ITV

Category: Brands

  • IPL: DBS Bank reaffirms partnership with Rising Pune Supergiant

    MUMBAI: DBS Bank Limited (DBS) has announced its partnership with the Indian Premier League cricket team Rising Pune Supergiant for the second consecutive year. Under the arrangement, DBS Bank will be the Associate Sponsor of the Pune-based team which is led by Australian captain Steve Smith and coached by former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming.

    DBS India group strategic marketing & communications executive Sheran Mehra said: “Rising Pune Supergiant is a newly revamped team this year and certainly the dark horse of the 10th edition of IPL. As a brand, we see real value in continuing to partner with Rising Pune Supergiant and being present on a platform like IPL helps us to resonate with customers and build affinity through unique and joyful experiences.”

    Rising Pune Supergiant CEO Raghu Iyer said, “Their support and trust in the franchise is extremely motivating as we hope to be a force in IPL 2017, similar to how DBS Bank has been a disrupting force in India’s digital banking journey.”

    As associate sponsor, DBS will enjoy a range of rights and entitlements to display its logo on platforms that include the team’s official cap and helmet and other marketing related collaterals. It will also have in stadia branding, premium hospitality and match tickets, and access to the Rising Pune Supergiant players.

    DBS will launch campaigns and contests which will give an opportunity to customers to watch some exciting matches. The association will allow DBS to reinforce its brand and get recognised as a contemporary Asian bank that is shaping the future of banking so that customers can live more and bank less.

    DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia, with over 280 branches across 18 markets. Owned by RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group chairman owned by Sanjiv Goenka, Rising Pune Supergiant is a team that is committed to come up with its best even in the worst situation.

  • IPL: Gionee associates with KKR & RCB

    MUMBAI: Gionee India has announced its association with the Bengaluru franchise of the Indian Premier League Team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, as their presenting sponsors for the tenth edition of the annual cricketing extravaganza.

    Gionee is already the principal sponsor of the Kolkata franchise – Kolkata Knight Riders, thus becoming the first brand to sponsor front jerseys of two IPL teams in the same edition.

    Gionee which is highlighting its focus on Selfie + Battery, will have its logo feature on the front jersey of ‘Royal Challengers Bangalore’ as well as of ‘Kolkata Knight Riders’.

    ‘Royal Challengers Bangalore’ features some of the best-known names in the world of cricket today with Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, Chris Gayle, Shane Watson among others forming part of an all star line up. The smart phone manufacturer had signed Captain Virat Kohli as its brand ambassador in November last year.

    Gionee India CEO and managing director Arvind R Vohra said, “IPL is one of the biggest carnivals on the Indian calendar. It is as big and important as Diwali with millions of fans cheering for their teams throughout the tournament. This partnership puts us at the forefront in the IPL with the Gionee brand being visible in 26 of the 56 games till the knockouts. We are immensely proud to associate with Royal Challengers Bangalore- a team that has an eclectic talent mix and has entertained its fans over the years.”

    Royal Challengers Bangalore chairman Amrit Thomas said, “We, at Royal Challengers Bangalore, are pleased to be associating with Gionee, a brand which has strong resonance among the youth in India. We are looking forward to a building exciting fan engagement initiatives that appeal to our bold fans across the country.”

    The company had spent close to Rs 500 crore in marketing last year, and in 2017-18, they plan to increase the same by almost 50 per cent.

  • Kenstar associates with Mumbai Indians for IPL

    MUMBAI: Kenstar, one of the preferred premium brands in India, has joined hands for the first time with Mumbai Indians franchise as the official partner for the tenth season of the Indian Premier League.

    Mumbai Indians has been a consistent and one of the most successful teams in IPL. Having won the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 and the IPL in 2013 and 2015, Mumbai Indians team has showcased their mettle time and again. The MI brigade has some acclaimed names from the cricket fraternity such as Rohit Sharma, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard, Mitchell Johnson to name a few, who are known for their powerful performances. Like MI, Kenstar also believes in offering power – packed performance and touching hearts of its patrons through the wide range of product offerings.

