ITV

Category: Media and Advertising

  • Tata Starbucks appoints Sumi Ghosh as CEO

    Tata Starbucks appoints Sumi Ghosh as CEO

    MUMBAI: Tata Starbucks has appointed Sumi Ghosh as CEO with effect from 1 January, 2016. 

     

    The move comes in the wake of the company’s current CEO Avani Davda’s resignation. Davda has been instrumental in establishing the Tata Starbucks business and positioning Starbucks as the premier coffee house experience in India. 

     

    Tata Starbucks is a 50:50 joint venture between Starbucks Coffee company and Tata Global Beverages. The company said that Davda made the personal decision to pursue other opportunities and accordingly resigned from her current assignment as CEO. 

     

    Ghosh is an eight-year Starbucks partner and brings three decades of consumer retail experience.

     

    Since its entry in the Indian market in October 2012, Tata Starbucks has opened as many as 70 Starbucks stores across the country

  • Carat realigns global leadership for next phase of growth

    Carat realigns global leadership for next phase of growth

    MUMBAI: In response to the tremendous growth and success of Carat over the past five years, the agency has realigned its global leadership team to ensure continued momentum and resources to drive growth and innovation for its clients.

     

    Doug Ray will refocus on Carat US, continuing as CEO, charged with leading the agency’s continued double-digit growth in the world’s largest market. Will Swayne, with more than 15 years leadership tenure within the network, will succeed Ray as Carat global president.

     

    Under Ray’s leadership, Carat has grown to become the world’s third largest media agency network by billings, according to RECMA, and the fourth-largest in the US, from seventh in three years.

     

    During Ray’s tenure, Carat has been named Agency of the Year some 54 times across 15 markets, and last month was named the number one media agency network by RECMA in its global qualitative evaluation, Carat’s fifth such distinction in the last six reports.

     

    In the US, Carat has won close to $1.5 billion new billings this year from clients including P&G, Mondelez and Pfizer, with global clients including MasterCard, Mondelez, adidas and GM all headquartered in the US.

     

    “Our momentum, particularly in the US over the past five years, has been tremendous, and the size and scale of Carat today now requires dedicated leadership both locally and globally to continue to deliver on our vision and our commitment to redefine media on behalf of our clients. I am looking forward to refocusing on my US role. I’m incredibly proud of all that Will and I have achieved so far and look forward to continued success,” said Ray.

     

    Swayne and Ray have worked closely together for the past six years, with Swayne most recently Dentsu Aegis Network global client president for P&G. He assumes his new role on 1 January, 2016 as part of a planned transition, and will be responsible and instrumental in driving Carat’s next phase of growth globally.

     

    Leading its clients through the digital economy, Swayne will be based in London and will report to Dentsu Aegis Network CEO global clients and media brands Peter Huijboom.

     

    Swayne’s career at Dentsu Aegis began when he joined Aegis Media in 2000, as part of Carat International. In 2005 Will moved to Asia and became MD of Carat Hong Kong before transferring to the US in 2009 to take responsibility for Carat’s P&G Gillette business in North America.

     

    While in the US, Will took responsibility for all of Carat’s P&G North America business and in 2012 was promoted to Carat US East MD in recognition of his success across a number of areas, including driving forward relationships with leading global clients.

     

    Will was appointed global client president for P&G in January 2014, and during this time Dentsu Aegis Network has significantly grown its relationship with P&G, winning media assignments in Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and most recently expanding its remit in North America, as well as growing its digital and creative contracts too.

     

    “Carat is a critical driver of Dentsu Aegis Network’s momentum in the US, and Doug’s vision, visibility and leadership in this market is integral to our and our clients’ success. With a growing roster of US-based global clients, as well as significant opportunities to pilot and scale industry-leading innovation from here, we are well-placed to continue our progress and deliver on our vision to lead in the digital economy,” said Dentsu Aegis Network US CEO Rob Horler.

     

    Commenting on the announcement, Huijboom added, “Through Doug’s leadership, Carat has achieved unprecedented success and global recognition as the leading media network that is truly redefining media. With Doug concentrating on the buoyant US market and Will taking the helm globally, the talented team at Carat and its clients have all to benefit. Will’s client-centric approach and wealth of experience globally across Carat during the last 15 years made him the standout candidate following an extensive internal and external global search.”

     

    Swayne said, “I am delighted to be taking on the role as Global President of Carat and leading the network through the next phase of its growth. Carat is the most dynamic and agile media agency network, with the best and most diverse talent in the industry. With a superior understanding of people, we are best placed to lead our clients in the digital economy and be a catalyst for their growth.”

