Category: Marketing

MUMBAI: With recession creating roadblock across every economy and with consumer pockets going hollow, year 2009 was the most unfurnished testing ground for the Indian advertising industry, battling every step to survive just right. And thus, while few have dived into the submarines underwater, few did emerge as winners of their existence.
 
According to the Brand Equity Ad Agency Reckoner (BEAR) review for 2009, Ogilvy has emerged as the leader of the creative agency flock in the top ten survey that the country has best.

Following next is JWT, while Lowe and Mudra occupy the third and fourth spot respectively. Prasoon Joshi’s McCann Ericson stands tall at the fifth spot, while Rediffusion YR ranks sixth.
 
Meanwhile, as far as media agencies go, Mindshare has been crowned as first in the lot.

Lintas Media Group comes second while Sam Balsara’s Madison is ranked third.
 
BEAR claims that a total of 549 interviews were conducted, spread across six centres – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The maximum numbers were conducted in Mumbai (35 per cent), followed by Delhi (26 per cent) to account for the large population of media professionals in these cities.

Ad agencies:

Ogilvy

JWT
Lowe
Mudra
McCann Erickson
Rediffusion YR
Leo Burnett
Contract
RK Swamy BBDO
DraftFCB

Media agencies:

Mindshare
Lintas Media Group
Madison
Percept Media
Maxus
Mudra Max
Starcom
Lodestar Universal
ZenithOptimedia
Optimum Media Direction

MUMBAI: Media in the new digital age – that was the theme of the Media Thinkers Congress held at the St Regis Hotel in Singapore, organised by Media magazine last week. The thinking behind the congress was to get some insights into the current state of media and what will media be like in the future.

Barbarian Group strategic planning head Noah Brien said: “Media has proliferated. Today, everything is media: everyone is a media creator; people are uploading photos, links, writing blogs. More devices have come in for creating media, majority of the content being put up online is personal. Earlier, the content was not media shareable; the vast majority of content was never meant to be monetised. So that is putting pressure on the media world as traditional publishers, marketers and advertising agencies seek to understand ways of attracting these eyeballs which have been taken away by this non-commercial media.”

He added that lines are blurring for traditional media on another front. “Earlier, NBC fought ABC – they did not undercut their own media businesses… advertisers funded media products. Now, even advertisers are becoming media. Consider Johnson‘s babycentre.com which is bigger than the biggest parenting online media site called parents.com. Red bull has a site which rivals even ESPN‘s action sports site.”
 
Brien elaborated that distribution had also become disintermediated. “Where earlier it was owned by a few people and was an excellence skill set, now with Blogger, Youtube and Flickr, this has come to rest with everyone. Today, 20 hours of videos is uploaded to youtube.com every minute. There are close to 10 million hours of video on youtube.com enough for our entire lives.”

How do media companies deal with the web in this scenario? Brien believes that companies should go all the way or go niche. “In the digital age, you have to stay out of the middle; you are either mass or niche. Build on your prior success, on your audience. Media agencies and media owners need to buy equity in some of the startups who are coming in with innovations on the internet.”
 
PHD Australia managing partner Mark Holden spoke next about the rapid technological changes and how these are going to affect the media agency in the future. He began by saying that “if you can predict technology you can predict what media will look like and if you can predict media you can predict what the media agency will be in the future.”

Holden pointed out that by 2014 lithium sulphur batteries will provide 10 times the power they provide today and even wireless power should become a reality. “You will have wipo or wireless power zones then like you have wifi zones now. It will mean limitless possibilities for devices which depend on power,” he said.

He added that storage is going to become cheaper by 2015. “Today PCs with 1 terabyte (TB) harddrives are going for $500. By 2015, the price will be $500 for 3TB computers. By then, Google wave and cloud computing will be a reality.”

On the connectivity front, Holden said a majority of homes in developed countries will be on fibre optics with speeds of 100 mbps while 4G and Wimax will offer 50 mbps-100 mbps speeds.

