Category: Media and Advertising

Ogilvy Mumbai’s Mahesh Gharat and Azazul Haque move to Ogilvy Bangalore as ECDs

MUMBAI: Ogilvy Bangalore gets a creative shot in the arm with Mahesh Gharat and Azazul Haque, from the network’s Mumbai office. Gharat and Haque will head the Ogilvy Bangalore creative team in their new roles as Executive Creative Directors.

With 38 years of work experience between them, the two bring to the table a legacy of experience across major brands, to an already thriving Bangalore team.

Onthis shift, Ogilvy Sotuh president Poran Malani said, “Azaz and Mahesh, though highly experienced, are young at heart and their energy is highly infectious. It takes something special to excite an already charged up team, and Azaz and Mahesh have done exactly that.”

Ogilvy India NCD Rajv Rao said, “Mahesh and Azaz are one of the rare breed of copy-art teams that’s hard to find today. They have lots of things in common including a crazy passion for clothes, shoes, and of course, advertising. They are fantastic team players and excellent captains. Ogilvy Bangalore, with some of the best brands in the country, is the perfect place for them to lead, inspire and make a huge impact”t.

Mahesh has been with Ogilvy for 9 years and has worked on innumerable brands that include Rajasthan Tourism, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Asian Paints, Bajaj, Star Plus (Satyamev Jayate), ICICI, Mattel, Spice Mobiles, WWF and Brooke Bond Red Label. For his work, he has been awarded more than 50 national and international awards that include Cannes Lions, Asia Pacific, New York Festival, AME and EFFIES. With creativity induced in every fibre of his body, he spends his free time pursuing his passion for painting and photography. Having worked on brands like Domino’s Pizza, Nestlé Maggi and Nescafe, Dabur, Maruti Suzuki, Havells and Nokia, Azaz comes with unbridled enthusiasm and a fresh perspective.

June 3, 2016
Rajkumar Hirani Films and Askme cast Ranbir Kapoor in AskMePay’s first TVC

MUMBAI: Askme has launched a campaign ‘Baap of all Pay apps’for its e-wallet app, Askmepay. The TV commercial starring Ranbir Kapoor was released today establishing for the first time payments through an app for both online and offline merchants with Askme network and beyond.

Conceptualised by Rajkumar Hirani Films and the marketing team at Askme, the TV commercial shows Kapoor as a new age, digital native, who shops on his mobile for widest range across products and services on Askme app and pays using AskmePay. And he chooses to pay for all of this using his phone rather than traditional formats of currency, cards etc. In today’s world, where people seek easy ways of shopping given the paucity of time, AskmePay comes with a premium payment platform to help create a value for both its customers and merchants.

Speaking on the occasion Askme digital strategy head and group CMO Manav Sethi said, “For us it’s an obvious and logical product offering. Askme Network has 15M+ SMEs who offer either a product or a service. In most of the cases the transaction consummates on our platforms itself. POS (Point-of-sale) systems for payments acceptance has been colossal failure in India due to prohibitive costs. Mobile phone is ubiquitous device for merchants ranging from grocery seller to a Doctor who pays for premium listing on Askme or a restaurant manager/owner who offers awesome deals fornext Sunday Brunch. Askmepay aims to be that vehicle that allows payments for these scenarios in both online & offline world. ”

Creative Director Karan Narvekar said, “The idea behind ‘Baap of all Pay apps’ was to showcase how today’s generation use mobile apps & services to their advantage. The whole concept of cashless payment which is the trend of the new age is reflected through this campaign with range of offline services and online products available on AKSME Network of apps.”

June 1, 2016
Rajkumar Hirani Films and Askme cast Ranbir Kapoor in AskMePay’s first TVC

MUMBAI: Askme has launched a campaign ‘Baap of all Pay apps’for its e-wallet app, Askmepay. The TV commercial starring Ranbir Kapoor was released today establishing for the first time payments through an app for both online and offline merchants with Askme network and beyond.

