in innocuous places like a reveal scroller. Publishers might also leverage colour schemes and other design elements to minimise ad visibility. A solution here is to clearly communicate visibility expectations to publishers beforehand. The IAB’s open measurement guidelines are an important development enabling clear communication and expectation-setting for ads. The IAB’s OM (Open Measurement) SDK has provided much-needed simplicity to the ad measurement process for ad vendors and publishers. Previously, publishers would have to integrate different advertiser SDKs for each ad vendor. OM simplifies the process and reduces the pain of expanding a publisher’s in-app advertising presence. Through OM, advertisers have easy, standardized visibility into ad viewability, regardless of the ad vendor in question. The IAB’s app-ads.txt and ads.txt functions are also important in building a standardized ad viewability framework. App-ads.txt provides an inventory of the advertisement vendors allowed to sell or resell ads in smartphone applications. This addresses a critical vulnerability where programmatic ad purchasers would buy in-app ad slots from fraudulent actors spoofing legitimate companies. App-ads.txt has seen rapid <a href="https://42matters.com/app-ads-txt-statistics-google-play">adoption</a>, with over half of the top 1000 apps on Google Play utilizing it. When talking about issues plaguing the mobile <keyword id="854976" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ad-industry">ad industry</keyword>, it’s important to look at the root cause of so much pain: IVT, or invalid traffic. In a perfect world, all ad traffic-all views, clicks, and impressions, would be real, focused, engaged users gently being nudged towards a purchase decision. In practice, invalid traffic costs advertisers hundreds of millions of dollars every year. According to a Comscore study, nearly half of the top 100 UK websites have pages or sections registering over 5 percent invalid traffic. While five percent might not seem like much, the whole point of programmatic advertising is to maximize the value of ad spend: tacking on five percent defeats the purpose. Not all IVT is malicious: GIVT, or general invalid traffic, is generated by search engine spiders, VPN connections and other activity that generates site traffic but without the aim of generating ad revenue. Because GIVT doesn’t try to conceal itself, it’s fairly easy for heuristic systems to identify and segregate from genuine, revenue-generating clicks and impressions. GIVT isn’t completely harmless, though: publishers who don’t separate GIVT in analytics can distort data, exaggerating click-through rate for example, which can hinder the effectiveness of their digital ad strategies. On the other hand SIVT, or sophisticated invalid traffic, is an actual threat. SIVT is generated by threat actors running botnets, using process automation or other means to generate clicks and impressions that appear genuine and generate revenue, sapping ad publishers of their ad spend. Because SIVT is often purpose-built to emulate genuine traffic, it can be difficult to identify and handle. There are a number of SIVT approaches. We’ll now take a look at some of these: Click Fraud Click fraud is when site owners or automated programs repeatedly click on advertisements or refresh pages to exploit cost-per-click and cost-per-view payouts. Increasingly sophisticated click fraud actors may deploy RPA (robotic process automation), for human-like onscreen interactions. They will also leverage multiple IPs to give the impression of traffic coming in from different locations. Google's CFO George Reyes called click fraud the "biggest threat" to the Internet economy. iFrame stuffing Site owners seeking to benefit from false impressions may stuff advertisements into a single pixel, or deliberately align an advert out of view to generate views or impressions that never took place. iFrame stuffing allows real users to contribute impressions without actually seeing the ad. Ad stacking Ad stacking is often deployed in conjunction with iFrame stuffing. Multiple advertisements are “stacked” in place of a single ad, meaning that site owners benefit from multiple cost-per-impression payouts each time the page is viewed. Pop-Up Frauds Fraudulent pop-up ads can redirect you from your daily browsing to a trapped pop-up "notification" with nowhere to go. These fraudulent pop-ups may ask you to visit particular websites or install unwanted software. Fraudulent mobile pop-ups often integrate with mobile app stores, linking users to particular apps. This is especially problematic as less tech-savvy users are often driven to install unwanted software. In an effort to help businesses assess the risk that SIVT and GIVT poses to their digital ad strategies, the mobile ratings council (MRC) recently released draft guidelines for IVT risk assessment. The MRC guidelines aim to help ad publishers orient their IVT strategies to control invalid traffic, minimize its impact on business, and prepare for risk scenarios. The impact of mobile ad fraud As opposed to desktop sites, mobile was once thought of as a risk-free platform for advertisers. Click fraud, iFrame stuffing, and related exploits have seriously affected both content publishers and advertisers. For advertisers, their time, effort and money spent in increasing exposure and growing the user base is largely wasted as bots deprive advertisers of their connection to targeted users. Bots also cause rising inventory prices across the board, all while building distrust within the mobile advertising ecosystem. This has prevented mobile publishers from effectively monetizing their applications as advertisers become increasingly wary to partner with them. Recent studies show that 11% of display ad views and 23% of video ads stem from bot activity. It was estimated that bots are responsible for anywhere between 3% and 31% of programmatically-bought ad impressions, with the median statistic being 17%. Even “Premium” programmatic campaigns on private advertising exchanges are not safe from fraudulent activity, with approximately 10% of ad impressions coming from