Category: MAM

Dentsu India makes two key appointments

MUMBAI: Dentsu India has made two senior level appointments. It has appointed C.P. Arora as Group chief financial officer and Suprotim Day as chief films officer.

Arora has joined Dentsu from JWT, Delhi where he was working as VP and executive commercial director and replaced Nobuki Sakai who was seconded to Dentsu India early last year.

Dentsu India executive chairman Rohit said, “Both will partner me in our endeavour to significantly strengthen our service quality delivery to our clients.”

As Group CFO, Arora will now be responsible for the financial plans, P&L management, policies, and accounting practices of the Dentsu India Group. He will also lead the accounting, budgeting, fund management, and financing functions of all the Dentsu India Group companies.

On his new role, Arora said, “After over a decade in advertising, I knew it was time for a fresh start. Interactions with Dentsu’s global and India management gave me an understanding of Dentsu‘s India ambition and growth plans. The role offered to me was not only challenging and inspiring but also something that could be the logical next step for me professionally.”

As strategic business partner with JWT, Delhi at both the corporate and business unit level, CP tracked financial efficiency and profitability, risk management, legal and compliance and overall financial operations for JWT Delhi Office.

Arora comes in with nearly 20 years of experience in financial
management. He is a strategic financial planner with expertise in designing and implementing systems/procedures to facilitate internal financial control, SOX Compliance and enhance the overall efficiency of the organisation.

Day has moved in from UK’s production house Stink, where he was heading London’s operations in India. He was instrumental in setting up a JV between Stink and QED Films in India. The production house serviced agencies such as JWT, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Lowe, Publicis and Cheil Communications among others.

Day said, “After my years in the film production business, I am excited to get back to the agency fold. The function of a film department is to raise the bar and ensure that the creative and client partner’s expectations are more than satisfied. With my new role at Dentsu India, I look forward to partner with the creatives to produce outstanding campaign work that takes brands to the next level of trust with the consumer.”

Day brings in over 25 years of experience in the production and direction of commercials. He has been in the forefront of producing advertising films for clients like PepsiCo, Airtel, Sony, Nokia, ESPN, Hero Honda, Frito Lays, Samsung, Electrolux, Mitsubishi, Dabur, McDonald‘s and Nestle.

Prior to this, Day has led the films department at JWT Delhi for over 5 years. Some of his most recent films include the KitKat ‘Squirrel’, the Cannes Award winning, Airtel ‘Endless Goodbye’ and the Mountain Dew ‘Wing Suit’ flying spot with Salman Khan.

January 18, 2012
Kotler is dead and marketing mantras need to be rewritten: Murthy

MUMBAI: Several generations of marketing and management students have been brought up on the mantra of 4Ps framework: Product, Price, Placement and Promotion. But Pinstorm founder Mahesh Murthy feels that this framework doesn’t serve the 21st century market.

Murthy said, “When it comes to the 4Ps of marketing, things have changed with time. Out of them, Placement has undergone through the biggest change. Today, anyone through Internet is getting in touch with millions of people worldwide. In today’s world it’s not about how much you spend, but it’s about how less you have to spend. Red Bull, eBay, Twitter are fantastic examples where they have never spent on advertising but have achieved a lot. Marketing IQ is inversely proportional to marketing budget.”

Murthy was speaking at Click Asia Summit 2012 here. Addressing on the theme- ‘Kotler is dead: The new principles and process of marketing‘, he suggested a new way to look at creating, managing and measuring the success of brands.

Murthy felt that there are a new set of rules that should be followed by the marketers and not the one that were laid by Kotler.

According to him, there are two new ways to look at the future: blue sky or extend key part of the present. He said that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

“Digital is not niche anymore. It is the mainstream medium, even in India. Star Plus, the No. 1 GEC in India has 25 million viewers. In India, there are 90 million desktop net users, 85 million mobile net users, and in total there are 140 million Internet users. There are 110 million Indian cable and satellite (C&S) homes and Times of India’s (TOI) national circulation is 7 million. So, this is an evident of the reach and use of digital medium in India. Critically, Indian Internet users have already crossed C&S TV household and soon social media user will too.”

Murthy noted that arguably digital medium has the largest reach in India. He foresees that by 2014, there will be 150 million desktop Internet users in India while there will be 225 million mobile Internet users. The total Internet user base will increase up to 300 million while C&S viewership will rise to 140 million. Also, social media is the fastest growing medium. And you don‘t need to spend as much as you do in the broadcast medium.”

The digital medium lets you side-step publishers and be one yourself. So, competing on digital doesn’t need large budgets. “No longer have media budgets made any difference,” he added.

Murthy observed that media is vacating editorial for marketing. He emphasised on building engagement on fan page. Citing an example of changing times, he said that the campaigns which used to take months to get ready now are being made within minutes.