  • OYO Rooms targets year-end travellers with new campaign

    OYO Rooms targets year-end travellers with new campaign

    MUMBAI: OYO Rooms has launched a new brand campaign to target year-end holidayers. The light-hearted campaign captures “quirky hotel behaviour” of travellers from all walks of life with eight short films that demonstrate travellers expressing themselves freely in the comfort of a hotel room.

     

    The tagline ‘OneForEveryone’ reinforces how OYO Rooms caters to a variety of traveller needs.

     

    Sharing details on the campaign, OYO Rooms CEO and founder, Ritesh Agarwal said, “We are thrilled to launch our latest ad campaign, ‘OneForEveryone,’ which is actually a series of short films showcasing how different people behave once they check-in at a hotel. These colloquial commercials underscore how OYO Rooms understands and caters to the wide spectrum of expectations Indian travellers have from their hotel-experience. We are confident that this campaign will trigger greater brand recall and preference for OYO Rooms when travellers start planning a holiday.”

     

    The campaign was conceptualised in-house by OYO’s creative team led by brand strategy head Bhaskar Thakur. External partners working on the campaign include The DZU Film Company director Daniel Upputuru and AD Tanya Katya.

  • Skip Maurice

    Skip Maurice

    MUMBAI: Recording a holiday message for his employees is a tradition for Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy. And complying with the tradition, that’s just what he did this year too… ’cept this year’s holiday greeting video from Lévy found a wider audience amongst netizens, with its witty take on skippable advertisement.

    To the television audience, advertisement breaks are an excuse to flip through channels and look for a different entertaining program. When Video On Demand (VOD) platforms gained traction amongst digital audience, the ‘Skip Ad’ feature soon became a popular one, with YouTube taking the lead.

    Being an advertising agency itself, it is ironic how the company’s CEO took to ‘Skippable Ads’ to deliver his message to employees. The idea was to bank on everyone’s habit of skipping ads to go to the content and do exactly the opposite! Confused? Don’t be… Read on…

    “Times are too tough to play around so don’t expect anything funny or any technological tricks. I’ve long suspected that only a handful of you are actually paying attention to what I have to say. Although it’s often tempting to skip the ads and get to the content, this time you should be glad to skip me and watch some ads,” says a poker faced Lévy in a YouTube video.

    However, 28 seconds into the video the humour quotient is just about to hit the roof as instead of the traditional ‘Skip Ad’ button that one is used to seeing on the video screen, there’s a… wait for it… ‘Skip Maurice’ button! However, this is “just a ploy” as Lévy continues his speech while crashing each ad spot and it must be said that for a septuagenarian, he totally rocks and how!

    Should you choose not to skip Maurice, he’ll continue his address from behind his desk. But if you’re the inquisitive kind (like us) then you would’ve definitely ‘skipped Maurice.’

    And therein lies all the fun! Watch him play cameo, especially in a shampoo advertisement, which adds to the comic relief of the entire concept. From spoon feeding yoghurt to a woman, washing his shirt, starring in a shampoo commercial a la L’Oreal (touché), cleaning his teeth in a toothpaste ad to appearing inside a sink for a liquid cleanser ad, Lévy enthrals the audience while also highlighting the company’s plans to enhance the power of one in the coming year. 

    In this 2:55 minute video titled ‘The Skippable Wishes,’ Lévy takes us through the agency’s benchmarks in 2015, through a series of advertisement, which he spontaneously crashes in. 

    “2015 has been a kind of bumpy ride. It’s been kind of tough for us. Nevertheless, we’ve fared pretty well in some of our operations and the most difficult part is behind us. More importantly, we have set ourselves up for a promising future,” he starts, as he talks about the company’s expectation from their Sapient acquisition, the “media palooza of which we have won more than we have lost,” the Cannes Lions wins and the highlights of the agency’s San Francisco seminar.

    It must be added here that Publicis recently lost Procter & Gamble’s media planning and buying account in North America to Omnicom as well as the L’Oréal media account in North America to WPP. Hence, for Lévy to say that 2015 has been a “bumpy ride,” would be nothing but an understatement.

    But these losses aside, Lévy goes on to say that 2016 will be a great year and that the agency has all the ingredients for it. “We will leverage the power of one across the group and our teams are excited about it. 2016 will the year of no silo, no solo, no bozo,” he says emphasising that there will be more transparency within the different departments and implementation of united effort within the company.

    “All the group’s leadership is in line and is already putting this into action. We have seen the fruit of this approach through the outstanding creative achievements and campaigns. I’m counting on you. I can’t wait to fast forward to 2016 to show our clients the potential of the transformed Publicis Group and the power of one,” he says.

