Category: Madison

Madison forays into in-film advt, film marketing

MUMBAI: Sam Balsara’s Madison Communications has announced its entry into the field of in-film advertising and marketing of films and music.

For the same, Madison has acquired a new firm operating called TeamWorks fp&e. The new company with an authorised share capital of Rs 10 million will operate under the name of Madison Teamworks FP&e (MATES).

TeamWorks FP&e, which was the brainchild of Darshana Goradia (ex-Sony TV) and Sooraj Bhalla (executive producer of the film Sharaarat), already has business in hand of over Rs 30 million and has 14 clients like LML, Frito Lays, Reebok, Castrol, etc.

TeamWorks FP&e is currently working on several films including AB Corp’s Virudh, Creative Eye’s Aabra-ka-Daabra, Entertainment One’s Waqt and various films from Ram Gopal Varma’s – The Factory.

Says Balsara, “We and our clients are constantly looking for new ways to reach the consumer in an impact full manner and with least cost. The high cost of conventional media accompanied by the growing clutter has made in-film advertising an exciting and viable opportunity. On the other hand producers who are also constantly under pressure of making more lavish productions and then finding ways and means of meeting such expenditure are now more open to commercial exploitation of their properties. In keeping with the Madison philosophy, we will offer a highly specialised expert service in this area in a completely transparent manner, which should be welcome by both clients and film producers.”

He further added, “Between Madison, Darshana and Sooraj, I believe we have what it takes to make a successful foray in this area: An understanding of brands and their requirements, client trust and confidence, creative abilities to weave brand stories into film plots, an understanding of producers’ concerns and beliefs, a knowledge of what is happening in the film market and finally selling skills. Over the last few months we have had several discussions with Darshana and Sooraj and I was extremely impressed with their entrepreneurial spirit and with what they had achieved in a short time with very little resources.”

TeamWorks FP&e has successfully managed to get Shahrukh Khan to wear Levis jeans with Reebok shoes and have a cup of coffee at Café Coffee Day or bite a pizza at Pizza Hut. All this happened in the film Main Hoon Naa, where the mentioned advertisers experienced the medium called cinema through the relevant in-film advertising.

Consider another example of their work, in a film called Kyun Ho Gaya Naa, where Vivek Oberoi is shown as a rally enthusiast and hence his introduction in the film is wearing an Overall with Lancer, Castrol, Ceat and Cafe Coffee Day logos. The extensive rally sequence saw Oberoi zooming ahead in an interestingly designed Mitsubishi Lancer Car, with a pit-stop where the Ceat Radials were changed and Castrol GTX Magnatec was poured into the winners car with close shots of the product pack and the logos.

MATES is planning on rendering its services in the area of film promotions and marketing as well. Says Goradia, who will head MATES as CEO, “I am sure that advertiser spends in this area are going to grow by leaps and bounds in the near future and our joint venture with Madison enables us to operate on a wider canvas and with adequate resources to get a good share of this market. Madison is like a dream come true, not only because of its enormous size and reputation but also because of its liberated entrepreneurial ideology. I have dealt with Madison Media when I was with Sony and know the organisation and have got to respect it for its objective and professional outlook with a focus on deliveries.”

Bhalla, who will be director – content, says, “I believe the new venture will turn under-utilised resources of content into profit for a large number of producers and they should welcome our move. Also, we will be now in capacity to inculcate a corporate and professional culture in the fraternity, which is much needed. On the whole, the marriage with Madison will facilitate entry into untapped areas and markets, quicker and at less cost.”

MATES will be the seventh specialised unit of Madison; other units being Creative, Media, Outdoor, Rural, PR and Retail.

July 20, 2004
Madison bags Hyundai media account

NEW DELHI: Starting the new year on a bright note, Madison Media has bagged the media account of Hyundai Motor India (HMI). The advertising budget of HMI is Rs 600 million. The account was previously handled by Zenith Media.

“Madison’s USP has always been what we do for our clients and the impact managed for media money. And to me there was a fit with the kind of impact, which Hyundai was looking for. I think we won the account due to our dedicated team, servicing and turnaround time,” said Madison general manager Basabdatta Chowdhuri.

