MUMBAI: Gulf Oil, a Hinduja Group Company, has roped in cricket captain MS Dhoni to be the new face of the company.
Dhoni will now represent Gulf Oil, one of the fastest growing Lube brands in India and a pioneer in the Long Drain Lubricants space, in India as well as in some of the markets worldwide.
Gulf Oil Corporation Limited (GOCL) produces a wide range of
lubricants for the automotive sector and is present in 80 countries.
MUMBAI: Former Ignitee Digital Solutions‘ COO Shankar. B has joined media sales outsourcing company, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions, as CEO. He will be relocating to Chennai in the next couple of months.
The company has also appointed Bharath Viswanathan as COO, who will be based out of Chennai.
Viswanathan brings more than a decade‘s experience in media sales. His last assignment was with Hello FM as national sales head.
Other senior members of the team include regional head – West A Thyagraj, regional head – South Balakrishnan and sales manager of Chennai, Sehrajha.
Shankar has worked for media brands such as Indian Express (Madurai), Turner International India, where he was director, advertising sales — West for Cartoon Network, Pogo, CNN and Zee MGM, Hello FM, where he was VP – sales and business development, and Network18 Media‘s E18.
Moreover, the young company is beefing up its team across the country and has already bagged the advertising sales for Tamil news channel Puthiya Thalaimurai TV and Puthiya Thalaimurai magazine.
Shankar said, “We are talking to various international channels and radio stations and the response has been phenomenal. We have also got a radio station on-board, and I will be announcing the name soon.”
Meanwhile, the company will also consult E18, a division of Network18.
E18 CEO Farhad Wadia stated, “Shankar is an old colleague and he has tremendous experience in media sales. Only great things can come out of this. It‘s a win-win situation for both of us.”
Shankar added, “I am extremely excited to be part of this venture, having worked for television and radio; this will be a good 360 degree approach for clients and advertisers.”
“In close to 18 years of my career, I have spent 9-10 years in television, of which more than seven years were in regional television. It‘s like homecoming for me to get back into the regional TV space. Having sold TV, radio, print and activation, I feel this will add a different dimension to my career and advertisers too,” Shankar concluded.
MUMBAI: Star shined bright in the week ended 10 September. Not only did its Hindi movie channel Star Gold see a major surge but also Star Plus and Star One posted marginal gains in a week when the other Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) saw a dip.
Even as the GEC pecking order has remained unaffected, Star Plus ended with 307 GRPs (gross rating points) as against 300 GRPs in the preceding week.
Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television maintained its second position for the fourth consecutive week, although it slipped from 258 GRPs in the previous week to 243 GRPs.
Colors and Zee TV remained on third and fourth place with 233 and 182 GRPs respectively. Both the channels lost 16 GRPs each in the week.
Sab, meanwhile, has slipped down to 112 GRPs, from 117 in the previous week.
Imagine TV ended with 68 GRPs (72 in last week) while Star One closed with 41 GRPs (last week 35), as per TAM data (HSM, C&S, 4+) for the week ended 10 September.
Sahara One recorded 31 GRPs (last week 35), according to TAM data.
MUMBAI: OOH media agency Scala India has acquired the digital signage advertising rights for Terminal 3 at the Indira Gandhi International Airport – New Delhi.
Scala software will be used for digital advertising.
The new network is the second platform in Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport Delhi that is driven by Scala. Since July 2010, a 245 Player network is already running in the same location.
All content on that network is also driven and managed by Scala.
That network ranges from providing live TV channels, general airport announcements and live weather updates on screens at boarding gates, check in counters, information counters, customer lounges at gates and restaurants.
In addition the network also acts as the redundancy source for flight information when the primary FIDs system is down. Scala India will be managing Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport completely, on the content aspect of the networks.
Scala VP EMEA, Latin-America and India Oscar Elizaga said, “We feel privileged that Scala has been selected again to enable digital signage in its new and huge advertising platform at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. The visual feast at Delhi Airport will not only overwhelm the travelers and visitors of the airport, it will also offer advertisers a unique opportunity to target an enormous audience.”
BANGALORE: Sony India plans to spend Rs 1 billion towards marketing during the festive season of Durga Pooja and Diwali, as it aims to garner revenues of Rs 20 billion.
