ITV

Category: Media and Advertising

  • Puja festival – A great platform for brands to engage

    Puja festival – A great platform for brands to engage

    MUMBAI: Many brands are planning to use the puja festival at various pandals to engage with the consumers. The product range can be as wide as possible. Starting from soya bean nuggets to aerated products brands can make use of this huge platform as a great place for engaging and delivering experiences to the worshippers who will throng in huge numbers across several pandals especially in East and North India. Brands must leverage this opportunity as they are able to address a wide spectrum of audience from kids to adults to elderly people; and thus helping brands to deliver that extra mile through brand experience. Let’s examine how brands can enrich themselves and establish a strong connect with the audience at the various pandals.
    1. Relevant Brand Connect: The essence of the brand should be captured with firsthand experience. Vijayadhsami is the most auspicious day for most parents to make their kids learn and start their beginning to step into the educational world. This is a brilliant opportunity for writing instrument brands to connect with tomorrow’s audience. Catch them young to stay connected with your brand. People especially in the East are avid travelers and sincerely make use of their LTA to visit new holiday spots. Travel and tourism brands should try and explore it to the maximum advantage by capturing some of the tourist spots in the most dramatic manner to bring them closer to the brand.
    1. Right Brand Experience:  Give a proper structure to deliver the brand experience. For example an audio and television brand can create a mini auditorium to deliver great sound and picture clarity to give the consumer that original and natural experience at the venue. Brands like Dolby can really capitalise by educating and promoting their sound features with live demonstration and firsthand experience.
    1. Interactive engagement: Make use of the best of technology to make your consumer engagement interactive. Touch screens and use of apps will intrigue customers to take maximum advantage. With so many Pandals located at various places, downloading of apps at the venue which gives you all information on various activities at various pandals will excite the consumers to download the information using their mobile. Some famous devotional songs can also be made available for downloading at the venue to bring in some emotional connect with the festival and the relevant brand.
    1. Relevant Target audience: You will witness people from all strata of the society queuing up at all pandals. So one need not worry about the brand fit to be present at the pandals. A mixed population can be reached with the relevant product and brand and thus giving you an immense opportunity for branding your product at various touch points.

    With the economy slow down and limited marketing budgets, I am sure most brands will use this platform to propagate their brands in the most engaging manner. What’s more with festivals like Puja becoming popular year after year it’s one of the best platforms for marketers to pump in money and increase their brand saliency.

    By Ganapathy Viswanathan, an independent communication consultant, in communication, branding and public relations.

  • Toshibas passion for cricket unlocked by Dentsu Marcom

    Toshibas passion for cricket unlocked by Dentsu Marcom

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Marcom has brought out a new campaign for Toshiba – India’s latest Cricket Series LED televisions.

     

    The aim of the campaign which will be on TV, retail and digital is to showcase the television in a distinctive and never-before manner. For a consumer who is evolved and understands technology, in a category where picture quality and design are hygiene and a market where competitors peg bets on superior technology features to stay current, the challenge in front of the agency was to stay away from the twin clutter of  television set ads and cricket/sports ads.

     

    “If you’ve ever sat in front of the TV when Chris Gayle hammers one of his sixes but have no idea where the ball went, because the TV couldn’t capture it; if you’ve ever looked at the brown blotch on the screen on which Ravi Shastri was pacing and giving out his pundit-like pitch report and wondered what he was able to see there; if you’ve ever wondered at why the ground looks greener when you’re in the stadium versus on the TV; if you’ve ever wondered why your eyes and ears and your cricket-crazed senses never seem to have the richest cricket-enjoying experience on any TV until now, the all-new Cricket Series LED televisions from Toshiba was made just for you. So you can Enjoy. Every. Bit. As a cricket Fanatic myself, I could relate easily to the frustrations of the Fanatic that must have been the inspiration for Toshiba to develop this TV. And so when we set out to create the communication for it, we saw it more as a reverent offering to the Cricket Fanatic than as a mere ad,” said Dentsu India Group EVP and national planning head Narayan Devanathan.

