Category: Media and Advertising

Havas Worldwide launches new specialist unit

MUMBAI: Havas Worldwide has launched a specialist practice within the network that is focused on delivering innovation and digital business transformation solutions for brands called Havas Drive.

The team is based at Havas Worldwide Bangkok, and their remit spans all Havas Worldwide Offices in APAC who can draw on their expertise for client engagements.

The specialist unit boasts a team of talents from around the globe who share a vision for a new approach in the brand partnership model. Havas Drive specialists in design, data, strategy, coding/development, innovation and experience design will work with clients on business and digital transformation mandates to help them set a strategy and build new approaches to their customers.

Havas Drive is also tasked to integrate these emergent practices and thinking into the Havas creative agencies across APAC. A series of road shows and events are being planned for the coming months to showcase their approach, thinking, and expertise.

“We have been looking at new ways to incorporate and build meaningful innovation into our agencies for a while now,” said Havas Drive regional director APAC Jeff Lippold.

“With the industry moving against traditional ways of communication to reach consumers, we brought together a team of complimentary talents to build strategies, which will produce tangible approaches for our clients and quickly. We’re excited to have the level of talent joining us at Havas Drive – they are all motivated by the mission and at the top of their craft. This team will provide a seriously competitive advantage to our clients in APAC,” added Lippold.

May 25, 2015
WPP’s Always to acquire Singapore-based marketing company 3ree

MUMBAI: Sir Martin Sorrell led WPP is on an acquisition spree. The company’s China-based field and shopper marketing unit Always Marketing Services has acquired Singapore based has integrated marketing company 3ree.

Financials of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2010 by Tan Li Li and Isabel Cheong, 3ree offers event management, sourcing and production of marketing premiums, project management for exhibitions and activations, and design and creative services, as well as digital marketing.

3ree has implemented projects in key Asian markets, including India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and Australia. Clients include Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electronic, Seagate and StarHub.

Always, which is majority-owned by WPP’s J. Walter Thompson, offers trade marketing, including merchandiser management and retail audit; retail marketing, including promoter management, in-store activation and retail environment designs; as well as shopper marketing, including point of sale design, events and road shows, as well as premium design and production.

May 22, 2015
Teleshopping War: Den Snapdeal TV-Shop & Shop CJ unleash maiden ad campaigns

MUMBAI: With new players entering the home shopping network fray, ad wars are bound to happen. At a time when consumers are spoilt for choice when it comes to the various platforms that are available for shopping, home-shopping channels like Den Snapdeal TV-Shop and Shop CJ (erstwhile Star CJ Alive) have launched their maiden bespoke marketing campaigns in a bid to grab the consumer’s ever wavering attention.

While Den Snapdeal TV-Shop chose to target television consumers who have limited access to internet and are non-internet savvy with its first marketing campaign, Shop CJ has taken the route of telling consumers to ‘shop a new trend,’ while highlighting the company’s product offer associated with trendy lifestyle.

Den Snapdeal TV-Shop ad campaign is titled ‘Kal Ki Wish Aaj Pao – Phone Uthao Khushiya Mangao.’ The idea behind the ad is that consumers who are non-internet savvy often miss out on great deals that brands offer across e-commerce portals. The marketing campaign, which is created by Adept Media, is being currently aired across channels in Punjab.

Plans are to also target consumers in markets like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal and Gujarat via TV, print, outdoor, radio and social media.

On the other hand, as a part of rebranding initiative Shop CJ’s first TVC, which has been directed by Pradeep Sarkar, will not take the done and dusted route of offering deals and discounts to attract consumers. The differentiating strategy is to offer products associated with trendy lifestyle, which aims to improve the lifestyle of people by helping them shop a new trend. The TVC conveys the company’s new philosophy and brand identity. It also shows that the channel’s name change from Star CJ Alive to Shop CJ.