Conceptualised by Rajkumar Hirani Films and the marketing team at Askme, the TV commercial shows Kapoor as a new age, digital native, who shops on his mobile for widest range across products and services on Askme app and pays using AskmePay. And he chooses to pay for all of this using his phone rather than traditional formats of currency, cards etc. In today’s world, where people seek easy ways of shopping given the paucity of time, AskmePay comes with a premium payment platform to help create a value for both its customers and merchants.

Speaking on the occasion Askme digital strategy head and group CMO Manav Sethi said, “For us it’s an obvious and logical product offering. Askme Network has 15M+ SMEs who offer either a product or a service. In most of the cases the transaction consummates on our platforms itself. POS (Point-of-sale) systems for payments acceptance has been colossal failure in India due to prohibitive costs. Mobile phone is ubiquitous device for merchants ranging from grocery seller to a Doctor who pays for premium listing on Askme or a restaurant manager/owner who offers awesome deals fornext Sunday Brunch. Askmepay aims to be that vehicle that allows payments for these scenarios in both online & offline world. ”

Creative Director Karan Narvekar said, “The idea behind ‘Baap of all Pay apps’ was to showcase how today’s generation use mobile apps & services to their advantage. The whole concept of cashless payment which is the trend of the new age is reflected through this campaign with range of offline services and online products available on AKSME Network of apps.”

June 1, 2016
Hitachi launches global brand campaign

MUMBAI: The Hitachi Group has launched a global brand campaign that is aligned with the management’s vision based on the 2018 Mid-term Management Plan created during the current fiscal year. The new campaign will be rolled out simultaneously in 19 countries including India through various media. Under the campaign, Hitachi has launched a new logo and a tagline defining the agenda ‘the future is open to suggestions.’ The goal of this campaign is to build the brand through collaborative creation with customers and partners.

The brand claims that it wishes to bring thinkers and doers together through this campaign to combat societal problems in regards to agriculture, infrastructure, water management and to support government initiatives; Make in India and Smart Cities. The aspiration to launch the campaign is to improve people’s quality of life and leave a better future of next generation.

For three years starting in 2013, concurrently with the 2015 Mid-term Management Plan, Hitachi has been rolling out the Global Brand Campaign, in which it communicates a unified message throughout the world.

Hitachi says that these activities, which are a first for Hitachi, increase the presence of Hitachi as a global brand, while at the same time support the growth of the Social Innovation Business through tie-ins with businesses in various regions.

The brand claims that the goal of the 2018 Mid-term Management Plan, which was created during the current fiscal year, is to make maximum use of IT and OT (operational technologies), two of Hitachi’s core strengths, and to promote the further growth of the Social Innovation Business, while at the same time accelerating collaborative creation with customers as an innovation partner.

Presently, the Global Brand Campaign is running onthe print platform like TOI and ET. Television TVCs’ are also planned for the beginning of August. The campaign has been designed by Dentsu Inc. (Overall strategy) and DentsuBos (Actual production). The creative team behind the campaign is Sebastien Rivest (Executive Vice President, General Manager & Chief Creative Officer, DentsuBos), Camille Forget (Art Director, DentsuBos) and Layton Wu (Copywriter, DentsuBos). Layton Wu is the copywriter for the campaign.

“Aligned with Hitachi’s vision based on its ‘2018 Mid-term Management Plan’, the roll out of Hitachi’s new ‘Global Brand Campaign’ is a step forward to promote and propel the growth of Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business. In sync with the Social Innovation Business, a global campaign logo has been created along with the campaign copy “THE FUTURE IS OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS.” said DentsuBos EVP, GM and CCO Sebastien Rivest.

TV commercials and internet advertising provide an exciting means of expressing the ideas achieved through collaborative creation to resolve social issues. They also claim that the intent is to increase the value of the Hitachi brand by broadly communicating, to customers and partners throughout the world,

On May 18, as part of the campaign, Hitachi renovated the ‘Social Innovation Hub’ an internet site that aggregates information related to the Hitachi Group’s activities throughout the world. By further enhancing the transmission of information related to Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business, the company will put in place an environment that further accelerates collaborative creations with customers and partners around the globe.

