Category: MAM

MUMBAI: Kangna Ranaut is brand ambassador for Alcatel Ice3, a product launched in the Indian market by Alcatel Mobile in association with Ice Mobile Network Systems. 
 
Ranaut fits into the brand as she is trendy, stylish and has a youth image.

Kangna Ranaut says, “ICE is a young, hip, cool and stylish phone. I love its distinctive look, and believe it offers great features. It is priced very affordably, and I‘m sure it will be a very popular phone in the market. ”
 
The phone is priced at Rs 7,000. Says ICE Mobile Network Systems director M.S.Malik, “Together with TCT Mobile, we are launching five new Alcatel handset models in the next three months. We seek to establish a presence of at least a million handsets within a span of six months in the Indian market”.

MUMBAI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a format that changed the way cricket was viewed by many, so it does not come as a surprise when online social media goes buzzing about it.

Now with the League coming to a close, it is interesting to see how the buzz has shifted amongst teams and players in the past one month. The analysis has been undertaken by Nielsen using Nielsen Online BuzzMetrics, which measured online posts in message boards, blogs, discussion groups and micro blogs (Twitter) across all cricket following countries. 
 
In the last two weeks, the focus of social media users has shifted from cricket, and they have discussed Shashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi even more than the two most discussed players online- Tendulkar and Dhoni. The sentiments were negative for both Tharoor and Modi initially. However, in the last couple of days brand Tharoor seems to have recovered marginally, while Modi continues to be perceived negatively in social media.

At the beginning of the League, Kolkata Knight Riders were the most discussed team online, but as the season comes to a close Mumbai Indians have gone ahead of Kolkata Knight Riders in online buzz. Deccan Chargers is the third highest discussed team, followed by Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore at fourth and fifth spot respectively.

Amongst players, Ricky Ponting, who was the most discussed player online prior to the League has been replaced by Sachin Tendulkar in the current season. Sachin is followed by M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Shane Warne and Rahul Dravid.
 
Nielsen Online associate director Karthik Nagarajan says, “Contrary to our hypothesis, it seems that on field performance does matter when it comes to online buzz volume. Discussions revolving around Mumbai Indians, Sachin, and Dhoni are a clear indication of the same. Having said that, the controversy between Tharoor and Modi is so dominant that even players like Sachin and Dhoni have been overshadowed by it despite their performance.”

MUMBAI: Manchester United has stayed as the most valuable football club in the world for the sixth time in a row despite facing an erosion due to a troubled economy.

Forbes has valued the club that has iconic players like Wayne Rooney at $1.84 billion, down from $1.87 billion a year ago. 
 
Real Madrid takes the second spot, according to the Forbes list, followed by Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, AC Milan, Juventus, Chelsea, and Inter Milan.

The top 20 clubs have an average enterprise value of $632 million, down from $691 million a year ago. The 8.5 per cent decline equates to a $1.2 billion aggregate loss in value.

The five richest teams (Manchester United, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich) earned $556 million, an operating margin of 24 per cent. 
 
The five poorest teams (Newcastle United, Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund, Olympique Marseille, Werder Bremen) lost a combined $54 million on revenues of $778 million, the report said.

Forbes has valued the football clubs based on income streams such as broadcast rights, sponsorship and sales of tickets and merchandise.

The 20-team list includes six clubs from the English Premiere League. 
 
The Top 10 Clubs

MUMBAI: Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is all ready to launch the fifth season of its flagship property, Indian Idol, on 26 April.

The channel is pumping Rs 100 million to market the reality show and has roped in Amul, Nokia, Tata Docomo, Suzuki, Piramal Pharmaceuticals, Parle Agro and Tata Motors as show sponsors. 
 
The fifth season is jointly produced by format co-owners Fremantle Media India and Wizcraft. It will be aired from Monday to Thursday at 9 pm. Altogether, a total of 35 episodes will be screened including the finals.

The promotional activities will remain high across the Hindi speaking market (HSM). Apart from SET‘s own network, the channel has booked 6000 TV spots across 14 television channels.
 
Says SET marketing head Danish Khan, “The marketing of the show is being conducted in phases. While the first phase focused on spreading awareness about the auditions that was held in different parts of the country, the second phase will involve a lot of experiential marketing to get in more and more people to sample the show.”

The channel has tied up with Radio Mirchi as the show‘s radio partner. As part of its out-of-home initiative, Set has booked around 800 hoardings in 11 cities across Indian.

SET has priced a 10-second ad spot for Rs 250, 000, added a channel source.
 
