Category: MAM

MUMBAI: Theme Ventures, the diversified brand management firm, is on a growth trajectory and plans to have a 100-city operation within three years.

The company at present provides below the line (BTL) marketing solutions to clients in 25 cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Ahamdabad, Surat, Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Ranchi, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Siliguri, Indore and Bhopal.
 
“BTL marketing is still at a very nascent stage in India, but now advertisers have started to shift to this. The main reason is that the television medium has become very fragmented,” Theme Ventures CEO Rajan Guha tells indiantelevision.com.

Theme Ventures spans across 12 BTL marketing and branding services which takes care of the entire marketing need. The company takes care of B2B marketing, consumer scheming, product promotion, retail promotion, cross promotional sales, direct to corporate employee sales, customer relation management, strategic alliances, dealer motivation and sales incentive schemes.
 
“In developed countries, advertisers spend almost equally on ATL (above the line) and BTL marketing. India will see a great change and we are prepared for that. From 25 city operations today, we plan to cover 100 cities across India in the next three years,” Guha adds.

Theme Ventures claims that over the years, several companies have outsourced their sales and marketing functions to them, a trend unknown in India until recently.

MUMBAI: Contract Advertising has roped in Kumar Subramaniam as executive vice president for its Mumbai office.
 
As part of his new mandate, Subramaniam will also be responsible for the agency‘s digital division, iContract. 
 
Said Subramaniam, “Contract has been traditional and creative in its strategic thinking process and I plan to take this trend forward to explore newer opportunities for the agency.”
 

MUMBAI: Premier sports, entertainment and media company IMG Worldwide has announced that it has signed rising Romanian tennis star, Sorana Cirstea, as a client.

Cirstea, 20, holds two WTA titles and nine ITF titles and reached the quarter finals of the 2009 French Open and the Los Angeles Open.
 
Cirstea will be managed by Max Eisenbud and Ben Crandell. IMG senior VP Max Eisenbud says, “We are very pleased to have Sorana Cirstea as an IMG client. We believe Sorana has all the makings of a future Top 10 player. In addition to her outstanding tennis talents, her striking beauty, relaxed outgoing personality and intelligence gives her the opportunity to transcend tennis on a global basis.”

IMG Tennis head of global Fernando Soler says, “Sorana is one of the young sensations on the tennis scene today with enormous potential and we are thrilled she has chosen IMG to represent her. She clearly represents the next generation of tennis superstars who will be able to compete successfully on the world tennis stage.”
 
Following a successful junior career during which she was ranked number one on the Under 14 world rankings list in 2003, she won the 2005 German Junior Open (Grade 1), was a finalist in the 2006 Trofeo Bonfiglio, as well as the year-ending ITF Grade 1 juniors tournaments Eddie Herr International and Yucatan World Cup in 2005 and 2006, and in the Optus Nottinghill International in 2006.

In addition, she also had a junior doubles runner-up finish at 2007 Roland Garros. Sorana began her professional career in 2006.
 
In April 2007, she shocked tennis fans by coming out of relative obscurity to make the final of the Budapest Grand Prix as a qualifier, becoming the first Romanian player to reach a tour final since Ruxandra Dragomir in 2000. In 2008 in Tashkent, she won her first WTA tour title by defeating Sabine Lisicki in the final.

MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) and the hosts of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 Australia and New Zealand are requesting proposals from companies interested in providing the brand identity for the flagship ICC event
 
The event will be played in February and March 2015 and co-hosted by Cricket Australia (CA) and New Zealand Cricket (NZC).

The ICC, along with CA and NZC, will all be involved in the development of the event brand identity and will liaise and consult with each other during that development phase to ensure the new identity has sufficient flexibility across the diverse range of touch points that will be required of the brand.

This request for proposals (RFP) is designed to attract applications from companies with extensive proven track record in design of sporting event identities, preferably on a global scale, and with a talented and experienced design team capable of committing itself to the project over an extended period of time.
 
Timelines for the development of the strategy and event brand design along with an in-depth description of the required services are available in the RFP. In the first instance, interested parties must submit their intent-to-submit letter with a cost estimate and brief summary of credentials. 
 
The closing date is 21 May. No creative submission is required at this stage.

MUMBAI: Rediffusion-Y&R has split its wholly-owned subsidiary, Wunderman, into two distinct entities to segregate its domestic and international clients.

Said Wunderman Global CEO and chairman Daniel Morel, “Domestic and international clients don‘t have the same requirements and keeping their specific needs in mind, we are getting organized to match their expectations with the required skills and mindset within the two sister companies.”
 
Rediffusion-Wunderman (previously called Wunderman India) will focus on both domestic and global companies in India while Wunderman International will be dedicated to only the agency‘s global network clients.

With over 90 people in offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, Rediffusion-Wunderman will be headed by Leroy Alvares, based out of Mumbai. 
 
Said Rediffusion-Wunderman president Leroy Alvares, “The Rediffusion-Wunderman name change comes at a perfect time in our scheme of things. We‘ve been working backstage to beef up our team of experts and set up strong hubs on the basis our offering of digital, data and direct solutions.”

Its key clients include Tata Motors, Kingfisher Airlines, Airtel, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Esprit, Accenture, TVS, ITBC, Allen Solly, Home Town and Which Right Choice. 
 
Meanwhile, Wunderman International will be headed by Aditya Atri, based out of Delhi. Wunderman International has over 100 employees, with offices in Delhi and Chennai. Key clients include Microsoft, Nokia and Ford.