May 31, 2016
Hitachi launches global brand campaign

MUMBAI: The Hitachi Group has launched a global brand campaign that is aligned with the management’s vision based on the 2018 Mid-term Management Plan created during the current fiscal year. The new campaign will be rolled out simultaneously in 19 countries including India through various media. Under the campaign, Hitachi has launched a new logo and a tagline defining the agenda ‘the future is open to suggestions.’ The goal of this campaign is to build the brand through collaborative creation with customers and partners.

The brand claims that it wishes to bring thinkers and doers together through this campaign to combat societal problems in regards to agriculture, infrastructure, water management and to support government initiatives; Make in India and Smart Cities. The aspiration to launch the campaign is to improve people’s quality of life and leave a better future of next generation.

For three years starting in 2013, concurrently with the 2015 Mid-term Management Plan, Hitachi has been rolling out the Global Brand Campaign, in which it communicates a unified message throughout the world.

Hitachi says that these activities, which are a first for Hitachi, increase the presence of Hitachi as a global brand, while at the same time support the growth of the Social Innovation Business through tie-ins with businesses in various regions.

The brand claims that the goal of the 2018 Mid-term Management Plan, which was created during the current fiscal year, is to make maximum use of IT and OT (operational technologies), two of Hitachi’s core strengths, and to promote the further growth of the Social Innovation Business, while at the same time accelerating collaborative creation with customers as an innovation partner.

Presently, the Global Brand Campaign is running onthe print platform like TOI and ET. Television TVCs’ are also planned for the beginning of August. The campaign has been designed by Dentsu Inc. (Overall strategy) and DentsuBos (Actual production). The creative team behind the campaign is Sebastien Rivest (Executive Vice President, General Manager & Chief Creative Officer, DentsuBos), Camille Forget (Art Director, DentsuBos) and Layton Wu (Copywriter, DentsuBos). Layton Wu is the copywriter for the campaign.

“Aligned with Hitachi’s vision based on its ‘2018 Mid-term Management Plan’, the roll out of Hitachi’s new ‘Global Brand Campaign’ is a step forward to promote and propel the growth of Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business. In sync with the Social Innovation Business, a global campaign logo has been created along with the campaign copy “THE FUTURE IS OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS.” said DentsuBos EVP, GM and CCO Sebastien Rivest.

TV commercials and internet advertising provide an exciting means of expressing the ideas achieved through collaborative creation to resolve social issues. They also claim that the intent is to increase the value of the Hitachi brand by broadly communicating, to customers and partners throughout the world,

On May 18, as part of the campaign, Hitachi renovated the ‘Social Innovation Hub’ an internet site that aggregates information related to the Hitachi Group’s activities throughout the world. By further enhancing the transmission of information related to Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business, the company will put in place an environment that further accelerates collaborative creations with customers and partners around the globe.

May 31, 2016
Motivator to tap Rs 100 crore business through Chennai operations

MUMBAI: GroupM agency Motivator has extended its services in the Southern market by launching its operations in Chennai. The expansion into the Chennai market is expected to add business of over Rs 100 crores for Motivator and is an integral part of the growth plans for the agency. Christopher Paul will lead the new Chennai team and will report to Zahid Shaikh, who was recently appointed as the Head of Operations – Motivator South.

Chennai is the fifth city in Motivator’s network in India in addition to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Thrissur. With the aim of solving business and marketing challenges, the agency further plans to set up a Data, Science and Tech lab in the city that will focus on building frameworks for data applications.

Speaking on the announcement, Motivator MD Rabe Iyer said, “As part of our expansion plans, we are looking at diversifying our client portfolio in the Southern market. The launch of our Chennai operations is a significant step in that regard. Besides, we look at Chennai as our Data & Tech lab destination given our existing partnerships and engagement with highly evolved start ups there. While Bangalore will be the central hub for Insights and Product development, Chennai will host the labs for Data Science and emerging technology.”

The Chennai operations will service Motivator’s existing client base in the city, including brands like Yamaha and FundsIndia. In addition to these, the agency will look at bringing on board other local accounts and potential businesses with the objective of strengthening the client base in the new market.

