Category: MAM

MUMBAI: US media conglomerate Time Warner and Unilever have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership.

This aligns Unilever’s brands and marketing initiatives with the content and audiences of Time Warner’s premier assets. It also marks a renewal of a three-year partnership that began in 2007.
 
Unilever CMO Keith Weed said, “The variety of top-quality communications platforms that Time Warner offers give us the ability to engage our consumers with innovative brand content that is most relevant to them. As a major marketer, we want to be where our consumers are and these platforms give us the added ability to do that through our extended relationship”.

Time Warner’s Global Media Group president Mark D’Arcy added, “We recognise that in order to drive strategic growth for our partners and ourselves, we must focus our efforts on delivering premium content, applications and experiences that serve the client’s brand and uniquely engage the consumer. Unilever is second to none in how they apply creativity to the media canvas.”
 
An example of Unilever and Time Warner‘s partnership is the new launch of the TIME iPad App. Unilever used a multibrand approach to take advantage of the environment and functionality. Both companies were able to experiment with this new platform and identify mutually-beneficial ways to engage consumers.
 
Since 2007, Time Warner Global Media Group has crafted custom Unilever brand platforms leveraging assets from Warner Bros, Time Inc and Turner Broadcasting. Recent examples include the ideation, production and distribution of a content series for Caress, featuring talent Carson Kressley across digital, in-book, and retail outlets. For Knorr, Time Warner leveraged its mom insights to produce Delicious Dinner Diaries documenting busy moms making their family’s favorite meals and distributed it across Time Warner branded sites.

And, earlier this year, Time Warner Global Media brokered the production of seven segments for Telepictures’ Extra covering Bertolli’s Into the Heart of Italy programme featuring talent Marisa Tomei, Rocco Di Spirito and Dan Cortese.
 

MUMBAI: The nineteenth Commonwealth Games (CWG) has announced its association with Indian Luxor as the official licensee for writing instruments. 
 
The company is expected to spend over Rs 100 million for consumer activation. Luxor will have stalls in each of the CWG stadiums for consumers and support the infrastructure and success of the games.
 
Said Luxor Group chairman DK Jain, “Our products are synonymous with the youth, kids, and their dreams and ambitions. Thus becoming a part of the Commonwealth Games 2010 is very much in line with our core beliefs.” 
 
As the official writing Instruments licensee for CWG 2010, Luxor has launched writing instruments specially crafted for athletes, officials and volunteers. Apart from that, Luxor will also initiate premium items such as fountain pens as one of the corporate gifts for CWG 2010.
 

MUMBAI: Lowe + Partners has elevated Rupen Desai, currently the network‘s operating director for Unilever‘s worldwide business, to the newly created role of president, South East (SE) Asia.

Desai‘s role will extend to include leadership of the Lowe Singapore agency. 
 
The role will see Desai focus on all SE Asia Pacific territories, including Australia and New Zealand but excluding China and India. He will report to Lowe + Partners chairman Tony Wright and CEO Michael Wall. He will also retain his leadership role on the network‘s Unilever business. Lowe is Unilever‘s biggest agency with approximately 20 plus key Unilever brands across the world.

With over 15 years within Lowe, Desai‘s experience has spanned across large multinational clients, including Unilever, InBev, J&J, HSBC, Columbia Tri-Star and Nokia. He has been based in Lowe offices in India, UAE, Lebanon and Thailand. 
 
Currently based in Singapore, he will continue to direct Lowe teams across the Unilever Asia business, whilst leading their laundry communications globally on brands like OMO, whose ‘Dirt is Good‘ strategy is successful across a number of geographies.

Lowe + Partners chairman Tony Wright said Desai‘s promotion will further strengthen the presence Lowe has in the region.
 
“We are already amongst the top 5 agencies in most countries in this region and this move allows us to continue to deliver the highest standards in Asia – in terms of our product, our talent pool as well as our processes. Lowe has been a well kept secret regionally, for too long,” Wright said.

Added Lowe + Partners CEO Michael Wall, “Rupen is a proven leader across the region on behalf of our clients, our agencies and our work. Lowe has a competitive and compelling footprint in Asia and we believe Rupen can help us build on this strong foundation as we look to accelerate our growth and capabilities.”
 

MUMBAI: Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has signed a Rs 2 billion endorsement deal for three years with Rhiti Sports Management and Mindscapes. Tendulkar‘s three-year deal with sports management firm Iconix, signed in 2006, was worth Rs 1.8 billion.
 
The firms will manage Dhoni‘s endorsements and brand associations, corporate profile, patents and digital rights, images, visibility on social networking sites and merchandise through a joint venture. Apart from Dhoni, Rhiti Sports also manages RP Singh and Harbhajan Singh. Dhoni endorses 22 brands such as Pepsi Reebok, Aircel, Godrej and Hersheys.
 
From each brand, Dhoni makes Rs 60 million a year. Mindscape Maestros is a celebrity management firm, which was set up in June 2008 with Dhoni as its star client.
 

