Category: Marketing

  • Alok Lall replaces Debashis Paul at McCann; Paul to head McCann Social

    Alok Lall replaces Debashis Paul at McCann; Paul to head McCann Social

    MUMBAI: McCann Erickson has roped in Alok Lall as executive director McCann Worldgroup to replace Debashis Paul, who moves on to head the newly formed outfit McCann Social.

    Lall, who recently quit as MD Iris India, will now be directly in charge of running the Delhi operations. This will be his second stint at McCann Erickson; he previously worked at McCann as an account director for a year from1996-97. 
     
    Lall started his career as an account executive at FS Advertising in 1989, before moving to DraftFCB Ulka as senior account executive. Then he joined JWT as account supervisor and worked for two years from 1993 to 1995, from where he shifted to McCann for a year with the same profile.

    From McCann, Lall once again moved to JWT, where he worked for about 13 years before joining Saatchi & Saatchi Delhi as branch head and executive vice-president. 
     
    Lall then, co-founded the Indian office of Iris worldwide four years ago in 2007, with Stewart Shanley, the agency‘s global chief operating officer, and Kenneth Augustine, creative director, iris India which provides integrated service to companies such as Sony Ericsson, Dell, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Shell, Alpha G Corp and adidas.

    Says McCann Worldgroup executive chairman Prasoon Joshi, “In our changing media landscape, Lall‘s drive towards new age media solutions will immensely value add to our offering and expertise.” 
     
    Lall‘s responsibility at McCann will be also to drive a broader integrated approach for all McCann clients.

    About Paul‘s movement, Joshi says that Paul was keen to explore the social media for some time now. “Socially relevant advertising is an emerging need in the rapidly evolving development sector of our country. And I can see no one better to be at the helm of this,” says Joshi.

    Paul has spent more than a decade with the agency and has been heading the Delhi branch since 2007.

  • 81 million viewers tune in for India-South-Africa match

    81 million viewers tune in for India-South-Africa match

    MUMBAI: The India-South Africa encounter attracted 81 million viewers and the peak TVR stood at 21.33.
    The match fetched a rating of 10.11, according to data from Tam Sports C&S, 4+.
    A total of 49 million viewers watched it on Star cricket compared to 29 million on Star Sports and 25 million on Doordarshan.

    The match between India and Netherlands got a much lower TVR of 5.57 with 67 million viewers tuning in.
    The average rating for the 29 matches played so far is 2.45 TVR, an improvement over 2.13 TVR managed in the last World Cup in 2007. One must remember though that India got knocked out early in 2007 and so interest had waned.

    This time the five India matches have gathered a rating of 8.57 compared to 10.3 for the three India matches played in 2007. Two matches this time crossed a TVR of 10, involving South Africa and England.

    Non India match ratings are flat at 1.17 this time compared to 1.18 in 2007. This time the highest rating for a non India match was between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at 3.28. In 2007 for the same period, the highest rating for a non India match was the opening match between Pakistan and West Indies at 3.66. 40 million viewers had tuned in for that compared to 51 million viewers for the Pakistan versus Sri Lanka match, showing that reach this time has increased.

    The New Zealand versus Pakistan encounter this time got a TVR of 2.45 with 47 million viewers having tuned in. Two matches involving Pakistan were the only non India matches that crossed a TVR of 2. In 2007, four non India matches had crossed a TVR of 2.

  • BBH India appoints Paul Ward as its managing partner

    BBH India appoints Paul Ward as its managing partner

    MUMBAI: BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty) India has appointed Paul Ward as its managing partner. The position has been lying vacant since Priti Nair left a few months ago to form her own outfit.

    Ward was part of the original team that launched the Mumbai business in 2008. He left Mumbai in late 2010 and since has been based in Singapore working on various projects across the region including the forming of the recently announced partnership with The Mill in Asia.

    Says BBH India Managing Partner Subhash Kamath, “All of us are delighted to have Paul join our management group in India. He‘s been an integral part of our start-up and it‘s great to have him back again. As we grow and expand, it‘s critical for us to create better partnerships, better services and processes – all leading to great work. Paul‘s global experience and skills will be invaluable to us. And importantly, Paul brings a lot of fun and laughter to the table.”

    Adds Ward, “I‘m very excited to be returning to India. I‘ll be hitting the ground running, as there are lots of things to do both internally and externally. I‘ll be working hard to build more collaborative partnerships with the very best design, digital, film and experiential businesses across India.”

    BBH India handles various clients such as Marico, L&T, TVS and Lakme.

