Category: MAM

MUMBAI: Continuing their strong relationship with the Tata Group, Rediffusion Y&R has now crafted the launch campaign for Taj Groups‘ ‘Vivanta by Taj‘.
 
The first print ad of the campaign has been launched today, 15 September, across India. 
 
‘Vivanta by Taj‘ is the second phase of their brand architecture exercise with the roll-over of 19 hotels to their new brand, Vivanta by Taj Hotels & Resorts. Vivanta by Taj is a five-star hospitality brand positioned in the upper-upscale segment and is a part of Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces. Sixteen erstwhile Taj Hotels joined the three existing Vivanta by Taj hotels to create a brand which has an inventory of nearly 2500 rooms. Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces created Vivanta after a series of extensive customer understanding studies. 
 
Rediffusion Y&R partnered with Taj in building the brand communications for Vivanta over the last one and a half years which include above and below the line (ATL & BTL) communications. Rediffusion Y&R has crafted a 360 communications strategy to build brand Vivanta. The campaign is mainly print media driven, that brings to life the new philosophy and services of the brand.

MUMBAI: Reliance Broadcast Network‘s (RBNL) OOH vertical Big Street has won the most premium Line V of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for a five-year period.

The DMRC mandate to RBNL includes OOH media inventory spread across nine super-premium underground stations spread over a 12 km stretch covering VVIP areas ranging Udyog Bhawan, Race Course, Jorbagh, INA, AIIMS, Green Mark, Haus Khas, Malviya Nagar and Saket.
 
 
With a traffic footfall of 150,000 commuters each day, DMRC Line V reaches out to the premium areas of South Delhi and the traffic to and from Gurgaon and Central Delhi, potentially providing a humongous opportunity to advertisers and the ability to contribute to a sizeable chunk of RBNL‘s OOH revenues from Delhi.

According to the company, DMRC Line V, strategically located, attracts the higher echelons of society ranging students, young executives, business and airport travelers and proves an excellent platform for relevant advertisers that range travel, education, FMCG, youth brands, lifestyle, fashion and retail. With the aesthetically built media vehicles already strategically located at the DMRC, there is no capex requirement and it allows for excellent opportunity for innovations.
 
 
Reliance Broadcast Network at the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation already holds the Line III of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), for a five year period, passing 21 premium stations spread over 33.5 km stretch of high potential areas covering both west and central Delhi and Line II, which passes through key areas like the Rajiv Chowk, Kashmiri Gate, Vishwa Vidyalay and the Central Secretariat, are also a part of RBNL‘s portfolio.
 
 
Said Reliance Broadcast Network business head experiential marketing and digital – out-of-home Rabe T Iyer, “The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation attracts approximately 1.5 million commuters on a daily basis, which makes it one of the most desirous and appropriate touch points for marketers. Our acquisition of Line V, coupled with our already existent inventory on Line II and III, gives Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. a strategic advantage, as we now hold the most sizable chunk of the OOH inventory at the DMRC. Our inventory mix is spread across Line III and Line II reaching out to the premium audiences and the newly acquired Line V catering to the super-premium audience, ensures the inventory reaches out across strata. With the addition of new metro lines, DMRC is poised to grow the OOH market and with our 40% market share, we are poised to maximize this growth.”

BANGALORE: Ford India has launched a new variant of its premium Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), the Ford Endeavour 3.0 litre 4×2 Automatic (AT) in Bangalore. A six-week print and on-line campaign created by JWT for the new product will commence starting 15 September across the country.
 
“Building on the strong Endeavour sales so far this year, and the overwhelming response to the automatic transmission launched last year, we are confident that the new variant will be a popular and well received addition to our product line-up,” said Ford India president and managing director Michael Boneham.
 
“We will come out with a television campaign shortly and a planning to spend a few tens of millions to push this product, which is a premium segment SUV,” added Boneham.
Ford India forecasts the Indian automobile market to grow to 5 million units by 2015 and to 9 million units by 2020. Taking this into account, Ford India plans to introduce 8 new products into the Indian market by 2015.
 
Mindshare handles the media buying duties for Ford India.

MUMBAI: In a multi-agency pitch, the Mumbai wing of TBWA has bagged the creative duties for luggage retail chain BagZone. 
 
