Category: Marketing

MUMBAI: Parag Milk Foods, which functions under the brand name ‘Gowardhan‘, has assigned Carat Media with its media duties.

The size of the account is pegged between Rs 120 – 150 million. 
 
Says Parag Milk Foods VP marketing Rahul Akkara, “Carat‘s understanding of the category coupled with their integrated marketing solutions approach gave us the comfort of working with the team. The team is quite passionate and has high energy level that is important to us, given that our products are in the launch phase.” 
 
Adds Carat India MD Kartik Iyer, “We look forward to partnering the client in creating innovative media solutions that makes Go the first choice in processed milk products

BANGALORE: The late David Ogilvy founder of Ogilvy & Mather once said, “Titan is an international company which happens to be India.” Taking a step further into consumer experience and marketing of watches in India to another level altogether, Titan Industries Limited (Titan) today announced the launch of a ‘Titan Experience Zone’ at its ‘World ot Titan’ flagship store and in Hosur today to mark the 25th anniversary of the company’s birth.
 
 
“We started off with the idea of building a watch museum initially, but since a museum is static, we decided to set up the ‘Titan Experience Zone’. Based on the results at the Hosur ‘Titan Experience Zone’ initially, we may set up similar Zones in the four major metros in India,” informed Titan Managing Director Bhaskar Bhat.

The Titan Hosur plant where the ‘World of Titan’ Flagship store is located has around 200 walkin’s, many of them from abroad daily. Of these a large chunk of people also visit the flagship store and the conversion rates here are around 80 per cent, revealed Titan CEO Harish Bhat.
 
The ‘Titan Experience Zone’ is built around the theme of ‘Time’ and has five experiential areas: Immersion; Reflection; Engagement; Conversation; Delivery. In each of these five areas, visitors discover for themselves interesting facts about watches, relevant insights about time and details about Titan to enable the visitor to experience the essence of Titan through a ‘touch and feel’ experience.
 
Titan claims that it has 150 million consumers and is the fifth largest watch manufacturer in the world with expected manufacturing volumes of 11 million watches this year as compared to last year’s numbers of just under 10 million watches. The company claims to have the largest dealer network in the world with 10868 dealers across 26 countries.
 

MUMBAI: Bhautik Mithani has rejoined Rediffusion – Y&R as chief financial officer. Mithani had earlier been with the group as the CFO of TME, the media arm of Rediffusion – Y&R.

Said Rediffusion – Y&R group CEO Mahesh Chauhan, “Bhautik was a key contributor to the start of our journey to reinvent and it‘s heartening to see him return, geared to further our successes, now as part of the leadership team.”
 
Adds Mithani, “Being a part of the company previously, I am already acquainted with the operation and practices of Rediffusion – Y&R. I am, therefore, eager to handle this larger portfolio and help the company meet its goals and targets and continue its current success.” 
 
Mithani‘s last assignment was with Prana Studios where he was vice president, finance. Apart from introducing new systems and processes at Prana Studios, Mithani was also instrumental in the implementation of Forex Strategy to hedge against Forex fluctuations.
 
During his previous tenure with Rediffusion – Y&R, Mithani introduced uniform accounts coding systems in five centers across the country for consolidation of accounts and generation of consolidated MIS reports. Mithani has also worked with media planning group (Euro RSCG) and one of the leading internal Audit Firms – M/s Aneja Associates at Mumbai.
 

MUMBAI: Lintas India has been empanelled by the Income Tax department to handle its creative duties. The current empanelment is for a period of one year.
 
Says Lowe Lintas CEO Charles Cadell, “We are extremely happy with the empanelment and hope that we continue to do great work for the Income Tax department. This opportunity comes on the heels of our empanelment for DAVP and we look forward to more such opportunities with prestigious government organizations.”
 

MUMBAI: In the wake of a multi-agency pitch, RK Swamy BBDO Delhi has won the creative duties of Lloyd Group‘s consumer electronics business.
 
Commenting on the win, RK Swamy BBDO president North Ajit Shah says, “We are excited to be working with Lloyd. Our goal is to help them carve out a rightful place in the Indian market against the major foreign brands.”
 
The challenge for the different agencies is not only to familiarise the consumers with the brand ‘Lloyd‘ but also to help them understand the new products. RK Swamy BBDO scored over the other agencies in terms of the understanding of the product category and creatives. The agency‘s presentation included a 360 degree communication concept that will be adopted by Lloyd in due course of time. 
 
The group, already offering LCDs and ACs, is planning to expand its product portfolio with several new lifestyle products including mix of household utility items and kitchen appliances.

MUMBAI: Starcom MediaVest Group has launched a new out-of-home agency ‘Vector‘.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the agency will operate as a division of Starcom MediaVest Group with operations in all the metros.

