MUMBAI: Indian advertising agency Ozone Media has partnered with Sony Pictures’ Crackle (formerly known as Grouper) in order to increase awareness and publicity among Indian viewers.

Crackle is a streaming entertainment network dedicated to discovering, promoting and distributing emerging video creators. It also offers multi-platform, global syndication network across Sony devices, IPTV, social networks and viral web.

“The number of broadband Internet users is steadily increasing in India, providing us an opportunity to pursue online video advertising in the region. Ozone is an ideal partner to strengthen Crackle’s presence in India. Given India’s rich film heritage, we think consumers here will have an appreciation of the level of quality videos Crackle delivers,” said Sony Pictures Television senior vice president digital sales Travis Howe.

Ozone Media founder and CEO Kiran Gopinath added, “We have been striving to offer innovative solutions in the Internet advertising space and this partnership with Crackle would herald a new chapter for Indian advertisers and make Internet advertising a compelling option for advertisers. We call it the convergence of media as these 15-20 seconds videos seek to bridge the gap between television and Internet. By partnering with Crackle, we have a great opportunity to integrate the world’s best video advertising solution and Ozone’s offerings and offer value-added service to advertisers.”

As a part of the deal, advertisements would appear on each channels’ homepage, in addition to airing within the video player.