bots. Content publishers are particularly vulnerable because they rely on third-party ad networks for revenue. As a result, they find themselves at the mercy of the ad network, forced to accept lower CPC and CPV rates. This hurts the user experience as well: lower advertising rates may force webmasters to administer intrusive ad policies that harm the user experience. Advertisers are migrating to in-app ads to mitigate the risk There is a silver lining, though. Because mobile browsers are just as much at risk from ad fraud, an increasing number of publishers are looking to monetize through in-app advertisements. Top-rated mobile apps have billions of downloads. Studies indicate that users spend as much as three hours a day in top apps. This means that in-app advertisements in top-rated apps actually have higher visibility than ads on mobile websites. In-app environments give developers and advertisers much more control over how their content is viewed, mitigating the risk of ad fraud and ensuring a high number of genuine ad views. What’s being done to address these problems? Advertisers are becoming increasingly savvy about how to protect themselves against fraudulent traffic. Major advertisers increasingly give priority to premium greater priority to programmatic buying and adherence to guidelines including support for App-ads.txt, following RTB guidelines, viewability support, IVT support etc, standardization is becoming conditional for ad buys: sellers.json DSPs, SSPs and other stakeholders are all developing platforms that protect advertisers through artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions that automatically root out fraud. Furthermore, they investigate traffic to detect patterns that can be attributed to bots. Through the verification of app processes, it is now possible to ensure the legitimacy of apps, mobile websites, and impressions. Widespread adoption of these techniques is expected to have a dramatic impact on the industry: Advertisers will be able to get higher ROI for every dollar they spend and reach larger audiences. They'll also have access to better data about who is clicking on their ads, which will enable them to gain more insight and improve faster. Increasing standardization spurs in-app ad adoption rates However, the greater level of insight alternative ad platforms deliver come with their own set of issues. As with any emerging technology, there’s an urgent need for guidelines and standardization to ensure that advertiser and publisher needs are met without compromising usability and privacy. Standards developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (the IAB) are an important step forward on this front. When it comes to in-app advertising, the IAB’s App-ads.txt is a particularly useful standard. As mobile platforms onboard millions of new users every year, mobile advertising is set to play an increasingly greater role in the years to come. A cleaner ad ecosystem will open up the market, increase publisher compensation, and benefit users, publishers, and advertisers.

Things that are currently plaguing the mobile ad industry

<ul><li>Brands like RSVP, OPPO, Mountain Dew and RedBull have associated with PUBG in the past. </li><li>PUBG was known to offer high-reach and consumer engagement, two powerful baits for brands. </li><li>Experts answer how brands that invested in PUBG will adapt to the current situation and where they will move their marketing monnies.</li></ul>It has been two days since the government banned Tencent’s signature battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and app clones like PABJE, FAU-G and Pixel’s Unknown Battleground have already started sprouting up on Play Store. Due to the ban, Chinese tech giant Tencent has lost nearly $34 billion (HK$ 261.05) of its market value over the last two days. PUBG was downloaded 34.2 million times until May 2020 of which India accounted for 35.8% — 12.24 million installs, according to data provided by Sensor Tower. PUBG’s ban has not only left gamers in the lurch, it also left a void for brands that invested on in-app ads, event organisers, and influencers who were using PUBG and game streaming to earn a livelihood. The game also attracted advertisers ranging from handset makers to beverage companies. Brands that catered to the young audiences like OPPO, Mountain Dew, RedBull, etc have associated with PUBG in the past. It offered them engagement and high reach. One of the prominent brand partnerships that PUBG saw was with Ronnie Screwvala Productions’ (RSVP) action drama ‘URI: The Surgical Strike.’ Gamers were given an opportunity to launch a surgical strike on Pochinki, one of the most popular towns in the game’s map. While PUBG enthusiasts did not notice the advertisements on the app, it did have some incentive-led ads like ‘watch this ad to earn a scrap coupon’, collect 10 coins and build crates to buy in-game items. Gaming was considered a niche-category for a long time in the advertising industry. However, in 2019, of the $22.6 billion spent on mobile apps in Q2 2019, $16.95 billion was spent on mobile games and Indians were the largest market for mobile games, according to App Annie. So we reached out to a few industry experts to understand what kind of dent will the ban create in the advertising and marketing industry, how brands will reshuffle their monnies and find an alternative that offers the same amount of reach and user base. Explaining how brands will try to find alternatives that offer the same reach, Vaibhav Odhekar – Co-Founder and COO of POKKT Mobile Ads, said, “In the gaming space, all the brands were largely involved in “audience buying” and not site buying (like Candy Crush). So as long as there are players and audiences actively involved in gaming, brands will continue to be happy. POKKT has a gaming audience base of over 252mn+ users in India alone, so we believe that there is a massive reach present in terms of gaming content, advertising opportunities and the effectiveness for brands. Now brands will look at tweaking their targeting strategy to try and capture a larger set of apps, or else surgically approach the top competitors of the