Category: Marketing

Base Batteries powers Canadian Cricket team

MUMBAI: With the World Cup in full swing, Base Batteries has charged up the tempo by announcing a sponsorship agreement with Cricket Canada.

During the World Cup Tournament, all the players of Canadian Cricket team along with the Coach and support staff will be seen sporting the Base Batteries logo on their jerseys. Apart from that they will also have the Base logo on their training jerseys.

After defeating Kenya in the last match, the Canadian team is flying high to take the next challenge against New Zealand. With the frontline bowlers like Osinde and Baidwan getting into form and the hard hitting Rizwan Cheema, the Canadian team is expected to add some more flavours to both batting and bowling departments.

Base Batteries MD Girish Arora said, “We are really proud to be associated with the Canadian cricket team. This is a new beginning towards associating Base Batteries with sports and our long term plans for developing and nurturing budding cricketing talent in India.”

Base batteries head marketing Aditya Arora said, “As an emerging player in the energy industry, Base Batteries are delighted to associate with Cricket Canada. The rising Cricket fever during the world cup will only add more excitement to it further electrifying the cricket frenzy nation and we are confident that this tie up will offer a huge platform to create visibility for brand “Base” Batteries through on-ground cricket action while magnifying the impact by reaching out to larger audience through various media platforms”. Base is proud to “power the Canadian World Cup team”, he further added.

Cricket Canada president Ranjit Saini said, “It is exciting to be able to carry a valued brand such as Base Batteries into a major tournament like the World Cup and we are proud to showcase their brand over the next few weeks. Their investment will not only support our team on the field but will allow us to invest in key areas in the organization as well. This caps off an extremely successful few months for cricket Canada where we have been able to attract several partners to support many facets of our organization”.

Canadian cricket team has gained widespread popularity and critical acclaim during the last World Cups and its recent stellar performance against England and Pakistan at the World Cup.

March 12, 2011
Alchemist launches Delhi (NCR) chapter, Nandini Bhupat to helm

MUMBAI: Alchemist, the talent solutions company led by former Percept Talent Management CEO Manish Porwal, launched its Delhi (NCR) office last week with communications expert Nandini Bhupat as its lead.

Alchemist provides solutions to Media, Marketing and Agencies, in the field of human resources – both corporate and entertainment.

“Gurgaon is the new Nariman point and NCR is the new Mumbai” says Porwal. “Delhi is almost 60% of our business in entertainment talent and 33% in the corporate vertical. We have been looking hard for our Delhi lead and I am glad it is Nandini. She comes with a rich experience in Marketing, Marketing Services and Media – all three being our playground, and I am sure she would help grow our strong positioning, up north”

Nandini is an ideas and people’s person, with 13 years of experience as a marketing and marketing services professional. She started her career as an advertising professional with stints at FCB Ulka and then Rediffusion DY&R handling brands like Colgate, TCS, Birla White, Holiday Inn etc. After that, she switched to media with BCCL’s Private Treaties. She then added to her multi-dimensional experience as the business development head at First Advantage, a Fortune 100 company.

Talking about the movement Nandini commented,“In the world where a lot of marketing services companies are losing respect with their clients either being arm-chair thinkers or too operational, Alchemist is a whiff of fresh air. In this era of co-creation, I am happy that I have joined a solutions company as against a services company that has either little say or doesn’t do what it says. I look forward to adding glitz through celebrity engagements and substance through our search and training offering.”

March 11, 2011
Volkswagen launches the Vento IPL Edition

MUMBAI: Volkswagen has launched a special edition of its popular model, the Vento, coinciding with Season four and five of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The Vento IPL Edition will be the first such model to be introduced in the Indian market. The cars will go on sale from the first week of April.

The Vento IPL edition has various features such as colour touchscreen multimedia player, navigation system and other specially branded accessories. The car is available for Rs 724,000 (ex-showroom) in New Delhi.

Said member of board and director Volkswagen passenger cars, Volkswagen group sales India Neeraj Garg, “The award winning Vento was specially designed for the Indian customer and has become very popular since its launch last September, hence, the perfect choice for an action model for this market. The Vento IPL Edition adds to our existing line-up as we continue to strive to give our customers innovations and at the same time value for money in our products.”

Volkswagen group sales head of marketing and PR Lutz Kothe added, “Globally Volkswagen introduces special editions which have been very successful. The IPL edition is our first step towards a similar initiative. We will be adopting a complete synergetic marketing approach during the IPL to reach out to our customers across our carline.”

March 10, 2011
India to grow the fastest for CNN across Asia Pacific

MUMBAI: CNN is banking on India to boost its ad revenue this year as the international news outfit hunts for fast-growing economies in a downturn environment.

