Category: Marketing

MUMBAI: Mediacom has bagged the media duties for TVS Group’s TVS Srichakra, following a multi-agency pitch.
 
Mediacom officials confirmed the development. The pitch involved six other agencies and two rounds.
 
TVS Srichakra was established in 1982. It produces tyres and tubes for the different category of vehicles under the brand TVS Tyres.
 

MUMBAI: DDB Mudra Group, a part of Mudra Group, has promoted Rajeev Raja to the position of national creative director for the entire group. He was earlier creative head of the group.

The DDB Mudra Group consist of four agencies- DDB Mudra, Tribal DDB India, RAPP India and Mudra Health & Lifestyle. 
 
DDB Mudra Group CEO Sandeep Vij said, “The last few months have been invested in strengthening DDB Mudra Group with formidable talent, as well as molding an internal structure that enables us to build and harness our collective creative energy. I am delighted to announce that as NCD, Raja will be spearheading the collective creative efforts of the Group.”
 
Raja added, “I think it‘s a challenge and a great opportunity to create some stunning work for the Indian market in keeping with the international standards of DDB. What‘s truly exciting is that we won‘t be paying mere lip-service to the term integration; by integrating creative efforts across the four SBUs of the Group, we‘ll truly be embodying the philosophy of ‘One Voice‘.”
 
Raja has over 20 years of experience in advertising and has worked on brands such as Peter England, BPL, IBM, Virgin Mobile, TOI, Tata Salt, Nokia, Hamam, Tata AIG, Radio City and ICICI Credit Cards.

Raja is also a jazz and fusion flautists and has scored music for a Bollywood film, Bas Yun Hi.

MUMBAI: TBWA India is elevating Nirmalya Sen to the role of managing director.

Sen, who is currently the COO of the agency, will move into his new role from 1 January.

Said TBWA India Group CEO Shiv Sethuraman, “In his new role, Sen will oversee the advertising agency nationally as well as drive our Disruption and Media Arts effort.”
 
Added TBWA International president Keith Smith “Sen has been one of our key agents of growth over the past four years and we are glad that he is stepping up to this larger role to work alongside Shiv on national development.”
 
Commenting on his elevation Sen averred, “My priority will be to bring the TBWA brand alive for all our clients in India with Disruption, Media Arts.”

“We have made some impressive gains with brands such as Dabur, Maruti Suzuki, Visa, Nissan, Style Spa, Mail Today, V Guard etc. in 2009. The challenge is to convert these and other existing clients into clients besotted with us for what we can do for their brands, while continuing to win new brands,” he added.
 
Meanwhile, TBWA India COO Madan Mohan has put in his papers. He will be with the company till the end of the year.

MUMBAI: The second cricket Test match between India and Sri Lanka which was won by India has managed a rating of 1.28 TVR on Neo Cricket.

Tam data shows that this is an improvement over the 0.99 TVR that the first Test achieved. 
 
In terms of reach, though, the second test delivered 39.5 million viewers compared with 40.9 million viewers for the first Test.
 
In 2008, the three-match Test series between the two countries saw an average of 30.2 million viewers tuning in on Ten Sports. The matches had an average TVR of 0.85.

MUMBAI: In the wake of a multi-agency pitch, Capital Advertising has bagged the creative duties of Tata Enterprsies’ Voltas air conditioners.
 
The account was earlier handled by Euro RSCG.
 
Voltas will be using 360 degree plan including TV, radio, OOH, and Internet for its campaigns.

MUMBAI: Mudra West has won the creative duties for the Lonely Planet Magazine. The agency will help Worldwide Media Group to launch the monthly travel magazine in India.

This win comes close on the heels of Mudra West announcing its win of Filmfare less than a fortnight ago.
 
Mudra West EVP& head Arijit ray said, “Lonely Planet is an iconic and aspirational brand in the travel space. It is a privilege for us to have got the opportunity to launch the brand‘s magazine offering in the country. We look forward to working closely with the brand team to create a distinctive communication plan for Lonely Planet Magazine in India.”

Lonely Planet Magazine India brand publisher Debolin Sen said, “We liked the fact that Mudra demonstrated a very good understanding of the brand essence and their creative interpretation for the India launch campaign was equally engaging. We look forward to beginning our journey with Mudra West.”
 
After UK and Brazil, India is only the third country where Worldwide Media Group is launching Lonely Planet Magazine. The magazine will cover a mix of destinations, from both India and abroad, including practical and handy resources and a fresh take on all things travel. 
 
This is Mudra West‘s third win from the Worldwide Media Group stable. It already handles Femina and Filmfare.

MUMBAI: Karishma Initiative has won the media duties of Add Gel Pens.

The account size is pegged at Rs 150-180 million upwards. 81 YOE has been given the mandate of creative duties.

Prior to this, the media duties were handled by Prachar Communications. 
 