The money will be invested towards a 360 degree media campaign, including above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) activities.
The company has planned for a revenue growth of 30 per cent during fiscal 2011. Last year, Sony India had revenues of Rs 55 billion.
The company is targeting revenues of Rs 1.5 billion from Karnataka and has earmarked Rs 150 million towards marketing in the state. Last year, Karnataka contributed Rs 4.7 billion towards the company‘s revenues.
These facts was revealed by Sony India senior general manager from the CAV Sales Department‘s AVIT Division Sunil Nayyar.
Sony India has booked over 10,000 spots and its ads will be beamed around 300 times daily across various television channels in the country, including the regional markets. Television commercials of three ranges of Sony India products – the Sony Bravia range of television products, its Cybershot camera range and its handycam camera range will be aired in the coming months.
A preview of a new Bravia spot, ‘The rebirth‘, was shown. Sony will be releasing a second TVC on this theme for Bravia during the Durga Pooja. A TVC featuring Cybershot brand ambassador film diva Deepika Padukone will be aired during the festive season. The ads will be in English across all television channels, Nayyar revealed.
Sony India has also tied up with Airtel – a free Airtel TV (HD) connection with a free subscription of two months on purchasing 32 inch and above Bravia HD television sets.
The company plans to up its sales channels from 500 to 650 outlets this fiscal. It has about 270 Sony exclusive outlets in India and plans to add another 30 during the current year.
The company‘s creative duties are handled by JWT, while the media mandate is with Lintas Media Group.
MUMBAI: Former Law & Kenneth, Mumbai SVP and branch head, Neeraja Kale has joined PerceptH as COO.
She will be reporting to PerceptH CEO Prabhakar Mundkur.
Kale brings to the table 16 years of experience in the marketing and advertising domain. She has worked on brands such as Godrej Interio, Times Now, and ITC.
Starting her career in 1995 with O&M Mumbai (now Ogilvy India) as an account executive, Kale moved to Publicis Zen after four years, and oversaw businesses such as L‘Oreal.
In 2001, she moved to the client side, joining L‘Oreal as group product manager, Garnier. Kale has also worked with McCann Erickson for three years and handled brands including Stayfree, Western Union and Babool.
MUMBAI: Broadcast networks in the US continued to stumble despite humble gains in advertising spends on television as a whole.
During the first half of 2011, advertising sales at the broadcast networks reduced by 7.6 per cent to $10.8 billion.
According to a report issued by Kantar Media, several factors contributed to this reduction.
The broadcast of BCS bowl games on ESPN instead of Fox generated a major one-time shift in spending to cable. The shift of March Madness from CBS to Turner Sports benefited cables further at the cost of networks.
To make things worse, ad spends on prescription drug, financial services, and consumer package goods categories were shifted to cables as well. From 1 June till 30 June, the budget allocations on cable networks were further augmented by 11.8 per cent, reaching a total of $10.8 billion.
Television on the whole rose by a meagre 1.8 per cent, as the total amount of monies spent in the medium touched $32.9 billion. TV accounted for approximately half (46 per cent) of the total advertising expenditures.
Overall, ad growth lost pace in the second quarter, as spending increased 2.8 per cent versus the year-ago period. In Q2 2010, the dollars increased 5.1 per cent.
Kantar Media North America executive vice president of research Jon Swallen said, “Advertising grew at a slower rate in the second quarter, contributing to speculation about the durability of an advertising recovery that is into its second year. Key ad spend indicators are painting a mixed picture.
On the one hand, a majority of media types actually improved their performance from Q1 to Q2. On the other, spending growth for the Top 100 advertisers stalled in Q2, and the ad market became more dependent on the comparatively smaller budgets of mid-sized advertisers.”
In the first half, top 10 TV advertisers reduced their spending by 1.7 per cent to $5.17 billion. Six out of the major spenders slashed their ad spends to some extent.
AT&T remained the largest TV spender, buying $789.4 million in air time, down 3.7 per cent as compared to the same period a year-ago.
