MUMBAI: The shortlist of Effies 2013 is out. The total number of shortlists this year is 243 with Ogilvy & Mather topping the list with 43 entries for 24 categories.Next to it is Lowe Lintas with 31 shortlisted case studies.
It is interesting to note that in the 13 years of its existence, Effies has received the highest ever entries this year with the tally reaching 419.
The award function will be held on 15 January in Mumbai.
MUMBAI: Young & Rubicam former chairman and CEO, Edward N Ney, breathed his last on 8 January at 88 years old.
He had joined the company as a young account manager in 1951 and worked his way up to preside over the company as CEO from 1970 till 1986.
The industry attributes him for creating the agency’s integrated “whole egg” strategy which was later followed by others. In a press statement, WPP Group’s global CEO Martin Sorrell said that Ney “understood, probably more than anyone else, both the power of agency brands and, at the same time, the paradoxical need to bring them together… He understood it all and saw it sooner than most.”
Besides his work at Y&R, Ney was politically active as well. He became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1974. In 1989, President George HW Bush nominated him as the United States Ambassador to Canada. He served in Ottawa until June 1992.
After his time as the ambassador, Ney returned to the agency as chairman.
Ney is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters.
MUMBAI: Anitha Krishnan will be joining JWT Mumbai as an Executive Business Director effective January 13, 2014. Prior to joining JWT, Anitha was leading Contract’s Bengaluru office.
In her new role, Anitha will be handling Godrej Corporate, Godrej Appliances, Godrej Security, J& J, Monsanto, LIC, UTI and other businesses.
On her joining, Anitha Krishnan says, “JWT is a much larger playing field and I am looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that come with that kind of scale. What makes this move exciting is the diversity that JWT offers, be it the kind of brands, the people, platforms and the opportunity to present a truly integrated business solution.”
Having spent close to a decade with Contract in Mumbai and Bengaluru, Anitha brings with her a wealth of experience of having handled brands across categories from FMCG to Retail and Financial services. With an overall work experience of 16 years, Anitha understands the luxury and the youth segment with exposure to premium brands over the course of her career.
While at Contract, Anitha was spearheading relationships with clients that include Louis Philippe, Platinum, HSBC Premier, Shoppers Stop, Royale from Asian Paints and young brands such as Vladivar, White Mischief and Jockey.
MUMBAI: Ozone Media, an India-based digital technology company, has entered into a partnership with MicroAd, an online ad platform company in Japan, to enable dynamic retargeting which allows advertisers to create and manage personalised advertisements for every single customer.
The collaboration with MicroAd will ensure that display campaigns, served via its integrated management platform ‘MicroAd BLADE’, are optimised to meet the specific goals of advertisers in southeast Asia – especially in the travel and tourism, and e-commerce verticals. Online ad spend is growing rapidly and, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, is forecast to reach nearly US$34 billion in Asia Pacific by 2015, highlighting advertisers’ growing confidence in online media.
On the tie-up, Ozone Media founder Kiran Gopinath said, “We are pleased to enter this alliance with MicroAd, and are confident that we will provide great value to advertisers with increased returns on their retargeting campaigns.”
Ozone Media recently launched ‘Adadyn’ – a creative optimisation solution – which allows for a deeper and meaningful engagement with online users by serving dynamic creatives to selectively targeted audience segments.
“We look forward to working closely with Ozone Media, and equip our clients across southeast Asia with real-time advertising capabilities that will help them reach their target audience with relevant and customised messaging,” said MicroAd Vietnam CEO Kosuke Sogo.
MUMBAI: JWT south Asia has announced the appointment of Mohit Hira as the CEO of Hungama Digital Services (HDS).
Mohit, who joined JWT in November 2012, has been overseeing JWT Group’s digital initiatives over the past eight months; in addition to his role as the business lead on Airtel. Given JWT’s increased focus on digital, he will now assume leadership of digital. As part of this, Mohit will be overseeing the entire operations of HDS and JWT Digital, thereby ensuring seamless integration of the two to offer truly integrated digital solutions to all HDS and JWT clients.
“Mohit is well poised to take on this role, given his proficiency in creative, content and strategic planning along with his experience as a brand custodian. With his strong creative and digital capabilities Mohit will be leading one of India’s highly awarded digital agencies that will continue to live up to being a ‘single source’ partner for our clients across all their digital platforms,” said JWT south Asia CEO Colvyn Harris.
Mohit is an advertising creative director turned netvangelist, with a career spanning over two decades with rich and diverse experience across advertising, marketing, journalism and digital media. He was recently nominated to the Impact India Digital Power 100 List and has also been on the IBM-Paul Writer list of Top 50 CMOs earlier.