    As was reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Publicis recently undertook a major client-centric restructuring for 2016, wherein the agency will be breaking down its disciplines into four distinct ‘solution hubs’ with each client that will be led by a chief client officer. And that’s exactly what Lévy speaks about here.

    He concludes the video by dedicating his wishes to the victims of Paris terrorist attacks on 13 November.

    At the time of filing this report, the video on Publicis’ website was almost nearing 50,000 hits. If innovation and disruption is the name of the game, then this latest salvo from the agency’s CEO himself wins it hands down.

    PS: There’s a strategically placed coffee mug on his desk, which says, “Yes I am the BOSS!”

    Well, Mr Lévy, after watching this video, we have absolutely no doubts about that!

  • S Yesudas plays a whole new ball game with triggerbridge

    S Yesudas plays a whole new ball game with triggerbridge

    MUMBAI: Of late there has been much talk about going beyond the sales driven take on advertising among the agencies. The focus should shift back to building brand identity, if brands have a long term vision in mind.

     

    It would have been great if the talk truly reflected the industry’s concern over the matter, but, alas, much of that is lip service according to S Yesudas, the former managing director of Vizeum.

     

    The need of the hour, he feels, is to break this pattern that agencies are so used to, and bring in some disruption in the ecosystem. This is precisely what he plans to achieve with his entrepreneurial venture triggerbridge.

     

    Backed by his expertise in media business for over two decades, Yesudas partnered with Ajit Nair of MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi from IdeateLabs to form this ‘un-agency,’ which has managed to create quite a buzz in the industry ever since its launch earlier this month.

     

    Prior to kick starting his new startup venture, Yesudas was known for his successful stint at Vizeum India as managing director, preceded by Grey Worldwide, Lintas/Initiative Media and R K Swamy BBDO/Media Direction. Interestingly, he was Vizeum’s first employee and built it to a successful position with its current 55 employees within a span of four years.

     

    With an impressive portfolio like this, is it easier to handle his new role in a start up? To find out, Indiantelevision.com got in touch with the man himself.

     

    Here’s what he had to say:

     

    What sets triggerbridge apart from other players in the market?

    We are the ‘unagency’ and are free of all the bondages as that of an agency. The big and basic difference is, our reason to exist is not to help our clients “spend” their marketing resources, but to help their brands build bridges of relevance with consumers in various ways through our philosophy of True Vertexing.

     

    We look at the core of the brand, human insights, storytelling, technology and data and help itself express truly in order to carry the well aligned consumers along as the brand moves to the highest peak, the vertex. Consumers are human beings is a fact that’s forgotten in the world of transaction. We cater to all brand owners who are looking for much more than just short term sales from their consumer relationships.

     

    Few agencies have taken the ‘brand first’ route as well. What is your take on them?

    I’m sure brand love is a dinosaur concept to many. Those who talk about the same, pretend it can be created by the effect and weight of their “advertising” investments including endorsements and other sponsorships. I would leave triggerbridge, the unagency, for our clients to judge us.

     

    What disruptive ideas does triggerbridge have in store for its clients?

    There’s disruption in everything we do. Firstly, we are not just a service, but a product as well. Among the set of products is a platform that aggregates storytellers and technology producers for the benefit of brands. Our focus is the brand in its entirety and not specific specialised solutions. We also have a unique structure of a creative advisory board, which consists of real storytellers like authors and theatre artists along with a business board that consists of members of the board of other companies as well as venture capitalists. We are also looking at a whole new measurement of SoV and SoE as Share of Vision and Share of Empathy as against the transactional Share of Voice and Share of Expenditure.

     

    Since triggerbridge is a product as well, what is the target group or clientele you are looking at?

    Every brand owner who is interested in looking beyond short term results and those who actually believe that the future of commerce is brand commerce, would be a triggerbridge client. 

     

    What is the one thing that the industry is lacking currently?

    I believe lot of agencies today pay lip service to brand building and focus their energy and attention on “selling” their specialised silos to clients for better profitability. Once you create a need and everyone is doing that, the advertisers, knowingly and/or unknowingly will keep following the pattern.

     

    Most often computers create the strategy to connect with humans with emotions. Then it is a mad rush to justify Share of Voice (SoV) and Share of Expenditure (SoE). The result is increasing instances of ad avoidance and the agency then offers one more specialisation to “catch” the consumer’s’ attention. The circle keep going on. We will fill the very vacuum of zero brand love for most brands, by first helping the brand owners understand the purpose of their brands. We will also help them articulate that through executions that will create multi – sensorial impact on the consumers

     

    Can you mention one recent campaign that you think lacked brand identity?

