ITV

Category: MAM

  • Pepsi ropes in Sharman Joshi as brand ambassador for 7Up

    Pepsi ropes in Sharman Joshi as brand ambassador for 7Up

    MUMBAI: Food and beverage company, PepsiCo India, has appointed actor Sharman Joshi as brand ambassador for its natural lemon flavoured drink, 7Up.

    The brand has also roped in renowned film director, Rajkumar Hirani, to direct the new on-air campaign around the theme, ‘Gussa Hatao, Chill Machao‘. The campaign that includes two television commercials is expected to go on air by the end of March.

    The on-air campaign will be supported by outdoor, online and on-ground activation.

    Says PepsiCo India Beverages Category Marketing Director (Flavoured Carbonated Drinks) Alpana Titus, “Sharman, with his calm, unruffled and extremely affable personality is a perfect match to highlight the brand‘s positioning of a cool, refreshing drink. With Raju Hirani creating his magic with the ad films, we are confident that our consumers will not only enjoy the campaign but also identify with the theme of ‘Gussa Hatao, Chill Machao‘. We look forward to a great summer season; kick starting with this exciting campaign.”

    The campaign highlights issues of anger management. The TVCs revolve around these instances and Sharman as the new 7UP guy proves to the enraged characters that their anger is misplaced. This is best to douse it with a chilled bottle of 7UP, through a series of witty and offbeat questions.

    Director Hirani said, “I am very selective about the TVCs I direct, but the scripts that I received for 7UP were very interesting. I saw the scope of adding value to the message, since this campaign is not just about giving gyaan. The thought behind the characters‘ self realization of stupidity while getting angry is superb.”

    The first TVC revolves around a man who has been splashed with mud by a speeding truck and gives the truck a chase on his two-wheeler, hell-bent on teaching the driver a lesson. The second film is about a fight that breaks out between two fans of rival soccer teams while they are watching a match. A fight made even more ridiculous by the fact that neither of them has any connection whatsoever with the countries playing. In both TVCs, Sharman appears as the cool voice of reason, diffusing their anger with 7UP.

    “Every minute you spend in anger, you lose 60 seconds of cool! With growing instances of mindless flare-ups that we see around us every day, this philosophy is sure to resonate with the youth,” said BBDO India executive creative director Sandipan Bhattacharya.

  • Grey’s Rohit Malkani and Bhavesh Kosambia to judge New York Festival 2011

    Grey’s Rohit Malkani and Bhavesh Kosambia to judge New York Festival 2011

    MUMBAI: Grey’s executive creative director Rohit Malkani and creative director Bhavesh Kosambia have been appointed on
    the Jury Panel for the New York Festival International Advertising Awards to be held on 5 May in New York.
     
    Malkani says, “New York Festivals is one of the most prestigious advertising shows and being selected for the Jury is a huge honour. I am looking forward to a hectic but stimulating round of judging.”


    This year, each juror will be assigned to 10-person online panels, which will start at different times throughout the online judging process. Each juror will be using a password and an email address, to access the entries to be judged.
     
    Seven days time will be given to complete the online judging session and between 10 to 12 hours to complete a session.


    Kosambia adds, “To be on board as Grand Jury for New York festival design category is undoubtedly an honor, and I am very excited about it. According to me a good design is a medium in itself to communicate and you don’t need to know any particular language to understand or appreciate it.”
     
    This will be the largest gathering of nearly 300 Grand Jury members, consisting of chief creative officers, executive creative directors, creative directors, executive producers, film directors and designers, representing over 55 countries.


    The awards ceremony and conferences will be held on 5 May,in New York.
     

  • English movie channel genre to grow at 20%; Movies Now to up ad rates

    English movie channel genre to grow at 20%; Movies Now to up ad rates

    MUMBAI: The English movie channel genre is sized at Rs 3.25 billion and is expected to grow at 20-25 per cent due to the entry of new players, a senior executive said.

    The competition among the channels has grown the number of advertisers to 340 in 2010, up 21.4 per cent from the year-ago period which had attracted 280 advertisers.

    “Companies advertising more on this genre are the new telecom companies, automobiles, electronics and white goods. FMCG, though, continues to be the largest ad spender on this genre followed by telecom, mobile and consumer electronics,” said Movies Now channel head Ajay Trigunayat.