likes of PUBG and other banned apps to ensure cumulative audience reach.” Odhekar also pointed out that the majority of Indian gamers play casual games and that is where the maximum advertising is happening. Currently, top 10 apps on Google Play Store are Casual Games. <div type="image" title="top games" msid="77932529" hostid="261"></div> On what led to <keyword id="739806" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gaming-industry">Gaming industry</keyword>’s boom, Odhekar added, “Gaming became really big in the first place due to casual gaming, which means most Indian users are playing (and engaging with ads on) games like Candy Crush, Temple Run, Subway Surfer, Ludo, Carrom. And this entire segment is untouched via Chinese app influence.” Brands that did associate with PUBG, did that for its captive audience and large user base. Abhinay Bhasin, Vice President (South Asia), Data Sciences, Dentsu Aegis Network said, “Chinese apps presented advertisers with a unique avenue to reach out to captive audiences offering a fairly large base that created a diversion of spends from platforms such as Facebook and Google onto unique ad formats that the Chinese apps offered. Estimates show that apps like TikTok had over 600 million downloads in India during its lifetime and Alibaba-owned UC Browser had a market share of over 10%. With the ban on these apps and services, brands will ultimately follow eyeballs and engaged audiences. The recent ban on TikTok for example seemed to be a boon for Instagram as they launched Reels in India. Similarly, the desi competitor to TikTok, Chingari, witnessed a record 1 crore+ download on the Google Play Store shortly after an initial ban on Chinese apps was announced. Brands in India have a multitude of sources to reach out to youth audiences such as via Gaming, OTT services, the aforementioned substitutes, etc. It’s far from the end of the world!” Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman &amp; Managing Director, JetSynthesys, and President of the Indian Digital Gaming Society said that most PUBG casual players will switch to other similar games in India so the impact should not be much and it only brought about 2% to overall gaming industry’s revenue. Navani said, “Impact on the overall gaming industry should not be over 2% if one were to include in-app and advertising revenue combined, in the immediate short-term. However, the professional PUBG esport players and other content creators around PUBG streaming will be severely impacted since they derive their livelihood from the game. At a time when the domestic mobile gaming industry is growing rapidly, PUBG’s ban provides an immense opportunity for other international and domestic gaming companies to grow their market share.” According to Manesh Swamy, VP- Creative, Logicserve Digital, PUBG’s ban will not hamper brands’ way of finding ways to reach out to consumers. However, they will now be cautious to associate with any kind of Chinese brand. “As a marketer and advertiser, I feel it won’t affect the industry at large, as we always find ways to meet our clients' marketing challenges and goals. Also, taking into consideration the current reservation against Chinese products and services, even brands would be cautious and not want to associate themselves with these platforms to carry out any marketing activities. I am sure they do not wish to hamper their consumer's loyalty,” said Swamy. With the pandemic-infused lockdown, consumers had to find ways of entertaining themselves within the four walls of their house. As a result, gaming apps saw a spike in users and brands started realising the potential of this industry. Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO of Mirum India described the foreseeable situation in one word - ‘adapt.’ He said brands and agencies will adapt and find alternatives. Mehta said, “The most impacted sector/brand because of the ban is the brand/app PubG itself and most importantly their Pro-Players, who literally earned from it. India contributed almost 1/4th of the user and being a MOG (Multiplayer Online Game) it majorly ran on a Freemium model. Means their biggest revenue generator was In-game-purchase. Gaming has been one of the biggest contributors for AdEx in India during this COVID period. So gaming is here to stay, and brands have a plethora of games to advertise on. Like Video, casual gaming is also on a high and thankfully Brands have enough options.” Ban on 116 Chinese apps and its impact on AdEx PUBG offered brands an opportunity to place in-app advertisements, explore content marketing associations and organise group events around it. So with its ban, what kind of impact will it have on Advertising Expenditure this year? With PUBG, the government also ordered a ban on another 116 apps like Ludo World, Arena of Valor, Chess Rush. The first list came out on June 29 after the Galwan Valley skirmish, which left 20 Indian soldiers dead and an undisclosed number of casualties on the Chinese side. This included the popular short video streaming app TikTok, UC Browser, Xiaomi's Mi Community and 56 others. So how will the ban on all Chinese apps in India impact overall AdEx? Bhasin said Chinese companies contribute around 4-5% to overall Indian Advertising Revenue. He said, “The ban on Chinese apps will certainly have a significant impact on influencer associations that were picking up steam on TikTok or even through gaming influencers and contests. These spends will now have to be realigned to other alternatives. Moreover, the ban on apps is most likely to have a ripple effect onto other investments into AdEx in India by Chinese companies that contribute to roughly 4-5% of the overall Indian advertising economy.” Swamy and Mehta, on the other hand, said the impact will be minimal. “I don’t feel that the ban would affect the overall Ad Expenditure as brands would redirect their strategies to fit in the best manner possible,” said Swamy. Conclusion Brands and agencies adapted to COVID, they adapted to the TikTok ban and now, they are gearing up to adapt to PUBG’s ban, too.

Will PUBG’s ban have a ripple effect on in-game brand partnerships and AdEx?

