Category: MAM

“Sethi is a veteran in the Indian communications and mediascape and it‘s great to have him on board Team Dentsu in India. His diverse experience across disciplines of communications is of tremendous value and we see him lead Dentsu Marcom to great heights,” said Aggarwal.

A marketing communications specialist, Sethi has extensive experience in the marketing communications and publishing industries. He has successfully built new country operations and new competencies from inception to implementation. He has helped build operations in the Indian sub-continent for large global marketing communication companies such as Wunderman, McCann Relationship Marketing.

His strength has been his leadership and people skills. In recognition of his contribution in the field of integrated communications, Sethi was invited as a Lions Jury member to the 50th Cannes Advertising Festival.

Sethi is a graduate in Economics and a post-graduate in Management studies. He also completed his Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 2005.

Stepping into the vice chairman‘s position, meanwhile, is Lokmat Group director Bharat Kapadia.

With the new elections, the most urgent mandate of the governing council now will be to achieve a single currency for the readership survey.

Says Purushottam, “Our immediate agenda will be to lead to a successful merger of the IRS and NRS. We will also look at ensuring that across media, be it internet, radio and out-of-home, far more robust research will come out that will be cost effective and useful for the industry. Our approach will be to engage all stakeholders to contribute both their ideas and their money to make this possible.”

Earlier in August, the MRUC and National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) had passed the relevant resolutions at their respective Governing Council meetings to support the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) and the National Readership Survey (NRS) merger that could set the tone for a single currency in India.

MRUC has been set up by agencies, advertisers and media houses to determine and conduct research required for the assessment of various media for advertising. NRSC, on the other hand, has been constituted by INS, AAAI and ABC for the purpose of carrying out readership surveys in India.

Facebook, which has 300 million users, will conduct polls of the display ads it runs and provide that data to Nielsen. The research agency will then package this for advertisers.

The product, Nielsen Brand Lift, will help Facebook convince advertisers that display ads on the network work.

With expected revenue of $500 million in 2009, Facebook lags way behind Google and Yahoo. Search engine operators are able to display the effectiveness of ads, something which Facebook advertisers are unable to quantify.

“Over the next few months we will be giving a series of high-level presentations to agencies telling them how the characters and other properties could be leveraged to sell products,” said Warner Bros MD consumer products Australia Preston Lewis to News.com.au.

“Warner Bros looks at the full spectrum of consumers from newborns all the way up to grandma,” he added.

The company is looking at marketers to license the characters for brands including sweets and cereals.

The luggage manufacturer has designed an exclusive Main Aurr Mrs Khanna signature line of products. On purchasing the new line, customers would be entitled to participate in the contest.

As part of the contest, VIP customers can get the opportunity to meet Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Sohail Khan.

Other prizes include tickets to the premiere show to music CDs autographed by the stars and other accessories. The contest ends 5 October and would run at all VIP exclusive stores in the country.

Said VIP Industries MD Sudhir Jatia, “It is our constant endeavour to provide our customers with a differential and best-in-class shopping experience to make every VIP purchase special.

“We are happy to associate with Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, which will give our valued customers a chance to meet and interact with their Bollywood stars.”

Averred Sohail Khan, Producer of Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, “We are happy to associate with a successful and fashionable brand like VIP for Main Aurr Mrs Khanna.

“The threshold of the film is very urban and chic and the entire star cast lends itself to the same. We look forward to a great response from all VIP customers throughout India to the contest.”

As part of his new mandate, Sabnis will focus on growing the agency, building a team and look to partner Indian clients who can benefit from the global network of DDB.

Said DDB Mudra Group CEO Sandeep Vij, “With Rajiv‘s experience in growing large established offices as well as start ups, the connect is perfect.”

Added Sabnis, “The DDB Mudra partnership is led by local knowledge, experience and expertise of Mudra in India over the past three decades. My principal task in India will be to mirror the creative reputation and brand stewardship of DDB in India.”

Sabnis has approximately 23 years of experience in the advertising industry. He has worked with four multinational agencies and has handled sectors such FMCG, consumer durables, media & entertainment, automobiles and retail. The key brands he worked for include P&G Healthcare, Lakme, Cadbury, Shaw Wallace, Mahindra & Mahindra – Tractors, JK Tyres, HSBC Bank, Singapore Airlines and Asian Paints.

Playing on the new tagline “It‘s You!” where Y in the “You” is the Y from “Yahoo”, the campaign has been designed by Ogilvy & Mather, reports Wall Street Journal.

The new campaign focuses on personalisation and also looks at letting existing and new users know as Yahoo can help people navigate all their services and information online. The campaign will also launch the new tools that look at aiding users customise Yahoo products such as Yahoo.com.

Yahoo! will launch the new ad campaign this week in the US and will roll out in the UK over the coming weeks.

