ITV

Category: Media and Advertising

  • Vizeum wins media duties of C&S Electric

    Vizeum wins media duties of C&S Electric

    MUMBAI: The S.Yesudas-led Vizeum India is on an account winning spree. The media agency has just pocketed the agency of record account of  C&S Electric. The company is amongst the leading suppliers of electrical equipment in India.

     

    This is the fourth new business announcement from Vizeum within the last two weeks.  The earlier announcements were for Jet Airways; Allied Blenders and Distillers and INS from Viacom 18.

     

    As C&S Electric prepares itself for a consumer facing strategy for its relevant products, Vizeum has been mandated to ensure the brand is able to share its vision with the relevant consumers in an effective and impactful manner.

     

    C&S Electric managing director Rishi Khanna said, “We evaluated media agencies on their strategic thinking and execution ability. Considering our plans, it was imperative for us to align with a partner who thought like us and one who was willing to look beyond the traditional methods of brand-consumer connection.    Vizeum came up strongly on all these parameters. We hope to build a long lasting partnership with Vizeum”

     

    “We bring on board our extreme sincerity, unique passion and very compelling proposition for each of our clients.  We work with a vision of converting our clients as our ambassadors, based on tangible value we add to their business.   We are delighted with this association and are thankful to the C&S Electric management for placing their faith on us. This business will be handled out of our Delhi Office under the leadership of Anirban Malakar, EVP, Vizeum,” added Vizeum managing director – Indian Subcontinent S Yesudas.

  • MEASAT elevates Alex Tan to senior sales director

    MEASAT elevates Alex Tan to senior sales director

     MUMBAI: MEASAT Satellite Systems (MEASAT) has elevated Alex Tan from sales director to senior sales director – Telecoms & VAS (Asia Pacific). In his new role, Tan will continue to lead the Asia -Pacific telecom’s sales team with focus on growing MEASAT’s business across the region.

     

     Tan joined MEASAT in 2008. During his six years with the satellite operator, Tan has raised MEASAT’s profile building relationships with leading telecom operators, oil & gas service providers, Malaysian GLCs (Government-Linked Companies) and VSAT operators.

     

     He has over 17 years of experience in the satellite and telecommunications industry. Prior to joining MEASAT, Tan served as senior regional manager, business development with SpeedCast, focusing on development of VSAT business within South East Asia, Indochina and Central Asia.

     

     Tan holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Engineering, majoring in telecommunications. He graduated with Honours (2nd Class Upper) from University of South Australia, Australia.

     

    In another development, MEASAT is all set to reveal its updated corporate image on 17 June 2014 during CommunicAsia. The revised corporate image, rooted in the previous branding introduced in 2006, introduces additional colors to reflect the changes in the organisation over the past eight years.

  • WPP’s XM Asia to buy majority stake in Sofresh

    WPP’s XM Asia to buy majority stake in Sofresh

    MUMBAI: WPP’s wholly owned operating company, XM Asia, a JWT company, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Sofresh, a digital creative agency in Vietnam.

     

    Sofresh, co-founded in 2007 by Ly Viet Vu and Justin Cohen, develops digital strategy, digital creative ideas and marketing campaigns across multiple digital channels, including social media, mobile and the web. The company also designs and builds e-commerce platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) systems and in-store digital installations.

     

    Sofresh works with a range of local and global clients, including Diageo, GSK, Kinh Do, Techcombank and Unilever. Sofresh had revenues of VND 35.7 billion for the year ending 31 December 2013, with gross assets of VND 30.1 billion, as at the same date. The company employs 85 people.

     

    The acquisition marks a further step towards WPP’s declared goal of developing its networks in fast-growth markets and sectors and continues WPP’s strategy of strengthening the Group’s capabilities in digital media. This was an announcement was made in a statement published on the company’s official website.

     

    Sofresh marks WPP’s third acquisition in Vietnam in seven months. In Vietnam, WPP companies (including associates) generate revenues of about $80 million and employ approximately 1,000 people.

    In Asia Pacific, the Group (including associates) generates revenues of $ 5 billion and employ over 48,000 people. Globally, WPP’s digital revenues were over $ 6.0 billion in 2013, representing almost 35 per cent of total Group revenues of $ 17.3 billion. WPP is targeting at least 40-45 per cent of revenues to come from each of fast-growth markets and new media over the next five years.

  • Discussion around FIFA should not be just about viewership: Mallikarjun Das

    Discussion around FIFA should not be just about viewership: Mallikarjun Das

    MUMBAI:  With ever changing media dynamics, consumption patterns have been fluctuating too. Media fragmentation is a concern that media planners need to deal with more care.  Thereby, what comes as a challenge to a planner is when brands want to collaborate with large scale properties such as an IPL or FIFA World Cup.