    Multi Screen Media president network sales, licensing and telephony Rohit Gupta agrees that the genre will grow by at least 20 per cent this year. “There is enough headroom for the genre to grow in revenue size as brands are increasingly targeting upscale audiences. The top four players will have an 80 per cent share. How the others manage in terms of revenue will have to be seen,” he said.

    Barely three months old, Movies Now from the Times TV Network stable is looking at doubling its advertising rates as it claims leadership among a specific upscale young audience group in the metros.

    “We are No. 1 among the metro audiences in the 15-34 demographic, SEC A,B (C&S),” Trigunayat claimed. However, the rates are about half of what the competition is charging. The competition charges between Rs 3500-5000 per 10-second spot. We want to reach Rs 3000 per spot by increasing the effective rates by 100 per cent over the next three months.”

    Movies Now has 40 advertisers and a 70 per cent inventory utilisation rate, added Trigunayat.

  • WC delivers 2.41 TVR for 34 matches in metros

    WC delivers 2.41 TVR for 34 matches in metros

    MUMBAI: The cricket World Cup has delivered an average TVR of 2.41 across six Metros, an improvement compared to 2.12 for the same period in 2007.

    The non India matches have delivered a TVR of 1.20 compared to 1.24 in 2007, according to data from Tam Sports (C&S 4+).

    The increased reach is what is giving value to advertisers this time around. In 2007, a Bangladesh versus South Africa encounter gave a rating of 1.41 and a reach of 10 million. This time around a match between South Africa and Ireland gave a TVR of 1.20 and a reach of 12 million.

    Star Cricket continues to do better than the Hindi feed offered by Star Sports. According to Tam Sports data, 9.8 million people tuned in to the Pakistan versus Zimbabwe match on Star Cricket compared to 4.2 million on Star Sports. Nine million people tuned in to the Australia versus Kenya encounter on Star cricket compared to 3.7 million people on Star Sports.

     

  • Tyroo splits biz into two units, gets heads

    Tyroo splits biz into two units, gets heads

    BANGALORE: Yahoo’s joint venture and horizontal ad network, Tyroo Media, has announced a few additions in their Sales and Performance team as a part of expansion of its services and clients.

    Tyroo Media sees the need to segregate its business into two broad areas. Given the rapid increase in Internet businesses, Tyroo has created a business unit that will focus on serving the digital marketing needs of these advertisersddharth Puri, who is an old hand at Tyroo, will now be running this newly created, performance business. 
     
    Also, given the rapid increase in adoption of digital media advertising by brands, Tyroo has created a focused team to develop and grow this business. Piyush Rathi, who comes from digital agency and television ad sales background, joins as the national sales head.

    Tyroo Media business head Nitin Chowdhary said, “Tyroo’s business continues to grow strongly with addition of several new capabilities – we announced our partnership with SlideShare recently, we also announced our large format ad product called VooDoo at the start of 2011. We continue to add newer advertisers in all sectors.”

    Tyroo is seeing tremendous growth in the performance services, especially for Internet advertisers in verticals such as jobs, matrimony, travel, e-commerce, classifieds and others. Geetu Ahuja, who has almost a decade of Internet marketing experience, has joined as head of Performance Delivery. 
     
    Puri said, “Given her strong understanding of online marketing and her extensive experience with large clients, she will add immense value to Tyroo.”
    Tyroo Media’s pay for performance contextual advertising network provides a platform for advertisers who want to reach targeted users and for publishers who want to monetise their online inventory to come together and do business.

  • Internet news readership surpasses newspapers in the US for the first time

    MUMBAI: The print media is in serious trouble. For the first time ever in history, more people have said that they got their news from the Internet than a print newspaper, according to an annual report on the news media. 
     
    The study released by the Pew Research Center said the Web is now only behind television among U.S. adults as a mode of getting news – and the gap seems to be closing.


    The report also predicted that in 2010, for the first time, online ad revenue surpassed print newspaper ad revenues. 
     
    One of the challenges facing newspapers is that the largest share of online ad revenue is going to non-news sources, particularly to aggregators, the Washington think tank said.


    Except newspapers, almost every sector from the industry experienced growth after two dreadful years.


    Among the major news industry sectors, only newspapers suffered continued revenue declines last year — an unmistakable sign that the structural economic problems facing newspapers are more severe than those of other media, Pew said. 
     
    The study found that newspapers missed out mainly due to their inability to embrace new media. Also, less progress has been made in charging for news than many in the journalism industry had predicted.