     

  • Lenovo India appoints Shailendra Katyal as its marketing head

    Lenovo India appoints Shailendra Katyal as its marketing head

    MUMBAI: Lenovo India has appointed Shailendra Katyal as the its marketing head.

    Based out of Lenovo‘s Bangalore head office in Bangalore, Katyal will be responsible for handling the Lenovo master-brand and leading marketing for the three business segments it operates in like consumer, relational and SMB.

    Katyal‘s primary role in Lenovo will be to aggressively grow Lenovo‘s brand preference in the consumer and SOHO segments, according to an official statement.

    Says Lenovo India managing director Amar Babu, “We are pleased to appoint Shailendra, a versatile marketing professional, who has a proven track record in leading marketing campaigns of marquee consumer brands. We continue to strengthen the management on the back of our strong success in the Indian market and want to continue the momentum on our double digit market share.”

    Katyal comes with 12 years of industry experience, having worked in varied roles in sales and marketing in the FMCG space.

    Avers Katyal “It is a great opportunity for me to be working with a global force like Lenovo. It is one of the leading forces in the technology space today and leads with a strong core of product innovation. It is also a truly multicultural organization with high emphasis on entrepreneurial behavior, which is what I really thrive in. It‘s an honor to be associated with the Lenovo brand and iconic sub-brands like the ThinkPad.”

    Prior to joining Lenovo India, Katyal was category head at Marico for nearly a decade.

    Besides playing a significant role in charting out the hair care strategy for Marico, he had successful stints in managing large brand franchises like Parachute and Saffola, integrating acquired brands like Nihar Naturals and handled equities like Shanti and Hair & Care.

     

  • R K Swamy appoints Vishal Singh as GM Digital Direction

    R K Swamy appoints Vishal Singh as GM Digital Direction

    MUMBAI: Digital Direction, part of the R K Swamy Media Group has appointed Vishal Singh as its General Manager. He will report to R K Swamy Media Group president Chintamani Rao.

    Commenting on his recruitment, Rao said, “Vishal comes to us with rich experience as a user of the digital media. I look forward to him bringing a new perspective to bear to our work, to the benefit of our teams and our clients.”

    Prior to this, Singh was working with ICICI Securities, where as a chief manager-marketing, he was responsible for digital marketing for all business groups of ICICI Securities.

    On his new assignment Singh said, “Straddling both print and digital medium, gives me unique insights and this experience will help me challenge conventional thinking and provide comprehensive digital solutions for clients.”

    With over eight years of experience, most of it in the digital media space and prior to that in print, Singh began his career with Bennett Coleman & Co.

  • MSLGroup launches design and creative services unit in India

    MSLGroup launches design and creative services unit in India

    MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe’s MSLGroup has launched MSLGroup Creative+, a global design and creative services unit in India.

    Hanmer CEO and MSLGroup India board member Jaideep Shergill said, “This move is a testament to our creative team who worked tirelessly to create and refine our offering to global clients and MSLGroup offices. We are excited to offer a comprehensive set of creative services and establish a unit that brings to life MSLGROUP?s commitment to innovation, creativity and channel-neutral communications.”

    The MSLGroup Creative+ aims to offer its clients and MSLGroup offices various services including print collateral, events, video, web development, mobile and social applications.

    “Formation of MSLGroup Creative+ is a part of MSLGroup’s global commitment to developing innovative approaches to best service clients and offer added value, in addition to leveraging resources that exist across its expanding global network,” an official statement said.

    The Creative+ team will work as an extension of MSLGroup agencies and offices across the globe, supporting existing practice and service offerings when the need arises.

    MSLGroup Creative+ CEO Olivier Fleurot said, “The communications industry has seen a convergence of expertise and content in recent years, and now more than ever before, our clients audiences are expecting more robust creative materials across all channels. With the launch of this always-on creative solution, MSLGROUP clients and offices in any time zone will be able to work in partnership with our India-based team to deliver creative content faster, more consistently and at great value.”

  • Grey unveils TVC for Bharti AXA General Insurance

    MUMBAI: Grey Bangalore has conceptualised a new television commercial for Bharti AXA General Insurance Company.


    According to Grey, the new TVC brings humour to serious insurance issues.


    Also, the TVC communicates the product‘s ability to offer the highest number of illness cover in India–covering 20 major critical illnesses and helps customers by paying lump-sum compensation even before hospitalisation.
     
    Bharti has launched a nationwide mass media campaign with its Bharti AXA Smarthealth Critical illness insurance policy and the new TV campaign created by Grey is aimed at the 30 – 50 demographics.
     
