Brands
TV to command Rs 25 cr of Droom’s 100 cr marketing budget
MUMBAI: India’s online automobile transactional marketplace Droom is launching a mega promotional campaign with a budget of Rs 100 cr. The new campaign is being launched for television, YouTube, print, digital and social media and will also be seen outdoors on billboards and external installations. The entire campaign is designed to drive traffic and increase consumer awareness and to enhance the sense of pride amongst Indian consumers when it comes to buying a pre-owned vehicle.
Droom, which has reported more than 700% year-on-year revenue, plans to adopt an aggressive performance-linked marketing approach which will see country-wide spread of the advertisements. Automobiles, being a big-ticket item, have a significant gestation period which may last from a minimum one month to a year.
Commenting on the king-size marketing budget, Droom CEO and founder Sandeep Aggarwal said, “Buying a used vehicle is still shrouded in great doubt for many Indian consumers. This year, through our marketing efforts, we hope to instil a sense of pride in the buyers when they purchase a pre-owned automobile. Our focus completely lies in implementing high Return-On-investment promotion options. Furthermore, the 360-degree marketing initiatives will also help us achieve our goal of reaching an annualized GMV of INR 3000 crore by the end of 2016 and INR 5-7,000 crore by the end of 2017 by enhancing consumer tendency to look at the benefits of purchasing their dream vehicles through us.”
Keeping this trend in mind along with the upcoming festive season when the propensity to purchase vehicles is the highest, Droom will be rolling out the marketing initiatives well in advance. Of the total 100cr budget, INR 25 crore has been allocated to TV, outdoor, print and radio advertising and other ATL activities. Considering the huge market available digitally, a further INR 25 crore has been assigned to digital promotional activities such as Search Engine optimization, online ads etc. With the festive season in the offing, deals and discounts would also feature significantly in the marketing budget allocation.
Droom’s marketing campaign would be a round-the-year process with periods of heightened activity. Catering to seven different cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Droom envisions INR 100 crore budget as the minimum threshold, rather than the maximum value allocation, and plans to raise the industry standards of marketing expenditure through its upcoming brand building activities.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