The size of the account is pegged at Rs 120 million. 
 
TBWA will handle the retail brand BagZone and a new brand of women’s handbags, LaVie.

BANGALORE: The Nielsen Company (Nielsen) and McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) announced the India launch of NM Incite, a global joint venture between the two companies.

The JV has been created to help leading companies harness the power of social media intelligence to drive superior business performance. NM Incite gives companies the capabilities to better understand value and take advantage of the rich insights made possible by social media.

Nielsen president Piyush Mathur says, “Social media is a fast developing platform for consumer opinion and can emerge as an ocean of insight for brands that care to listen. NM Incite aims to help marketers understand this media better and leverage it for growth”.

McKinsey will contribute to client capability building and expertise in the areas of marketing and sales, organization and service operations. McKinsey serves multiple clients and has developed proprietary knowledge and distinctive insights in areas such as digital marketing, marketing ROI, word-of-mouth marketing and consumer purchase behaviour.
 
McKinsey head sales and marketing practice India Sahana Sarma says, “We evolve our consulting methods based on our client requirements. Social media is increasingly becoming too powerful a marketing tool to ignore it any more. This joint venture will help us in delivering to our clients the key to unlock the potential of social media.

“Social media in India is where search used to be three-four years back and brands who take early positions will definitely stand to gain. Only eight per cent of social media users in India have not read a product review in the last 12 months and 77 per cent have visited a product website after reading a review on a social media site. This gives an idea of how extensively the Indian user is interacting with brands online,” added Mathur.
 
 
NM Incite is headquartered in New York and is led by CEO Dave Hudson. NM Incite looks to build upon the social media and online brand metrics, consumer insights and real-time market intelligence of Nielsen BuzzMetrics to transform business operations including product development, marketing, communications and customer service. With the creation of this new venture, BuzzMetrics becomes wholly a part of NM Incite.

Impact of social media on consumers : To gauge the impact of social media on consumers today, Nielsen Online conducted a study among 800 online consumers in India, and the study revealed that 70 per cent of all social networking users access it everyday. It is interesting to note that only two per cent of the people surveyed are not on any social networking sites. 4.7 million messages were posted in the last one year across the top 25 Indian forums.

One in two people, across all age groups, have interacted with a brand on a social networking site in the last one year and 57 percent have reviewed at least one product in the last 12 months. Three out of four people have read expert reviews on consumer electronics/ durables in the last one year, with the highest reviews in the category done by 41-45 year olds. Three out of Four teens has become a fan of a brand online. More women read expert car reviews than movie or clothing reviews.

Online reviews are influencing decision making today. 77 per cent of the users visited a product‘s website after reading its review on social media. 52 per cent of those who read online reviews about a product bought it. Seven out of ten people who bought a product used online reviews as the main or only source of information.
 
As expected variation in social media usage can be seen across different age groups. 37 per cent of heavy social media users in India (who use it multiple times a day) fall in the age group of 21-30 years. The most likely age group to click on an ad on a social networking site is the 31-40 year olds, with 69 per cent of those surveyed in this age group having clicked on an ad on a social networking site. 89 per cent of the 15-20 year olds access a social networking site everyday and 60 per cent of them spend at least half an hour on social networking each day. A quarter of the social media users in the 15-20 age group read expert reviews on the stock market.

Contrary to popular belief, more women read expert car reviews than movie or clothing reviews. Only eight per cent of the total social media users surveyed have not read a product/ service review in the past one year. So we see that social media has become an important factor in the consumer decision making today and NM incite aims to decipher this space for marketers.

NM Incite advises senior executives and delivers measurement, tools and new processes to drive organizational transformation. The initial areas of focus are measuring and improving marketing effectiveness, product launch optimization and customer service experience.

NM Incite will work with the expansive ecosystem of interactive, marketing and strategic communications firms and other technology and social media companies to implement client solutions, help shape future offerings and develop new metrics.

“Our clients recognise the importance of social media today. They are now on the lookout for an opportunity to harness the potential of this rapidly evolving medium. NM Incite will help companies do this, by leveraging on the wealth of social media expertise that Nielsen and McKinsey bring to the table,” says Mathur.