MUMBAI: Urban Health Initiative (UHI), an initiative funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has appointed Lintas Media Group (LMG) as its agency of record following a multi-agency pitch. 
 
Said LMG EVP Delhi VS Mani, “LMG will handle the duties for four years. The understanding of the category, issues and the comprehensive strategy suggested made the difference coupled with the passion and energy of the team.” 
 
The project is aimed at addressing gaps in demand, supply and quality of family planning services for the urban slum population through a range of service delivery approaches, advocacy strategies and capacity building efforts.
 
The clients that the group handles include ITC Ltd, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Bajaj Auto, MRF, Sony, UTI, Religare, and Voltas.

MUMBAI: Mudra West, Triton Communications and Concept Communication have been empanelled to handle the creative and media duties of General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC).
 
The agencies won the account duties after contesting a multi-agency pitch. The account was earlier handled in-house. 
 
GIC, formed in 1972, GIC provides reinsurance to the direct general insurance companies in the Indian market.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan, which has generally been blamed for its slack publicity methods, has decided to go out-of-home – particularly in view of the Commonwealth Games and the launch of high definition television by the pubcaster.

The channel has invited tenders for outdoor publicity from agencies that have an average annual billing of Rs 500 million during the last three financial years and have a minimum net worth of equal amount. Additionally, the agencies should have handled such campaigns for general entertainment channels during the past three financial years for out-of-home (OOH) advertising for its various programmes. 
 
Doodarshan director general Aruna Sharma told indiantelevision.com that the agencies should have at least an experience of handling three outdoor campaigns in more than 50 cities during the last financial year.

Doordarshan is looking at 100 high-visibility sites in major cities, especially in metros, state capitals and important business towns. Apart from hoardings, the public broadcaster will also be looking at bus panels, especially in Mumbai.

The sites will be used to showcase the various programmes on Doordarshan apart from telecasting information about the Games. The creatives will be changed on a monthly basis.
 
While several producers of sponsored programmes on Doordarshan have gone in for OOH campaigns, this is the first time that the channel is planning to use outdoor media on such a large scale.

Sharma said that even if one went by TAM ratings, Doordarshan‘s viewership had gone up by 4 points in the last one year for entertainment programmes in the metros ad even higher for news. But the aim of the OOH campaign will be to reach out to larger viewers in urban areas since DD is already dominating in the rural areas.
 
Interested agencies will be required to submit their bid for the tender with the earnest money deposit of Rs 500,000. The agencies must have offices in more than 12 cities in the country, necessarily including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. The last date to submit the tender is 22 July.

Shortlisted agencies will be needed to present their credentials and creative proposal for Doordarshan between 27 and 29 July.

MUMBAI: Ogilvy India has elevated Kunal Jeswani to country head of OgilvyOne, the agency‘s CRM and interactive arm, with immediate effect.

Jeswani has been involved in a variety of important roles within Ogilvy India since 2005 and has over 14 years of agency management experience that he brings to the table.
 
In addition to having run some of Ogilvy‘s most important relationships, including Unilever, Cadbury and BCCI, Jeswani has been instrumental in leading strategic planning for OgilvyOne and has most recently been involved in Vodafone and Unilever.
 
The combination of strategic and operational management skills provided by Jeswani comes to OgilvyOne India at a special time of rejuvenation and reinvention for the group.
 
Says OgilvyOne Worldwide regional director South Asia Chris Riley, “We are lucky to have Kunal Jeswani join us at an important time of change and growth for OgilvyOne. This is a direct continuation of strategy to investment significantly in talent, to create new competencies and services and to provide sponsorship from the global OgilvyOne network in the Indian business.”

Jeswani joined Ogilvy India in 2005 and has over 14 years of experience across advertising, activation and digital marketing. Since early 2009, he has spearheaded the strategic planning function at Ogilvy Action and OgilvyOne and now takes over as country head.
 

MUMBAI: Grey India has named Ketan Desai as associate vice president and branch head for the Delhi region.

Desai began his career with the then Trikaya Grey in Kolkata 11 years ago. He has worked in several Grey offices and across many verticals like automobiles, media, FMCG, hospitality and tobacco. 
 
More recently Desai had been focusing on developing Grey‘s unique HoReCa offering. With the new mandate at hand, he will report directly to Grey India COO Jishnu Sen.
 
Prior to this, Desai was associate VP – director, client servicing at Grey Mumbai. 
 
Said Sen, “I am pleased to have Ketan, a Grey veteran, head our Delhi office. We have great clients in Delhi like Dabur and GSK and I am excited about what we can do with Ketan leading our Delhi team.”
 

MUMBAI: JWT has appointed Adrian Miller as chief creative officer for the Delhi region.

Miller will report to JWT managing partner Rohit Ohri and JWT India CEO Colvyn Harris.
 
As part of his new mandate, Miller is expected to lead clients into an idea driven space that is media neutral. 
 
Prior to this, Miller was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi for Malaysia and Singapore.