Said Rediffusion – Y&R Group CEO Mahesh Chauhan, “The new architecture of the Rediffusion Group is based around client‘s needs – of high-end specialisation as well high levels of collaboration. The new name best exemplifies this new reality.”
 

MUMBAI: BBH India has appointed Russell Barrett to head the creative team.

Prior to this, Barrett was executive creative director at Bates 141. 
 
Barrett will join office on 22 April and will report to BBH India managing partner Priti Nair.

Says BBH managing director Subhash Kamath, “With the business growing exponentially, it was time to bring in a senior level official and hence, Barrett has been brought on board. He will work closely with Nair and will service the Indian creative team across all clients.” 
 
With an experience of around 14 years, Barrett joined Bates 141 in January 2009. He has also been associated with Leo Burnett and Rediffusion DY &R.

Barrett has worked on brands like Virgin Mobile, Radio City and Fiat.
 

MUMBAI: Rasna International has moved to a new positioning, shifting from ‘I love you‘ Rasna for years to ‘Shararat ek ghoont‘.

The fruit drink brand has chosen Big FM Mumbai as the prime medium to launch its latest offering, Rasna Fruitplus. 
 
Rasna International CMD Piruz Khambatta says, “As per our media agency, Media Directions, today Big FM is a very popular radio station of Mumbai and has the maximum number of listeners to reach out to our target group. We, therefore, selected Big FM as the station for Mumbai, because of its effectiveness. Radio is the perfect medium to reach out to certain segments of the society. With everyone tuned to radio, it plays a very critical role in the media plan and cannot be ignored. We are using a mix of radio and TV for optimal mileage and reach.”

The brand has come on board with an innovative and creative month long campaign that promises to break the clutter, reach its audiences and create the mind-share for the product. The media campaign has been planned by Media Direction.
 
Big FM regional head west Saurabh Doshi, “We are very proud to have Rasna choose us as their partners. The effectiveness of radio is tremendous and we are happy to see more and more advertisers use it effectively to their advantage. This campaign, although recently launched has already created in-roads and interest amongst its target group. We are confident that the new messaging will come through clearly through this campaign, penetrating further into the households in Mumbai.”
 
The month long campaign, which has only recently launched, has high spot intensity, airing an innovatively woven 45 second messaging talking about Rasna Fruitplus, which can be prepared in just five seconds.
 

MUMBAI: Luminous Power Technologies has appointed Meridian (an Ogilvy Group agency) as its new creative agency following a multi-agency pitch. 
 
The company, which specialises in home inverter & UPS segment, plans to spend Rs 400 million on marketing this fiscal. The budget will be allocated across television, print, outdoor and BTL activities.
 
Said Luminous Power Technologies president – marketing and sales Sushil S Matey, “We were particularly impressed with Meridian‘s acumen and understanding of the brand and the market. The agency has the expertise and the desired capabilities. I‘m sure they will help us take our brand to newer heights.”
 
Luminous Power Technologies is currently working on a television commercial along with Meridian and plans to air it from 30 April onwards.

Said Meridian executive creative director Rensil D‘Silva, “Luminous has a dynamic product range and our task would be to build the category, as well as the product, and form an emotional bond with the customers.”

MUMBAI: Online travel company Yatra.com has launched a new advertisement campaign, “Go See the World”, targeting the young international travelers between the age group of 21 and 30.

With this campaign, Yatra.com dons a completely new look by introducing an animated character ‘joy‘. 
 
A series of five TVCs has been conceptualized to be aired on HBO, Star Movies, CNN IBN, CNBC Network 18, Star News, Sony Pictures, Times Now, National Geographic, Times Now, Discovery Channel and NDTV 24×7. 
 
Said Yatra.com head of marketing and strategic relations Pratik Mazumder, “Yatra.com is a youthful and unique brand, which offers best travel experience bundled with reliability and security – the core requirements of today‘s young travelers. To communicate the brand salience in the most innovative way possible, we have adopted the animated route this time that will reach out to the existing customers and will also attract the attention of the potential customers.”

MUMBAI: Generally cricket and Bollywood compete fiercely with each other for viewers attention. However with ESPN Star Sports’ (ESS) campaign for the Twenty20 World Cup, they have become bedfellows.

The broadcaster has tied up with the film Housefull. This is the third time that ESS has joined hands with Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, following Mujhse Shaadi Karoge and Heyy Babyy. The film and the Twenty20 World Cup start on 30 April. 
 
Two TVCs have been created. In one of them, the stars of the film – Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta and Riteish Deshmukh – are cheering the Indian team when it does well and exclaiming in disappointment when mistakes are made on the field. In the end they utter the campaign’s tagline which is ‘Josh Badega Jab World Cup Mein Desh Ladega’.

Explaining the concept of the campaign, ESS senior director marketing Nirmal Dayani notes that when Indian cricketers fight for the nation, passion rises and hits the roof. The campaign talks about this fight for pride. It is different from the campaign done for last year’s Twenty20 World Cup which was more combative in nature because India was defending the title.
 
When asked about why the campaign was being released a little over two weeks before the start of the event, Dayani notes that the aim was to have an intense burst closer to the property and drive fan affinity. The advantage is that there is no need to build awareness about the property per se. He concedes that the hype being generated by the IPL both on and off the field will mean that ESS has a task on its hands in terms of getting viewers’ attention. “Our focus will be on building fan engagement. We are doing above and below the line activities.”
 
Apart from print and radio, the cinema halls and malls will also be used. The broadcaster will air spots in cinema halls and also run a contest. “This could send winners to the West Indies. The modalities are being finalised and sponsors will be roped in for this,” Dayani says.