MUMBAI: The Association of Tennis Players (ATP) and FedEx have signed a three-year agreement that brings FedEx on board as a new global Platinum Sponsor and Official Carrier of the ATP World Tour.

The sponsorship will launch at the 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in November and extend through 2013. 
 
In addition to global marketing rights, FedEx will become a sponsor of 17 ATP World Tour tournaments in 12 different countries. Reliable performance will be a prevalent theme across all activation and reinforced visually with FedEx brand exposure on court at tournaments spanning four continents and on ATPWorldTour.com, the world’s most popular website dedicated to tennis.
 
FedEx will develop an enhanced analysis of player match records providing fans with added information on player success and consistency on different surfaces, in pressure situations and against specific opponents. This information, along with player videos, polls and more will be featured in a new section on ATPWorldTour.com called the FedEx Reliability Zone.
 
ATP executive chairman and president Adam Helfant says, “We are happy to welcome FedEx as a global sponsor of the ATP World Tour. FedEx is a recognised leader in sports marketing and we are proud that they have chosen the ATP World Tour for this major foray into international sports sponsorship”.

FedEx has a history in sports marketing, with sponsorships of the PGA Tour and the FedExCup, Joe Gibbs Racing, NFL, the French Open at Roland Garros, FedExField in Washington D.C., FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn. and a more than 20 year relationship with the PGA Tour‘s St. Jude Classic.

MUMBAI: Star Network will showcase an exclusive three-minute commercial of Kansai Nerolac‘s 2010 campaign at 9.10 pm tonight. The campaign talks about the launch of its new range of eco-friendly paints.
 
The commercial has been specially created to be aired on Star Network and will only be seen across Star Plus, Star One, Star Gold, Star Utsav, Star Movies, Star World, Channel V, Star Jalsha, Star Pravah, National Geographic Channel & Fox History & Entertainment. 
 
Says Star India president sales Kevin Vaz, “Star Network enjoys the recognition of having a network of channels that appeals to and reaches out to a large and varied group of audiences with its wide and diverse range of entertainment options. In acknowledgement of this fact, Kansai Nerolac decided to launch their latest campaign on eco-friendly products ‘kuch change karein, chalo paint karein‘ with the Network that has the largest reach.”
 
Adds Kansai Nerolac Paints decorative sales & marketing VP Anuj Jain, “Nerolac has initiated a movement in the paint industry by introducing healthy home paints and we are pleased to unveil it on the Star Network platform through this innovative road block. The road block at Star Network is a unique way for us to reach our consumers effectively and quickly. It is a real testimony of the considerable amount of innovation happening at the network.”

Earlier, in September last year, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) had blocked an entire day on the the Star and Zee networks for the HUL brands that not only brought in an advertising premium to the channels but also extreme exposure to the brands. As a result, HUL decided to repeat the roadblock, only across all the Star network channels, a month later in October.
 

MUMBAI: The third season of Fear Factor- Khataron Ke Khiladi on Colors has opened with a whopping 6.9 TVR within the three metros of the Hindi Speaking market.

As per Tam mid-week data, the 90-minute episode of KKKx3 on 6 September has surpassed every other reality show‘s debut episode ratings in 2010 in the metros.
 
The Priyanka Chopra hosted daredevil reality show, which got a mixed response from viewers, has clocked 6.9 TVR in HSM Metros (Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai). Earlier, Zee TV’s DID l’il Master had opened to 6.7 TVR in the same demographic. Other shows in the top five are National Bingo Nights, Chak Dhoom Dhoom (both Colors) and Comedy Circus ka Jadoo (Sony Entertainment Television).

Source: TAM , 4+, HSM 3 Metros

 
Even among the three metros, it was the Delhi viewers who hooked on to the show the most notching 10.2 TVR (7.1 TVR for second season), followed by Mumbai (5.5 TVR, against 4.1 TVR in season two) and Kolkata (4.1 TVR, from 2.2 TVR in season two).

The launch episode of KKKx3 has seen a 47 per cent jump in ratings over the second season, hosted by Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. The first and second seasons of the show had opened with 2.05 TVR and 4.68 TVR respectively.