    Kenstar COO Rajiv Kenue said, “With its format, IPL appeals to a larger section of consumers across the country. With this association, we aim to connect with a larger section of the society. We wish the team all the best for their forthcoming innings and look forward to adding many more years to this association.”

  • ‘Cricketainment’ via Vodafone Super Fan Ki Superwish

    MUMBAI: Every IPL season bring a fresh breeze of enthusiasm, excitement and passion amongst cricket lovers. Celebrating a decade of its association with the most watched cricket carnival in the world, Vodafone India promises to make Vivo IPL 2017 as Big as it gets!

    The only national brand to be consistently associated with IPL since inception, Vodafone’s high decibel campaigns have been a key highlight of each IPL season. This year, even as Vodafone and IPL commemorate a decade successful partnership, Vodafone customers and IPL viewers can look forward to a never before array of adrenaline boosting initiatives making each day super special.

    The ever popular Vodafone SuperFan, a first of its kind gratification platform that gave Vodafone customers a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the match winning ball signed by the winning captain on live television, takes on a larger avatar in IPL 2017. Vodafone Super Fan Ki Superwish opens doors for lucky SuperFans to win some dream come true experiences that are being introduced for the first time ever in the history of cricket!

    To participate in Vodafone’s IPL initiatives and win these amazing offerings, Vodafone customers can simply SMS SUPERFAN to 199 and look forward to making their super wish come true. Alternately one can go to My Vodafone App and look forward to making their super wish come true. On offer are – a dinner with their favourite cricketer, joining IPL stars at net practice, participating in Extra Innings show on Sony, taking a selfie with the Vivo IPL trophy, amongst others

    Enthused by the super success of ‘Hakke Bakke” in IPL 2016, Vodafone brings another foot thumping SuperCheer this time around, which also marks the return of the adorable Zumis. The Zumi Cheer films will enhance the spirit of IPL with the little characters displaying their signature steps.

    Another first time in India, engagement initiative at IPL 2017 is an opportunity for aspiring Vodafone SuperFans to experience the unique feel of cheering for their favourite team from the Front Row of the stadium, even if he/she is not actually in the stadium, but is watching the match from a Vodafone store, anywhere in the country. Vodafone has conceptualized this initiative thanks to the immense possibilities of their Data Strong Network.

    Vodafone India EVP – marketing Siddharth Banerjee said, “Vodafone Super Fan Ki Super Wish and the chance to cheer from the Front Row will offer exclusive experience. Customers and cricket lovers can also look forward to enjoying this IPL season with the Zumi Super Cheers celebrating special cricket moments”.

  • Huawei & Apple manufacturing tussle predicted, former may overtake Samsung

    MUMBAI: American analyst firm Drexel Hamilton has stated that current mobile trends point to Huawei, presently the world’s second largest android smartphone manufacturer, dethroning Samsung to become Apple’s main challenger in years to come.

    With a wide pipeline of products to cater to various market segments, both Huawei and Honor have put the needs of the Indian consumer first and have focused on channel, retail, brand, marketing and services, to strengthen the business base and streamline operations and customer service.

    Keeping in line with the government’s ‘Make in India’ policy, Huawei recently opened a manufacturing facility in Chennai. After China, India has the most localized facilities with a pan-India presence having 14 circle offices, over 200 service centers across India, two customer experience centers in India, one R&D center and Innovation Solution & Demo Center each. Huawei also has 8000 employees across India (92% Indian) with 3000 working in R&D.

    Huawei/Honor EMUI presently supports 14 local Indian languages and was the first brand to introduce the SOS feature in all smartphones, as per the government’s directive. Huawei/Honor are presently looking at expanding offline distribution in a bid to help increase accessibility of their smartphones in all markets.

  • Pocket Aces partners Ola & Play

    MUMBAI: Pocket Aces, one of the country’s leading digital entertainment companies running channels FilterCopy, Dice Media and Gobble, has partnered with Ola, India’s most popular mobile app for transportation, to provide a wide range of digital content to Ola’s connected ridesharing platform, Ola Play.

    The premium content from Pocket Aces will include short videos from their flagship channel FilterCopy, hugely popular web series Little Things and Not Fit from Dice Media, and food videos from Gobble. Not Fit was also the first web series to play on television – it did three successful runs on NDTV Prime earlier this year.

    Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava said, “Our goal is to give our content and our brand partners as much reach as possible, and are in conversations with several global OTT players and television channels to syndicate our content. ”

    Ola Play sr. director & head Ankit Jain said, “The possibilities that Play offers allows us to discover and aggregate content as music, web series, discover apps and much more to be made available to customers at the push of a button. We are extremely excited to partner with Pocket Aces to enable Ola Play users’ access to high quality content.”

  • Airtel does not agree with ASCI’s ‘conclusion’ on misleading ad

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has given a statement in favour of Reliance Jio and has asked Airtel to stop the ads that were misleading for several reasons. Bharti Airtel however does not agree with ASCI’s decision and will file an appeal as per guidelines. It said its campaign is based on the findings by Ookla – the globally recognised leader in mobile speed tests and also a benchmark for reputed global operators.

    Reliance Jio has been in a tug-of-war with incumbent telecom operators with its launch of Jio 4G services in India. Regardless of the quality of the service or the speeds, which has always been a debatable topic, Jio is on the forefront, and other operators are trying to catch up with it. Jio sent a legal notice to Ookla for what it calls wrongly calling Airtel as the leader of speed.

    Jio’s complaint to ASCI was considered by the Fast Track Complaints Committee (FTCC) on 29 March 2017. The FTCC referred to the terms and conditions (https://www.airtel.in/fastestnetwork/download/terms-and-conditions-fastest-network-ookla.pdf) and noted that some clauses were considered to be in contravention of the ASCI Guidelines.

    Airtel TVC does not state in the claim itself that the speed results pertain to only a specific period. (i.e. The period taken to conduct speed test is from Q3-Q4 2016”). The FTCC noted that the claim by the advertiser is not specific to 4G technology whereas the TVC has 4G visuals. The FTCC considered this representation to be misleading by ambiguity and implication. While the advertiser submitted an Ookla certificate, they did not provide an explicit test methodology to substantiate that the method is robust to capture that the sample; and is representative and comparable across operators, geographies and consumers.

    The FTCC referred to the TRAI web site with respect to the coverage of Jio vis-a-vis Airtel and noticed that there is a significant gap between geographical dispersion of Airtel and Jio 4G subscribers which could impact the comparison. Based on this data, the FTCC concluded that the claim was not adequately substantiated and the basis of comparison has been so chosen as to bestow artificial advantage to the advertiser.

    FTCC has legally ordered Airtel to either appropriately modify or withdraw the advertisement completely by 11 April 2017.

  • Toolway selects Birlasoft for SAP implementation

    MUMBAI: Birlasoft (India) Limited has announced its selection as a strategic partner to Toolway Industries Ltd., a Toronto, Canada based company to implement SAP S4 HANA 1610 along with SAP Hybris B2B for modernizing its ERP systems. Birlasoft will offer end-to-end implementation services of SAP S/4 HANA including HCM, SFIN (FICO), Fiori, SD, MM/ IM, PI/ PO, EWM modules, BOBJ and Hybris B2B.

    Through this newly expanded relationship, Toolway, an importer and distributor of high quality tools and accessories, will benefit from bolstered implementation services, and enhanced solution delivery by Birlasoft. The implementation of SAP S4 HANA ERP and Hybris Solution at Toolway will enable operational efficiencies by simplifying business processes and integrating them into a single platform. It will also help Toolway to reduce the complexity of day to day operations by enabling greater visibility and enhancing customer care services.

    Birlasoft COO Dharmender Kapoor said, “At Birlasoft, SAP implementation capabilities have been a key pillar for delivering high quality technology solutions. We will be leveraging our domain expertise along with innovative methodologies to ensure that Toolway gets the most out of its SAP implementation and thereby meets its business objectives.”

    Toolway president Asher Peres said, “We are very excited to partner with Birlasoft which is a well-respected and well-positioned company to address high profile projects. We have full confidence in their ability to deliver this project and make it a success.”