<ul><li>India has banned 177 Chinese mobile apps since June, including key games such as PUBG Mobile, Mobile Legends, Chess Rush, Rise of Kingdoms.</li><li>The banning of Chinese <keyword id="1319826" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="gaming-apps">gaming Apps</keyword> have opened doors for Indian Gaming platforms.</li><li>We speak to a few Indian gaming companies and experts to find out how Indian Gaming apps benefitted from the ban on Chinese apps so far. </li></ul>India’s ban on another 118 Chinese apps in September, including popular games such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Ludo World, Dank Tanks, Ludo All Stars, Arena of Valor, Carrom Friends, Mobile Legends, Rise of Kingdom, Chess Rush opened up room for home-grown gaming apps to rise in the ranks. While only three games were banned in June, the second batch in September put a ban on 35 games. According to Pokkt, the apps that have been banned were contributing about 5% to the total revenue in mobile gaming and about 40-50 % tournaments were happening through PUBG. After the ban on TikTok, we saw many replicas like Instagram Reels, Mitron, Chingari, Bolo Indiya, Roposo, crop up. It opened up an opportunity for Indian video apps to come to the forefront and they have seen millions of downloads in the past month. Did the ban on Chinese Games have a similar effect on the <keyword id="739806" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gaming-industry">Gaming industry</keyword>? We speak to experts and home-grown apps to find out if Indian games have what it takes to fill up the void and crop up as a perfect alternative. Here is what they had to say: Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman &amp; Managing Director, JetSynthesys: The ban on Chinese apps has benefitted many of our platforms, however, the growth we can attribute to this reason alone in the last few weeks is hard to allocate. It would be under 10% on an overall basis. Larger growth has been due to people staying indoors during the lockdown. We do see the surge sustained. We have a lot of promotions and loyalty initiatives within our digital products to retain our consumers even if new opportunities or other older products come back into the market. JetSynthesys Inc is our platform for global growth and we would like to see our international base growing at least 100% in the next year. Shivanandan Pare, CEO Adda52Rummy: The banning of Chinese gaming Apps have opened doors for Indian Gaming platforms. We should see a lot of local players leveraging the opportunity and coming up with new games with local flavour. As far as Rummy is concerned, it is a highly local card game and truly Indian, family card game mostly played in India and amongst Indian Families. So that we never faced any competition from chinese players. The shift due to such events, usually are secular and are sustainable based on user experience in respective platforms. We are very confident that consumers who experience our platform will stay back. We are looking at creating an experience which is immersive and engaging. Over the next 12 months the idea is to give users an extremely differentiated online rummy playing experience. Vaibhav Odhekar, Co-Founder &amp; COO of POKKT: While it's too early to talk numbers, it is a golden opportunity for local developers to explore. Obviously you can’t build a game now, so only if someone was in an advanced stage of development or had a ready product, would seek to maximise most. However, I also feel there are options of other global games like freefire. So Indian developers need to focus on quality because competition is still global. The growth will sustain but the most important factor is quality. So the ban is helping in creating trials / giving developers an opportunity. However if the game is not good or cannot develop traction, the it's a big opportunity lost. In the casual/mass gaming segment, Chinese apps hardly occupied any space. In the esports genre, pretty significant. I might say almost 40 - 50 % tournaments were happening via PubG. Abhishek Madhavan, SVP, Growth and Marketing, MPL: We have collaborated with over 28 Indian game developers and studios and published their games on the MPL platform. These games are loved by our users and are fun to play and very well made. There is no dearth of skill and talent among the Indian game development community and we hope to play our part in showcasing their games to the world. Anirudh Pandita, Founder, Pocket Aces: Loco has witnessed a 6x growth in DAUs during the last two months. The viewership increase has been driven by a growth in the number of active streamers on the platform, including India’s top streamers, who are now actively streaming on Loco. Our monthly active streamers have increased by 122% month on month during the last three months and continues to accelerate at a breakneck pace. In fact, we've also seen over 1,000+ hours of live gaming content being streamed per day and this expected to grow in the coming months as well. We are more determined than ever to empower the gaming community and the growing ecosystem which comprises over 300 million gamers currently. The <keyword id="739604" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-gaming-industry">Indian gaming industry</keyword> has been seeing rapid growth with users from across the country taking to esports and mobile gaming in a big way. We have seen talented gamers showcase their skills through games such as Call of Duty, Free Fire and more, including PUBG. Having said that, we are confident that the recent ban on PUBG Mobile has been made by the Government after much deliberation and with good reason. We see it as a stimulus for the Indian gaming community to look within, and develop new means of showcasing their talents. We are a strong gaming community, and I am certain that we will rise to the challenges, and come out strong, with opportunities for the world to leverage. At Loco, we are more determined than ever to serve the Indian gaming community. We stand by our streamers and are working hand in hand with them to chart out a new course for gaming content. Our platform empowers users to stream games and showcase their talent in India. Being a 100% Made in India platforms, Loco will amplify its efforts towards making India a global gaming superpower.

