“Most young and not-so-young corporates are hungry for information”: Dr Sandeep Goyal, Rediffusion

The managing director of Rediffusion breaks down the agency’s latest news curation initiative.

Ad agencies often offer a wide range of services – starting from creative work, to strategic planning, execution and shooting of ad films. Rediffusion’s latest offering is a ‘catch-up’ news site, called ICYMI – In Case You Missed It. The site is targeted at marketing and advertising folks, who want to ‘catch up’ with the latest news across 30 categories.

Some of these categories include digital advertising, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, e-commerce, fintech and crypto, entertainment and gaming, among others. Currently, about 10 of the proposed 30 domains are active on the site. The rest will be populated in the next couple of weeks. Articles of interest will be constantly updated every hour.

ICYMI will run under the banner of The Red Lab (or The Rediffusion Consumer Laboratory), which was launched by Rediffusion in May 2021. The Red Lab is Rediffusion’s dedicated team devoted to tracking and understanding emerging consumer trends, especially in the background of constant change.

Dr Sandeep Goyal, managing director, Rediffusion, explains that people have an appetite for, and are curious about, various emerging disciplines of new age digital domains. Currently, there is a lot of information available on the Internet on everything, from AI to augmented reality (AR); from machine learning to blockchain, and more.

“However, if you are keen to read up on a topic, or explore more, you need to search a lot and know what you are really searching for. With ICYMI, we just decided to create a single destination, where the most current information and articles on digital can be accessed without much effort. Our editorial team will do all the searching, collating and cataloging.”

According to Goyal, the idea was born out of the team’s common experience of constantly looking for information that was current, updated and credible. “So, we felt that if we needed help, it would not be erroneous to presume that others too would benefit from getting all digital updates at a common platform. Hence, ICYMI was initiated.”

He clarifies that ICYMI is not a news site per se, but a ‘catch-up’ site… in case you missed it. “It is a collection and collation of relevant articles curated by smart, young editors, who will look for pieces to publish that are insightful, reflect latest developments and signal new strides in respective fields.”

Goyal mentions that over time, ICYMI will also commission and carry content that reflects a purely Indian viewpoint on subjects, including investments, R&D, VC funding, and more.

“Eventually, this will hopefully become a single destination for all your digital development updates, which you can read, bookmark and share. We are sourcing and attributing the content to the best publications in the world. From those that cover science and technology, to those that look at the business aspects of these tech developments. We are also looking to forge some exclusive partnerships in the content space, but it is still early days.”

He reiterates that ICYMI is driven by knowledge, and it will source authentic, credible and insightful content. The primary target audience is young professionals across industries, who are impacted by technology.

“Most of these young and not-so-young corporates are hungry for information. Also, not everyone knows what exactly interests them because they actually don’t know what they should be looking for. ICYMI takes the pain and frustration out of the discovery process.”

Apart from the main target audience, there is also a secondary audience that ICYMI is looking at. Students in management and technology schools, who can benefit from the content and know more on subjects that offer maximal future opportunities, vis-a-vis careers as well as entrepreneurship.

“We don’t really compete with anyone directly. We are not into ‘breaking news’, or any me-first race. We provide useful information that anyone can browse anytime and, hopefully, gain from the experience. At the same time, we do compete for time and attention against anything else that may have been engaging the reader…”

Goyal reiterates that one can access ICYMI for free. “We welcome all our clients and peers to use the site, and benefit from the curated content that reflects the very latest updates on digital and technology,” he signs off.