     

    All the clichés about cricket being a religion in India notwithstanding, one thing is clear when an experience promises to be so rich, you will want to miss nothing. Hence the proposition: Enjoy. Every. Bit.

     

     “We’ve seen so much cricket advertising in this country. We’ve also seen so much of TV advertising on TV. The idea was to do something unique that stands out off the clutter and makes Toshiba Cricket TV the best way to consume cricket. The insight was that when you want to enjoy something, you want to enjoy every bit of it. So with the Toshiba Cricket TV, a cricket fan can now enjoy every gasp and every gulp of the game,” said Dentsu Marcom NCD Titus Uppturu.

  • FoxyMoron to execute digital campaign for Maybelline

    FoxyMoron to execute digital campaign for Maybelline

    MUMBAI: Maybelline New York along with brand ambassador Alia Bhatt launched ‘Color Show’.

    FoxyMoron will launch the ‘Color Show’ across Maybelline’s digital platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram that will showcase a range of shades for every mood.

    FoxyMoron co-founder & online strategist Harshil Karia said, “The Color Show is an innovative and interactive way to introduce the entire new color range of nails paints on offer by Maybelline New York. This is an opportunity for fans to experiment with their nails like never before! Maybelline is a fore runner in the make-up category so it only seemed fitting to create a campaign that allows fans to score high on the fashion meter with their favorite brand.”

    Fans will get an opportunity to experiment with Nail Art combinations and Maybelline will educate them about how they can get the ‘complete look’ – right from shoes, accessories to match with their preferred shade. The campaign will also include ‘Do It Yourself’ nail art videos for the latest nail art trends. Commenting on the new campaign, L’Oréal consumer products division director Satyaki Ghosh said, “Maybelline is an innovative brand that loves its consumers and assures to give them something new and exciting all the time. With the launch of the Color Show range, we hope to once again do something different for our consumers and engage them as much as possible with the brand.”

    Maybelline New York marketing manager Leena Shoor said, “Maybelline as a brand understands the needs of the young Indian girl and continuously introduces products that are innovative and exciting. With Color Show, Maybelline brings to India the hottest shades from the catwalks of New York, shades that are extremely fashion forward and yet very accessible. Using the Color Show range and nail art inspirations that will be shared by Maybelline, girls can now get runway ready nails whenever they please. Maybelline is all set to bring a new nail revolution to India by making nail paints a must have accessory.”

  • Verizon reinvents the enterprise cloud

    Verizon reinvents the enterprise cloud

    MUMBAI: Verizon has today announced Verizon Cloud – its new cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform and cloud-based object storage service. With this service, Verizon is fundamentally changing how public clouds are built. Large enterprises, mid-size companies and small development shops will get the agility and economic benefit of a generic public cloud along with the reliability and scale of an enterprise-level service with unprecedented control of performance. The public beta for Verizon Cloud will launch in the fourth quarter of this year.

     

    “Verizon created the enterprise cloud, now we’re recreating it,” said Verizon Enterprise Solutions president John Stratton. “This is the revolution in cloud services that enterprises have been calling for.  We took feedback from our enterprise clients across the globe and built a new cloud platform from the bottom up to deliver the attributes they require.” Verizon Cloud has two main components: Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage. Verizon Cloud Compute is the IaaS platform. Verizon Cloud Storage is an object-based storage service.

     

    Verizon Cloud Compute is built for speed and performance. Virtual machines (software-based computers and servers) can be created and deployed in just seconds, and users build and pay for what they need. With Verizon Cloud Compute, users can determine and set virtual machine and network performance, providing predictable performance for mission critical applications, even during peak times. Additionally, users can configure storage performance and attach storage to multiple virtual machines. Previously, services had pre-set configurations for size (e.g. small, medium, large) and performance, with little flexibility regarding virtual machine and network performance and storage configuration. No other cloud offering provides this level of control.  

     

    In addition, while Verizon built the solution for enterprises, it also meets the needs of small and medium businesses, individual IT departments and software developers. “This is a breakthrough approach to how cloud computing is done,” said The Weather Company chief information officer Bryson Koehler.