    Director of IT Jay Khaware said, “SAP S4 HANA & Hybris Ecommerce is a next generation business suite which will help us to accelerate our business processes by simplifying our IT environment. It has greater flexibility to overcome present challenges and streamline future business and system requirements. Birlasoft possesses great capability of delivering high quality SAP projects into different business verticals. We are excited to work with them.”

    Over the years, Birlasoft has taken various steps in helping the customer automate and streamline processes through Technology.

  • Canara HSBC OBC & WWF raise ‘Earth Hour’ awareness

    MUMBAI: WWF-India, in association with Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance hosted Pedal for the Planet 2017, a Cyclothon and Walkathon to celebrate the world’s largest grassroots environmental campaign – Earth Hour 2017.

    Earth Hour 2017 celebrates a decade of climate action with people from more than 7000 cities across the globe set to take a stand against climate change by celebrating Earth Hour 2017. In the last ten years, Earth Hour has gone from being a token switch-off event to becoming the largest voluntary movement ever witnessed in history. As the planet continues to witness climate records being broken and the need for greater ambition and commitment accelerates, Earth Hour is mobilizing individuals, communities and organizations globally to do their part to help change climate change.

    The exhilarating 21 kilometer cyclothon, covered over two rounds and the 3.5km walkathon. The residents of Delhi NCR enthusiastically participated to promote the cause of Earth Hour and ask people to switch off their lights during the hour later that night. Pedal for the Planet is a WWF-India initiative that aims to raise awareness about Earth Hour and promote a healthier, greener and more sustainable lifestyle at an individual level. Every year, since 2009, hundreds of citizens of Delhi NCR have been gathering in an enormous show of support for Earth Hour at the Pedal for the Planet Cyclothon and Walkathon. In the past decade, as global efforts to control climate change gained momentum, Earth Hour has helped bridge the gap between the grassroots and the corridors of power, taking climate action from conference rooms to living rooms in over 172 countries.

    Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance CEO Anuj Mathur said, “It is heartening to see the increasing awareness around the world on the need to preserve the environment and within our organization we are taking all steps to contribute to this cause.”

    WWF-India secretary-general & CEO Ravi Singh said, “Earth Hour is our attempt to inspire and empower individuals and help them fight against the complex issue of climate change. The enormous enthusiasm and support that we’ve witnessed for Earth Hour at the Pedal for the Planet Cyclothon is very humbling, it is great to see people coming together and committing to fight for a common cause that threatens the world as we know it.”

  • ShopClues unveils express payout for merchants

    MUMBAI: ShopClues, one of India’s first and largest managed marketplaces, has always been at the forefront of innovation for its merchants and has, in the past, launched an array of services to help enhance its merchants’ business online. Building on its merchant-focused portfolio, the platform has now launched the Express Payout service, which allows a merchant to get up to 80% of their pending payment in advance.

    While ShopClues maintains regular payout cycles which are best-in-industry, merchants often need on-demand cash flow to ensure stock availability, manage payments and overheads etc. ShopClues’ Express Payout service aims to benefit any merchant who requires advance payment before the scheduled payment date. The merchants can choose to receive any amount up to 80% of their due payment with a small service charge. The requested payment is processed within eight hours by ShopClues.

    The platform had recently also launched a range of financial services designed exclusively for its merchants. These services include the Reach PoS, a software mobile POS which facilitates hassle-free digital transactions for offline retailers; and Capital Wings, a loan program which facilitates quick and hassle-free loans to scale up their business. With the Express Payout option, ShopClues intends to create a complete financial services package that caters to the needs of varied merchants on the marketplace. The merchants can choose the services that they need to grow and enhance their business and also receive guidance from the ShopClues team.

    Shopclues AVP – Seller Services Ganesh Balakrishnan said, “Shopclues’ goal is to provide a level-playing field for its half a million sellers, 80% of whom are MSMEs from Tier 2 and 3 cities and towns. A majority of the merchants on the platform sell unstructured and unbranded products, and usually are in need of regular cash flow to keep their business running.”

    The Express Payout service was launched to a small group of merchants last month, wherein over 70% of the merchants chose to avail the service. It has since been launched for all merchants on the platform and in three weeks has catered to over 2000 payout requests.