Den Snapdeal TV-Shop CEO Maneesh Goel said, “We’re all bargain hunters who have been taught to start saving up from a very young age. As kids, we were given pennies to be put in a piggy-bank or a gullak to save for the rainy days. With this simple and relatable plank, the integrated marketing campaign hopes to connect with our target audience in an entertaining and quirky way.”

Through this TVC, Den Snapdeal TV-Shop is trying to replace the Gullak and shop for presents to fulfill aspirations. “We are telling people to not postpone their happiness, but instead shop on Den Snapdeal TV-Shop and get the product they desire today,” he added.

Adept Media CEO Vandan Chopra said, “We wanted to ensure that the idea was geography agnostic and did this medium justice. The central theme of our campaign came from the simple insight that no matter how much we crave happiness, we usually end up postponing it with the hope to find a better deal in the future. ‘Don’t postpone your happiness, buy now’ addresses the main challenge of building the urgency of sales conversion which is the basic premise of the offering.”

Talking about the Shop CJ’s debut marketing campaign after the name change, Shop CJ CEO Kenny Shin said, “We are trying to change the overall perception of the home–shopping industry. Additionally, the TVC rebranding showcases our aim to bring ultra-trendy, durable, innovative, customer-friendly and cost-effective products to the customers.”

Shop CJ’s new brand tagline – ‘Shop a new trend,’ which is unveiled in the TVC, signifies the company’s product offering that are in synch with customers lifestyle and latest trend. The TVC features real life people sharing their story and proud moment with Shop CJ’s products.

Talking about directing the TVC for Shop CJ, Sarkar said, “Shop CJ had a beautiful vision and a new idea of getting into peoples’ lives, a breath of fresh air. The objective was not to make it loud; instead we wanted to get into people’s minds very subtly and that has made the commercial endearing. It was wonderful making the commercial or rather the story, not the TVC.”

Shop CJ’s film is conceptualized by Percept H. The 30 and 60-second versions of the commercial will air on various channels of Star Network from May 2015. A full 60 seconds version will be available to view on YouTube.

While Den Snapdeal TV-Shop is growing at a growth rate of around 50 per cent month-on-month, the channel is targeting to reach Rs 500 crore by December 2015 with a reach of 80 million households. The rise in disposable income of people in the tier-2 and tier-3 cities is further giving a boost to the category.

With the newest player in the business – Best Deal TV, which is co-owned by Raj Kundra and Akshay Kumar, poised to touch its first year’s gross sales target of Rs 150 crore, the competition is only just heating up in the home shopping network space.

In a scenario like this, the marketing and promotional activities of home shopping channels will have to cut above the clutter as well as manage to lure customers in order to rake in the moolah.

May 21, 2015
The 120 Media Collective overhauls senior management team

MUMBAI: The 120 Media Collective, a digitally-inclined company that creates and distributes content for audiences and brands across multiple platforms, has made two senior appointments.

While Shilpa Ambre has joined as chief financial officer for The 120 Media Collective, Vishal Nongbet has been roped in as Sooperfly senior vice president and business head.

Both Ambre and Nongbet will be based in Mumbai and will report to The 120 Media Collective founder and CEO Roopak Saluja.

Ambre will be responsible for all finance, legal affairs and investor relations of The 120 Media Collective and its sub brands – Jack in the Box Worldwide, Sniper, Bang Bang Films and Sooperfly.

Nongbet, on the other hand, has been entrusted with building the Sooperfly team and business and running day-to-day operations including content, distribution and monetization across APAC.

Additionally, Bang Bang Films senior producer Chahna Rupani has been promoted to Sniper executive producer and will primarily be responsible for driving revenues and growth, while ensuring excellence and efficiencies for both commercials and content production.

