MAM
Playwin sets aside Rs 200 m. for ad blitz
MUMBAI: It’s paying out big money. And not just in prizes.
Playwin, the online lottery wing of Subhash Chandra’s empire, has set aside a mammoth budget of nearly Rs 200 million for promoting the newly launched Maharashtra lottery for the first two months. Full page advertisements in daily newspapers and an extensive outdoor presence mark Playwin’s promotions. A recurring presence on all of Zee’s channels is an added bonus for the online venture.
Playwin head Sanjay Das says the Bonus Ball scheme launched in Maharashtra in December 2002 and Maha Lotto, that followed it last week, have met their initial targets in terms of ticket sales. The profile of the targeted customer has changed, says Das, as Maha Lotto requires participants to part with Rs 100 for a ticket. While the returns promised are equally huge, Das says the company, which earlier targeted the younger set and the middle and lower middle classes, is now also looking at targeting the office goers and higher end executives, luring them with creative ads across media. “It is an FMCG product, and we have to sell it like one,” says Das.
All three of agencies employed by Playwin for the purpose – Ambience, Saatchi & Saatchi and O&M, as well as Madison – the agency of record, have been roped in to create the buzz required around the online lottery to lure in more of first time customers.
Das says the company has also instituted an inhouse research team that has been meticulously monitoring the effectiveness of the ads across geographical locations, as well among different age and class groups, feedback from which is being used to create the next set of ads.
While Playwin’s ambitious plans of spreading its wings across other states may have got a setback with the Tamil Nadu government issuing a blanket ban on the sale of all lotteries on Thursday, Das says the company is still eyeing the markets of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab, among others. “We will keep launching in different states, in keeping with the regulatory environment in those states.”
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