Holden broke up viewing interfaces into portable, fixed and communal. On portable viewing interfaces, he was extremely bullish on foldable OLED (organic light emitting diode) screens bringing about radical changes in the way we use phones. “The phones of the future will have this two foot screen which will be unfoldable to watch a movie, and what have you.”

2015, according to Holden, will have seen the evolution of pattern recognition and correlation based software. “So, devices will know what you are interested in and overlay it over anything else.”

He revealed that LED contact lenses would further lead to a proliferation of augmented reality viewing options for advertisers. As far as fixed screens are concerned, Holden pointed out that most TVs would have Ethernet ports and hard drives, while 3D, ultra HD (exceeding the resolution of the human eye) would be the norm. “This will further enhance our experience and affect the way we consume TV,” he predicted.

On the communal screen front, he said that most screens will be digital with 3D and Super HD capability, while out-of-home screens will be multitouch and face-aware using Red-eye technology. Holden pointed out that the impact of these technological upheavals will be violent. “Because of the increase in media, there will be an increase in inventory, which in turn will lead to further ad funded opportunities and long form branded content. Advertisers will become prolific programme producers and agencies will need to have programme production capabilities. Additionally, they will have to invest heavily in social marketing.”
 
According to Holden, the mobile phone will become the marketing battleground by 2015 with it serving as a high reach and high segmentation medium. What will impact agencies more will be the blurring and convergence of media like online, TV, radio, cinema and the outdoors. “With one in every two ads being online, it will be the end of the era of ad delivery and the beginning of the era of ad serving to each medium,” he said.

“The CEO of a media agency in 2009 is CEO of a people-based business. In 2015, he will be a CEO of a software based business. Automation and optimisation software will take a lot out of the manual work which is resorted to now days.”

Holden believes that content and software development will become expected offerings of a media agency and they will have developed a new breed of social marketers who will maintain a database of consumers for social marketers. “There will be an increase in neuroscience research with planners training in behavioural economics and becoming marketing investment managers. Buyers will become data and software-based traders,” he said in closing. “Agencies will need to stay ahead of the curve. The views a little better there.”

MUMBAI: Tata Indicom has taken the radio route in a bid to expand its footprints in Gujarat. The telecom operator together with Radio One Ahmedabad has rolled out Tata Indicom Live, an interactive FM radio property.

The one-hour advertiser funded programme will be aired from Monday to Sunday at 10 am and will act as a platform for customers to get information on telecom and lifestyle.
 
“We were in talks with several radio players in the city including Radio City, Red FM and Radio Mirchi and finally chose Radio One. This is because they have a brand promise of playing 13 songs every hour and thus, listeners prefer to tune into this radio station for music,” says a source in the company.

The show aims at marketing entertainment and information. “This is a step which goes beyond call centers. Radio is a mass and a local medium and we can easily touch base with our consumers effectively,” adds the source.
 
Tata Indicom Live aims to play songs on a new theme each day. The tie-up is part of Tata Indicom‘s Gujarat circle initiative and the telecom operator is planning to do similar tie ups with other stations in the region. “Through this initiative pertaining to Ahmedabad, we are currently on the learning phase and after three months, we would be looking at going to different places in Gujarat,” adds the source.
 
When quizzed whether the telecom operator would be looking at extending such initiatives in other parts of the country, the source avers, ” This is part of the Gujarat circle. There is no clarity on if other circles would be interested in doing similar activities.”

MUMBAI: The recession plague may finally be sketching its way out of the Indian economy map, making way for the ad industry to once again fill up its hollow pockets.

According to the latest annual forecast released by Zenith Optimedia, the Indian advertising industry is poised to grow by 10.5 per cent (at current prices), declaring a step up over the 4.5 per cent growth that the industry registered this year over 2008.
 