“The company has undergone a metamorphosis of sorts over the past three years, from being a combined entity of a production company and a social media agency to one that is pushing the boundaries and blurring the lines between communications, entertainment and technology. As we embark on an ambitious growth plan over the next 36 months, bolstering our leadership team with top talent is essential. Keeping the company adequately funded and observing the highest standards of compliance and governance will be key and having someone of Shilpa’s experience and capability overseeing things is of paramount importance,” said Saluja.

Commenting on Nongbet’s appointment, Saluja said, “Our goal with Sooperfly is clearly to capitalize on all that we’ve built up over the past eight plus years- chief among which are our ability to create compelling content and our credibility with brands- to give ourselves a competitive advantage in the digital video space. Only someone of Vishal’s breadth and depth of media experience, which arms him with a profound understanding of mobile and content monetization, can make a success of this.”

Ambre opined, “I am very excited to join the strong and accomplished team at The 120 Media Collective and I’m looking forward to leveraging my experience to support the rapidly growing business operations of the Company and its stakeholders.”

“While the last two decades have been all about the democratisation of content, there has never been a better time than now for advertisers to engage their audiences via owned rather than paid or earned media. Sooperfly will be looking at harnessing the immense talent in the space, building content brands direct to audiences, and finding that sweet spot between content creators and advertisers,” added Nongbet.

May 21, 2015
Carnival Cinemas ropes in Saurabh Saxena as COO

MUMBAI: Carnival Cinemas has appointed Saurabh Saxena as its chief operating officer (COO).

With over 24 years of experience in the hospitality and entertainment industry, Saxena has previously worked in multiplex companies such as PVR, Fame Cinemas (now Inox Movies), Big Cinemas, Cinemax, Wave Cinemas and Sahara Entertainment. Most recently he was with Sahara India as head of entertainment.

Saxena said, “Carnival is a magnificent company with an incredible team, great vision and now on an advantageous position in the film exhibition sector. It is a great honour to join its leadership team and have the opportunity to build on its success.”

After acquiring HDIL’s Broadway, Reliance’s Big Cinemas and Glitz Cinemas, Carnival now has 346 plus screens operating in the country. It has a vision to have 1000 screens in next two years. With presence in metro cities along with tier 2 and tier 3 cities, Carnival Cinemas aims to offer better movie watching experience across the nation.

It is currently present in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

May 21, 2015
‘Suits’ star Gabriel Macht in Ballantine’s India ad campaign

MUMBAI: Scotch whisky brand Ballantine’s is all set to launch an exclusive India specific campaign with the Suits star Gabriel Macht.

With the new brand positioning of ‘Stay True,’ which will be accompanied by a marketing campaign with the tagline ‘Stay True, Leave an Impression’ featuring Macht.

Conceptualised by Ballantine’s, the ‘Stay True, Leave an Impression’ campaign serves as an invitation to the Indian consumers to express themselves in a genuine and authentic way. Authenticity, self-belief and conviction are at the heart of this new campaign.

The video-led campaign will also be integrated across print, digital and outdoor media.

The entire video is about two worlds: the world of self-belief and staying true juxtaposed by a world of sycophants with shifting loyalties. The tension between these two worlds is what brings out the brand idea of leaving a mark by being yourself, of making it to the top on your own terms.

The film does this through a depiction of a ‘day in the life of’ the corporate world – the charades, the fake smiles, the pretentious jokes and the ‘yes man-ship’ that plays out every day – as seen through the eyes of our protagonist during his journey through a typical corporate office.

The novel freeze-frame treatment further heightens this parody of power-play that the brand unequivocally disapproves of. Ballantine’s, which celebrates individuality and originality since 1827, raises a toast to the ‘real ones’ in a world full of fakes. The message: success is lasting for those who hold true.

Macht said, “It is an honour for me to shoot for Ballantine’s well-crafted campaign in line with its philosophy of ‘Stay True.’ This association is a perfect match as I truly relate to brand’s attribute of staying true to one’s character and maintaining one’s integrity. Ballantine’s is one of the finest whiskies with unique richness of character and perfect balance. It has been a memorable experience shooting for the campaign and hope the Indian audience will appreciate it too.”