     

    As second screens play an integral role in a viewer’s life, catering to them uniquely also comes as a strategic challenge to media planners.

     

    In conversation with indiantelevisiom.com, Starcom Media Vest Group (SVG) India CEO Mallikarjun Das elaborates his views on evolving aspects in media planning, changing viewership patterns of a large scale property like FIFA World Cup, SVG’s away ahead and much more.

     

    Excerpts…

     

    Understanding that there is media fragmentation in India what are the key challenges that come on the way of media planning?

     

    Media fragmentation has been around for sometime. It is nothing new. The challenge is integrating multiple sources of data and using a judicious mix of rationality and intuition in making choices. Increasingly one sees that media planning in the traditional media has become a gut-feel driven game. There has been measurement currency devaluation. Too many voices have jumped in to put down the currency be it TV or print, instead of working around the limitations.

     

    On the digital side, we know that reach is increasing but there are challenges of measurement and proof of performance to surmount. All in all, these are great challenges, and we would rather have these problems to surmount than otherwise!

     

    Do you think that clients in India are taking steps when it comes to experimenting with innovations and new media tools? 

     

    Experimenting has always been there but sometimes experimentation can be an enemy and a limitation. For instance, take digital. For too long, FMCG clients have treated it as a medium for experimentation and innovation instead of it being ‘business as usual’. This itself is one of the reasons for the slow digital transition amongst TV heavy clients. Yes, experimentation is important but unless one builds proof-points in the organisation and scales up, it remains in the cute realm.

     

    What are the best practices in India that the rest of the world could benefit from?

     

    India has vibrant media market place. Look at the choices that exist for a media planner to optimise – both within a medium and across media. In fact, a problem-seeking mind should treat this as the best possible epoch to be a media planner. However, I would rather talk about what India should learn from rest of the world.

     

    The media planning community needs to optimise – cut and trim the fat that often rests in traditional, habit driven choices we make in media plans. Data has to be at the heart of decision-making. I do not think this is the case. Too much of money is wasted in low leverage gut-based decisions. Specifically, we need to be accelerating the digital transition – a focus on TV and print optimisation, video neutral planning, and measurement metrics are what we need to learn from rest of the world. See China for instance – Starcom Media Vest has seen several FMCG clients there who have transitioned from less than 5 per cent to 25 per cent of their ad spending going to digital on the back of those three things.

     

    Since the FIFA fever has hit the world, how do you think the viewership patterns will look for a property of this scale?

     

    FIFA will garner substantial viewership in SEC AB as well as amongst the 15- 34 age groups. There will be certain pockets of the country where the viewership will be universal. There is no doubt that the millennial would be on FIFA.

     

    An index that could give one a sense of the popularity is the ‘Share of Voice’ that FIFA related content has on Facebook. Given that the reach of Facebook in India is in excess of 100 million, the volume of conversation around football would give a pretty good indication of its popularity. My hunch is that the number will be very high.

     

    As far as ratings are concerned that number might not be very high – driven by the fact that niche phenomenon will not be captured precisely and the timing of the matches. Hence a discussion around FIFA should not be just about viewership. For a brand to maximise mileage from a property like this, going on multiple media platforms is critical.

     

    Which brands according to you have collaborated with FIFA?

     

    In fact, I find this a bit disappointing. FIFA is an awesome platform for many Indian brands to build on their equities of youthfulness and being international. Barring a few conventional associations, I have not seen anything that is mind-boggling.

     

    How has the business been in the H1 of 2014 for SVG?

     

    Business has been good in a slow, cautious environment. H1 2014 has been sluggish in terms of ad-spends. The economy had slowed down to a GDP growth of 4.7 per cent. The rate of growth consumption demand too had slowed down. This has reflected in a cautious worldview amongst marketers toward ad-spends. But with every challenge there is an opportunity – we have seen a faster uptake of digital amongst our clients. SMG India is the Global Centre of Excellence for Analytics.

     

    We have seen this contribute substantially to our topline and bottom-line growth in H1. In the last six months, we have executed revenue generating analytics projects for SMG from US, UK, Italy, Australia and Middle-East. Starcom Media Vest India’s analytics team has won international awards and presented papers in prestigious forums such as ESOMAR in Jakarta, Advertising Research Foundation’s Seminar in NY and at the Predictive Analytics World Conference in Chicago. We have built world-class capability on this front and are well placed as an organisation for the data driven, precision marketing transition that will take place in media planning over the next 12 to 24 months.

     

    What are plans lined up by SVM for the coming months?

     

    Our focus will be client–delight, product, growth and training. SMG sees itself as a strategic partner to its clients with its product predicated on the principles of brilliant basics, digital, data and analytics. We will look at building new paradigms of planning that would help optimise the TV and print investments of our clients.