May 31, 2016
Motivator to tap Rs 100 crore business through Chennai operations

MUMBAI: GroupM agency Motivator has extended its services in the Southern market by launching its operations in Chennai. The expansion into the Chennai market is expected to add business of over Rs 100 crores for Motivator and is an integral part of the growth plans for the agency. Christopher Paul will lead the new Chennai team and will report to Zahid Shaikh, who was recently appointed as the Head of Operations – Motivator South.

Chennai is the fifth city in Motivator’s network in India in addition to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Thrissur. With the aim of solving business and marketing challenges, the agency further plans to set up a Data, Science and Tech lab in the city that will focus on building frameworks for data applications.

Speaking on the announcement, Motivator MD Rabe Iyer said, “As part of our expansion plans, we are looking at diversifying our client portfolio in the Southern market. The launch of our Chennai operations is a significant step in that regard. Besides, we look at Chennai as our Data & Tech lab destination given our existing partnerships and engagement with highly evolved start ups there. While Bangalore will be the central hub for Insights and Product development, Chennai will host the labs for Data Science and emerging technology.”

The Chennai operations will service Motivator’s existing client base in the city, including brands like Yamaha and FundsIndia. In addition to these, the agency will look at bringing on board other local accounts and potential businesses with the objective of strengthening the client base in the new market.

May 31, 2016
LinTeractive launches Deep Digitisation

MUMBAI: LinTeractive, the digital arm of MullenLowe Lintas Group, unveiled a proprietary framework named Deep Digitisation at a major regional industry event today, in Singapore.

Digital Transformation is a subject gaining currency, both as an opportunity and a cause-of-concern, across the industry over the past year. LinTeractive’s framework, Deep Digitisation, looks at re-imagining organizations for a digitized environment, leading to transformation as the outcome.

Eight months ago, the agency set up a task-force of technologists, designers, analysts and strategists, to develop approaches that could help large organisations evolve for a digitised environment. The team, led by LinTeractive EVP Sumanta Ganguly came up with several hypotheses and some prototypes that eventually led to the Deep Digitisation framework. The agency claims to have tested alpha versions of it with some of its existing clients to establish applicability and robustness.

MullenLowe Lintas Group — marketing services Group CMO and President Vikas Mehta said, “We’ve been in several conversations with clients about Digital Transformation over the past months. A pattern seems to be emerging, where a discussion with CMOs quickly evolves to include the CTOs and the CEOs as crucial players who need to come together to drive digitisation. While there are several offerings in the market that promise digital transformation, they come from either consulting or technology firms. Each has its own strengths, but almost all of them fall short of building an ecosystem around every company’s most important asset, its customers. This observation led us to start working on a model that could put users (including consumers), at the heart of an organisation’s digital ecosystem.”

Speaking of the launch, Ganguly said, “Most of today’s successful companies were born in an era of competition. They are organised around competencies and structured to create competitive advantage. Their digital pursuits are reflective of this reality where every department is driving multiple digital efforts simultaneously. But when you add them all up, it ends up with common gaps, as well as duplicated efforts. In an era of collaboration, the whole company needs to come together as one, and create a seamless experience for every user group. We’ve attempted to achieve that through Deep Digitisation. The framework helps companies reorganize around their existing structures and yet, have a unified approach to digital transformation.”

As per the Deep Digitisation framework – digital transformation is the outcome of an ecosystem of platform play that sets the stage for consistent innovation.

Applied to organisations, the approach is semi-structured and leads to a customised solution in each instance. As Ganguly puts it, “What we’ve seen with most use-cases so far, it’s about two-thirds constant where the modules are plug-and-play, and one-third bespoke. The customization varies depending on the scale, complexity and ambition of the company.”

May 31, 2016
LinTeractive launches Deep Digitisation

MUMBAI: LinTeractive, the digital arm of MullenLowe Lintas Group, unveiled a proprietary framework named Deep Digitisation at a major regional industry event today, in Singapore.

Digital Transformation is a subject gaining currency, both as an opportunity and a cause-of-concern, across the industry over the past year. LinTeractive’s framework, Deep Digitisation, looks at re-imagining organizations for a digitized environment, leading to transformation as the outcome.