For the record, Hyundai chose Madison after two round of presentations. While the initial round was more about credentials, the final round, comprising four agencies, was based on a specific brief. “There is going to be a major change in media strategy in the coming year and the client is looking for an overhaul in its media delivery,” said an industry source.

On the new business, Chowdhuri added, “Hyundai is an aggressive and active account. The company has done tremendously well, celebrating its fastest roll-out of 500,000 cars here. A lot of action is expected this year.”

This is Madison’s first win after Chowdhuri took over as general manager of Madison Delhi office late last year.

July 12, 2004
Madison bags Airtel AOR

MUMBAI: Airtel announced yesterday the appointment of Madison Media to handle its Rs 1 billion media planning and buying account. Percept continues as its outdoors agency.

Seven agencies were in the running to win the account that was earlier split between The Media Edge (TME) for media planning while Carat was in charge of media buying.

“As Airtel expands its footprints to the remaining six mobile circles in the country, we will be the only GSM player in the country with such an expanse. As a first step towards synergising business, we have consolidated the media buying and planning functions and entrusted Madison with the responsibility,” Bharti Tele-Ventures, Mobility, Group CMO and Director, Atul Bindal was quoted in a UNI report as saying.

July 10, 2004
Madison Media bags McDonald’s media account

MUMBAI: There seems to be just no stopping Sam Balsara’s Madison Media this year. McDonald’s is the latest on Madison’s chomping block having just won both its media planning and buying duties.

Madison Communications CMD Balsara had this to say about the win, “We are happy to add McDonald’s to our limited but select roster of clients at Madison Media and are confident that our experience and expertise will help us effectively address the needs of McDonalds”.

Amit Jatia, joint venture partner and managing director, McDonald’s [Western India] said, “We are happy to have Madison Media on board and look forward to working with them.”

The McDonald’s account, which industry sources say was worth Rs 80 to 100 million in the 2003-4 fiscal, is expected to grow upwards of Rs 120 million in the coming year. The account was previously with Optimum Media Solutions.

In it was only very recently that McDonald’s moved its creative duties to Leo Burnett switching over from Mudra, which managed it for the last eight years (ever since the fast food major entered the Indian market actually).

It was just last week that Madison Media won the Marico account. The Marico account was worth Rs 288 million in the 2003-4 fiscal and is expected to be worth anywhere in the region of Rs 350 in the coming year, industry sources say.

Other accounts recently won by Madison media include Asian Paints, Cadbury and Hyundai.

July 5, 2004
Madison Creative Delhi bags Bajaj Capital account

MUMBAI: Madison Creative has won the creative duties for Bajaj Capital which is India’s premier financial planning and investment advisory services company.

Madison Communications executive director Prabha Prabhu said, “The new account will add Rs 50 million to the agency’s billings.” According to her, the account came Madison’s way due to sound strategic thinking and great creative work done by the team.

With the Bajaj Capital account, Madison Creative further adds to it’s recent wins of Hindware, Oobe, Daksh services and BenQ.

Bajaj Capital managing director Rajiv Bajaj said, “Bajaj Capital’s endeavour is to strengthen its position as the premier financial planning brand for individual investors. The track record of Madison Creative portrays strengths in partnering brands in their success stories. The agency has the capability of blending strategic planning and good creative development. This is the primary reason why we decided to take them on as our communication partners.”

July 2, 2004
Madison PR on an account winning spree

MUMBAI: Madison Public Relations has been on an account winning spree in the last few weeks. At least five new brands have been added to the agency’s clientele list.

The new wins include – Perfetti Van Melle India Pvt. Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank’s Manhattan Credit Card, Bombay Management Association (the apex body of professional managerial activities in Mumbai), Internet and Online Association and Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), which is a ‘new order’ nationwide, online multi-commodity exchange.

Commenting on the new acquisitions, Madison Public Relations CEO Veena Gidwani said, “We are really happy to have the opportunity to work with these clients. All of them have selected Madison PR in multi-agency pitches. I think that our strong focus on creativity and delivery were the factors that helped us get these businesses.”

Madison Public Relations, a part of Madison Communications, has maintained a sharp growth over the past three years and currently works with blue chip companies like P&G, Sify, Café Coffee Day among many others from the FMCG, IT, pharma, health care, food, jewelery and lifestyle, fashion, engineering and financial services industries.