On his new role, Mohit said, “I have been working closely with the team at Hungama Digital in the past few months and the opportunity of leading an extremely talented and committed team there was irresistible. Neeraj set up India’s leading digital agency ahead of its time and it has grown into a strong, respected company of creative technologists. I’m looking forward to partnering Neeraj and JWT in the mission to make HDS one of the most sought-after digital agencies in the region.”
JWT acquired a majority stake in HDS in May 2012 to offer to its clients a full services digital agency specialising in digital marketing and social media solutions. As part of the acquisition, Hungama’s activations arm, Hungama Promo Marketing also merged with HDS to provide an engagement platform linked to online and offline deliveries.
MUMBAI: GroupM today announced the launch of a new innovative TV business unit that will offer clients superior targeting and engagement capabilities in what has become a technology driven, data fused, addressable media environment.
The announcement was made by GroupM North America CEO Kelly Clark, who said the unit will be called Modi Media and will be led by Michael Bologna, GroupM’s Director of Emerging Communications. Bologna’s appointment as President of Modi Media is effective immediately, and his previous role is being folded into his new position.
“We are preparing for a world of media consumption and advertising message delivery that is radically different from what we see today,” Clark said in making the announcement. “Data and technology are driving enormous change in the structure and the economics of the television business, and it’s critical that we are ready to help clients navigate the new landscape. Modi Media will develop powerful advanced TV solutions for advertisers.” Clark said Modi (pronounced “Mo-Dee”) will offer solutions that provide advanced targeting, less waste, improved ROI, and deeper engagement.
Specifically, the unit will cover four practices:
DIGITAL CONTENT DISTRIBUTION: Focused on the promotion of sale or rental of digitally distributed films across cable and satellite platforms and through connected devices (iTunes, Xbox, Amazon, Vudu).
ADDRESSABLE TV: Addressable television is the ability to send a TV commercial to a specific household based on a brand’s actual target profile. Targeting criteria can include income, advanced demography, and purchase behavior, among others. Ads are served only to the homes that fit the specified target criteria. The current reach potential of addressable TV is 40 million TV homes across the US, and is expected to grow significantly.
HYPER-LOCAL TV: Hyper-local television is the ability to insert a TV commercial directly to a specific zone or zip code based on geographic skews, sales data, trading radius etc. This helps focus clients’ TV advertising in highly concentrated local neighborhoods without having to buy an entire market, thereby reducing waste.
INTERACTIVE TV (iTV): iTV enables advertisers to engage consumers more deeply with interactive content and promotions, using TV commercials as a “jumping off point.” Solutions include dedicated advertiser channels, commercial overlays for lead generation, smart TV applications and e-commerce. Modi will provide advertisers with strategic planning, buying, production, and data analysis across platforms including cable, satellite, telco and gaming services.
Rino Scanzoni, Chief Investment Officer of GroupM, noted that Modi will be supported by the full resources and scale of GroupM including its TV implementation, optimization, research and data capabilities. The unit’s services will be made available to clients of all GroupM agencies, which include Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare. In addition the new unit will offer its mservices to other WPP agencies and directly to clients who may not work with a GroupM media agency.
Bologna started his career at MEC in 1998 as an assistant media planner on the agency’s AT&T account. He was an original member of MEC’s digital unit (The Digital Edge) and more recently has held positions that focused specifically on advanced television. He is known throughout the television and media industries for his expertise in the field of advanced digital communications.
MUMBAI: Digital is the way forward and the media industry knows it well. There is a growing need to capture audiences that are internet savvy, and to cater to that need, PR agency Value 360 Communications has launched its online content marketing company, Popkorn Communications. The venture will focus on creating and marketing content for brands for the multiple digital platforms of the World Wide Web.
Popkorn Communications will establish a strong web presence, strategic brand promotion and responsive digital engagement. The company was spurred by the need to customise content that is unique as well as captivating for an audience that is constantly connected via the internet.
“Today, there is a large amount of content floating online vying for the attention of internet users. We at Popkorn Communications seek to creatively place content that integrates your brand identity and message in such a way so as to be easily accessible, likeable as well as shareable. Our inherent expertise and seasoned experience of having dealt with clients across the board will help us comprehend and direct the right content for each brand we serve,” said Popkorn Communications founder Gaurav Patra.
The company will help channelise and streamline content to drive brand forward as well as build a relationship with the target audience. Its bouquet of offerings include devising meaningful and relevant content marketing solutions in the form of article posting, e-newsletters, social media, blogs, video posting, case studies, infographics and mobile marketing.
The company targets a range of verticals right from lifestyle, e-commerce, consumer technology, automobile, hospitality, entertainment, education, real estate and consumer durables.
“The audience today is young, dynamic and increasingly mobile. Our challenge will be to grab their attention through content that could be a visually appealing comic strip, a hard hitting video or simply images that convey much more beyond words. The idea is to capture the essence of what a specific brand wishes to communicate to its audience and then do so using tools that are effective even if unconventional,” he added.