Pernod Ricard India head – international brands Kartik Mohindra added, “George Ballantine stayed true and left an impression with the whiskies that he created. With this campaign, we want to continue his legacy by creating a platform that celebrates Ballantine’s and its founder’s intrinsic values. We hope to inspire people to have conviction to stay true to themselves, to follow their passions and to remain as genuine and authentic as they can be.”

Ogilvy & Mather, New Delhi executive creative director Ajay Gahlaut said, “There are the movers and the shakers who are here today and gone tomorrow. Their allegiances are based on self-gain and change with changing winds. And then there are those few who quietly go about doing what they believe in, undeflected in purpose and unswayed by criticism. These are the ones who are remembered. They are the ones who leave an indelible mark on time. They are the ones who lead by example. This film is about them.”

“There is something very inspiring about individuals who live by what they believe in. They are hard to find but they are there. This is the individual of integrity that the brand sought to associate itself with. And this is what led us to close in on Gabriel Macht. He, in a way, echoes everything that the brand stands for. There are strong affinities about who he is in real life and the character roles that he depicts in his professional life, with our brand values. So his character accentuates the stark differences between the two worlds that the film has captured. And the master stroke is the treatment of the film itself that creates a taut tension between the two worlds,” Gahlaut added.

May 21, 2015
Mindshare to present adaptive marketing at Melt 2015

MUMBAI: This Melt, GroupM’s flagship agency Mindshare will bring alive the concept of real time planning adaptive marketing through The Loop and Purple Box as a part of GroupM FutureReady hall.

Fitting in perfectly with Melt’s theme – a festival of creativity will take participants through an experience of adaptive marketing with a live campaign and contest. The Mindshare zone revolves around their core philosophy of Original Thinking Framework.

The experience will be demonstrated in the loop room in the Mindshare zone. The Loop is not just another technological interface but rather a way of life for all at Mindshare. It will effectively break down all silos and bring all key stakeholders into one single room – creative, media, social, digital, content and production.

Adaptive marketing enables the shift of media spends to leverage opportunities uncovered by real time data and provides actionable insights that can be executed instantly. The Loop is also used to track competitor efforts in paid, owned and earned media, as well as providing intelligence on trending and viral news and content.

The Loop @Melt – Mindshare will integrate live contests and track real time influencers at Melt 2015. Participants will be engaged through the two days by fuelling creative thinking and conversations around Melt through the Loop.

On the other hand, the Purple Box is a creative manifestation of adaptive marketing solutions. Created exclusively for Melt, Mindshare Purple Box will demonstrate various consumer archetypes in an interesting visual format. Participants will be able to choose from a consumer ‘avatar’ and look deeper into some of their passion points, while we convert them into communication opportunities.

Mindshare south Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar said, “Driven with the core values of speed, provocation and teamwork, Mindshare is not only working in an adaptive marketing environment, but also defining this environment. With The Loop philosophy we understand that content and messaging is fluid and continuous, and our frameworks demonstrate the agility and responsiveness of a collaborative decision making process for brands. At Melt, one can see a live demonstration of this framework at the Loop Room, as well as how adaptive marketing looks from a consumer’s perspective with Purple Box.”

The Mindshare experience will be live from 10 am to 5 pm on 21 and 22 May at Zee Melt 2015 in GroupM FutureReady zone at Nehru Centre in Worli, Mumbai.

May 20, 2015
Razorfish Global appoints Samih Fadli as chief intelligence officer

MUMBAI: Razorfish Global has appointed Samih Fadli to the newly created position of chief intelligence officer.

Based out of the company’s Seattle office, Fadli will report to Razorfish global chief executive officer Tom Adamski and will serve on the global leadership team.

“Data is the most critical ingredient for business transformation because it allows us to offer clients both human benefit and business impact,” said Adamski.