How have Indian Gaming apps benefitted from the ban on Chinese apps so far

<ul><li>In our last feature from the series where we crystal-gazed into 2022 and brought to you some key trends that will impact the industry, we speak to experts from the Indian <keyword id="6357332" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gaming" source="Orion">gaming</keyword> industry.</li><li>They share their thoughts of a few big trends that will dominate the industry in 2022.</li></ul>As we enter 2022, we can only look back and wonder at the meteoric rise online gaming has seen in India in the past two years. While gaming had been witnessing growth, albeit a relatively slow one, before the lockdown, it was during the locked-at-home phase that many across the country not only discovered the joys of gaming, but also realised they could make a healthy living out of it. If most reports coming out in the last one year are to be believed, India will see an even faster growth for the industry in the next few years, and now Bharat is joining in this growth. A recent report by <keyword id="7087972" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mobile-premier-league" source="Orion">Mobile Premier League</keyword> (MPL), an <keyword id="2440542" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="esports" source="Orion">esports</keyword> and skill gaming platform revealed that India’s tier-III cities and towns have witnessed a significant rise in the number of online gamers in 2021. The top 30 of them reported up to 170% more gamers compared to 2020. Some of the small towns have more than 100% to up to 200% growth in online gamers. Another report by Sequoia India and BCG said that while the gaming industry in India is currently smaller than that of the US and China and is 1% of the global gaming market, it is generating $1.5B revenue and is expected to triple to over $5 billion by 2025 on the back of the ‘mobile first’ phenomenon. This massive growth has also led to a new breed of influencers who are being followed by hundreds of thousands of engaged audiences. YouTube’s recently released list of top Indian creators on its platform featured 5 gamers. And things are just about starting to get heated. To understand where this highly dynamic industry is headed in this next year, we reached out to a few prominent voices from the industry and this is what they had to say: Lokesh Suji, Director, Esports Federation of India &amp; Vice President of the Asian Esports Federation (AESF) India was a sleeping giant till Covid-19 happened, and now we have established ourselves as a market that cannot be ignored; Stakeholders like the brands, investors, authorities and so on, were just sitting on the fence and observing. But with a market of at least 450 million online gamers, the potential of video games and esports cannot be ignored. The year 2021, has been the inflection point for video games in India. While esports evolves itself into various business models, Non-fungible token (NFT) will be one big trend to watch out for in 2022. Video Games is the best use case for NFTs, customization of the skins, virtual avatars, in-game items/rewards etc. all this already exists in video games (so-called metaverse) and is now starting to be converted into NFTs. One of the key drivers for the meteoric growth of Video Games has been live streaming and esports, and such content creators and/IP holders will eventually look at converting the best of gameplays/streaks/moments into NFTs, which not only help increase monetization for content creators, video game developers etc. but also be a catalyst in terms of retention of fans and users respectively. Anirudh Pandita, Founder, <keyword id="820765" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Loco" source="Orion">Loco</keyword> Gaming has now arrived as a truly mainstream entertainment experience and has become the primary source of entertainment for India’s young generation. 2021 saw the rise of esports and game streaming, and 2022 will see this multiply. In 2021, we saw the arrival of BGMI which all Indian fans were waiting for and in 2022, we will see multiple big publishers release games for India. In 2021, we saw esports go to new heights and we will see continued growth in the sector in the next year as prize money as well as number of games will increase. Game streaming saw the entry of hundreds of thousands of new streamers and millions of viewers, and this trend should accelerate in 2022, with individual streams rivaling those of major traditional sports. Lastly, with blockchain providing interesting use cases, we expect to see interesting new use cases come out to help creators and consumers. We, at Loco, have always aimed at paving the way for gaming to go from a niche hobby to a mainstream national interest- which the year 2021 has helped realize. We are confident that with this, India will cement its place on the global gaming map in 2022. Abhishek Aggarwal, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, <keyword id="12415204" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="trinity-gaming" source="Orion">Trinity Gaming</keyword> The gaming industry is progressing, taking complete advantage of the latest developments in technology, software, better internet services, gadgets, cloud technology and more. In the Indian scenario, there is an explosive growth of gamers in this booming industry with creative and engaging content being an important aspect of the system. With more games introduced and with more people joining the pool, more brands are shifting their focus on marketing their brands through these young creators who have an enormous fan following across the age group of 15-30 which is the most targeted audience in advertising terms for both endemic and non-endemic brands. Gaming content has begun to penetrate the Tier II, Tier III locations, and beyond, giving vernacular content creators a chance to grow. With Hindi &amp; Tamil being the two most popular languages in streaming in India, it will surely gain more prominence in the coming time. More people will watch game streaming. Audiences tend to admire their creators and feel more connected to them due to their high level of engagement. The future of gaming beholds a lot and a stronger and classified gaming ecosystem is on the rise. Tarun Gupta, Founder, <keyword id="10820861" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ultimate-battle" source="Orion">Ultimate Battle</keyword> Games and gaming content are highly engaging and we're seeing a huge spike in average and concurrent viewership for gaming content. The consumers are very dynamic and their attention span size has decreased noticeably in GenZ. We see short gaming video content to witness a never seen before hype in the gaming community. The mobile gaming market is expanding in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and we'll witness a rise in engagement in games, viewership, and content creation. Young gamers will play engaging games, consume fast-paced