MUMBAI: Mobile handset manufacturer HTC India has appointed OMD India as its media Agency on Record (AOR).
When contacted, OMD managing director Jasmin Sohrabji declined to comment. It is said that the agency has already begun work on the HTC business.
The account size for HTC in 2011 is pegged in the vicinity of Rs 400-450 million. The account will be handled from OMD‘s Delhi operations.
The multi-pitch saw the participation of leading media agencies.
MUMBAI: Dentsu India Group has made another two key appointments. Ashwin Parthiban has joined Dentsu Communications, Bangalore as executive creative director, while Rajesh Bhargava has been appointed as GM, studio and production, Dentsu Marcom.
Based out of Bangalore, Parthiban will be heading the creative team at Dentsu Communications for Bangalore and Chennai. Operating from Dentsu India Group‘s headquarters in Gurgaon, Bhargava will oversee all studio and production related services for Dentsu Marcom offices in India.
Parthiban joins from JWT, Delhi where he has VP and senior creative director — Global Team Ford where he led creative across mainline, digital and direct on the Ford account in India. Prior to this, he led the 27-strong Chennai creative team as VP and senior creative director at JWT, Chennai.
Bhargava joins from Wieden + Kennedy, India where was head – production services. He began his 30 year career with Clarion Advertising (now Bates) in 1981. He moved to Contract Advertising in 1985 where he was for almost 20 years.
In June 2004, Bhargava was transferred to JWT, Delhi as associate vice-president – art and production. He has been with Wieden + Kennedy, India since April 2008.
Dentsu India Group executive chairman Rohit Ohri said, “Both Ashwin and Rajesh bring rock-solid competencies on board. Ashwin straddles creative across disciplines and categories. While he aces mainline creative, he also understands both digital and direct; he can ‘think creative‘ across each of these distinct practices and this allows for great integration.”
MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS) will spend in the region of Rs 250-300 million to market the Champions League Twenty20.
Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan will be the face of the tournament, demonstrating ESS‘ conviction to promote a property that has yet to deliver large audiences. The theme of the campaign is ‘Rajao Ke Beech Jung Abhi Bhi Baki Hai!’.
“We are promoting the event heavily, second time in a row. The marketing budget is the same as last year,” a company official said.
ESS had upped its marketing budget fourfold last year and used Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador of Champions League Twenty20.
ESS will showcase the tournament in 174 territories and 18 languages across the world. The languages include Norwegian and Portuguese (for the very first time), English, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish and French.
In India, all 29 matches will be broadcast live on Star Cricket and Star Cricket HD. ESPN will carry all 23 matches of the main tournament with Hindi commentary. The cricket experts doing commentary include Harsha Bhogle, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Kepler Wessels, HD Ackerman, Ian Chappell, Tom Moody, Ian Bishop and Alan Wilkins.
As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, ESS expects to get advertising revenue of Rs 500 million. The list of sponsors include Toshiba, Coca-Cola, Ambuja Cements, Next Retail and Digiworl. Nokia, Toshiba and Coca-Cola are also on-ground sponsors.
ESPN Software India MD Aloke Malik said the event got a 35 per cent viewership increase in the second edition.
Nokia, the title sponsor of Champions League Twenty20, announced the ‘Nokia Ke Asli Champions’ campaign providing the consumers an opportunity to showcase the ‘Asli Champions’ in them. Winners will get an opportunity to be part of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra’s ‘Champion team’ and watch the finals live with her.
Nokia India MD D Shivakumar said, “Cricket holds a special place in the hearts of Indians and we have been associated with it over the years through our association with the T20 World Cup, Kolkata Knight Riders and IPL. We are excited to be the title sponsors for Champions League T20 as it reinforces our commitment to the youth by connecting them to their passion. Shah Rukh Khan has been our brand ambassador for five years. We have been involved with the Kolkata Knight Riders for the past four years. Shah Rukh Khan got involved with the Nokia Champions League Twenty20 and so we felt that it was appropriate to also get involved.”
MUMBAI: After two-weeks of hysteria surrounding Anna Hazare’s crusade against corruption, television news channels have gone back to their old ratings graph.
The English TV news genre has dropped 33 per cent. As per TAM data, the English news genre, which was averaging 0.33
per cent share in the All India market (C&S, 25+) during week 30-33 (7 July – 13 August), had seen a jump to 0.55 points (66.67 per cent jump) in the two following weeks (14-27 August). However, in the week ended 3 September, the share has come down to 0.37 per cent.
In the Hindi news genre (HSM, C&S 15+), the share had gone up to 11.67 per cent (14-27 August) from an average of 5.7 per cent (7 July – 13 Aug). Here also, the genre has come down to 7.3 per cent, but it is still above its average share.
MUMBAI: Makani Creatives has bagged the creative duties of the popular suiting and shirting company Siyaram Silk Mills.