Navia Asia CEO India Sanjay Shah will take up additional responsibility as Vector CEO. The agency has appointed Sriram Iyer as COO. Iyer will be supported by India head (North & East) Abhishek Singh and India head (West & South) Rakesh Srivastav.
 
Meanwhile, sister agency Navia Asia, which manages the OOH needs of clients of all VivaKi media brands in India as well as its own AOR clients, will continue to operate independently.

Starcom MediaVest Group CEO South Asia Ravi Kiran says, “The OOH industry is gaining momentum after seeing some difficult times in the past one year. Despite the difficult period, Navia Asia had a steady growth. Inspired by this, we decided to create a brand new unit, with its own vision, leadership and operating processes. Vector will be the newest entrant and will start with a team of 15 professionals and two clients.”
 
“The OOH industry with new technologies and international tools for measurement among other modern frameworks is bound to take great leaps in the way brands advertise,” says Shah.

Adds Iyer, “With Vector we are creating a new approach to the way OOH business is done in the country. We will offer clients a 360 degree experiential solution and stay ahead of the curve by being agile and state of the art.”
 
Vector will collaborate with Navia in several areas aimed at bringing greater transparency and accountability to OOH and Ambient Marketing as a discipline and enhancing return on client investment and objectives.

These include customisation and application of international tools and best practices, development of India specific planning and measurement frameworks, import and application of new OOH display and production technologies, development and licensing of IP based ideas and structured assets and technology enabled near-real time monitoring & tracking systems and management dashboards.
 

MUMBAI: O&M Bangalore group creative director Malvika Mehra and group creative director and creative head Amit Akali have put in their papers.

Currently serving their notice period, Mehra and Akali will be with the company till the end of March.
 
Confirming the development, Mehra says, “I have been with O&M for the last 16 years and it‘s time to move from the comfort zone and explore new opportunities.”
 
So where are they headed? “Akali and I will be moving out together and also moving into a new company as a team. We are still evaluating the different options and haven’t zeroed in on anything as of now,” says Mehra.
 
Mehra and Akali who were previously in O&M Mumbai moved to the agency’s Bangalore office in 2006. They have worked in accounts including Titan, Lenovo, Allen Solly and State Bank of India.

Mehra joined O&M in 1994 and Akali in 2004.

BANGALORE: The Advertising Club Bangalore’s annual ‘The Big Bang Awards‘ will be held on 26 February.

Adclub President and Saatchi and Saatchi Focus CEO Malavika R Harita says, “We have done some rationalization of categories for entries. The agencies will vie with each other for 180 awards in all three awards, bronze, silver and gold for each category, spread over 60 categories over nine groups.” 
 
“This year we have strengthened the digital group by introducing more sub-categories to cover online campaigns, Digital campaigns for web and mobile, viral marketing and social media campaigns,” she adds. 
 
Apart from the 180 awards in the fray, there are the top five awards for top art director, top copywriter, top agency, top advertiser and media agency of the year awards which are decided by a point tally system among the award winners.
 
The Adclub has called for entries for creative and media work done by the agencies from 1 January to 31 December 2009. The last date for receiving the entries is 5 February 2010.

For the third year in a row, The Times of India Group is the presenting sponsor of the awards.
 

MUMBAI: Pearls and its associates have announced that Australian pace bowler Bret Lee is its new brand ambassador.
 
Lee will be helping the Pearls Corporate in the fields of infrastructure, media and tourism to spruce up its growth initiatives and enhancing the zeal and perfection in its corporate image.

Pearls director Jyoti Narayan said, “We are highly obliged and elated to have Brett Lee as brand ambassador for Pearls and its associates companies. This association has been worked out after constructive deliberations and strategic discussions for uplifting the marketing front and providing an unified identify to the brand pearls.”
 
Lee says, “It is indeed a privilege to be associated as an ambassador of major brands with Pearls. I have always had a very close affinity with a senior management of Pearls and I find it really enjoyable to put my spirit of perfection and Pearls vision of golden growth together. I am sure that coming to Pearls family will take us mutually to new heights in growth, quality and image of the corporate.”
 
Pearls has emerged as a business conglomerate over the last 15 years and have diversified in various activities which have been planned strategically, promise, future growth and bright prospects. Pearls presence in the infrastructure sector has been tremendous and it involves enormous, premium and prestigious prospects. A number of its projects are going to take off pan India. Pearls adds that it has carved its identity for itself that depicts zests for creating quality products of world-class standards.

Pearls as a business conglomeration has interests in infrastructure, media, agriculture, hospitality and retail.

MUMBAI: Kolkata-based McNroe Chemicals has roped in Maxus to handle its media account. 
 
The size of the account is estimated to be in the region of Rs 150-200 million. 
 
As part of its new mandate, Maxus will work along with McNroe‘s internal media buying and Future Brands which also works closely as consultants for McNroe‘s brands.
 
McNroe Chemicals is the manufacturer of the Wild Stone brand of deodarants.