engaging content, and want to socialize with gamers often simultaneously. This will lead to more virtual world socialization among the young generation and higher consumption of gaming content. As such, 2022 will usher higher inclination by brands into the gaming industry to target the young age group of 18 to 25. With many startups and organizations focusing on gaming and esports, we'll see a spike in Esports events and team IPs being created. This will boost the gaming ecosystem in India and open multiple opportunities in careers for gamers and IT professionals. Roland Landers, CEO, <keyword id="3634002" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="All-India-Gaming-Federation" source="Orion">All India Gaming Federation</keyword> The Indian gaming industry along with the M&amp;E segment has now become one of the fastest growing sectors in India with around 7.3 Bn downloads in recent years. It has emerged as an important avenue due to a multitude of favorable factors such as young and tech-savvy population, affordable availability of feature-packed smartphones, better internet connectivity, and an overall technological development. The move has also accelerated the growth of multi gaming format in the online gaming space. The Indian gaming industry is expected to reach 3 billion by 2025 and is now projected to grow faster than the global online gaming segment. The industry currently employs 40,000 people in direct jobs and by 2024 the online skill gaming industry is expected to employ around 2 lakh people. This growth will further lead to revenue generation for the country, driven by ease of payment, better security and instant withdrawal of winnings etc. As the regulatory landscape is also evolving and positive judgments are expected from many states, we as an industry leader look forward to an exciting year for this sunrise sector. With its exponential growth, the gaming industry will also attract international investors to invest in the Indian market. Sameer Barde, CEO - E Gaming Federation <div type="image" title="IMG-20220110-WA0005" msid="88826278" hostid="261"></div> Online gaming will become increasingly mainstream and find acceptance as a source of entertainment in 2022. This year, we anticipate a growth rate of over 35 % for the sector as a whole. However, for this to happen, we hope to see government stakeholders accepting the need for regulation to protect the player and industry interests. Increasing monetization and adoption of new-age technology including blockchain and NFTs in the gaming ecosystem will be seen. We expect a larger number of players moving from free-to-play to paying-to-play, in-game purchases, and skill gaming. Industry players will develop new and exciting games for users based on traditional games and Indian themes, keeping the PM’s vision in mind. Additionally, e-Sports being a medal sport in the forthcoming Asian Games in September will result in a significant increase both in terms of acceptance and interest. All in all, we at EGF are excited and believe that this will be a bellwether year for the entire industry. Bhavin Pandya, CEO and Co-Founder, <keyword id="8913431" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Games24x7" source="Orion">Games24x7</keyword> The Indian online skill gaming industry is poised for tremendous growth. With the right support particularly in the form of progressive policy structures, gaming can spur a second software revolution in India. As of today, this industry offers direct employment to almost 50,000 people. It is also a major source of taxation for the exchequer. In addition, the sector has multiplier benefits for several other domains including fintech, banking, semiconductors, animation, and other aspects of Information Technology. The sector has witnessed significant investments from marquee international investors and accounts of several Unicorns. With the right encouragement and support, India can emerge as a global pioneer in gaming technology. Ankur Singh, CEO and Founder, Witzeal We believe that the gaming sector will continue to expand with the high end adoption of AI and data science to understand and provide users experiences they wish for. Future of gaming will likely be based upon newer technologies like Blockchain and its active usage would prove fruitful in the years to come. Another key trend to look forward to is the penetration of gaming in rural areas because the penetration of internet and smartphones is on a gradual rise. Yashash Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, <keyword id="3212361" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gamezop" source="Orion">Gamezop</keyword> <div type="image" title="RIC_8498" msid="88758667" hostid="261"></div> Blockchain gaming is shaping up to be a very interesting space. We are already seeing very interesting games emerge with blockchain and NFTs at the heart of all the action. Games like Axie Infinity have popularized the Play to Earn mechanic and they have been able to scale engagement as well as monetization to huge numbers. Take it one step further and we see that decentralization is fundamentally changing how companies operate: all the way from raising money, to day-to-day governance. This is most notable in DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organisations), which follow a bottom-up, community-driven management style. We are excited to see the blockchain gaming projects that emerge from India! Vaibhav Odhekar, COO &amp; Co-Founder, <keyword id="2734866" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="POKKT" source="Orion">POKKT</keyword> The gaming industry is constantly evolving, and its popularity will continue to rise. In the last three years, the sector has welcomed 500 million new gamers globally. New technological breakthroughs such as virtual reality have provided another dimension towards entertainment in this domain. For many young folks, the industry has also become a viable career option. Talking about the trends- The audience will continue to diversify in the coming years. So, instead of a male/female audience bias, we'll have a nearly 50-50 gender split, with a lot more older people joining the online gaming space. India is expected to create more global content. Although the percentage is extremely low right now, as more high-quality content is created in India, the trend will improve. Also, e-Sports as a category will grow in popularity. In 2022, there will be a significant increase in the number of movies released worldwide. So, the biggest trend we anticipate to see is a lot more games based on movie franchises. Gaming has its own history of adapting films and gamers are enthralled by such games. Video games are a vast medium that covers a wide variety of genres and experiences that can only be experienced in games, along with contributions from a population from all over the world. Even while many modern games are inspired by movies, they are nevertheless unique in their own way and we expect them to expand in the coming years.

