Category: MAM

BANGALORE: Maxus, Stark Communications and Tanishq walked away with the Big Bang award for the Media Agency of the Year, Big Bang award for the Ad Agency of the Year and the Big Bang award for the Client of the Year awards at the 21st edition of the annual Bangalore Ad Club Big Bang Awards.
 
The Big Bang trophies – ‘heads’, were awarded for excellence in communications and media for work done in 2010. A total of 960 entries were received in 74 categories from 138 clients, one of the largest in the history of the Advertising Club, Bangalore, and making the event the second largest one in India, after Goafest by the Mumbai Ad Club Awards that are held in Goa every year. 
 
“The competition was keenly contested, and I am extremely happy with the results, all of who were most deserving”, said The Advertising Club, Bangalore president Prateek Srivastava.

“Entries were received from large, medium and small sized creative agencies, media agencies, digital agencies, radio stations, event companies, film production houses and healthcare agencies. Many of the newer agencies and entries have given the bigger agencies a run for their money,” Srivastava added.

A condensed list of the winners is:

MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi India has roped in three Rediffusion Y & R executives in the last three months.

Saatchi & Saatchi today announced two new appointments — Kavita Kailas as VP planning and Bhairavi Naik as the AVP. This follows the appointment of Nisha Singhania as Saatchi & Saatchi GM Mumbai in March.

Both Kailas and Naik have switched after a one year stint at Rediffusion Mumbai and will report to Singhania. While Kailas was planning head, Naik led business department at the agency.

At Saatchi & Saatchi Kailas will look after all the brands handled out of Mumbai branch, whereas Naik amongst other brands will be handling the coveted Skoda account.
 
Singhania said, “At Saatchi & Saatchi we are looking at adding truly committed professionals who are passionate about brand building. Both Bhairavi and Kavita are two such individuals who excel in their fields and bring with them immensely rich experience across categories and clients. With talent like that on board I have no doubt that we will scale greater heights this year.”

Kailas comes with more than a decade of experience on diverse categories ranging from FMCG to financial services. Starting with Lowe she also worked at Leo Burnett and has handled clients such as Axe, Lifebuoy, Clinic All Clear, Tide and Whisper.
 
Averred Kailas, “It‘s exciting to join the ‘Lovemarks‘ company. The Saatchi philosophy on brands goes beyond establishing mere performance. The challenge of finding a deeper connection and building a relationship with the consumer is what drew me to Saatchi. It recognises disruptive thinking; this coupled with a great mix of brands and people will be an interesting platform to create solid work.”

With over 12 years of experience Naik has worked with agencies such as Grey, Leo Burnett, Ambience Publicis and Rediffusion and has an experience on a diverse range of brands including Lakme, Westside, Hometown, Nycil, Tata AIG, Neutrogena and IOCL. 
 
Naik added, “I found Saatchi role exciting because of the opportunity to work on some of the great brands in diverse categories, especially with a bunch of like-minded talented people.”
 

MUMBAI:Ignite Mudra has won the creative duties of Vasu Healthcare’s Trichup brand of hair care products.

The mandate was given without any official pitch process and IBD Percept was the incumbent agency.
 
Ignite Mudra will work on the strategy and creative deliverables of Trichup and a few other Vasu Healthcare brands.

In the last two to three years, Baroda-based ayurvedic company, Vasu Healthcare, has started focusing on the OTC market through Trichup.
 
Ignite Mudra head Sudarshan Banerjee said, “We are delighted to have Trichup and other brands in our fold. This is a very competitive landscape and we see a very exciting journey ahead.”
 
Vasu Healthcare VP marketing Dr. D K Mehta said that the agency’s strong credentials in creating numerous brands such as DermiCool, ItchGuard, Krack and Livon led to the appointment.

“Ignite Mudra has the right talent base to take Vasu Healthcare to the next level. The team inspired enough confidence in us and we appointed them without going through the entire pitch process”, commented Dr. Mehta.

MUMBAI: Colors is targeting a revenue of Rs 600 million from its flagship reality show Fear Factor Khataron Ke Khiladi – Torchaar,according to sources.

Even as the Viacom18 Hindi general entertainment channel has moved the show to a ‘weekend slot’ this time with the original khiladi Akshay Kumar returning as host after a gap of one season, the ad sales team of Colors under Simran Hoon is working overboard to strike deals at a premium.

The channel has roped in six associate sponsors, apart from Thums Up as title sponsor. The six associate sponsors are Samsung Mobile which is for the first time coming on a non-fiction show on Colors, Amul Macho, Woodland Shoes, HUL (Sure deodorant, Kumar is also the brand ambassador), Samsonite suitcases and Mahindra & Mahindra Scorpio.