BANGKOK: ADFEST is pleased to announce that Shahir Zag, Chief Creative Officer at Y&R MENA in Dubai, is joining next year’s festival as Jury President of the Outdoor Lotus category.
A passionate typographer, designer, poet and creative sage, Zag has been instrumental in turning the creative spotlight onto the Middle East since moving to Dubai from Mumbai in 1997.
In 2012, he was ranked #1 copywriter, #1 art director and #2 Chief Creative Officer in the world by the Big Won Report, an annual global report tracking the award performance of agencies.
“I’m really kicked about the ‘Co-create’ theme at ADFEST this year. Doing great creative is no longer a writer-art director thing. It’s evolved into a wonderfully collaborative process. More and more, we’re seeing the influence of in-house producers and editors, artists, inventors, consumers, and interns doing social at two in the morning. It’s great that ADFEST as a festival is celebrating this. The APAC region is exciting for me because it’s brimming with great human stories and the creatives here are fearless in their telling,” says Zag.
Zag’s writing, design, and art direction have won trophies at ANDY, Art Directors Club, Cannes Lions, Clio, One Show, D&AD, London International, and New York Festivals.
He is also a prolific blogger, whose website shahirzag.com is full of pearls of wisdom such as, ‘The fear of being boring is a great motivator’ exquisitely expressed in perfectly kerned typefaces.
Zag was promoted to the role of Chief Creative Officer, Y&R MENA, in 2010. He moved to Dubai after four years working at agencies in India, including Lowe Enterprise Bombay.
“It’s not often you meet a prodigy like Shahir, who is a major creative force in the Middle East and beyond. It’s an honour to welcome him to ADFEST 2014 as Jury President of the Outdoor Lotus category,” says Jimmy Lam, President of ADFEST.
ADFEST 2014 takes place on 6th – 8th March 2014 at the Royal Cliffs Hotel Group in Pattaya, Thailand.
ADFEST is on Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget to join the conversation!
MUMBAI: Soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s announcement that he isn’t in the race for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress party seems to be going for an overhaul. Reportedly, the national party has brought on board Dentsu India, the Japanese advertising and public relations company (along with JWT) that will be working on a massive campaign around the party’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
However, Dentsu isn’t talking about the association as of yet. “No comments on Congress,” is what Dentsu India executive chairman Rohit Ohri who is holidaying in Koh Samui, Thailand said.
But the idea is to build up the image of Gandhi before the election. And it seems the process has already begun. The homepage of the website of Indian National Congress shows Rahul Gandhi in the most positive light. The side panel on the website has stories just of Rahul Gandhi addressing people at different times. All his speeches that have made news till now also feature in the panel.
Few of the highlights are: “An India In Which No One Is A Minority: Rahul Gandhi”; a video of Rahul Gandhi talking to the media in Delhi about combating corruption and tackling inflation; and also a report published in The Telegraph that talks about Rahul Gandhi already taking over the charge of the Indian National Congress. It says, “The new website the Congress launched a few days ago reflects the changes in the party, both in its content and approach, and provides evidence of Rahul Gandhi’s supremacy despite Sonia Gandhi still heading the hierarchy.”
Besides, the Gandhi scion is the most highlighted person on the site’s homepage. The mention of everyone else who have contributed to the development of the Party is in different sections of the site.
So, is it a beginning of announcing him as a PM candidate?
BENGALURU: State tourism departments across India have become more and more visible across the Indian media and mass communication space, including the digital space. Andhra Pradesh (AP) Tourism too has decided to pile on the aggro with a budget of Rs 40 crore for this fiscal.
AP Tourism Development Corporation (AP Tourism) conducted a road-show – “Fall in Love with Amazing Andhra Pradesh” – in Karnataka at Bengaluru in order to promote tourist places in the state of AP. The state plans to use the tagline ‘Eeverything’s possible’ in its communications.
Government of Andhra Pradesh, special chief secretary (Tourism) Chandana Khan says, “The budgeted spends for next year are likely to be higher. We use a number of agencies for creative as well as media buying.”
“People are under impression that Andhra is only a land of myriad of opportunities and industrious people. The state has a rich culture and heritage legacy. We are putting in a lot of efforts to attract tourists to the state. A number of ideas are under consideration. With this road-show, we also look forward to have tie-ups with tour operators in the state,” she further adds.
Hyderabad will also stage the first edition of the Hyderabad Travel Meet & India Tourism Heritage Conclave from 21 to 24 February. “While Hyderabad Travel Meet (HTM) will showcase Andhra Pradesh as a destination, bringing together all buyers, sellers and potential consumers, the India Tourism Heritage Conclave will have seminars and panel discussions on various aspects of the Tourism industry,” says Khan.
AP Tourism has tied up with airlines to offer complete packages such as Balaji Darshan. It has also placed its facilities through Online Booking and has increased accessibility of making AP Tourism bookings in a big way.