The agency further predicts that advertising on TV, newspapers and magazines will grow at 11.6 per cent, 10 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, for radio, advertising is expected to grow at 14.1 per cent and internet at 16 per cent. However, cinema industry will see a at mere five per cent growth while outdoor is expected to grow marginally (two per cent).

Additionally, the report suggests that the Indian ad industry is expected to grow at a rate of 11.4 per cent and 11.8 per cent for the years 2011 and 2012 respectively.
 
Globally too, the advertising industry seems to be on an upswing, implying an end to a period of a worldwide economic downturn.

The Publicis-owned media agency network Zenith Optimedia foretells a 0.9 per cent growth in global ad spends in 2010 at $447.7 billion, up from the projected $443.7 billion spent this year.

“We expect the recovery to strengthen steadily as corporate and consumer confidence continue to improve, with 3.9 per cent growth in 2011 and 4.8 per cent growth in 2012,” the company said in a release. 
 
The global boost is expected to be driven by Latin America (8.1 per cent growth), Central and Eastern Europe (2.3 per cent) and Asia Pacific, excluding Japan (3.8 per cent).

“Plenty of markets in the developing world – particularly in Asia Pacific and Latin America – have continued to grow this year, and are already picking up speed after a slowdown in the first half of 2009,” the agency said.

Meanwhile, ad expenditure is expected to shrink 2.4 per cent in North America, 0.5 per cent in Western Europe and 3.2 per cent in Japan, before mild growth returns in 2011, the report reveals.
 

MUMBAI: Divya Bhaskar, one of the leading daily newspapers from Gujarat, has assigned its creative duties to Ignite Mudra, the Mudra Group‘s brand building agency for entrepreneurs. 
 
Says Dainik Bhaskar general manager – marketing Dharmendra Mishra, “Ignite Mudra has a very strong equity, having created numerous successful brands. Of course, as a plus, it is also based in Gujarat. We are confident that the association with Ignite Mudra will take Divya Bhaskar to greater heights.”
 
As part of its new mandate, Ignite Mudra will create a 360 degree marketing campaign for Divya Bhaskar that will include television, print, radio, events and various below-the-line activities. Multiplexes will be utilised as a major touch point zone to create direct contact with consumers. 
 
Says Ignite Mudra head Chandan Nath, “Divya Bhaskar has managed to attain a strong presence in Gujarat in a very short span. The Group redefined the market by offering a unique, relevant and contemporary product. We look forward to working closely with the Bhaskar Team to strengthen the brand further amongst Gujarati readers.”

Launched by the Mudra Group in July 2009, Ignite Mudra, is a specialist agency that caters specifically to the brand building needs of entrepreneurs. Some of the clients that it handled include Vimal, Rasna and Dhara.

MUMBAI: Following a multi-agency pitch, Dabur has roped in Bates 141 and Law & Kenneth to handle the creative duties of Oxybleach (for women) and Saka Men‘s Bleach respectively.
 
The media duties are handled by Adbur, the company‘s in-house media agency.
 
A 360 degree initiative has been planned for both the accounts that include TV, out-of-home (OOH), print, internet and various below -the- line (BTL) activities. The campaigns will be launched in January.
 
Oxybleach and Saka are part of the Fem portfolio which Dabur acquired recently.
 

MUMBAI: Big TV, the Anil Ambani-owned direct-to-home (DTH) company, has entered into a marketing alliance with Fox Star Studios for promoting James Cameron’s magnum opus Avatar in India.

As part of the deal, Big TV will run a month-long 360 degree marketing campaign and will launch a 30-second English television commercial (TVC) featuring the cast of the film. The TVC is expected to go on air across 12 English channels including Times Now, AXN, Star World, Star Movies, and HBO from 15 December.
 
The DTH operator will also showcase interviews with Cameron and the stars of Avatar. The footage will also include behind-the scenes of the movie.