He believed that the whole process needs to change and all the operations should work in sync. It starts with research where one is suggested to absorb all one can and hence solve the existing problems. Then after listening and reaction comes into analysis, the planning stage should come. In the later stage creativity comes wherein one needs to invent. It should be followed by an integrated media plan to radiate the message out. It’s hard to succeed till the work is done in co-ordination.

“It’s easy to get it wrong on digital. Short term thinking and non-integrated work contributes to this. Brands if not handled properly on digital medium, can be killed,” he cautioned. “Also, digital is increasingly not about specialisation, but it’s about multi-specailisation. One needs to speak to people and not take use of scripts for the same. Digital should not be treated as call-centre,” Murthy stated.

January 17, 2012
Agneepath to tap viewers at McDonald’s

MUMBAI: Ahead of the release of the movie Agneepath, Dharma Productions has collaborated with fast food chain McDonald‘s to roll out a promotional activity.

McDonald‘s India (West and South) senior director marketing Rameet Arora said, “We are extremely elated to announce the association of McDonald‘s India with Agneepath the movie and through this association we want to give our patrons the chance to have lunch with their favourite actor. At McDonald‘s we believe in giving our customers an “I‘m lovin it” experience every time they visit our restaurant and with this association we hope to take the experience further.”

As part of the promotion which will be carried out from 19 January – 2 February, every purchase of a meal at McDonald‘s will assure the customer Rs 50 off on movie tickets for Agneepath. Also, selected winners will get a chance to win free movie tickets, or preview the movie before it is released. Few winners will get the mega prize of meeting the star of the movie and enjoying lunch at McDonald‘s.

Agneepath is a remake of the 1990 film by the same name. The original version was directed by Mukual Anand and starred Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role with Danny Denzongpa playing the villain. The 2012 version is directed by Karan Malhotra and features Hrithik Roshan in the lead and Sanjay Dutt in the negative charecter.

January 17, 2012
History TV18’s challenge will be to build a profitable revenue scale

MUMBAI: Faced with severe competition from strong rivals like Discovery and NGC channels in the infotainment genre, late entrant History TV18’s strategy of offering the most number of regional feeds will attract a wider range of advertisers but the challenge will be to build a profitable revenue scale.

Madison Media Group CEO Punitha Arumugam pegs the infotainment genre ad market at Rs 1.5 billion and believes that regional is still a developing space. The major chunk of the revenue, however, is taken away by the two big league players, leaving most of the others in the genre struggling.

For History TV18, the best approach was to have an alternate strategy. Already available in seven languages (Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi and English), the plan is to launch two more regional feeds.

Arumugam favours such a strategy. “The future for not only infotainment channels but for every channel in the market is to have regional feeds. As more and more advertisers are exploring better targeting of audiences and localisation of messaging, the need of the hour is for regionalisation of national telecast beams,” she says.

Several media experts agree that channels up against much bigger rivals should woo advertisers by creating a viable local alternate to the national option.

Says Lodestar UM COO Nandini Dias, “Infotainment channels have had regional language feeds for quite a while now. Whenever a channel adds a language feed, the ratings in the state increase. This is more evident in the south of India rather than markets like Gujarat or West Bengal. But an increase in viewership is always welcome, however marginal. I am sure the channel would have done a cost-benefit analysis before going ahead with this strategy.”

The success of regional feeds also depends on the region where the feed is launched. And of all of History TV18’s language languages, Gujarati seems to be the most debatable. Gujarat remains largely a Hindi TV-viewing market.

Says Spatial Access joint CEO Nikhil Rangnekar, “Having a Gujarati feed will not affect the viewership much.”

Some even question the profitability of starting a feed in so many regional languages.

“When Discovery started a feed in Hindi, its viewership experienced a huge leap. But now, if you notice, most of the audiences are attuned to watching infotainment channels in either Hindi or English. These two languages cover most of the TG. Having so many regional language feeds will not really make a difference in the ad market share,” says Rangnekar.

Also Read:

History TV18 plans to add two language feeds, boost rev

January 16, 2012
MediaCom drives Ambi Pur through a refreshing activation

MUMBAI: Media agency MediaCom India has executed activation for the car freshener brand Ambi Pur. The idea was to explode the low involvement air-freshener category, by driving category relevance through disruption. The company also roped in Bollywood actor Neha Dhupia to be a part of the activation.

P&G home care brand manager Vidya Murthy said, “Riding on the fantasy of males to go on a drive with a diva was the key hook of the idea that MediaCom came up with. Multimedia amplification through RJs, ground event, print media is what drove scale for the activation.”

MediaCom business director, P&G planning Gaurav Virkar said, “In the category that talked only about air freshening, being ‘guest ready‘ by eliminating bad odours in the car was the platform that the brand found its ground on. The idea was to sensitise male consumers to be guest ready at all times with Ambi Pur in their cars.”