“KKK4 is one of the biggest properties on our channel and this time we have got time to finalise deals. We have stuck to our rates and all the inventories also have been sold out at a premium,” Colors national sales head Hoon said, while refusing to reveal how much the channel is expected to garner from the show.

However, some media experts Indiantelevision.com spoke to said it won’t be easy for KKK4 to earn more than Rs 450 million. “The ad market is not very buoyant now as a majority of advertisers have already spent a large chunk of their ad budget on cricketing events. It will be a huge task for the channel to get premium from advertisers on Khataron ke Khiladi,” a media buyer said on condition of anonymity.

He added that there are only 16 episodes and for the channel to earn Rs 600 million, each episode has to get Rs 37.5 million.

However, another media buying executive said that the coming back of Akshay Kumar would help the channel up the ad rates. In the last season with Priyanka Chopra as the host, the show had got a great beginning but the ratings subsequently dropped.

“Kumar has a certain daredevil persona and viewers have liked him in the past as the host of the show. The channel is hoping that Kumar repeats it for them this time; that is the only way it can charge a premium,” the executive added.

KKK4 was launched on 3 June and is being aired every Friday-Sunday at the 9 pm band.

MUMBAI: Percept Media, the media planning, buying and evaluation arm of Percept Limited, has entered into an alliance with Pointlogic, which is an integrated marketing communications and marketing ROI solutions.

Under this alliance, Percept and Pointlogic aim to launch Integrated Intelligence Services encompassing custom research, analytics, expertise, media data and customised software to deliver better ROI for marketers.
 
Pointlogic founder and CEO Peter Kloprogge said, “India provides a huge opportunity for brands and as such also for agencies and consultancy firms helping clients introduce and optimize the brand value. On the other hand, it would be na?ve to think that practices from around the world would be immediately applicable in India where we’re dealing with a fast growing market, complex demographic profiles, huge differences per region, etc.”

Pointlogic has offices in New York, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Amsterdam, and is head quartered in Rotterdam.

A wide range of applications will be offered to the Indian advertisers and brands. These tools are intended to provide a greater insight into the performance of past messaging, but also focus on how insights can be gained to optimise and forecast the effect of future campaigns.
 
The tools aid to garner insight into the ROI of media spends;
determine the media budget and the allocation among communication channels; optimal design of promotion policy; optimal anticipation of competitors actions; insights into effects of other marketing decisions (price and distribution); and insights into effects of factors that cannot be influenced.

Percept with its consumer insights and branding expertise will utilise these tools to measure the complete 360 degree communication campaign of the Indian advertisers including ATL, BTL, Social Media, Word Of Mouth and all other communication tools optimally.

“These tools will also strategise the communications planning, ROI modeling, targeting and segmentation for the Indian marketers. Thus increasing the efficiency in media buying and planning, media effectiveness and rating forecasting of their campaigns and guiding them to effectively bifurcate their communication spends in various media vehicles as per its efficacy”, the company said.

Percept Media CEO Shripad Kulkarni added, “The beauty of the application is that it covers the entire spectrum of integrated marketing communications. We are extremely confident that we will be able to add tremendous value to our clients’ communication process and herald a new chapter in brand messaging.”
 

MUMBAI: Marico has handed out creative duties of its two hair care brands, Hair & Care and Silk & Shine, to BBH India.
The two brands were earlier handled by Rediffusion-Y&R.

The mandate was given without any pitch process. 
 
Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) is already looking after five Marico brands — Parachute Therapie Hair Fall Solution, Parachute Advansed After Shower, Parachute Advansed Starz, Nihar Naturals and Mediker.
 
BBH is already looking after five Marico brands — Parachute Therapie Hair Fall Solution, Parachute Advansed After Shower, Parachute Advansed Starz, Nihar Naturals and Mediker. The media mandate continues to lay with Madison.

In the past, the consumer products and services group has also worked with agencies such as Bates 141 (then Bates Enterprise), Grey Worldwide, Alok Nanda & Company, and SSC&B Lintas (now Pickle Advertising).
 

MUMBAI: Havas Media’s flagship brand, MPG India, has promoted Mohit Joshi as the managing partner for India.

The agency has also appointed Gautam Rajagopal as vice president of investments for West India.

Joshi joined MPG India to handle the Reckitt Benckiser business in 2007 and was later promoted to the role of executive director of Delhi operations.

According to the agency, Joshi has played a key role in the acquisition of clients such as MTS, Hyundai, Clarks, M3M and Tulip.
 