    “The campaign is based on the consumer insight that most people buy health Insurance in the hope that it will help them financially especially in case of major life threatening diseases that come with high hospitalization costs. But one is most often unaware of how many such illnesses their policy really covers,” the company said.
     
    The objective of the campaign is to educate the customers on the importance of investing in a specialised cover, said Bharti AXA General Insurance CEO and MD Amarnath Ananthanarayanan.


    Added Grey executive creative directors Sham Ramachandran and Vishnu Srivastav, “Here‘s a product which the consumer buys in good faith and in most cases only to realize later that it‘s not what he thought it would be. The consumer has become numb to the various inclusions, exclusions, terms and conditions. Our attempt has been to capture the plight of this consumer using inverted humour. It was important to get the casting spot-on so that the humour does not get exaggerated and take away from the seriousness of the subject.”
     

  • Sab assigns creative duties to Saints & Warriors

    Sab assigns creative duties to Saints & Warriors

    MUMBAI: Multi Screen Media’s Hindi comedy entertainment channel Sab has awarded its creative duties to Saints & Warriors after a multi-agency pitch.

    Sab claims that 15 creative agencies were invited for pitches out of which five were shortlisted for second round, before the account finally was bagged by Saints & Warriors.

    Pickle is the incumbent agency and has been associated with the channel for the past two and a half years. OMD continues to be media agency for the channel.

    Sab EVP and business head Anooj Kapoor said, “We evaluated the agencies on their understanding of our brand and ability to take the brand forward. Saints & Warriors with a robust 360 creative approach seemed an ideal fit for this exciting journey from here on.”

    Saints & Warriors chairman Pushpinder Singh added, “Sab holds exciting creative possibilities and as an organisation that progresses on quality of work, nothing excites us more than that.”

    Sab with its light hearted content and its brand philosophy of ‘Asli Mazaa Sab Ke Saath Aata Hai’ has recently overtaken flagship channel Sony Entertainment Television.

  • Scarecrow bags creative duties of Rupa

    MUMBAI: Scarecrow Communications has won the creative duties of five brands belonging to Rupa, the knitwear company. The mandate was awarded following a multi-agency pitch. The five brands are Frontline, Kidline, Euro, Thermocot and Bumchums. 
     
    Earlier, Rupa‘s entire range was handled by Situations Advertising.


    The media budget for the brands combined would be in the region of Rs. 200 million.


    Says Rupa & Co president, brand promotion Rajnish Agarwal, “We felt that we should engage a new agency that has the urge and capability to deliver something new and dynamic and we feel Scarecrow, with Manish and Raghu in place, will be able to do justice to this thought of ours. ”
     
    Averred Scarecrow Communications founder director Manish Bhatt, “And it helped understanding the category. But working for the Category leader like Rupa with highly visible flagship brands like Frontline & Euro it is much more responsible task in hand. We will have improve the brand status without disrupting its current leadership. But, after all, it is a fun Category and lot of scope in expressing clutter breaking creativity,”
     
     Scarecrow has worked on the launches of Hanes, Wonderbra in India and communication for VIP in the past.
     

  • IRS R4: Dainik Jagran, TOI lead flock

    IRS R4: Dainik Jagran, TOI lead flock

    MUMBAI: Dainik Jagran and The Times of India have retained their stature as the most read publications in the Hindi and English language dailies, according to the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) fourth-quarter report released by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) today.

    Among the Hindi dailies, Dainik Jagran has earned an average issue readership (AIR) of 16.07 million for the quarter, followed by Dainik Bhaskar (AIR of 13.99 million) and Hindustan (11.45 million).
     
    Even though, the top-order remains same, all the publications, barring Navbharat, have seen some growth.

    (AIR numbers, All figures n ‘000)

    Source: IRS 
     
    The Times of India continues to hold its numero uno position among the English dailies.
     
     
    TOI has garnered a total AIR of 7.42 million, thereby topping the list by far. It is followed by Hindustan Times (AIR of 3.59 million) and The Hindu (AIR of 2.11 million).

    Source: IRS
     
                                                                         (AIR numbers, All figures n ‘000)

    Meanwhile, the regional dailies have seen a downward trend. Malayalam Manorama has once again topped the chart with 9.93 million AIR (9.94 million in Q3).
     
     
    The list includes Lokmat (Marathi) (AIR of 7.71 million) and Daily Thanthi (Tamil) with an AIR of 7.01 million.

    (AIR numbers, All figures n ‘000)

    Source: IRS