     

    We are already ahead of the market in terms of being one of the few agencies with a capability to do video neutral planning. Digital transition, for the right reasons, will be a spotlight for the agency. Also, we strongly believe that real-time data driven marketing and media planning is the future. This will continue to be an area of thrust. Training is another area for us in which we plan to make substantial investments in 2014.

  • Colgate takes the #Selfie route on digital

    Colgate takes the #Selfie route on digital

    MUMBAI: Red Fuse Communications, WPP’s full-service integrated global agency has designed and implemented an engaging digital campaign for Colgate visible white. Through this campaign, titled ‘visibly white selfie’, the brand aims at communicating that white teeth can enhance one’s smile and hence one’s selfie.

     

    Red Fuse Communications CEO Shubha George said, “We realised that consumers spend a great deal of time on their looks but not on their teeth. Often a beautiful picture with a charming smile is marred by discolored teeth. We wanted to communicate that it is important to make sure that one’s teeth also look their best to complete the beauty regimen.”

     

    Through this campaign the agency will engage with audiences on digital platforms to emphasise how Colgate visible white enhances their selfie, by making their teeth one shade whiter in one week.

     

    The campaign will pose the question ‘Your selfie is incomplete without a picture perfect smile. Are you ready for your best selfie?” across different platform.

     

    In response to this question, users are encouraged to click selfies and upload their best pictures on Colgate India’s Facebook page or through the mobile app. The perfect selfie uploaded will be autographed by Sonam Kapoor. The campaign will conclude on 30th June, 2014

  • Kinetic India honoured with campaign of the year award by Lenovo

    Kinetic India honoured with campaign of the year award by Lenovo

    MUMBAI:  Kinetic India’s campaign execution efforts for Lenovo K900 smartphone launch got recognized and rewarded during ‘Lenovo Recognition and Rewards’ event held in Bangalore on 4th June 2014. Kinetic India was honoured with campaign of the year award.

     

    Kinetic India took up the challenge to create top of the mind brand recall and create buzz during the launch campaign titled Power Play for Lenovo K900 smartphone in key metro cities Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore among TG SEC A, A+ through the Out of Home during August-September 2013.

     

    The journey started with understanding the TG for the brand, their lifestyle and travel patterns in weekdays and weekends. Kinetic extensively used tools like locator and affluence meter in each market to ensure right locations / format for display placements aiming to best optimize impact, value and budget deployment.

     

    Maximum share of voice for the brand presence was created at important and strategic footfalls/traffic locations, key arterial roads which are the lifeline of the city, popular shopping destinations, inside airports, corporate hubs, major residential apartments and enclaves, IT parks and important connector routes between  the city’s IT hubs, CBDs and airports.

     

    Large impact formats like billboard, unipole, gantry, skywalk; frequency builders like BQS, signage; corporate hub branding, mall branding (drop downs and glass facade) and airport branding was done. This was to ensure efficient presence and coverage of all the touch points. The larger than life installations turned out to be attention grabbers. The promotion took mammoth one lakh sq ft. plus media space across 102 media units in three cities covering every possible corridor in the key markets.

     

    All the way along, Kinetic India worked closely with the client to ensure smooth and flawless on time campaign execution. Lenovo India marketing head – smartphones Anuj Sharma said, “The is the first ever campaign for Lenovo led by outdoor media. Kinetic team balanced reach and effectiveness with panache. The sales jumped 3X for the K900 during the campaign. The campaign also got Lenovo (a new brand at the time) valuable shelf space with the top large format retailers.”

     

    The campaign was a success causing much WOM and the client received consistent overwhelming feedback from their distribution and sales network. The end result was that those who saw the promotion no doubt understood that Lenovo with this impressive smartphone offerings line up has ultimately arrived in India with a bang. Kinetic India was bestowed with campaign of the year award recently by Lenovo in a public event, in presence of the Lenovo India management team along with other agency partners (Ogilvy & Mindshare).

     

    Click here to read the case study

  • Getit Infomedia and To The New introduce ScaleIQ

    Getit Infomedia and To The New introduce ScaleIQ

    MUMBAI: Getit Infomedia, and To The New, have come together to offer market access and strategic mentorship to entrepreneurs through a non-traditional platform – ‘ScaleIQ’.

     

    This unique program aims at providing market access along with a set of seasoned advisors and mentors who are not only a functional fit, but also have in-depth industry knowledge thus helping the entrepreneurs establish themselves in the current competitive ecosystem.

     

    According to the study by Accel India, 1,000 companies across 62 different accelerators and incubators sprung up in India over the last few years, however, only 30 of them took a leap to the next level.  The report states that the key reasons of failure are lack of market access and adequate mentorship. 