“We are happy to be associated with the brand Add Gel pens. We will partner with Add Gel Pens in their aggressive expansion plans and ensure efficiencies and effectiveness. It would be exciting to work on simple powerful ideas to engage the youth beyond mass media,” says Karishma Initiative‘s Himanka Das.
 
Add Pens head marketing Deepak Jain says,” In the coming year we have aggressive growth plans and we are happy to partner with Karishma Initiative and are looking forward to their expertise in constructing communication solutions to enable our marketing strategies.”

MUMBAI: Quasar Media has elevated Sandeep Singh as business head brand and media solutions for its operations in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

In his new role, Singh will be reporting to Quasar Media co-founder Manish Vij.
 
Under his new mandate, Singh will be responsible to grow the brand and media business inorganically in India and increase its market share.
 
Quasar Media‘s business director West Moneka Khurana, regional head North Piyush Rathi and regional head South Ajay Gupta will report to Singh.
 
Prior to this, he was Quasar business director and managing operations in Mumbai and Bangalore. Singh has been associated with Quasar Media for the last five years.

Prior to this, he was with Rediff.com media sales team.

MUMBAI: Sponsorship practitioners from all over Europe recorded a resounding vote of no confidence in London’s Olympic sponsorship programme and indeed Olympic sponsorship in general at ESA’s annual European flagship conference, Future Sponsorship, in London.

Over 200 figures from all areas of the sponsorship industry took part in a survey that asked the question – Are domestic Olympic packages (Locog) good value for money? 
 
A staggering 79 per cent said No. The Tier One Olympic Sponsorship Programme did not fare much better with 66 per cent of delegates believing that the IOC’s Top sponsorship programme did not represent good value for money.

Locog had some very ambitious targets for generating revenue from sponsors and certainly had some initial success in attracting sponsors for the London Games. However, as companies began to feel the full impact of the credit crunch, attracting sponsors for the Games in London in recent months has proved to be much harder. 
 
The over-riding message from several of the speakers including rights holders, sponsors, agencies, accountants and lawyers was the need in the current climate to deliver measurable returns on sponsorship investments.

Indeed one sponsor revealed that as little as 25 per cent of the measurable value of their sponsorship programmes now comes through what used to be considered sponsorship’s main asset – Media exposure and brand awareness.

As if to reinforce the results of the survey, there was a call for ‘sponsorship‘ to be reclassified and even renamed to more accurately reflect the marketing role which sponsorship is now so effectively delivering for thousands of companies and brands.
 
American sponsorship industry guru, Lesa Ukman issued a stark warning to the sponsorship industry across Europe when she revealed that in the US, any of the financial services companies that received financial help from the government were no longer allowed to undertake sponsorship programmes.

The European Sponsorship Association’s Chairman, Karen Earl was quick to pick up on Ukman’s comments, “What we heard about the American market and the new restrictions imposed on the financial institutions is extremely worrying and shows that there is still a massive lack of understanding of the potential of sponsorship as a marketing discipline.

” It is still seen by many as having philanthropic connotations and at a corporate level providing opportunities for excess and waste. The Sponsorship industry is now worth in excess of 8 billion Euros across Europe and for the leading companies and brands it is an absolutely vital component of their overall marketing plans”.
 

MUMBAI: Cequity, a data-led marketing services provider of the RK Swamy- Hansa Group, has appointed Anand Siva as business head for its newly set up unit of Customer Integrated Marketing (CIM).

Siva, who was with Saatchi & Saatchi as Mumbai VP and branch head, will focus on direct relationship and one-to-one multi-channel marketing.
 
Cequity said in a release that it is expanding its services across the country. So far Cequity has been offering data analytics, marketing analytics solutions and on-demand analytical marketing services for a host of clients in India and the US.

Cequity CEO Swaminathan said, “The CIM unit has been set-up based on the needs expressed by our clients. There was a rising necessity to combine data and integrated marketing to build direct relationships with both customers and prospects.”
 
Added Siva, “I have always been impressed by a business idea that had the marking to lead the way, change the trend. The recent recession has taught the business world important lessons in cost reduction, budget optimisation and advertising expenditure rationalisation. Cequity’s business model and the potential it had to chart a new path for businesses are what got me excited.”
Siva was with Saatchi & Saatchi for over two years, where he worked on brands like Ekp, Logan, Pillsbury, Nature Valley, Ariel, Reliance, Calcium Sandoz and Otirivin.
 
Prior to that, Siva spent 17 years at Akshara Advertising, where he was head of the Chennai and Bangalore operations, working on brands like Intel, Nortel, Tata Plantations, Fresh & Honest Cafe (now a part of Lavazza), Aircel and Indian Airlines.

Siva enabled delivery of specialised BTL services to brands like Intel, handling their B2B, channel and special vehicle projects.