The campaign was carried out in November and December 2011. Radio and PR were employed as the media to spread the word about the initiative, and MediaCom associated with Fever FM for the ‘Freshness Drive‘.

The target customer for the brand is on-the-go male who spends a lot of time travelling in the car in clogged city roads. He is so busy with his professional or personal life that he finds little time to consider the ambience of his car as being a critical factor in car care. This audience is hooked on to radio while driving to office on weekdays, and hence, radio was identified to be one of the top priority medium for this activation.

For the execution, the first phase was to connect with the audience by creating the need for an air freshener in cars via stories on freshness by RJ mentions and spots. A poll was also conducted to select the celebrity that listeners would love to go on a drive with. In the second phase, the results on the most preferred celebrity were declared. Ambi Pur gift hampers were also given away.

To drive the message of being ‘car guest ready‘, Dhupia went out on the Delhi roads, asking for a lift from cars that were passing by. She decided to stay inside a car or get out on the basis of the freshness quotient of the car. Her journey was documented as live feed on Fever FM.

January 16, 2012
Nokia partners Indiatimes for online store

MUMBAI: Nokia India has joined hands with Indiatimes Shopping for the launch of Nokia‘s online store- NokiaShop. The new online shopping portal will deliver mobile devices directly from the manufacturer to the users.

NokiaShop will offer the entire portfolio of Nokia devices as well as accessories across price points to the consumers along with the convenience of online shopping. Users can buy handsets directly from the manufacturer without needing any dealer or reseller in between.

Nokia India director- marketing Viral Oza said, “Today, as online shopping gains momentum, we are the first mobile handset company to set up a branded online store. Through our association with Indiatimes Shopping, we are confident that we will be able to offer a superior online shopping experience to our consumer by giving them an opportunity to buy their favourite mobile device directly from Nokia.”

Times Internet CEO Rishi Khiani said, “This partnership is a step further in our aim to bring more offline brands to the online space. With our brand strength, resources, knowledge and credibility in the e-commerce space, we are confident of providing Nokia the right platform to connect with its users.”

TIL director technology and ecommerce head Gautam Sinha added, “We are pleased to partner with a top brand like Nokia and help them reach their online customers. We hope to witness strong synergistic growth capturing majority of online mobile handset market in the next few months. We have made significant investments in warehousing and last mile delivery to ensure a world class shopping experience for our customers.”

Nokia Shop has been launched on Indiatimes sub-domain, to sell the entire range of Nokia devices – including smartphones, dual SIM phones, touch and type, qwerty, touch phones and value phones. The initiative will be driven by a core team with dedicated people from both Nokia and Indiatimes.

January 16, 2012
Sandeep Goyal’s firm to manage Airtel’s ad inventory

MUMBAI: In a first of its kind move, telecom giant Bharti Airtel has awarded its entire advertising inventory management to Sandeep Goyal-promoted Mogae Media.

A senior executive in the company, who did not want his name to be revealed, confirmed the news to Indiantelevision that there was a pitch involved and Mogae was selected to sell all advertising on Bharti Airtel’s mobile, DTH (Airtel Digital TV) and broadband platforms.

The revenue-share deal will see Mogae operating Airtel’s full mobile commerce initiative including special offers.

Goyal‘s Mogae will, thus, handle the Bharti Airtel‘s ad inventory that includes space on text messages, multi-media messages, IVR and recharge coupons in mobile services.

Direct-to-home (DTH) service providers are also tapping advertising to supplement their main subscription fees that they charge from subscribers.

Goyal, former Dentsu India chairman, was not available for his comments.

When contacted, Airtel spokesperson said the company would not comment on market speculations.

January 16, 2012
History TV18 plans to add two language feeds, boost rev

MUMBAI: History TV18, a joint venture between A+E Networks and TV18, is targeting to launch two more language feeds as it expects a wider regional presence will give it an edge over competitors and boost its ad revenues.

The factual entertainment channel already has a presence in seven languages, the only one in this genre to have such a wider regional spread. A few days back, History TV18 announced the launch of its Gujarati feed – the others being Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi and English.

“While we are looking at two more language feeds, the size of the market is key as it has to make economic sense,” said AETN-18 JV GM marketing Sangeetha Aiyer.

The drive is to offer advertisers a choice. “The business model for the regional feeds is not distribution but to grow ad revenue by increasing yields. The yields in the industry are low at Rs 1800-2200 per 10 second spot for the tier one channels and Rs 800-1200 for the tier two channels in this genre. Our aim is to take the effective yield up to Rs 2500-3000. Our focus is on brands that do national campaigns. But at the same time regional brands that want a national presence will also find us useful,” averrd Aiyer.

There is also the viewership perspective in this approach. Said programming VP Sudheer KG, “In the factual genre, things are explained and sometimes explanations in English are beyond the comprehension of regional viewers. That is why History had launched regional feeds at the start.”