     

    “Weather is the most dynamic dataset in the world, and we also use big data to help consumers better plan their day and help businesses make intelligent decisions as it relates to weather. As a big data leader, a major part of The Weather Company’s go-forward strategy is based on the cloud, and we are linking a large part of our technical future to these services from Verizon.”
    Rob Walters, chief technology officer at Engine Yard, a Platform as a Service that lets developers plan, build, deploy and manage applications in the cloud, said: “The new Verizon Cloud will give us ease of deployment and flexibility with full enterprise capabilities, saving us time and money. We’ve had a long and successful relationship with Verizon. We’ve deployed some of our most demanding enterprise-grade applications on Verizon cloud infrastructure to deliver the high scalability and reliability required for business-critical apps running on Engine Yard.”

  • Draftfcb Ulka rolls new campaign for Santoor

    Draftfcb Ulka rolls new campaign for Santoor

    MUMBAI: Wipro Enterprises, a consumer care company, has entered the body lotion category with the launch of Santoor Body Lotion.

     

    Santoor, the flagship brand of the company, started its journey a quarter century ago as ingredient focused sandal and turmeric soap. Over the years, Santoor has grown and become a brand offering a range of products catering to multiple personal care needs.

     

    The latest offering, Santoor body lotion, carries forward the promise.

     

    Draftfcb+Ulka Bangalore, has created a TV commercial announcing the launch of Santoor body lotion.  Speaking about the TV commercial, Draftfcb+Ulka, vice president – Bangalore Dennis Koshy said, “The challenge was not just to stand apart in a cluttered category, but also to communicate the promise of fast absorption in an engaging manner.”

     

    On the idea behind the TV commercial, Draftfcb+Ulka Advertising – Bangalor creative director Dharmesh Shah, said, “The film shows a young woman getting ready for work being bugged by her little sister. A very playful scenario where the product effortlessly becomes integral to the fun-n-play. Since it is the launch, attempt was to have the product integrated through the film without it being a hardworking storyline. It makes the film watchable again and again.”

  • Man Jit Singh re-elected IBF president

    Man Jit Singh re-elected IBF president

    MUMBAI: The 14 annual general meeting (AGM) of the IBF took place late yesterday in Mumbai, proceeding which multi screen media (MSM) CEO Man Jit Singh was re-elected as the president of the foundation for the year 2013-14.

    Discovery Networks Sr VP and GM south Asia Rahul Johri has been elevated as the new vice-president along with existing vice-presidents Zeel MD and CEO Punit Goenka as well as India TV chairman and editor in chief Rajat Sharma. Times Television Network (TTN) CEO Sunil Lulla is the new IBF treasurer.

    On his re-appointment Singh said “I am delighted that my industry colleagues continue to have faith in me to guide the IBF. The last year has been very eventful for our industry with digitisation phases I and II, considerable progress on a new measurement system under BARC, and a shift from TRPs to TVTs. Substantial challenges continue in the current year. We need to build on the success of content regulation, continue the process of digitisation and work collaboratively with the broader industry.”

     

  • Aegis Media acquires China’s Trio Digital

    Aegis Media acquires China’s Trio Digital

    MUMBAI: Aegis Media acquired Trio Digital Integrated, a full-service digital agency in China.

    The acquisition will see Trio rebranded as Trio Isobar and become part of the Isobar China group, which already includes wwwins Isobar and OMP.

    Chris Chen will continue as CEO and executive creative director of Trio Isobar, supported by general manager April Chang and deputy general manager Britney Pai.

    Commenting on the acquisition, Aegis Media Asia Pacific CEO Nick Waters said, “Trio is a top class digital marketing agency with high quality creative credentials. Bringing Trio into the group adds another dimension to our market leading digital capabilities in China. This is an exciting move and we welcome Chris and his team to the company.”

    Isobar Asia Pacific CEO and global chief strategy officer Jean Lin added, “Trio offers great credibility in China when it comes to integrated creative and digital innovation, not to mention the agency’s pioneering spirit and strength of talent – something Isobar is always on the lookout for around the world. The addition of Trio will make Isobar one of the largest digital marketing agency networks, with over 700 digital specialists in China, including wwwins Isobar and OMP.”

