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ShareRoot signs UGC contract with partner agency
MUMBAI: ShareRoot has secured an additional contract through its partnership with the marketing agency MMGY Global. ShareRoot offers a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that works with brands and digital agencies to easily find and legally source UGC.
UGC (user-generated content) is continuing to emerge as a must-have tool for businesses, brands and marketers across a range of industry verticals. Industry data shows that visitors spend 90 per cent more time on websites that include UGC galleries.
The revenue-generating contract is for an initial three-month pilot trial of ShareRoot’s unique cloud-based legal rights management (LRM) platform for UGC within MMGY’s hotel clients that manage hotel portfolios of over 1,000 properties and revenues of more than US $ 140 million per annum.
ShareRoot chief revenue officer Scott Sorochak said: “This pilot contract is indicative of our strengthening sales pipeline and the recent success in our travel and hospitality vertical and is further validation for SRO’s ongoing strategy of adding new features to the UGC platform to drive sales and
revenue growth this financial year.”
Sorochak stated: “This revenue-generating contract is for an initial three-month trial of our UGC platform with the potential for a longer-term deal starting in 2018. The securing of this contract further increases the relevance and effectiveness of ShareRoot’s UGC platform for the tourism and hospitality sector.”
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Talking heads: TV9’s chief takes the host’s chair with style — but could do with a laugh
Barun Das has swapped the boardroom for the studio and is pulling off a polished interview show — mostly
MUMBAI: There is something quietly audacious about a media chief who decides that running a television empire is not quite enough and plants himself in front of the camera for a good chinwag with the great and the good. Barun Das, chief executive of TV9 Network, has done precisely that, and for the most part, he carries it off with considerable aplomb.
Duologue with Barun Das, now in its fourth season on JioHotstar, is exactly what it says on the tin: two people, two chairs, no frills. In the earlier seasons, Das has sat across from a rather stellar roster, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Aparna Sen, Viswanathan Anand, Kiran Rao, among many other renowned names. And in the fourth instalment he has had guests of the likes of Aamir Khan, Sourav Ganguly, Bianca Balti (Italian super model and cancer survivor), Lothar Matthäus (German football World Cup-winning captain). Throughout, he has coaxed from them nuggets that their publicists would probably rather keep under wraps. Cricket, relationships, spirituality, acting, health, behind-the-scenes machinations that plague politics, intellect, nepotism, nothing is entirely off the table.
Das’s greatest asset is his manner. Unhurried, well-dressed and disarmingly calm, he has the rare gift of making his guests feel so thoroughly at ease that they occasionally forget they are being filmed for television. The questions arrive softly, like a spinner tossing up a googly rather than a fast bowler hurling bouncers, and more often than not, they draw out a telling answer. He has no cue cards or teleprompter to help him along, which is probably a rarity for a host. Some credit must go to the research team operating quietly in the wings, who evidently do their homework so that Das does not have to fumble for his.
Where Duologue stumbles, however, is in its almost determined refusal to lighten up. Each 45-minute episode carries the solemn weight of a budget speech. A dash of wit, a moment of mischief, the odd belly laugh, none of it makes an appearance. Serious conversation has its place, but even the most earnest of interviewers, think David Frost at his best, knew when to let the air out of the room.
Das has built something worth watching. He simply needs to remind himself, and his guests, that a smile never hurt anyone.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5.
Available on JioHotstar.