Confirming the same, Makani Creatives director Sameer Makani said, “Yes, we have bagged their creative mandate and there was no multi pitching involved. In fact they had approached us for some kind of strategic planning-related inputs for the next 10 years clearly knowing of our expertise in handling and optimizing celebrity participation. Eventually, they handed over the creative duties.”
Makani creatives will now handle the mandate for the fabric brands Siyaram‘s and J Hampstead besides the company’s other brands like MiStair, Siyaram‘s MSD, Featherz, Little Champ and Oxemberg.
Previously, the mandate for these brands was handled by IBD, the integrated brand development division of Percept.
Currently, Makani Creatives handles the account of Mahindra Logistics.
MUMBAI: Proximity, the digital and data arm of BBDO, has won the digital mandate of Visa.
Proximity was launced in June last year to meet the integrated and interactive marketing needs of its rapidly expanding client base in India. This new division, led by Ranjeev Vij, has played an integral role in campaigns like Quaker Oat‘s mission to make India heart healthy and Aviva‘s ‘Education is Insurance‘ website.
Visa is a retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink and Plus brands.
MUMBAI: Tapping into a growing segment, Publicis Groupe‘s ZenithOptimedia (ZO) has launched its search engine marketing unit, Performics, in India.
ZO said Thursday the India launch is critical to Performics‘ global plans “as it is one of the fastest growing markets and the clients in India are more focused on ROI”. The range of Performics‘ services are also more suitable for India.
Performics is going to work on current ZO clients like Timesjobs.com, Ebay, and global Performics clients like Air France and Microsoft.
“We strongly believe India will be a key market for Performics and our ‘One Search‘ proposition and performance skill set will deliver great value to our clients,” said Performics global managing director Andras Vigh.
Performics will focus on bringing in the concept of OneSearch that optimises SEO (Search engine optimization) and SEM (Search engine marketing) in an integrated and embedded way.
Performics‘ agnostic approach pairs third-party platforms with proprietary technology, including BenchTools, Global Analytics Tools and Socialtools, to deliver solutions.
Said ZenithOptimedia India CEO Satyajit Sen, “Search today is central to intended consumer and fundamental to our Consumer Pathway and with clients demanding best in class specialized skills and seamless digital integration, I believe that Performics‘ capability provides that extra edge to our robust ROI offering.”
For Microsoft in India as around the world, the demand for search and performance marketing solutions always shows an upward trend. “I am delighted that we will now be able to leverage on Perfomics‘ capabilities in India,” said Microsoft India CMO Vineet Durani, on the launch of Performics India.
According to ZenithOptimedia‘s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts released in December 2010, global paid search advertising expenditures are expected to grow by more than $15 billion within the next three years. Total paid search spending in 2010 was more than $30.5 billion, which is predicted to exceed $46 billion by 2013.
Performics was acquired by Publicis Groupe in 2008 and has been part of ZenithOptimedia Group since 2010.
NEW DELHI: Around 1200 delegates are expected to converge in the Indian capital to hear 50 of the world’s top experts in the world of marketing, media and advertising at the 27th edition of AdAsia 2011 being held in India after a gap of eight years.
Asia’s biggest Marketing, Media and Advertising Congress, AdAsia will be held from 31 October to 3 November on the theme of ‘Uncertainty: the new Certainty’ and will have around 18 sessions on various subjects apart from the grand opening and closing ceremonies. The speakers will include around 45 from overseas.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni will inaugurate the meet and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is expected to speak.
The last Congress hosted by India was in 2003 in the pink city of Jaipur and was considered a landmark event. AdAsia 2011 is being organised under the aegis of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA).
The theme “Uncertainty: The New Certainty” underlines the dynamic world that is currently at an inflection point witnessing a realignment of global economic leadership. Post the global meltdown, Asia leads the world on the path of recovery, thus attracting attention from the world over.
There is a new paradigm as far as Asia is concerned, and the one thing that is certain is uncertainty, according to Madhukar Kamath, Group CEO & MD, Mudra Group and Chairman, AdAsia 2011.
Brands are on an experimental spree through multi-layered communication channels right from Twitter, Facebook to mobiles and micro-blogging as the new evolving mediums. Mastering this ever-evolving operating environment and its impact on business is gaining critical significance to long-term sustainability. AdAsia 2011 will not only chronicle the changes but also provide a glimpse of impending opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this dynamic field of advertising and marketing.
The sessions will be conducted by global stalwarts of the Corporate, Marketing, Advertising Media & Communications community that will explore the business ecosystem and understand the nature of disruption. Time tested tools which have never failed the industry along with new tools, methods, applications and ever booming digital medium will be discussed in detail.
“With unprecedented tectonic changes impacting the way one does business, AdAsia 2011 is a platform which not only chronicles the changes, but also provides a glimpse of what opportunities and challenges await us. This is especially relevant as 2011 sees the world – after having weathered the financial tsunami – emerging from the effects of the global meltdown. Moreover, with Asia broadly, and India specifically, leading this global recovery, the centre of gravity is changing. If, in the 20th century, the world looked at the West for innovation and progress, in the 21st century, everyone’s attention is on Asia,” Kamath said at a press meet here.