    “Isobar’s reputation is strong in China, so when the opportunity arose to join the Aegis Media network, it was an obvious decision and one that will grow our business exponentially,” Trio Isobar CEO and ECD Chris Chen said, adding, “Isobar’s full-service digital focus and scope also allows us to connect with clients across Aegis Media in China and provide increased capabilities across the network.”

  • The Indian Media Business gets a new edition

    The Indian Media Business gets a new edition

    MUMBAI: Her tome has become a reference book for students of Indian media courses. Media watcher Vanita Kohli-Khandekar released the fourth edition to her book on the Indian media business earlier this month. It has been titled matter of factly The Indian Media Business (TIMB) like in the past.

    She, however, reveals that things are different this time around in the book. Says she: “This edition has three major changes. One, there is a completely new chapter on digital media and I have dropped the chapters on telecom and internet. Two, I have focused a lot on regulation since it is very critical at this stage of the industry’s growth. And three, I have tackled a whole lot of the textural issues whether it is falling standards in news or the rising quality of Indian cinema in more detail.”

    TIMB gives a perspective and information to readers on eight segments: print, TV, film, radio, music, digital, outdoor, and events. It presents business history, current dynamics, regulation, economics, technology, valuations, case studies, trends (Indian and global) and a clear sense of how the business operates.

    The outstanding feature of the fourth edition is the chapter on digital media – arguably, the first ever serious and in-depth look at digital media from a comprehensive business perspective.  
    “This is the first time that anyone has focused on the progress of digital media in such detail, as there is no conceptual framework for the same. This chapter took a lot of effort and research,” adds Vanita.

    TIMB’s fourth edition tackles regulation in more detail than any of the previous ones. There is one large case study on the quality of regulation in India and several case-lets such as the ones on copyright law, defamation law and how it works for social media. Additionally, there are case-lets on the changes in readership methodology, on the trouble with news broadcasting and on the rising power of Hindi newspapers and the impact of digital on both print and TV among others.

    “At this stage of the growth in the industry the focus on good regulation is critical, and that can be seen in television where digitisation has finally been mandated and will have a huge impact on the top-line of the industry. So this time, this edition has a lot of focus on regulation as against earlier editions,” Vanita expounds.

    Sage Publications has been publishing TIMB for the past 11 years now. The book is also available on Flipkart.com, Amazon.com and Infibeam.com at a tab of Rs 650.   “I believe that this book will do better online as it is not in the realm of fiction. It is non-fiction and for a very specific audience,” says Vanita.

    In all 10,000 copies of the previous three editions have been sold thus far.

    Journalist, columnist and writer for Business Standard and Mid-Day, Vanita has been tracking the Indian media and entertainment business for over a decade now. Her earlier stints include one at Businessworld and Ernst & Young. A Cambridge University fellow (2000), Vanita teaches at some of the top communication schools in India as well.

    “For me professionally, it brings a lot of rigor to my work. Since I do the book every two years it forces me to sit back and read a lot of material which I would not have been able to read on the job, and this enables me to build phenomenal perspective. I ended up getting many story and column ideas while doing the research and analysis so it feels good,” Vanita exults.

    Vanita highlights that writing the book disciplines her as far as research and analysis go, and for her the whole idea of the book was that it helps those in the periphery of the media world – whether foreigner or student – get an understanding of it. A noble intent, and which many would agree has helped this generation of media professionals.

  • Siemens India launches innovative integrated digital campaign

    Siemens India launches innovative integrated digital campaign

    MUMBAI: Siemens India has launched an innovative digital media campaign that uses a creative story telling technique to deliver the message to end customers. The latest digital media campaign is an extension of the Answers campaign followed globally by Siemens, which is aimed at establishing Siemens as a sustainable technology leader delivering a transformational benefit toward customers.

    Thought Process was the production house while Ogilvy was involved in the conceptualisation. The digital agency managing the campaign is Quasar (part of the WPP group), while the digital assets were created by Conrad-Caine, Munich. The social media agency involved in the campaign is LBI (part of Publicis).