So how effective is this regional plan? Explains Aiyer, “The JV has given itself a three-year break-even time frame for the channel, keeping in mind that this genre dependends heavily on advertising. For the regional feeds, a four to six week period is needed to show clients consistency in delivery. We already have around 60 clients including Maruti, Volkswagen, Amul, Sony and Samsung.”

The viewership is skewed towards males. Sixty per cent of the viewers are men and out of this, most are in the age group 15-40, according to Aiyer.

Around 50 per cent of the channel’s viewership comes from the Hindi feed. “Apart from the North belt, even people in Hyderabad and Bangalore watch it in Hindi. After that, comes Marathi and Tamil. The size of the Maharashtra market is big while people also consume the channel a lot in Tamil. After these languages, come the others like English,” said Sudheer.

Sudheer admitted that Gujarat is a tough market as there are few multi-system operators. “We are the first international channel to offer a local language feed in Gujarati. We are, thus, hopeful that they will see us as offering value. We get inquiries from people who want to carry us. Gujaratis watch news, GECs and movies. But the reason why infotainment has not penetrated there much is that content was not available in their language,” he said.

What is needed for the regional feeds? “For our regional feeds, we don’t do translation. We do transcreation. This means communicating to viewers in a simple way so that they understand what is happening. When they understand what is happening, they will return again and again to watch. This is how viewership grows as they spend more time on us. On all our regional feeds we have executive producers and language managers who work with studios,” said Sudheer.

January 14, 2012
Saatchi & Saatchi launches TV campaign for Otrivin

MUMBAI: Saatchi & Saatchi has launched a TV campaign for Otrivin, a nasal decongestant spray from Swiss healthcare major Novartis.

The campaign is based on the objectives of significantly enhancing trials and creating brand preference amongst the target audience comprising males in the age group of 25-44 years. It demonstrates the product as a convenient solution which gives instant and long lasting relief from blocked nose.

Otrivin is the flagship brand of healthcare major Novartis India competing in the OTC nasal decongestant category.

Saatchi & Saatchi GM Mumbai Nisha Singhania said, “To develop the new TVC, the agency tapped into the consumer insight that when a person is suffering from blocked nose, he cannot speak clearly. This not only hampers his performance but also causes social embarrassment as he is ‘nasally misunderstood’.”

Translating the insight into creativity, the agency created a 30 second TVC that opens to showcase a picnic situation which is easily relatable to every person.

Saatchi & Saatchi CCO – India Ramanuj Shastry said, “Moving beyond the norms of ads made for a problem solution category, the film is set in the retro period with exaggerated expressions from lead protagonists to add humour to it.”

January 14, 2012

Colors dominates most effective launch campaigns list in 2011: Ormax

MUMBAI: Viacom18’s flagship Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) Colors has delivered the best fiction launch campaigns in 2011 across Hindi GECs, while Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) on Sony Entertainment Television (Set) was the top non-fiction launch campaign of the year, reveals a study from media research and consulting firm Ormax Media.

In the fiction shows ranking, Colors controls the top three positions and a total of four spots in the top 10 list. As per the study, Phulwa, Mukti Bandhan and Sasural Simar Ka were the top three campaigns, while Parichay was on number six.

Set’s Parvarish was on number four, while Kuch To Log Kahenge was at number seven.

Interestingly, genre leader Star Plus’ only one fiction show – Diya Aur Baati Hum – figured in the list at fifth place. The last three spots were captured by Zee TV’s Hitler Didi (No. 8), Life OK’s Mahadev (No. 9) and Imagine TV’s Dharam Patni (No. 10).

In the non-fiction list, Set has three shows in the top 10, including KBC at the top spot. Bigg Boss Season 5 (Colors) is a close competitor to KBC, in terms of their launch impact.

Set’s X-Factor India was at number five while Maa Exchange was at ninth place.

Colors, Imagine TV and Star Plus shared two shows each while Life Ok’s Sach Ka Saama also featured on the list.

The ranking of the best launches of fiction and non-fiction Hindi GEC shows has been derived from Ormax Media’s awareness tracking tool Showbuzz, which measures the awareness levels of new shows across various Hindi GEC channels. This ranking is a measure of the effectiveness of the campaign, irrespective of how the content fared thereafter.

Top 10 non-fiction show campaigns:

Rank	Program	Channel
1	Kaun Banega Crorepati	Sony
2	Bigg Boss	Colors
3	Zor Ka Jhatka	Imagine TV
4	Sach Ka Saamna	Life OK
5	X-Factor India	Sony
6	Khatron Ke Khiladi	Colors
7	Ratan Ka Rishta	Imagine TV
8	Just Dance	Star Plus
9	Maa Exchange	Sony
10	Wife Bina Life	Star Plus

January 14, 2012