“Finding the right leader for this role has been one of my highest priorities, and I’m thrilled to welcome Samih to the Razorfish Global team. He brings more than 20 years of global leadership experience and an exceptional track record of managing large, integrated teams across ad tech, data mining and analysis, ecommerce, digital, media and Silicon Valley hi-tech organisations,” he added.

In his new role, Fadli will lead Razorfish Global’s Data Intelligence Practice and expand the organisation’s competitive advantage in Marketing Intelligence and Data Sciences, in areas such as Predictive Marketing and Data Visualisation, Audience Management, Advanced Segmentation and Real-Time Automation. He will also lead the global deployment of the NEXUS Operating System (OS), which integrates customer data and interactions across all major touch points at enterprise scale.

Additionally, Fadli will work closely with leadership across Publicis Sapient to drive innovative customer experience for clients across SapientNitro, Razorfish, Rosetta and DigitasLBi, and build on key collaborative partnerships with some of the world’s leading data technology companies, including Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, IBM, Oracle, SAP, and other data intelligence providers.

“Razorfish Global is a world-class brand, and I’m thrilled to join it at a time when Tom and the rest of the leadership team are making a major investment in data and intelligence and prioritizing them as critical to our future success,” said Fadli.

“I have long admired Razorfish as a leader in customer obsession and business transformation, and I think we have a clear competitive advantage through our ability to create world class experiences built on a better understanding of our clients’ customers,” he added.

Fadli joins Razorfish Global from Gravity4, where he led global engineering and programmatic capabilities across Demand Side Platform (DSP), real-time bidding (RTB) and AppCenter, and managed the integration of the Data Management Persona Store (DMP) capable of multi-channel aggregation of first- and third-party data, including ad exchanges such as AppNexus, FBX, Google DoubleClick.

May 20, 2015
Carat appoints Navaneeta Das as international client president

MUMBAI: Carat has appointed Navaneeta Das as international client president for Mondelez International based out of Singapore for Asia Pacific.

Das will head up the Carat media strategy and planning operations for Mondelez, with responsibilities for the wider Dentsu Aegis Network offering. Longer term she will move into a global role within Carat. Das joins from Johnson & Johnson and will report to Carat Asia Pacific CEO Sean O’Brien.

O’Brien said “Nav’s balanced exposure to digital and traditional media and her knowledge of strategy, data and trading makes her the right fit for us as we continue to redefine the business value we deliver to our clients through media. Mondelez International is an innovative business, looking to drive significant growth, and with Nav’s expertise now within Carat we are in a great position to continue to support them on this journey.”

With 17 years’ of media and marketing experience, Das previously worked at Mindshare, at WPP’s econometrics and consulting offering (ATG and Mindshare Business Planning), and most recently at Johnson & Johnson where she was director of digital analytics and marketing analytics.

“Carat embodies an honest, down-to-earth, warm and collaborative culture. The company has grown rapidly over the past few years due to strong communication and marketing capabilities driven by their culture. I am looking forward to working with the teams across the region to drive further success for Mondelez International and in turn grow our business,” said Das.

May 20, 2015
WPP’s Grey Healthcare acquires minority stake in PARx Solutions

MUMBAI: WPP’s wholly-owned operating company Grey Healthcare Group has acquired a minority stake in US based PARx Solutions, Inc.

PARx has built a platform designed to support physicians and pharmacies as they manage prescription prior authorization requirements that are put in place by payers for an increasing number of branded prescription drugs.

The company’s web-based portal helps physicians and pharmacies manage prior authorization requirement for prescriptions in a streamlined, user-friendly manner, thereby allowing more patients to receive the medications that their physicians have prescribed. The company is headquartered in Burlington, MA, with offices in Louisville, KY, and San Jose, CA, and was founded in 2008.

This investment continues WPP’s strategy of investing in digital and important markets such as the US.

May 19, 2015