Says SET programming head Ajay Bhalwankar, “Indian Idol 5 will showcase the inspirational and emotional stories of people. It will give the flavor of our vast country, showcase great singing talent and unique characters. We have made it to a weekly format so that people can follow their favourite
characters more closely and immerse themselves in the Indian Idol experience.”

The new season will be judged by Anu Malik, Salim Merchant, and Sunidhi Chauhan and will be hosted by Abhijeet Sawant and Prajakta Shukre.

Says FremantleMedia India MD SK Raj Barua, “By tapping into the international and creative expertise of Fremantle Media‘s global network, we expect the new season to showcase everything that has made Idols one of the world‘s most inspiring brands.”

MUMBAI: In a bid to expand its footprint into the southern market, Lowe Lintas has set foot in Kerala to set up a fully functional office in Kochi.

Lowe Lintas president Sujit Nair will oversee the Kerala operations and businesses in the region. The office will also cater to the businesses in Trivandrum and Kozhikode.
 
Said Lowe Lintas India CEO Charles Cadell, “With an increasing number of Kerala brands targeting the national and international markets, it is an opportunity for us to offer our international brand building expertise to companies in such an expansionist mode.”

“To give such clients the dedication they will need, Lowe Lintas is establishing local representation to support such brand development. Estimated business in Kerala is to the tune of Rs 1000 million and we hope to get a strong foothold in this state soon,” Cadell added. 
 
The agency plans to bring national and international learning, experience and exposure to businesses in retail, government and ayurveda. The agency will bring in marketing consulting capabilities in a bid to help create power brands through high value ideas. 
 
The agency will open its innings with Kochi based Mayden Pharma.

MUMBAI: Wynn Telecom, which recently announced its foray into the mobile handset business under the ‘Wynncom‘ brand, has appointed Dentsu Creative Impact as its creative agency, while Karishma Initiative and Alliance Advertising are appointed as media agencies.

Said Wynn Telecom Ltd managing director Arvind R Vohra, “We are pleased to have Dentsu, Karishma Initiative and Alliance as our creative and media planning partners because of their extensive understanding of the corporate and strategic requirements of the business. The agencies experience in the telecom space is a perfect fit with our communication objectives.”
 
The agencies were finalized through a multi level pitching process among four agencies under each category. The media business would be largely driven by Karishma Initiative while special activations and properties related to sports would be done by Alliance Advertising.

“Wynn Telecom will launch a 360 degree integrated campaign across media vehicles capitalising on the recently signed Bollywood celebrity. The objective is to do traditional things differently and to break the clutter” said Wynn Telecom head marketing Naved Chaudhary.
 
He further adds that the marketing budget for the current fiscal would be in excess of Rs 300 million spread across television, print, outdoors and online media platforms.

Said Karishma Initiative CEO N P Sathyamurthy, “Wynncom requires radical solutions, given their market complexion and high decibel competition. Karishma Initiative is looking forward to being a true partner by offering differentiated customer engagement solutions.”
 

MUMBAI: Colors marketing head Rameet Arora, who was part of the original team set up in April 2008, has resigned.

Arora, who is serving his three-month notice period, is set to join McDonald’s as senior director.
 
Arora spearheaded the marketing of the channel that churned out several popular shows including Balika Vadhu, Khatron ke Khiladi and Bigg Boss. He had an important role to play as Colors swiftly climbed to leadership position in the Hindi general entertainment channel space.
 
Colors CEO and Viacom18 COO Rajesh Kamat said, “Over the last 20 months, Arora’s passion and experience has not only driven Colors to become one of the most recalled brands in a short span of time but also helped position many of its shows uniquely in the entertainment space.” He further added, “As he moves on to a fresh challenge, I wish him all the luck.” 
 
Arora added, “The last two years when I have been associated with Colors have been a period of immense professional and personal growth for me. I was privileged to have had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds in Indian television. The work itself has been extremely exciting and together we have achieved a lot.”

MUMBAI: R K Swamy BBDO has roped in Rohini Gauthaman as Media Direction general manager for its New Delhi office. She will report to Media Direction president Les Margulis.
 
Prior to this, Gauthaman was with Lintas Media Group as VP planning.

Margulis said, “Gauthaman is smart, savvy and driven, and I believe will take Media Direction, Delhi to new levels in 2010 and beyond.” 
 
This is Gauthaman‘s second stint with the agency. Her first stint with RK Swamy BBDO was in 1994. She has also been associated with Allied Media and Hakuhodo (both part of the Percept Group) and Mindshare.