Other significant advertisers on television: Procter & Gamble ($762.7 million, down 11.3 per cent); General Motors ($570.3 million, down 7.7 per cent); Verizon ($478.1 million, down 22 per cent); Johnson & Johnson ($431.7 million, down 15.2 per cent) Ford Motor Co. (up 0.8 per cent to $410.8 million); Pfizer ($397.4 million, down 8.2 per cent) and McDonald‘s (up 7.3 per cent to $375.1 million).
MUMBAI: Sports will see a degrowth in advertising revenue while Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) will lose their pricing power this fiscal, said Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) executive director revenue and niche channels Joy Chakraborthy.
Television will, however, grow faster at 12 per cent while print will crawl at 2-3 per cent as advertisers exercise caution in spending.
“Sports revenue will be under attack because of India‘s debacle against England. The cricket World Cup revenues were also captured in the last fiscal,” said Chakraborthy in an interview.
Sports broadcasters earned a combined ad revenue of Rs 15 billion in FY‘11, buoyed by the World Cup and the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“The India-West Indies series was affected as some of India‘s stars were not playing. The England series has been a setback. Seeing the performance of the Indian team, the Champions League Twenty20 is obviously facing the music,” said Chakraborthy.
The Hindi GECs will see growth but there will be redeployment of ad monies among the top four. “In a four-horse race, the pricing power will be somewhat muted and there will be revenue fragmentation. Media agencies will be in a better bargaining position,” averred Chakraborthy.
When queried about a possible ad slowdown, Chakraborthy admitted that advertisers have become “more cautious” and are entering into quarterly and shorter term deals.
“Not too many annual deals are happening. But India being an emotional country, a single strong wave can lead to a turnaround.”
How deep will the ad economy be hit with FMCGs hinting at slashing their promotional budgets? “There is a concern but at the same time many of the FMCG companies are launching variants. If HUL states that it is slashing its ad budget, frankly speaking it is no more a scare. But what could be disturbing is that we are seeing a drop in high-yielding inventories filled by telecom, banking and finance and real estate companies. We are hoping that like telecom which came in a big way a few years back, we will see a new category emerge,” said Chakraborthy.
The biggest problem in the television industry is that fragmentation is peaking. “A slowdown is good in a way as it will ensure that networks with sustaining power will gain. Costs will also get corrected as companies try to protect their bottom lines,” said Chakraborthy.
MUMBAI: India’s nutrition brand, Ultimate Nutrition, has signed Bollywood actor John Abraham as its brand ambassador.
This is the first time ever that Abraham, is going ahead and promoting a nutritional supplement brand.
Abraham said, “It feels great to be associated with a brand that I truly support. Personal fitness and being healthy is one of the most important things that I believe in. I am more than happy to endorse Ultimate Nutrition because I have been using these products for years now and the results are clearly visible.”
Founder of Paradise Nutrition Jayesh Mehta added, “We are immensely happy to have John as the brand ambassador of Ultimate Nutrition. We wanted a personality that represents the brand’s true philosophy in real life and hence we chose John Abraham as the face of Ultimate Nutrition.”
Ultimate Nutrition (USA) VP Brian Rubino stated, “John Abraham‘s commitment to living a healthy and active lifestyle and his popularity from films make him a greater partner and spokes-model for Ultimate Nutrition in India.”
MUMBAI: Star Gold has unveiled its new brand logo with a new tagline — ‘Karo Dil Ki‘.
The new logo was launched during the television premiere of ‘Singham‘ on 10 September on the channel.
The new identity was simulcast across Star India‘s network channels — Star Plus, Star One, Star Utsav, Star World, Star Movies, Pravah and Jalsha, via a network roadblock.
The channel is backing-up the new identity with the screening of movies such as Zindagi Na Mile Dubara, Bodyguard, Rockstar and Ra.One.
“Karo Dil Ki reflects the attitudes and aspirations of our viewers. As a brand we have always endeavored to give our viewers what they want to watch not just what we want them to watch. The TV premiere of Singham on 10 September is itself a landmark screening of this over Rs 1 billion grosser which is still running to packed houses,” Star India COO Sanjay Gupta said in a statement.
According to an official communique, the refreshed Star Gold will have six-movie schedule every day. Other movie channels air five movies a day.