Indian Newspaper Society Deputy President Ashish Bagga stressed that this was a knowledge-sharing platform and not a business meet, though he admitted some networking may lead to business later.
Some of the subjects being taken up are: Decoding the New Age Consumer, Future of Management, From Chat rooms to Twitter, Media Fragmentation – How to Navigate through traffic?, Disruptive Branding / Away from Herd Marketing, Art of Storytelling in Multi-screen environment, Building Brands in a Trust Deficit World, Global Ethos: Managing Unpredictability across circumstances of Life & Business, and The Pursuit of Big Ideas in the Age of Now.
Some of the speakers are: Indra Nooyi – Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo; A. Salman Amin – Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, PepsiCo; Chris Thomas – Chairman and CEO of BBDO in Asia, Middle East and Africa & Chairman of Proximity Worldwide; Anna Bernasek, Writer and Journalist; Nitin Paranjpe, CEO & MD, Hindustan Unilever Limited & EVP South Asia, Unilever; Harish Manwani, COO, Unilever; Arvind Rajan, Managing Director and Vice President of Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) at LinkedIn; Ronda Carnegie, Head of Global Partnerships at TED; Kate Day, Communities Editor, Daily Telegraph Online; Ram Charan – Business Consultant, Speaker and Author; Akira Kagami – Executive Advisor & Global Executive Creative Advisor, Dentsu Inc.; Thirasak Tanapatanakul – Worldwide Chairman, Creative Juice; Duncan Goose – Founder & Managing Director, Global Ethics Limited; Joseph V. Tripodi – Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer, The Coca-Cola Company; Kitty Lun – Chairman & CEO, Lowe China; Koichi Yamamoto – General Manager, Global Solutions Center, Dentsu Inc.; Michael I. Roth – Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Interpublic; Pankaj Ghemawat – Global Strategist, Professor, Author and Speaker; Irfan Mustafa – Chief Leadership Development Officer, Yum! Brands Inc. & Managing Director, Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey, Yum! Restaurants International; and Piyush Pandey – Executive Chairman and Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather India.
Taiwan and Thailand are to pitch to hold the AdAsia 2015.
MUMBAI: Eenadu director I Venkat has been elected chairman of the Board of the Advertising Standards Council of India (Asci).
Leo Burnett chairman of India sub-continent Arvind Sharma was elected vice-chairman; and GroupM Media India CEO-South Asia Vikram Sakhuja was re-appointed as the honorary treasurer.
Venkat replaces Aditya Birla Management Corporation director-group corporate services Rajiv Dube.
As a member of the board of governors for five years, Venkat has provided active support to self-regulation in the advertising movement.
Dube said, “It has been a privilege for me to have served as the chairman of Asci and I step down from the position with the satisfaction of a progressive year on self regulation in advertising behind me, for which I would like to thank all who supported strengthening the movement further.”
Venkat said, “It is my honour to be elected as the chairman of an organisation which has been providing remarkable service to the Indian masses and ad industry by effectively self regulating advertising content over past 26 years. With the support of the Asci‘s Board and the Consumer Complaint Council (CCC) I will endeavor to further improve the awareness and usage of Asci. I urge the ad sector, the regulators, civil society activists and above all, the general public to actively seek Asci‘s services and also provide suggestions for its improvement.”
The advertiser members of the new board of governors are Agro Tech Foods‘ Narendra Ambwani, Aditya Birla Management Corporation‘ Rajiv Dube, Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care‘s Shantanu Khosla and Hindustan Unilever‘s Gopal Vittal.
The media members on the board are Google India‘s Rajan Anandan and HT Media‘s Benoy Roychowdhury.
BBH India‘s Subhash Kamath, RK Swamy BBDO‘s Srinivasan Swamy, Perfect Relations‘ Dilip Cherian, IBS‘s Dhananjay Keskar, Brandscapes Consultancy‘s Pranesh Misra and Partha Rakshit Associates‘ Partha Rakshit are other members on the new board of governors.
During the year 2010-11, the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) met 12 times and considered 777 complaints against 190 advertisements. Of these, complaints against 104 ads were upheld, while 80 were not upheld and six were considered non-issues. In 84 cases, the complaint upheld ads have been voluntarily withdrawn or modified as per the CCC‘s decisions resulting in over 80 per cent compliance rate.
MUMBAI: Mudra West has won the creative duties for Maxo, the household insecticide brand of Jyothy Laboratories.
The account was awarded following a multi-agency pitch that was called in August.
Jyothy Labs GM marketing Raghavendra K said, “We are happy to work with the Mudra Team to take the brand to greater heights.”
Mudra West president Arijit Ray added, “Maxo has been another success story from Jyothy Laboratories. We look forward to working closely with the brand team to help the brand chart new growth opportunities.”