    The campaign will run for a durationof six months.

    “We have made the end-user the protagonist as well as the narrator of the story. We have kicked off the story series with the dabbawalas who use the Mumbai local trains to deliver lunch to over 200,000 office-goers and residences on time. We have brought the element of story-telling right into our creative approach,” says Siemens India head of digital media Sudhir M D.

    In the integrated digital marketing campaign, where social media is complemented by a QR code initiative, on-ground and off-line promotions, a dabbawala named Kiran Gavande narrates his story, establishing how he goes about his life. The online banners direct the website visitors to the video on YouTube brand channel of      Siemens, which then directs the visitor to the Siemens web site with details on the actual Siemens technology that has contributed to the dabbawala’s life.

    The ‘Answers’ program is designed to demonstrate the lasting impact of Siemens technologies to improve lives, improve cities and improve businesses for the better. This is achieved through a creative strategy designed to simply reveal the truth about Siemens, and reveal the brand’s greatness. In an age of increasing transparency, enabled by digital and social media, telling the truth is the strongest statement a brand can make, especially since target audiences can now very quickly discover what is a truth.

    Siemens stories generally start with a human issue, which then leads to a global problem. In every case a Siemens Answer resolves the issue, and ultimately changes peoples’ lives significantly for the better, or avoids a problem that would have changed their lives significantly for the worse.

  • Media agencies go ‘deewana’ with Max

    Media agencies go ‘deewana’ with Max

    MUMBAI: Is busy schedules, hectic targets and meetings all you can picture while imagining a media agency? Well! At least for a change, you can shed that image as the agencies are gearing up for Sony Max’s No Talkies.

    The media agencies that are busy brushing up on their knowledge of movies and not brands for the dumb charades are now also discovering a bit of deewangi in one another.

    As reported earlier by indiantelevision.com, the game which is spread over three rounds will be held in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. The registrations for the competition began 3 September and continued for two weeks on the microsite http://notalkies.sonymax.tv/.

    The list of agencies who have already registered for the fun-zone are Madison, Group M, Maxus, Starcom, Lodestar, MPG, Zenith Optimedia and OMD.

    Excited, Platinum Media (Madison media) CEO Basab Dutta Chowdhry exults: “I think it’s a great initiative taken by Max. It sounds great and fun for agencies. Generally people are so busy and caught up with work and life; this is a new niche initiative where everybody can participate. There are very few initiatives like these- ‘Max-No Talkies’ which gives a chance to everyone to participate.”

    The agencies are all kicked about this competition, which is more of nostalgia for a lot of them.  To top it all, they see it as a good opportunity to meet and interact with new people. Vivaki Exchange CEO Mona Jain agreeing on this says: “No Talkies is a good and interesting initiative. It’s a first time initiative, unlike the regular parties. It also goes back to the DNA of the channel. The industry was very small earlier and people knew each other well, but the scenario is different now, the industry has expanded, so it will be a good opportunity to meet and interact with new people.”

    “It is not going to be a typical game of dumb charades,” says Sony Max VP marketing Vaishali Sharma. She further goes on to say that the channel is bringing loads of innovations to ensure engagement and an exciting evening for those who are participating.  The finale will have a Bollywood theme with different rounds, all with a twist. To amplify all the fun and frolic, the finale will be hosted by the witty and charismatic VJ, actor and presenter Gaurav Kapoor.

    Lintas Media Group vice-president Ramachandran Venkatasubramanian states: “The initiative is very interesting and this kind of activity has never been done before. No Talkies is supposed to be an interactive game and I am waiting for it. Normally bonding with people happens differently, with a game like dumb charades the bonding will happen uniquely. The game itself is very engaging and people interact with each other through it, also dumb charades is all about movies and it gets back to the genre of Max.”

    The city rounds of the activity will take place in Delhi on 18 September, followed by Bengaluru on 19 September and will close with Mumbai on 25 September. A total of five shortlisted teams – two from Delhi, one from Bengaluru and two from Mumbai will battle it out in the finale scheduled in Mumbai on 1 October at Blue Frog.
    So for agencies, it’s ready, steady, Po!