Gaming: What to expect from the Indian gaming and e-sports industry in 2022

<ul><li>As we enter a brand new year, we want to crystal gaze into what the year holds for us.</li><li>The global pandemic has spawned strong growth in influencer marketing and creators have cemented their position boosting consumer trust in 2022.</li><li>In our first year-ender, we take a closer look at the year gone by, speak to influencer marketing experts to understand what does the future hold and how is the ecosystem shaping up.</li><li>They also shared with us a few key trends and opportunities that the industry will bring forth as we move forward in 2022.</li></ul>After brands and advertisers slashed their marketing budgets for traditional mediums in 2020, digital marketing took the center stage. Within the hemisphere of digital marketing, social media became a leading channel that drove brand discovery and purchase decisions last year. Influencer marketing also got its due recognition as brands looked for affordable and niche options to reach out to GenZ and Millennials. Marketers also realised that the influencer marketing model is well-suited in a time in which the audience is looking for some inspiration to keep going on, searching DIY videos as they turned home chefs, learning new recipes or focusing on self-care. Creators played an integral role in building a sense of community -- something people searched for when living in isolation. Bolstered by prolonged stay-at-home periods, consumers also steered away from pictures and text and started consuming more videos than ever before. According to Bain and Company, the online video user base in India has increased to more than 350 million people, growing 24% in the last three years. Today, Indian smartphone users spend about 4.8 hours on their devices daily, of which a staggering one hour on average is spent consuming videos, said the report. So, as video consumption scales and attention span reduces every day, influencer marketing offers quick turnaround time and personalisation. Another key factor that attracted brands to this medium is the bond of trust and authenticity that creators share with their fans, giving brands an opportunity to reach out to a niche audience. As a result, the influencer marketing industry has gone through a severe transformation in a short time, becoming a mainstream marketing vehicle. Brands have started looking for agencies that can provide them with interesting campaign ideas rather than just a list of influencers and expected reach. They are more involved in their marketing campaigns and have started exploring creative ideas collectively with the influencers to create engaging content. So, in 2021, we saw brands moving away from ‘one-time associations’ for single posts to actually collaborating with influencers for long-time deals. GroupM and INCA’s study conducted earlier this year also proves how significant influencer marketing is to a marketer today. It said that influencer marketing has become a top priority for marketers this year, as every other leader indicated a budget growth of more than 25% in 2021. INCA’s report further went on to predict that the Influencer Marketing industry is poised to grow at a CAGR of 25% for the next decade, reaching a size of Rs 2200 crore in 2025. As per the report, celebrities corner only 27% of the marketing dollars while a bulk of 73% are taken by digital influencers. Keeping in mind how 2020 and its aftermath in 2021 revolutionised the digital industry, we reached out to a few influencer marketing agencies to understand what does the future hold and how is the ecosystem shaping up. Here is what they said: Neel Gogia, Co-founder of IPLIX Media: The upcoming year is bringing a plethora of opportunities for existing as well as aspiring influencers and creators. The first and foremost are long-term partnerships. With each passing day, more and more brands are realizing that ROI delivered by influencer marketing is unparalleled. Therefore, they are increasingly investing in influencer marketing, and especially in long-term partnerships. Long-term partnerships help them build advocates and ultimately, increase trust amongst the audience. Apart from that, the regionalization of content will increasingly be gaining momentum in the upcoming years. In fact, global brands and platforms are already experimenting with it. Recently, LinkedIn launched its regional version after almost every major global networking app available in the country across Facebook, Twitter and Clubhouse have already introduced it to support the multiple Indian languages. In this wave of regionalization, the local languages that are gaining popularity are Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Malayalam, etc. Dharika Merchant, COO, WORD and Alchemy Group: The influencer marketing industry in 2022 will see a huge rise in the demand for micro influencers. Micro influencers' share in the total industry increased drastically last year due to brands favouring them owing to their higher engagement rates &amp; affordability. The industry is expected to shift to a more data-driven approach which will become the primary reason for the rise in demand for micro-influencers. Brands are now willing to work on branded content with micro influencers due to favourable data and better insights. It also leads to an effortless long-term relationship between the brand and the influencer thereby ensuring an always-on marketing approach. This always-on influencer marketing approach portrays brand loyalty from an influencer point of view and adds onto credibility of the brand and better brand recall. Without a doubt, focus on micro influencers will be one of the leading trends for the industry in the coming year and we’re excited to see how this changes the face of branded content. Pranav Panpalia, founder, OpraahFx: ‘Live streaming’ is all set to emerge as one of the widely accepted and used influencer marketing tools in the coming year. Live-eCommerce as a concept was started in China last year during the pandemic and got popularized amongst other nations. Live-eCommerce is a great way to connect with the right set of target audiences and turn them into ‘customers’ of the brand the influencers are vouching for. This is one of the best ways for brands who are focusing on ‘ROI’ driven campaigns and not on awareness or brand-building. In India, with many start-ups and MSME brands now focusing on performance-driven influencer marketing campaigns, the concept of live-eCommerce will be practiced and this shall disrupt the influencer marketing industry. Brands promoting highly accessible and affordable products and services are more likely to make use of this new concept. Alongside, live streaming is known for enabling better connections between creators, brands, and consumers as it is a more authentic and real-time content piece. It also provides an opportunity for consumers to interact with their favorite creators, thereby there is a larger scope for personalisation, feedback, and results-driven conversations. Currently, the live-streaming concept is highly dominated by gamers, and this trend will soon see a shift. The live-stream feature provides an equal opportunity and benefits