“Bridging the Digital Divide” - How Can Traditional Brands Go Digital?

WATBlog Panel On Bridging the Digital Divide examines the challenges and opportunities faced by traditional brands that have gone or are looking to go digital with their campaigns. The discussion will examine the roles of key agents of this transformation and that of digital advertising. Some of the leading lights in Indian Digital Space will highlight the complex roots and dynamics of traditional media vs digital media development and will point out insights that can help traditional brands make the transition.

What do we expect to answer Via the Panel

* How have traditional companies jumped on to the Digital Bandwagon? Or Have They?

* What are the steps required to bridge the Traditional –Digital Divide? More Spends?

* Roles of Advertisers, Publishers and Technologists in bridging this gap?

* Digital Media Marketing Tools That Traditional Companies need to look at?

* How can organisations adapt to and capitalise on the digital media developments expected in the next 12 months?

* What is needed? In terms of People, Standards, Technology and Investments to make this happen?

Who should attend and why?

Digital Media Professionals - All those connected with the digital media space be it web or mobile publishers, digital advertising/marketing enthusiasts or technology analysts/developers should attend this event to get a perspective on how traditional media needs to look at digital and how digital needs to be evangelized to traditional media.

Traditional Company Professionals - Those belonging to traditional media can learn a lot from this panel on what to look forward to from the digital media and how their company can go digital in the years to come.

The discussion will be followed by cocktails, snacks and a mixer at The Metropolitan Hotel, New Delhi 

Presenting Sponsor

Cocktails Sponsor

Details of Event

Date: 12th December, 2008

Time:7PM – 9PM

Venue: Capitol, The Metropolitan Hotel, Bangla Saheb Road, Near Connaught Place, New Delhi

The Discussion: "Bridging the Digital Divide – How can Traditional Go Digital”

Moderator: Rajiv Dingra Founder & Chief Blogger, WATBlog.com

Panelists

Here is a introduction to the panelists who have confirmed:

Sidharth Rao - Webchutney CEO & Founder Goose Fish Media Ventures - A college drop out who began his career as a copywriter before launching Webchutney. He co-founded the agency in 1999 as a creative shop which now offers a range of internet marketing solutions to a large portfolio of globally recognized brands and companies. Webchutney is now a funded company with Capital18 investing the moolah.

Sidharth is still under 30 years of age and is probably one of the most 'uncorporate' CEO's you will ever meet. He is extremely down to earth, casual and seriously funny. But behind the casual and funny exterior is a sharp, very aggressive and now very experience internet entrepreneur. He has also branched out beyond Webchutney by establishing Goosefish Media Ventures which incubates online content driven media properties. His latest foray is into the world of ad networks via NetworkPlay which is headed by Rammohan (more on networkplay here).

We expect startling insights and frank opinions from Sidharth at the panel.

Alok Mittal - Managing Director - Canaan Partners India - Alok Mittal is one of the early success stories of the web as he was the Co-Founder of JobsAhead which was later sold to Monster.com. Alok Mittal joined Canaan (a venture capital firm) in March 2006 to lead the firm’s India operations. In India, Alok focuses on investments in digital media and mobile companies, as well as innovators in managed software services.

Alok was also a founding member of Indian Angel Network (formerly, Band of Angels India). Alok has played a key role in Canaan’s investments in BharatMatrimony, iYogi, and Cellcast.

A straight speaking VC who is always available to guide young entrepreneurs. Alok has been a speaker on multiple panel's before and is know for his sharp and precise insights and his ability to bring out the key points in a discussion.

Sanjay Trehan - CEO - NDTV Convergence - Sanjay has years of experience in heading digital divisions for traditional media companoes. He joined NDTV NDTVConvergence Ltd as CEO has been instrumental in launching many initiatives like the wap portal, mobile.ndtv.com, NDTVkhabar.com, a rich media Hindi portal, Nogyan.com, an attitudinal youth portal and a US edition of ndtv.com.

Prior to joining NDTV, He was Vice President Broadband and Web 2.0 at Indiatimes, where he took Indiatimes into the online Gaming arena. Prior to that, He was the Chief of Internet Business at the Hindustan Times.
Besides for heading digital businesses Sanjay had also co-founded the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) which is a well known industry body now.

Sanjay is an avid blogger and poet himself and is one of the few head honcho's in India who believe and propagate the power of social media.

I M Swaminathan,VP - Audience Head ,Brand manager of Times Internet Limited.

I.M.Swaminathan has joined TIL as Audience Head and Brand Manager of Indiatimes. Swami reports to Mr. Sunil Rajshekhar and work closely with Business Heads of Teams across the Indiatimes channels for developing and executing the brand strategies and plans for the growth in online properties.  Swami has BE and MBA degrees and comes to us with a rich experience in media spread across print, television and Internet companies

In his last assignment Swami was Director, Communication and Community Products at Yahoo India, where he lead various product teams as In this role he was heading Yahoo! Mail, Instant Messenger, Groups, Movies, Cricket and other properties.   Swami has launched many new products like Profiles, Language versions of mail and messenger and relaunched Cricket. Apart from growing audience numbers and strengthening the market share for Yahoo!. he was also the official spokesperson of Yahoo! India.

Neeraj Sanan, VP -   Media Content and Communications Services (MCCS)

Neeraj Sanan is currently Vice President, MCCS the company that runs three news channels STAR News, STAR Majha, STAR Ananda in addition to their websites and mobile business. He is an electronics & electricla communications Engineer from PEC Chandigarh and an MBA from IIM Bangalore. He has 14 years of sales and marketing experience across various companies. An astute marketeer, he started his career with Asian Paints, moved to ICI Paints, Wrigleys, Dabur and Web18 before MCCS. He has been associated with launch of a few consumer brands.

Final Agenda 
7:00pm - Keynote Address 
7:15pm - 8:15pm - Panel Discussion 
8:15pm - 8:45pm - Q&A 
8:45pm - 9:00pm - Closing Remark 
9pm onwards – Cocktails, Snacks & Networking