     

    ScaleIQ will give them access to the existing consumers, market space, global advisors, infrastructure and technology that will help them reach their goal. It will help established companies that typically have made significant progress in its product or service development and are beginning to engage customers in discussions regarding the testing or purchase of its products and services.

     

    Getit Infomedia CEO Jaspreet Bindra said, “In India, there are only a handful of start-ups who have successfully taken their business to an enterprise level. Through ScaleIQ, we will ensure that we provide the start-ups with the right tools and platform that would help them grow further. ScaleIQ will also provide market access through To The New’s strong presence across Asia Pacific region.”

     

    The partnership between Getit Infomedia and To The New, with field presence across seven countries will provide start-ups access to services and applications such as mobile technology, analytics, marketing technology, video technology and social media.

     

    To The new, managing director Puneet Johar stated, “We are excited about this partnership with Getit.  With ScaleIQ, we can bring together many exciting new technologies and partnerships for the benefits of our clients. In turn, the young start-ups will benefit greatly with access to clients across different locations in Asia Pacific.”

     

    “ScaleIQ is a start-up market access platform for fresh entrepreneurs to launch their ideas. With To the new as our partner, we plan to provide vast exposure to start-ups, which will help them gain global outlook. We will work closely with them to mentor them basis their requirements and facilitate access to industry experts and coaches,” explained ScaleIQ Partner Chetan Bhargava.

     

    ScaleIQ will provide all the relevant elements to ensure sustainable growth for the start-ups. To The New’s innovative digital solutions would help start-ups pave the way for offering future services and global exposure will accelerate their growth. Over the next six- nine months, ScaleIQ plans to expand across Asia Pacific Regions to explore the vast start-up ecosystem.

     

    “This program will also be focused on helping start-ups go to the market by giving them access to the best-in-class technology, our existing customers and the market space to succeed. This program has been created as fully integrated solution for budding start-ups to help them develop further and leap onto the next stage,” added Bhargava.

  • Vizeum bags media duties of Integrated Network Solutions

    Vizeum bags media duties of Integrated Network Solutions

    MUMBAI: Vizeum India has been appointed as the media AoR for Integrated Network Solutions (INS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom18 Media. INS is instrumental in creating high impact and unique experiences via multifaceted marketing platforms. Vizeum has been in the news since last two weeks for its win on Jet Airways and Allied Blenders and Distillers business.
     

    The account will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai office under the leadership of Vizeum Mumbai senior vice president Samarjit Rajkumar.

     

    Commenting on the announcement, INS Viacom18 senior vice president and business head Jaideep Singh said, “As we enter into the second year of our journey, the tasks ahead to communicate the promise and message of our experiential properties to our consumers and trade is a challenging one. Vizeum is a well-recommended agency within our group considering their work for the other brands of our Network. Therefore, partnering with them was not a decision that needed too much deliberation. We wish Vizeum all the best as we embark on an exciting journey with together.”

     

    On winning the account Vizeum managing director, India sub-continent S. Yesudas, said “We have been investing all our energies and resources behind making our clients as our true ambassadors with tangible contributions to their business issues. And we are extremely delighted that it is paying back in terms of our existing clients referring us to others. We sincerely thank the INS management for their faith in us. This further strengthens our partnership with Viacom 18 Media group. We currently handle MTV Group, ETV Group, Nickelodeon and Sonic.”

  • LinTeractive adds Dabur Healthcare & Foods to its kitty

    LinTeractive adds Dabur Healthcare & Foods to its kitty

    MUMBAI: Dabur India has appointed LinTeractive, the digital division from Lowe Lintas + Partners to handle digital duties for its Dabur healthcare and foods division. Some of the company’s leading products that will be handled by LinTeractive include Dabur Honey, Dabur Chyawanprash, Dabur Shilajit. Along with this the agency will handle two other product web portals.

     

    On bringing on aboard LinTeractive as the digital AoR Dabur executive vice president – marketing (healthcare and foods) Krishan Kumar Chutani said, “Our association with Lowe Lintas + Partners has been a successful one. They’ve understood the core insights integral to our product offerings and have delivered solutions that have made us stand out in the marketplace. As we seek to extend our reach onto the digital platform, it was only apt that we hand over the reins to our trusted partner to bring us the desired results on the medium. We look forward to some forward-thinking solutions from LinTeractive that will help our brands stay ahead of the curve.”

     

    LinTeractive will be offering capabilities including search, social, web, mobile, monitoring, analytics and campaign activation.

     

    Lowe Lintas + Partners head of LinTeractive and CMO Vikas Mehta said, “Our decade-long association with Dabur has been a mutually rewarding journey for both of us. We are excited that LinTeractive has been entrusted with the mandate of creating interaction-marketing solutions for the healthcare products and platforms. We are keen on partnering Dabur in building their digital capabilities as we co-create digital success stories for their brands.”