Pix organised the ‘Hollywood Pix Your Brain‘ initiative that ran across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. The initiative positioned the cities as the place to be for all those who want to test their knowledge on Hollywood movies and trivia.

Says Pix business head Sunder Aaron, “Below-the-line activities are critical to branding for television channels. Pix was the first to launch an on-ground event around Hollywood films, and the aim was to strengthen the association between the channel and Hollywood.”

Aaron adds that among other things the channel is also looking at tie-ups with out of home screens at McDonalds and Café Coffee Day where their promos can run on a continuous basis.

For Zee Studio, a major point of focus this year has been the Shut Up and Watch film Club (Saw) initiative. The activity aims at taking quality cinema to the genuine movie enthusiasts across the country in the unique setting of a bookstore. Therefore, as part of the on-ground move, the channel screens one movie every month for avid film buffs at Oxford Bookstore outlets across the five main metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai).

Studio Nites, on the other hand, are evenings of ‘Karaoke‘, conducted at popular restaurants and clubs celebrating “music from the movies”. Here patrons win prizes from the broadcaster for singing along to movie soundtracks.

For HBO, the key focus of the channel‘s marketing plan has been to bring the movie experience on-ground to create ‘audience engagement‘ through a mix of various media innovations.

Says HBO South Asia country manager Shruti Bajpai, “In past years, we have increased audience interaction with HBO Buzz. This is an HBO initiative to take HBO to the streets. We also created a talk value with Sex And The City pub nights and also did several on ground activities to promote our big upcoming mega blockbusters.”

Supporting this view, UTV World Movies programming head Manasi Sapare notes that the broadcaster has adopted several strategies to create audience interaction beyond television.

Among other things the broadcaster screens 30 movies in eight metros. The venues range from multiplexes to bookstores and coffee shops. It has also partnered with several places including Alliance Française, NCPA, Mocha film club to screen world movies.

“Our UTV World Movies film club has already amassed 600,000 ardent cinema lovers across the country. We do activities here that include film appreciation classes, and know more about the director sessions on a regular basis,” says Sapare.

Talking about WB fro the Turner stable and the latest addition to the genre, the channel conducted a marketing campaign supporting its launch that efficiently exploited the OOH as a media vehicle.

Turner International India vice president and deputy general manager – entertainment networks, South Asia Monica Tata explains that the campaign was targetted at Hollywood aficionados and was designed to evoke curiosity amongst the ardent Hollywood followers as it interweaved iconic dialogues and memorable moments of Warner Bros‘ films. The point was to instantaneously resonate and leave the audiences asking for more.

“Indoor branding renditions were put up in leading multiplexes and other vantage points across key metros,” she elaborates.

Tata records that the campaign covered 50,000 sq.ft hoarding space, 20 million banner impressions and engagement at coffee shops, multiplex chains, DVD rental services, book stores, health clubs, branded lounges amongst others.

Furthermore, when it comes to marketing, new media also has a significant role to play notes Bajpai. “With online social networking emerging as the newest platform, we‘ve also focussed on engaging and interacting with the viewers with our pages on Facebook and Twitter. Recently, our innovative Facebook activity for the latest HBO Original series True Blood, was a huge talking point with our viewers.”

The TVC looks at re-establishing and maintaining the product‘s brand positioning as ‘‘macho‘ in the two wheeler market.

Crafted by DraftFCB+Ulka, the TVC is being aired across all news and entertainment channels.

Pinder‘s speech at this year‘s conference, playing on the theme Rethinking your Business, will be on ‘Contagious Ideas that Change the Conversation‘.

He says, “Content providers’ expertise is centred on their own products and properties. Advertising agencies are aggregators and overviewers and need people to create ideas without having to worry about how to produce them. It is time for us to get to know each other and change the conversation between us, just as we must for our clients’ brands.”

Adds Reed Midem acting television division director Laurine Garaude, “All of the distribution solutions, whether they are traditional or digital, will increasingly need a strong advertising partner in order to succeed in a cross-platform world and advertising agencies need to find new ways of reaching their brands’ consumers. An eminent expert in the advertising world, Richard Pinder will share his experience and vision with Mipcom delegates and we are thrilled to welcome him.”

Added Reed Midem acting television division director Laurine Garaude, “All of the distribution solutions, whether they are traditional or digital, will increasingly need a strong advertising partner in order to succeed in a cross-platform world and advertising agencies need to find new ways of reaching their brands’ consumers. An eminent expert in the advertising world, Richard Pinder will share his experience and vision with Mipcom delegates and we are thrilled to welcome him.”

Richard Pinder stepped up to take sole leadership of the Publicis global network in May 2009. He is a member of Publicis Groupe’s P12 Management Board and reports directly to Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy. He was appointed Publicis Worldwide COO in October 2006 and has been part of Publicis Groupe since its acquisition of Bcom3 in 2002.