MAM
Sponsors for Oscar Awards see increase in site traffic
CALIFORNIA: It may have been the least watched Oscar telecast ever in the US but a study shows that TV and Internet advertisers have reason to celebrate.
Feedback Research, a division of The Gator Corporation a behavioural marketing company, conducted an independent analysis. A press release from the company says that its analysis has shown that Diet Pepsi’s online sponsorship of the top Oscar related Web site Yahoo! Movies Academy Awards site – http://www.movies.yahoo.com – generated significant increases in its brand awareness.
In addition, many Academy Awards television advertisers in the US, including Cadillac, Pepsi and Charles Schwab, generated a spike in online traffic to their sites on Sunday evening.
Of Gator’s 35 million active users, approximately 650,000 viewed the Yahoo! Movies Oscar Web site in the week leading up to the show. Feedback Research measured user response to the Diet Pepsi sponsorship and conducted a survey with a sample of 375 users who had recently viewed the site.
A second Feedback Research survey was conducted among 60,000 users during the Academy Awards. Finally, Feedback Research assessed online traffic to Web sites of companies who ran television ads during the show. The results indicate the following:
– The line separating the use of television and Internet is blurring. 20 per cent of Internet users were online at the same time they watched the Academy Awards.
– There was a 20 per cent recall of the Diet Pepsi sponsorship of the Take Home A Theater sweepstakes on the Yahoo movies site. For every person clicking on the Diet Pepsi ad, three people navigated to the Diet Pepsi sweepstakes page on their own.
– TV ads pull viewers to the web. Cadillac, Pepsi, and Charles Schwab were major advertisers during the Academy Awards. The TVCs run by them generated a significant spike in traffic to their Web sites during that time period. For Cadillac it was an increase of 75 per cent, for Pepsi 61 per cent and for Charles Schwab 14 per cent.
The news gets better. Between 78 – 98 per cent of the traffic to each of these sites was from consumers who had not viewed these sites in the past three weeks.
As reported earlier this week by indiantelevision.com, the news for ABC did not make for happy reading. The broadcasters three-and-a-half hour live broadcast of the ceremony, garnered a household rating of 20.4, the lowest level going back to the very first televised Oscar show in 1953.
Feedback Research offers a breakthrough way to communicate one-to-one with over 30 million consumers while they surf the Web. Its technology makes it possible for advertisers to gather data from consumers based on their actual online behaviour, says a release.The Gator Corporation works with software developers to create ad-supported software.
Brands
Jubilant FoodWorks faces Rs 47.5 crore GST demand, plans appeal
Tax authorities flag alleged misclassification of restaurant services
MUMBAI:Â Jubilant FoodWorks Limited has landed in a tax tussle after receiving a GST demand of Rs 47.5 crore from the office of the additional commissioner of CGST and central excise in Thane, Maharashtra.
The order, issued under the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, relates to an alleged incorrect classification of certain services under the category of restaurant services. According to the tax authorities, this classification resulted in a short payment of goods and services tax for the period between the financial years 2019-20 and 2021-22.
The demand includes Rs 47.5 crore in GST along with an equal amount as penalty, in addition to applicable interest. The order was received by the company on March 13, 2026.
In a regulatory filing to the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, the company said it disagrees with the order and believes its arguments were not adequately considered.
The company is preparing to challenge the decision and plans to file an appeal. It added that once the redressal process is complete, the demand is likely to be dropped.
Despite the sizeable figure attached to the notice, the company said it does not expect any material impact on its financials, operations or other activities.
The disclosure was signed by Suman Hegde, EVP and chief financial officer, who confirmed that the company received the order at 19:06 IST on March 13 and has already initiated steps to contest it.
The development places the quick service restaurant major in the middle of a tax debate that could hinge on how certain restaurant-linked services are classified under GST rules. For now, the company appears ready to take the matter from the tax office to the appeals desk.