Eight months ago, the agency set up a task-force of technologists, designers, analysts and strategists, to develop approaches that could help large organisations evolve for a digitised environment. The team, led by LinTeractive EVP Sumanta Ganguly came up with several hypotheses and some prototypes that eventually led to the Deep Digitisation framework. The agency claims to have tested alpha versions of it with some of its existing clients to establish applicability and robustness.

MullenLowe Lintas Group — marketing services Group CMO and President Vikas Mehta said, “We’ve been in several conversations with clients about Digital Transformation over the past months. A pattern seems to be emerging, where a discussion with CMOs quickly evolves to include the CTOs and the CEOs as crucial players who need to come together to drive digitisation. While there are several offerings in the market that promise digital transformation, they come from either consulting or technology firms. Each has its own strengths, but almost all of them fall short of building an ecosystem around every company’s most important asset, its customers. This observation led us to start working on a model that could put users (including consumers), at the heart of an organisation’s digital ecosystem.”

Speaking of the launch, Ganguly said, “Most of today’s successful companies were born in an era of competition. They are organised around competencies and structured to create competitive advantage. Their digital pursuits are reflective of this reality where every department is driving multiple digital efforts simultaneously. But when you add them all up, it ends up with common gaps, as well as duplicated efforts. In an era of collaboration, the whole company needs to come together as one, and create a seamless experience for every user group. We’ve attempted to achieve that through Deep Digitisation. The framework helps companies reorganize around their existing structures and yet, have a unified approach to digital transformation.”

As per the Deep Digitisation framework – digital transformation is the outcome of an ecosystem of platform play that sets the stage for consistent innovation.

Applied to organisations, the approach is semi-structured and leads to a customised solution in each instance. As Ganguly puts it, “What we’ve seen with most use-cases so far, it’s about two-thirds constant where the modules are plug-and-play, and one-third bespoke. The customization varies depending on the scale, complexity and ambition of the company.”

May 31, 2016
Airtel’s new postpaid campaign urges customers to ‘Waste Nothing’ and make the most of their mobile expenditure with MyPlan

MUMBAI: Sasha Chhetri, the Airtel 4G Girl, is back once again and this time she is telling customers to stop wasting the benefits that come with traditional postpaid mobile plans and move to Airtel MyPlan to get the best value for their monthly mobile spends.

Commenting on the launch of new marketing initiative, Mr. Srini Gopalan, Director – Consumer Business, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel MyPlan is designed to simplify the postpaid customer experience and offers them the flexibility to create their own plans. The new campaign is based on a simple consumer insight – that a lot of postpaid mobile users end up with plan benefits that they never fully utilize and end up wasting these benefits month on month. MyPlan addresses this problem by giving customers the freedom to choose what they actually need in their postpaid plans and gives them absolute value for their spends by eliminating any wastages.”

With traditional postpaid plans offering pre-defined voice/data/SMS benefits, customers end up wasting some of these benefits as their actual usage/requirements may be very different.

*For example, if a Delhi customer is primarily using mobile apps like WhatsApp/Hike etc. for texting, why have hundreds of free SMS in the plan. Why not have the option of trading the free 200 SMS of the existing plan for 90 local minutes or 120 MB 4G/3G data?

*Also, if one is a heavy data user and hardly talks, why have too many free calls in the plan? What if the Mumbai customer gets an option for trading the extra 450 Local minutes of their plan for 600 MB 4G/3G data?

*Customers also have the flexibility of changing their MyPlan whenever they want. If they are going for a vacation, they can always switch calls to data so that they have ample data to navigate, find the best restaurants or just upload vacation pics in real-time. Again, helps optimizing phone bills every month and waste nothing.

*Not just that, under the plan, customers can also share the extra benefits with their family by getting one member connection at a nominal rate of Rs. 199/year. No separate rental is charged for the member connection.

(*The above mentioned plans are purely for illustrative purposes. For more information on plans, per your requirements, please log on to www.airtel.in/myplan and click ‘My Plan’)

May 31, 2016