She has worked on accounts including Maruti Suzuki, Luxor, BILT PVR Cinema, JVC, Panasonic, Yamaha Pianos, Canon, Toshiba, Konica, Sony and Dupont.
 

MUMBAI: Dabur India has roped in Bipasha Basu as the new brand ambassador for Real Activ.

The company will partner with the actress in its brand communications endorsing Real Activ‘s new Snack Healthy campaign.
 
Said Bipasha, “This association has been a natural choice for me as I myself have experienced the goodness of the brand. In today‘s modern world, we women are no less than superwomen, because we end up juggling between home and work.”

The new brand communication featuring Bipasha will be aimed at educating the consumers on how the unhealthy food intake in between meals takes a toll on one‘s health and fitness. The brand has come up with the proposition ‘snack healthy‘ where it will talk about how one can replace the existing habit of unhealthy snacking with healthy snacking using Réal Activ juices. 
 
Averred Dabur India marketing head foods KK Chutani, “There is a perfect match between the brand and Bipasha Basu, with both epitomizing health and fitness. Bipasha is unarguably the fittest of the Bollywood stars and her experience with Réal Activ juices makes it an ideal brand proposition for us to share with consumers.”

“With this, we aim to create awareness amongst consumers on the need to Snack Healthy and how Réal Activ juices make an ideal snack option as they are made from the nature fresh, handpicked fruits and vegetables and are nutritious, filling and lip-smackingly delicious,” Chutani adds.

MUMBAI: The IPL brand is under threat of standing eroded if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) does not introduce sweeping changes that include transparency and proper governance mechanisms.

With controversy swirling around the Indian Premier League, the need has come to take corrective steps and preserve the brand which is currently valued by a UK firm at $4.13 billion.
 
There is no immediate pressure, however, to downgrade the brand. “Given the scale of these allegations, there can be some damage to the brand. A lot, however, will depend on how the BCCI manages these issues and puts systems and processes in place. If they don’t behave, the IPL brand will get severely damaged in the long run,” said Intangible Businesses valuation director Richard Yoxon.

The IPL brand is being exposed to serious risks. Said Brand Finance India MD Unni Krishnan, “While the IPL brand had added significant value in a relatively short period of time, there are significant risks in terms of brand value governance & transparency, management systems & processes, and stakeholder alignment to future proof the exponential value generation capabilities of the brand.” 
 
Brand Finance had valued the IPL’s branded business at $4.13 billion, up from $2.01 billion a year ago.

Percept Joint MD Shailendra Singh expects the IPL‘s Governing Council meeting next month to result in transparency. “The issue is whether the IPL business is clean. If the Income-Tax (IT) authorities give it a clean chit, then the IPL brand will not be affected. Otherwise there will be repercussions. A brand‘s success rests on several things including its architecture, character and look. I feel that the BCCI should welcome the IT move which I call a scrutiny. It gives them the opportunity to do proper housekeeping,” he said.

A positive step could be to make Shashank Manohar the IPL co-chairman, Singh suggested. However, if Modi is asked to go as reports have been suggesting, then it would be a body blow to the IPL brand. 
 
“Modi has been brand IPL. He had the vision to build the league and for him to go at this point of time would be a most unfortunate development,” Singh added.

Some experts feel the IPL as a credible brand will largely hinge on the content that comes out of the IT investigations. “So far there have been rumours and speculations. The IT report hints at several things like match-fixing and betting, but there need to be facts,” the head of a sports marketing firm said on request of anonymity.

The IPL is becoming a political battle with all the parties trying to benefit from the mud-slinging game. “The Congress made Tharoor a soft target. Now they can afford to go after Lalit Modi as he is said to have BJP links. What is interesting, though, is that Sharad Pawar is backing Modi. The NCP is a Congress ally. Pawar might have a big role to play in terms of how things turn out for Modi and the BCCI”, said a political observer.

How do advertisers view the playout of events? According to GroupM media buying head Prashant Kumar, advertisers should focus more on what the product delivery would look like next year as opposed to worrying too much about the skirmishes at the moment. “Of course there is concern about what is going on. At the same time an advertiser looks at the viewer’s engagement with the product. They will focus on the fact that there will be more matches and more venues next year. That means more visibility. If people tune into the product, there is no issue”, he said.

A spokesperson at VRock Mobile, which has done a long term service deal with the IPL for mobile Vas, believes that the IPL will weather the storm and get bigger and stronger. “The key is that it is run in a professional manner”, he said.

The next steps by the BCCI, however, will decide whether the IPL brand will continue to grow or stay as a property whose true value couldn’t be realised.