to influencers and content creators of all kinds if used strategically and creatively. For eg: Content creator, Viya from China live-streams about beauty, cosmetics, real estate, cars, and rockets; and is gaining immense out of such brand deals. Likewise, we too are soon to witness such a trend in India. Apaksh Gupta, CEO and Founder, One Impression: While there are going to be plenty of emerging trends that we are expecting to take over the influencer marketing economy in 2022, one particular trend that is going to stand out is the mainstreaming of the metaverse. The way the world of content and social media is evolving, we can easily assume now that the metaverse is here. While the pandemic forced brands to jump on the digital marketing train, newer technological innovation and integration of various platforms to build a virtual ecosystem is bringing the dream of Metaverse closer every day. 2022 is going to witness a lot of investments from brands into mainstreaming the metaverse. We have already seen in 2021 that bigger brands like Nike and Verizon are already initiating their strategies to get a head start in this league from their competitors. Gucci has also launched its limited collection for Roblox letting players customise their avatars in Gucci products. In 2022, we will be witnessing an increase in these numbers of brands who will be deploying technologies like AR/VR with influencers and content creators at the centre of them to promote their products and services. Rohan Tyagi, VP Strategy and Operations, India - Triller: The advent of technologies like NFTs, Crypto has opened up new engagement and revenue channels for brands. In fact, there is great affinity toward it among GenZ and millennial buyers. Through NFTs, brands can disrupt their markets with new strategies to raise awareness, develop new consumer journeys and increase customer value and loyalty. However, In the decentralized world of Web3, the power has shifted back to creators, and brands looking to leverage technologies like NFTs know that they cant simply buy into the space. Community interest today is driven by creators as a result there will be an uptick in brands partnering with influencers to leverage the opportunities afforded by NFTs. While influencer marketing is a fairly young industry with Metaverse becoming mainstream there is a huge likelihood of it taking off quickly and becoming a multibillion-dollar economy in the virtual world. In fact, this may happen much quicker than we think. Aayush Tiwari, VP - Talent Management &amp; Music Business, Monk Entertainment: One pretty evident trend is the dominance of short video content. We’ve noticed a wave of crisp crunchable 15-30 seconder bites taking the internet by storm in 2021 already, bound to multiply in the coming years. Factors that act as a catalyst are low entry barrier, easy to make, large-scale consumption. What drives the short video ecosystem is the ability of it getting recreated under the banner of ‘trends.’ Every week, there are hypothetically ten new trends which garner lakhs of videos lifting the consumption and UGC levels to higher levels. Dominant social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube launched their verticals, and new players like MOJ, TakaTak, Chingari entered the game encouraging regional tiers to showcase their talent. Even Netflix launched a short vertical that features the best scenes from their series, which people are binge-ing on the go. Vaibhav Odhekar, Managing director India &amp; Middle East, AnyMind Group: Influencer marketing has seen few major changes from the consumer approach towards the whole marketing and influencer segment and monetization of platforms. With the rising social media consumption and engagement, D2C brands across segments have moved towards influencers marketing. As per 'State of Influencer in Asia 2021' report by Antag, the most popular are Art &amp; Entertainment, Food &amp; Beverage and Fashion &amp; Beauty while Finance, health &amp; wellness are also attractive eyeballs and set to become trendsetting in 2022. One of the trends that stood out this year was Influencers creating and launching their own brands, driven by their expertise in a certain field, passion or life experience. Along with Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce, Consumer behavior shifts driven by the pandemic have accelerated trends. We've also noticed a trend of rising social commerce which will stay. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter have already made such features available in some parts of the world. The report also found out that Youtube is the most used social media platform in India. As we move towards 2022, more trends will see a spike and the ongoing trends will keep growing with the brands' demand. Sagar Pushp, Co-founder and CEO, ClanConnect: Two major trends are emerging in the influencer marketing sector and will likely dominate in 2022. Firstly, the creator economy will move towards a subscription-led model wherein true fans will be able to pay a sum of money to access exclusive influencer content. Such premium content will not be available on public platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Secondly, the use of NFTs is going to skyrocket over the next year. With NFTs, users can assume ownership of content such as images, videos, or sound clips, unlocking more revenue opportunities for creators. Pulkit Agrawal, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Trell: Two words: Social Commerce. While the pandemic has given a massive push to India’s creator economy, the industry will thrive in 2022, with newer shopping and engagement models being adopted across the ecosystem. India’s GenZ and millennial shoppers are now harder to reach through traditional media channels and prefer social media networks to make purchase decisions. Hence, brands now want to integrate social and commerce to drive higher awareness, consideration, and sales. Further, Vertical videos are bound to take the centre stage in the coming year, which means long-form or episodic content will create opportunities for influencers to integrate brands into their content with the help of data-driven insights- brands and influencers will churn more personalized content for their followers’ The rise of social commerce in India will also give a fillip to digital-first brands while opening up newer avenues for influencers to monetize from brand collaborations, making it a full-time profession. With this, the industry is all set to create transforming shopping experiences and become more interactive, immersive, and entertaining. Live commerce is one of such innovations where an influencer demonstrates product usability in a live video setting, driving higher visibility, excitement, and loyalty for consumers. Gautam Madhavan, CEO, Mad Influence: Short Video and Live Stream will dominate in the influencer marketing industry. Consumers are becoming restless in watching long format videos - hence they want to consume on-the-go type of content. Original Content will be one of the key factors driving this. Content Quality and content authenticity is something consumers will be wanting.

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