Joshi has over 15 years of experience with a strong grounding in strategic planning and AOR management. He started his career with Mindshare (erstwhile HTA) and has worked with Universal McCann and ZenithOptimedia. Some of the accounts he has worked on include GSK, Pepsi, Dabur, Hero Honda, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser and Hyundai.

Meanwhile, Rajgopal will report in to Kunal Jamuar, the newly appointed head of MPG’s West India operations.

Rajgopal has 16 years of experience in Broadcast Investment having worked in senior roles at agencies including OMS (a division of Mudra), Starcom and Carat. He was most recently the vice- president of media services at Beehive Communications.
 
Rajgopal’s stint at Starcom and OMS has seen him winning internal awards for increasing buying efficiencies and innovations and achieving financial targets. His career has seen him working across multiple categories for brands like HDFC Bank, Asian Paints, Parle, Bisleri, P&G, Heinz, Skoda, Bajaj and Cadbury.

MPG India and South Asia CEO Anita Nayyar said, “I have worked closely with Mohit for more than four years now and am constantly touched by his commitment and attitude towards clients and the brands. Mohit epitomizes everything the MPG brand stands for – cutting edge client servicing, solid strategic offering and focus on delivering value. It obviously gives me great pleasure to announce his well-deserved promotion.”

Nayyar also added that these changes at the Mumbai office underline the new momentum at MPG India. “We have aggressive plans for the year and with the capable team at the helm, we are looking at the fruition of these plans”, she noted

MUMBAI: TBWA India has won the creative mandate for the newspaper brand, the New Indian Express – a part of the Chennai-based Express Publications (Madurai).

The mandate was awarded following a multi-agency pitch, and will be handled out of the agency’s Chennai office. 
 
The New Indian Express Group VP marketing V. Natarajan said, “The New Indian Express is on a path of growth and the well know journalist and media personality Mr. Prabhu Chawla has recently joined us as the Editorial Director. In this phase we feel that TBWA‘s disruptive thinking and their creative approach will give our brand the necessary thrust to not only consolidate our position, but also grow exponentially.”
 
TBWA India MD Nirmalya Sen added, “Nothing excites us more than an opportunity to work on a challenger brand. And this brand is a challenger by its very DNA. We are looking forward to disrupt conventions in the category to help brand New Indian Express to go to its next level of growth in the Southern markets and Orissa.”

TBWA India VP Arindam Sengupta states: “We expect to execute what we call a ‘Media Arts’ plan which identifies the brand space and how the brand should behave across various touch points. The scope to do some really disruptive work is immense and we are eagerly looking forward to it.”

MUMBAI: Dell India has consolidated its digital media business with its offline media initiatives and has aligned with its global media partner, MediaCom.

MediaCom has been handling the Dell India offline media business out of Bangalore for more than three years.
 
Dell India executive director – marketing Krishnakumar P said, “MediaCom has been a valuable partner for Dell for the last few years for our offline media needs. They have a dedicated and energetic team that has been a pleasure to work with and we look forward to their innovation and commitment to further our digital media practices in India. Dell has been on the path of transformation over the last year. With the right focus on customers, people, products, strategies and coverage we aim to ensure that technology acts as a key enabler for our customers giving them the power to do more.”
 
 
MediaCom India COO Debraj Tripathy added, “With this, we believe, Dell will gain huge value because of seamless integration of online and offline media inputs. We have a very special relationship with Dell and this move further reinforces the bond that MediaCom and Dell share, both in India as well as in other markets across the globe.”

MUMBAI: Leo Burnett Worldwide’s integrated marketing services arm, Arc Worldwide, has won the digital creative mandate of online tax filing company, TaxSpanner.

The business will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai office.
 
The mandate was given after a multi-agency pitch that included Webchutney, Digiqom and Pepper Square.

Arc will be developing the communication strategy for TaxSpanner, user interface assessment and a digital plan with focus on social media.
 
Arc Worldwide India head CVS Sharma said that the challenge will be to achieve a paradigm shift in consumer behaviour — who otherwise choose the easy way of finding an agent or CA to file their tax returns.

“So we have to help consumers find the benefits of filing returns easily online with TaxSpanner”, Sharma added.
 
TaxSpanner CEO and co-founder Ankur Sharma said, “Arc’s integrated approach with digital and social media as drivers found resonance with our own thinking. The understanding of the medium and passion that Arc brought to the table helped us choose Arc as our digital partner.”

Arc’s client list includes Philip Moriss, HPCL, P&G, Piramal, Carrefour and SRF.