CNN expects a 10 per cent growth from the Asia Pacific region. “India, away from recession, will grow the fastest this year as we tap into more clients. North Asia’s contribution in terms of Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong will still be the most. The growth in Asia will be faster compared to the US which was also the case last year,” says CNN vice president ad sales Asia Pacific William Hsu.
CNN International’s top three markets in the Asia Pacific region are Korea, Southeast Asia and India. CNN has 20 Indian advertisers and plans to widen this pool. “A lot of Indian companies are going global. They look at our network for advertising,” says Hsu.

CNN has been growing at about 11 per cent compounded a year over the last decade. “The recession affected us the least. We anticipated the recession before it happened. Throughout 2007, we expected something to happen without knowing when. This allowed us to tweak our strategy. We approached more governments as they tend to up their spends during a recession to stimulate growth. We also built a 360 degree solution around TV and the Internet,” adds Hsu.

The focus on digital, which makes up 20 per cent of CNN’s revenues, also helped the news network to combat the global downturn.

CNN is growing its India content. “Eye On India is coming up and we are promoting it. We are dedicating a lot of our daily news output towards Indian business, which will be aired across the world,” says Hsu.

March 10, 2011
Neo Sports ropes in sponsors for All England Open Badminton Championship

MUMBAI: Neo Sports has roped in a clutch of sponsors for the All England Badminton Championship.

The sponsors are Perfetti, Adidas, Vodafone and Tata DoCoMo e-connect, according to market sources. Neo will telecast the event from the quarterfinal stage from 10-13 March.

While not revealing any names, Neo Sports Broadcast EVP ad revenue Raju Udupa said that with the craze happening around Saina Nehwal over the past six months, viewership of the sport is growing. Advertisers are now more open to investing in other sports besides cricket.

“Earlier there was no viewership for badminton. Now that Indians are performing well, viewers are encouraged to tune in. There is a niche audience for this sport which will grow. To push this event, we have advertised online to push badminton. We also use syndicated columns in the press, SMS, mailers. We have seen that women also follow this sport. A lot of badminton viewing comes from the metros,” Udupa added.

Sponsors, Udupa said, have exclusivity as there are no spot buys. Unlike cricket, the format of the sport is such that there is no room for it.

Neo plans to kick-off on-ground initiatives aimed at schools and badminton clubs in the near future. The channel airs 12 events of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) a year.

March 10, 2011
WC: Ratings of non-India matches stay a concern

MUMBAI: The cricket World Cup is showing the first signs of softening in ratings compared to its previous edition in 2007, though in terms of reach it is far ahead.

The first 20 matches have yielded an average TVR of 1.92, much less than the average TVR of 2.48 that was recorded in the same period of the 2007 World Cup.

However, India has played a match less compared to the earlier edition. For the two matches involving Bangladesh and England, the matches clocked a TVR of 7.47 and 10.97 respectively.

In the 2007 World Cup, India had played three matches out of 20 and clocked a TVR of 8.85 against Bangladesh, 10.10 against Bermuda and 12.06 against Sri Lanka.

The epic India-England match, which ended in a tie, is the top-rated contest so far as an astronomical 82 million viewers tuned in. The match got a peak TVR of 20.96 and an average TVR of 10.97, according to data from Tam Sports (All India, C&S 4+).

Star Cricket earned a TVR of 5.3 for that match while Star Sports, which has a Hindi feed, got a TVR of 2.75. Doordarshan managed a TVR of 1.95 and ESPN a rating of 1.07.

Experts believe that a combination of one-sided matches and rain in a crucial encounter between Australia and Sri Lanka resulted in the average ratings for the World Cup falling below 2 TVR for the first time. While the contest between Australia and Sri Lanka got a 0.10 TVR, 23 million viewers tuned in for it, showing that there was interest to watch the duel.

Interestingly, the average ratings for the non-India matches have stood flat at 1.10 TVR, like in the previous World Cup.

A media buyer expressed disappointment at the fact that the non-India match ratings have stayed flat. “While the reach has gone up, we were hoping that since the event was in India there would be added interest that would boost ratings,” said a buyer on condition of anonymity.

The England versus Ireland encounter, which the Irish won in a famous run chase, has fared well. It got a TVR of 1.78 and a reach of 32 million.

Pakistan continues to attract interest among viewers, even if they are playing against a weak team. Their match against Canada got a TVR of 1.69, while 38 million viewers tuned in.

In 2007, a Pakistan match against Zimbabwe got a TVR of 1.01 and a reach of 21 million.