Colors programming head Ashvini yardi said, “We are delighted that Fear Factor Khatron Ke Khiladi Tiguna has received the highest ever opening mid-week TVR of 6.9. This upswing clearly suggests that the audiences have appreciated the new format with 13 hunks and Priyanka Chopra. The viewers will be in for a treat as the next few episodes will be filled with cutting edge stunts and actions that have never been seen before.” 
 
Meanwhile, Colors claims that the third season of the show, which has seen a change in format – from one male host and 13 ladies to one lady host and 13 male contestants – has also seen an increase in the reach and average time spent vis-?-vis.

KKKx3 debut episode reach was 20.9 per cent, up from a 16.7 per cent reach in the second season debut episode across the HSM metros. The viewers spent average time of 29.2 minutes on the Priyanka Chopra-hosted show as compared to 27.2 minutes spent on second season’s launch episode.
 
While the initial episode rating is the result of all the promotional and marketing push the channel gave for the show, the full first week rating on Wednesday, 15 September will give the clear verdict on the show.

MUMBAI: Tata Sky has launched a new television commercial wherein brand ambassador Aamir Khan dons the avatar of a milkman. 
 
Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, the commercial talks about a situation where a customer of the milkman offers to pay only for the days he was in town.
 
The milkman‘s point of view is explained in a humorous manner where he informs the customer how the cow is not aware of the vacation and hence, gave milk every single day. The milkman forcibly takes money from his customer even for the days he was on a holiday. The situation shown in the films draws a parallel between the DTH companies and the milkman. 
 
Directed by Prasoon Pandey, the core theme of the ad revolves around once-a-year subscription holiday service being offered by Tata Sky. With this feature subscribers can discontinue their service while on vacation for a period of 15 days once every year. This results in a savings of 15 days subscription for the service.
 

MUMBAI: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has unanimously elected Aditya Birla Management Corporation director-group corporate services Rajiv Dube as chairman of the board. He replaces director – IBS and outgoing ASCI chairman Dhananjay Keskar.

Said Keskar, “During the year 2009-10, ASCI celebrated its silver jubilee. ASCI has grown in stature, membership strength and recognition. A sustained public relations campaign has ensured growing awareness of ASCI among the stakeholders and also among the general public. We upgraded our website and made it interactive for a visitor to the site. This feature and introduction of a toll free number has simplified the process of lodging a complaint about an advertisement with ASCI. I am happy about the support ASCI have been receiving from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Our efforts are appreciated by the Word Federation of Advertisers who have agreed to fund ASCI for the next three years to increase awareness of ASCI and to carry out the required market research.”
 
 
Added Rajiv Dube, “I feel privileged and thankful to the board of governors of the Advertising Standards Council of India for providing me this unique opportunity for leading the movement on self regulation in advertising in the country. It‘s a humbling experience to be at the forefront of a 25 year old strong and growing initiative which has come to be looked upon by society and the government alike as the guardian for responsible advertising communication.”

Meanwhile, TV Today executive director and CEO G Krishnan has been named vice chairman while GroupM CEO Vikram Sakhuja has been was re-appointed as the honorary treasurer.
 
 
The other members of the new board of governors are:

Advertisers: Narendra Ambwani (Johnson & Johnson), Shantanu Khosla (Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care), Gopal Vittal (Hindustan Unilever).

Media: Bhaskar Das (Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.), Vikram Kaushik (Tata Sky Ltd.) and I Venkat (Eenadu).
 
 
Advertising Agencies: Subhash Kamath (BBH Comms India), Arvind Sharma (Leo Burnett) and Srinivasan Swamy (RK Swamy BBDO).

Allied Professions: Dilip Cherian (Perfect Relations), Dhananjay Keskar (IBS), Pranesh Misra (Brandscapes Consultancy P. Ltd.) and Partha Rakshit (Partha Rakshit Associates).

During the year 2009-10, the consumer complaints council (CCC) met 12 times and deliberated on complaints against 159 advertisements, informs ASCI. Of these, 87 complaints were upheld, while 72 were not. In 71 cases, the ads have been withdrawn or modified appropriately as per the CCC‘s decisions resulting in an 82 per cent compliance rate, ASCI claims.