Reliance Big TV senior VP Umesh Rao said, “This partnership brings in enriched content to our subscribers and delivers larger than life experience through multiple grounds promotions planned across key cities.” 
 
Fox Star Studios and Big TV are also creating special promotional zones across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Pune, Ahemdabad and Jaipur at key multiplexes. Apart from this, tie-ups with Baskin Robbins and Big Cinemas have been finalised to create exclusive zones.

The tie-up is part of Big TV’s content strategy to introduce niche and unique content on its DTH platform, the company said in a release.

Avatar is releasing in theatres across the country in 2D, 3D and IMAX versions on 18 December. Fox Star Studios is releasing the movie worldwide.
 

MUMBAI: Casual romps in the sack with busty bimbettes can be costly. That we all know. But Tiger Woods is learning this first hand, following the bad press he has got on account of his on the golf circuit reported sexcapades.

Not only has the ace golfer taken a decision to go on a sabbatical, he looks to be in danger of losing some fat sponsorship deals he has with big advertisers.
 
One of them, Accenture, has already announced that it will discontinue it‘s annual sponsorship agreement worth $7 million with Woods. Will others follow?

For the past six years, Accenture and Tiger Woods have had a very successful sponsorship arrangement and his achievements on the golf course have been a powerful metaphor for business success in Accenture‘s advertising.
 
However, given the circumstances of the last two weeks, after careful consideration and analysis, the company says that it has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising.
Accenture said that it wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.
 
Accenture says that it will continue to leverage its “high performance business” strategy and “high performance delivered” positioning in the marketplace. The company will immediately transition to a new advertising campaign, with a major effort scheduled to launch later in 2010.
 

MUMBAI: Ignitee Digital Solutions has roped in Shankar B as national business director.

In his new capacity, Shankar will report to chief executive officer Atul Hegde and will be based in Mumbai.
 
As part of his new mandate, Shankar will not only be responsible for growing businesses across India but will also be looking after the international markets, especially in Dubai.

His Career with Radio started with Hello FM as VP – Sales and Marketing for close to 2 years wherein he was mainly involved in launching 7 stations all over Tamil Nadu.

Said Shankar, “Its unique business model makes it different from other companies in the digital media space. At Ignitee, I will be responsible for growing business across key markets like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Secunderabad and Dubai.”
 
Shankar has 16 years of experience in the field of media sales that includes eight years in television. He began his career in 1993 with Getit Yellow Pages and launched the Hyderabad Telephone directory.

His experience also includes working with print brands like the Indian Express Group and Hindi newspaper, Navbharat. 
 
He began his television career in 1998 with Raj TV where he spent five years. He then moved to Turner International India as director – advertising sales to handle Cartoon Network, Pogo, CNN, Zee MGM and Zee English.

MUMBAI: Multi Screen Media (formerly Sony Entertainment Television) is eyeing an advertising revenue of Rs 7 billion from the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), an almost 50 per cent jump from the year-ago period.

The company has sold out the sponsorship slots, signalling a strong commercial response to the T20 format of the game.
 
“HUL, Godrej, and Tata Photon have recently come in as associate sponsors. This completes the 10 sponsorship slots, out of which two have come in as co-presenting sponsors. We have sold 80 per cent of our inventory,” MSM president network sales, licensing and telephony Rohit Gupta tells Indiantelevision.com.

Gupta, however, declined to comment on how much revenue MSM is planning to mop up from the event that will be telecast on Max.
 
As had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Videocon and Vodafone are co-presenting sponsors. The other associate sponsors are Pepsi, LG, Samsung and Hyundai.

A co-presenter will consume between 18-22 10 second spots per match while an associate sponsor will take away 12-16 spots.
 
Gupta adds that several companies have taken spot buys where the rate has crossed Rs 500,000. These include Coca Cola, TVS, Spice Mobile and GM.

For its Extraa Innings wraparound show, the broadcaster has roped in Samsung, Cadila, Whirlpool and Raymonds as sponsors.