May 8, 2004
Madison Outdoor pockets remainder instadia rights for Indo-Pak seriesMadison Outdoor pockets remainder instadia rights for Indo-Pak series

MUMBAI: It’s Pakistan ahoy for Sam Balsara’s Madison Outdoor Media Services (Moms). The outdoor marketing and management firm has pocketed the instadia rights for 40 per cent of the total available space at the various venues that the matches will be played from the Pakistan Cricket Board. Harish Thawani’s Nimbus Sport has the right to hawk the remaining 60 per cent space at the stadia.

“We are very excited by Moms foray into sports marketing,” says Madison chairman Sam Balsara, who reveals that five agencies were bidding for the same tender. “Sports marketing is a high potential business and this is a small step which we hope will be a precursor to many bigger steps.”

Moms has an association with Pakistan’s leading outdoor company, Sign Source, with offices in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, which will help the Indian firm in the words of a press release issued a short while ago “ensure efficient and speedy on–the- spot services to advertisers.”

Basically, Moms’ 40 per cent share means that it can vend the instadia space to multinational advertisers whose products are available in Pakistan or companies incorporated in Pakistan. “Only brands of multinational companies which are be available in Pakistan can take up the space through us,” clarifies Balsara.

The Moms press release say the Pakistan Cricket Board has split up the rights between Moms and Nimbus “with a view to granting special concession to products and services sold in Pakistan by multi-national companies or local Pakistan companies.”

Balsara adds that Moms is working on drawing up a rate card for potential advertisers who meet the qualifications in the next two to three days. And Moms’ Arunangshu Ghosh is the contact point in Moms for the same.

February 17, 2004
Madison claims success with programme prediction tool

Media agency Madison’s Programme Predictor (MPP) claims to have accurately predicted ratings for nearly 70 per cent of new programme launches in the last two years.

The MPP is a Madison proprietary tool that predicts initial rating size (one to six weeks) of new shows that helps in making the critical ‘Go’ or ‘No Go’ decisions, using the simulation technique. MPP uses state of the art Genetic Algorithm (GA) to analyse and run the simulation.

Madison conducted studies to predict show ratings, which according to the agency, is a product of People Using Television (PUT) and Channel Share.
Increase in channel share post programme launch
Channel    Programme    Increase in channel share
Star Plus    KBC    2111%
Star Plus    KSBKBT    483%
Star Plus    Kangan    127%
Zee TV    Kohi Apna Sa    83%
Sony    Kkusum    63%
Star Plus    Kasauti Zindagi Kay    29%
Zee TV    Choti Maa….    0%
Star Plus    Jee Mantriji    -50%

While PUT is estimated as TVR values for all channels, channel share is the share of the market that the programme is able to garner. The study, says Madison, demonstrated that PUT base is fairly consistent for a target audience and a time slot, specially for smaller timeframes of 13 weeks, while channel shares tend to be more volatile. These, the study found, were affected by

* existing channel share

* loyalty of competing programmes

* audience flow.

The study noted that if the share of cable and other channels are higher, it is easier for new programme to garner higher share. Similarly, if programmes on competing channels have high loyalty scores, it is intuitive to understand that the new show will have lower initial rating, the study observed.

The agency selected the hugely popular Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi to understand MPP, as the predictor does not rely on a single equation but is entirely dependent on the competitive environment that exists in the slot. While the channel share prior to KSBKBT was highly fragmented, its competing programmes had relatively low loyalty scores. Analysis of audience flow indicated that 30 per cent of existing viewers switch off television and another 30 per cent move to other channels in a random manner.

The MPP, applied to KSBKBT, predicted a huge increase with the help of simulation. The MPP distribution output also indicated that the trend is towards a rising channel share, and that the actual performance of KSBKBT was not significantly different from the forecast.

MPP, however, says the agency, cannot be used accurately for shows launched with unprecedented hype like KBC and Sawaal Dus Crore Ka since it does not explicitly quantify the influence of programme promotion. Madison’s study also observed that MPP could not forecast ratings of live primetime telecast of India playing in cricket matches. It also found that while MPP was fairly accurate in forecasting events like Zee Cine awards, but was not very effective for ‘hyped up’ events like the Hrithik show on Sony. It also does not explicitly capture programme details like genre, storyline and production quality.

May 23, 2002