    One campaign that comes to mind is what Pepsi did during IPL, getting consumers to feature in its ads. It was a gimmick that I presume they spent top dollars on. And I personally don’t think it worked at all. They could have done things to bring together larger Pepsi communities across the country, very meaningfully, who interacted with each other in a sustainable manner as they shared their love for the brand, at much lesser cost and left enduring impressions on the consumers. But again this is purely based on their stated purpose/intention.

     

    Tell us about your partners and what they bring to the table in triggerbridge? 

    Ajit Nair has been running a very successful full-service advertising business, MX Advertising, for a quarter of a century and has built many brands through that journey. Amit Tripathi has been running a leading digital business, Ideate Labs for 15 years. I have been in the media business for over two decades.

     

    Our vision, purpose and the conviction about the future of communication business converged at the same point. I also don’t think there could have been a better combination than this which brings all aspects of the communication business together.

     

    What is your target for the upcoming year?

    We have not set a revenue or profit target. Money will follow good and differentiated work that will produce actual results. But we have a five year blue print with clear milestones to eventually see a good part of the “advertising” market practice True Vertexing. 

  • Dentsu Communications names Vishal Nicholas as planning head

    Dentsu Communications names Vishal Nicholas as planning head

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Communications has roped in Vishal Nicholas as senior vice president – head of planning. 

     

    Nicholas will report to Dentsu Communications CEO Simi Sabhaney and will be responsible for the planning output across all its offices.

     

    Prior to this, Nicholas was Lowe Lintas, Bangalore VP – planning.

     

    Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO South Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “Dentsu Aegis Network has already entered its next phase of growth and we are ready to add muscle to our might by supplementing our existing strong team with the right kind of talent. Vishal comes on board with immense industry exposure and I am very glad to welcome him into the network.”

     

    Sabhaney added, “The need of the hour is to devise interactive and engaging communication strategies that will create an impact on consumers… strategies that can weld together brand ambition and consumer needs. I believe Vishal Nicholas is a new age planner who is equipped to offer effective solutions in the changing communication landscape.”

     

    Nicholas said, “I have always believed in the need for planning to not only be interesting but also useful. I look forward to continue practicing that philosophy with the solid team here as well as in collaboration with the other integrated offerings under the Dentsu Aegis Network.”

  • Prakash Nathan starts his entrepreneurial journey with CineMArkets

    Prakash Nathan starts his entrepreneurial journey with CineMArkets

    Mumbai : Former  UTV Disney India  operations head and Vice president at UTV Motion Pictures Prakash Nathan is all set to roll out with his new venture CineMArkets Digital Solutions Private Limited. Along with co-founders Girish Kumar and Inkswipe Consulting LLP, Prakash Nathan’s new project is India’s first and very own digital market place for the media and entertainment industry that aims to eradicate the loopholes of the rapidly growing film industry by engaging the content creators, producers and the vendors & service providers under one umbrella. CineMArkets is a dynamic new-age digital platform, which will thrive to engulf the entire media and entertainment industry with its B2B and B2C offerings. As a part of its B2B services, CineMArkets will be a platform, which unifies all stakeholders of the M&E spectrum including content creators and content producers.

     

    The platform will help to transform the current production cycles by bringing in transparency and aid in reducing wastage at multiple stages, eventually making it more profitable for the producer. The process is promised to be as simple as, anyone can visit the portal and help himself with the requirements to create any Media and Entertainment related profile. There is also a revenue model fashioned in a way that will help filmmakers to reduce the waste, instead gain out of it.

     

    Joining hands in this mammoth of an initiative is Inkswipe Consuting LLP, the renowned experts in building such platforms for media, finance and technology, famous for their projects such as Mid-day, Bollywood Hungama, Kolkata Knight Riders, Red chillies and Football Club Pune city.

     

    Describing his just launched brainchild, which is in its Beta stage, Prakash shares, “It’s a market place for Media & Entertainment on the web that will enable sourcing capabilities for producers, line producers and content creators. It will not only facilitate creation, production but also syndication and the entire value chain of film and television content creation. Our mission is to enable seamless media creation, convergence and consumption. We, at CineMArkets, are really excited and sure that this venture will revolutionize the M&E industry.”

     

    With a strong team that consists of media influencers and terrific media managers who have been veterans in the entertainment industry, CineMArkets is sure to ring all the right bells and become the household name for a majority of Indian families.