This time only 14 million viewers tuned in to see a one-sided Netherlands versus South Africa match which got a TVR of 0.40. In 2007, a match between South Africa and Scotland got a TVR of 0.55. Eighteen million viewers had tuned in for that match.

March 9, 2011
Royal Enfield releases new ad campaign

MUMBAI: Royal Enfield is releasing a new ad this week–created and produced by Wieden+Kennedy, Delhi.

The film will be released across cinemas, digital channels and other select media channels. The film will be supported by print advertising.

Said Royal Enfield head sales and marketing Shaji Koshy, “Over the years, Royal Enfield‘s communication has managed to keep the world coming back for more. We hope this latest advertisement from Royal Enfield will strike a chord with Royal Enfield consumers and create strong emotional engagements with them. We will be using traditional media like television, cinema and print but digital will form a key part of the communication as well.”

Wieden+Kennedy Delhi V Sunil, executive creative director added, “For us, Royal Enfield always stood for ‘Keeping it Real‘, and that spirit extends to everything that Enfield does, including advertising. So we avoided the usual clichés i.e. slapstick humour, kitsch, melodrama or ‘aspirational‘ gloss. It‘s important for an iconic brand such as ours to stay true to character, and to be proud of what it represents and where it comes from.”

March 9, 2011
Mehul Shah is Discovery director ad sales West

MUMBAI: Discovery has announced the appointment of Mehuli Shah as director – advertising sales, West.

Shah will be responsible for generating advertising revenue along with planning and implementing business development activities in new market segments for all DNAP’s networks in India.

Based in Mumbai, Shah will report to Karamjit Dua, Vice President – Advertising Sales.

Prior to this appointment, Shah was working with the Network18 Group, heading up sales for the CNN IBN and IBN 7 in the Western region. This will be a return home for Shah who was previously with Discovery for six years.

Shah is an Economics graduate from St. Xavier’s College.

Discovery India senior VP, GM Rahul Johri said, “We are pleased to welcome Mehuli back to Discovery. She brings a solid performance track record to the job coupled with a high degree of commitment to the client, both of which align perfectly with Discovery’s values. Her broad range of proven sales experience in similar markets will be beneficial to building our ad sales business”.

Discovery has six brands in its portfolio– Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, and Discovery HD World – reaching over 160 million cumulative subscribers.

March 9, 2011
Kwan acquires stake in PR agency Eye D

MUMBAI: Kwan, India‘s entertainment and marketing company, has acquired controlling interest in PR agency Eye D Communications for an undisclosed amount.

Eye D and Kwan already share a number of clients in common on the PR and commercial front and this acquisition has been a natural progression of a working relationship.

Kwan MD Anirban Das Blah says, “We were looking at investing in a PR agency to provide complete communications solutions to our clients. My only worry was the glaring difficulty that communication companies face when it comes to building and communicating their clients as brands.”

Blah believes Eye D Communications is an agency that operates from a ‘strategic communication’ perspective and not just from a media relations point of view.

“We plan to help Eye D accelerate their growth by virtue of our relationships and broaden their offering within the entertainment, fashion, luxury and lifestyle space. Eye D will continue to operate under the same brand name in the industry so as to maintain its individuality even beyond the realm of Kwan”, Blah says.

Adds Eye D Communications head Divya Tejuja, “Having worked very closely with Kwan on the numerous clients that we share, we have been able to rapidly scale up operations in sectors such as films, fashion, lifestyle and luxury brands. The association will give us access to a much larger talent pool and put us on the fast track to effective brand building and image management in the entertainment, luxury and lifestyle space.”

March 9, 2011
Hindi GEC: Colors back to No. 2

MUMBAI: Like often in the past, Zee TV has been unable to retain its lead over Colors for a second straight week. After one week of spike, the Hindi general entertainment channel is back to No. 3.

The leader of the pack, Star Plus, continues to maintain its position amid a drop in overall ratings. The channel shed 17 GRPs (gross rating points) to close the week ended 5 March with 280 GRPs (from 297 GRPs in the previous week).

Colors added six GRPs to its tally and ended the week with 231 GRPs (last week 225 GRPs), displacing Zee TV. According to Tam data for the week ended 5 March (HSM, 4+, C&S households), Zee TV lost 16 GRPs to end with 217 GRPs (from 233 GRPs).

Meanwhile, Sab stayed ahead of sibling channel Sony Entertainment Television (Set). Sab collected 143 GRPs for the week, 10 short of its previous week‘s tally of 153, while Set added 4 GRPs to end with 140 GRPs.

Imagine TV was at sixth place with 71 GRPs (from 75 GRPs), followed by Star One (35 GRPs) and Sahara One (30 GRPs).

March 9, 2011