    So far only about three dozen newspapers have moved to some kind of paid content on their websites and only 1 per cent users opted to pay.

  • Alok Lall replaces Debashis Paul at McCann; Paul to head McCann Social

    Alok Lall replaces Debashis Paul at McCann; Paul to head McCann Social

    MUMBAI: McCann Erickson has roped in Alok Lall as executive director McCann Worldgroup to replace Debashis Paul, who moves on to head the newly formed outfit McCann Social.

    Lall, who recently quit as MD Iris India, will now be directly in charge of running the Delhi operations. This will be his second stint at McCann Erickson; he previously worked at McCann as an account director for a year from1996-97. 
     
    Lall started his career as an account executive at FS Advertising in 1989, before moving to DraftFCB Ulka as senior account executive. Then he joined JWT as account supervisor and worked for two years from 1993 to 1995, from where he shifted to McCann for a year with the same profile.

    From McCann, Lall once again moved to JWT, where he worked for about 13 years before joining Saatchi & Saatchi Delhi as branch head and executive vice-president. 
     
    Lall then, co-founded the Indian office of Iris worldwide four years ago in 2007, with Stewart Shanley, the agency‘s global chief operating officer, and Kenneth Augustine, creative director, iris India which provides integrated service to companies such as Sony Ericsson, Dell, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Shell, Alpha G Corp and adidas.

    Says McCann Worldgroup executive chairman Prasoon Joshi, “In our changing media landscape, Lall‘s drive towards new age media solutions will immensely value add to our offering and expertise.” 
     
    Lall‘s responsibility at McCann will be also to drive a broader integrated approach for all McCann clients.

    About Paul‘s movement, Joshi says that Paul was keen to explore the social media for some time now. “Socially relevant advertising is an emerging need in the rapidly evolving development sector of our country. And I can see no one better to be at the helm of this,” says Joshi.

    Paul has spent more than a decade with the agency and has been heading the Delhi branch since 2007.

  • 81 million viewers tune in for India-South-Africa match

    81 million viewers tune in for India-South-Africa match

    MUMBAI: The India-South Africa encounter attracted 81 million viewers and the peak TVR stood at 21.33.
    The match fetched a rating of 10.11, according to data from Tam Sports C&S, 4+.
    A total of 49 million viewers watched it on Star cricket compared to 29 million on Star Sports and 25 million on Doordarshan.

    The match between India and Netherlands got a much lower TVR of 5.57 with 67 million viewers tuning in.
    The average rating for the 29 matches played so far is 2.45 TVR, an improvement over 2.13 TVR managed in the last World Cup in 2007. One must remember though that India got knocked out early in 2007 and so interest had waned.

    This time the five India matches have gathered a rating of 8.57 compared to 10.3 for the three India matches played in 2007. Two matches this time crossed a TVR of 10, involving South Africa and England.

    Non India match ratings are flat at 1.17 this time compared to 1.18 in 2007. This time the highest rating for a non India match was between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at 3.28. In 2007 for the same period, the highest rating for a non India match was the opening match between Pakistan and West Indies at 3.66. 40 million viewers had tuned in for that compared to 51 million viewers for the Pakistan versus Sri Lanka match, showing that reach this time has increased.

    The New Zealand versus Pakistan encounter this time got a TVR of 2.45 with 47 million viewers having tuned in. Two matches involving Pakistan were the only non India matches that crossed a TVR of 2. In 2007, four non India matches had crossed a TVR of 2.

  • BBH India appoints Paul Ward as its managing partner

    BBH India appoints Paul Ward as its managing partner

    MUMBAI: BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty) India has appointed Paul Ward as its managing partner. The position has been lying vacant since Priti Nair left a few months ago to form her own outfit.

    Ward was part of the original team that launched the Mumbai business in 2008. He left Mumbai in late 2010 and since has been based in Singapore working on various projects across the region including the forming of the recently announced partnership with The Mill in Asia.

    Says BBH India Managing Partner Subhash Kamath, “All of us are delighted to have Paul join our management group in India. He‘s been an integral part of our start-up and it‘s great to have him back again. As we grow and expand, it‘s critical for us to create better partnerships, better services and processes – all leading to great work. Paul‘s global experience and skills will be invaluable to us. And importantly, Paul brings a lot of fun and laughter to the table.”

    Adds Ward, “I‘m very excited to be returning to India. I‘ll be hitting the ground running, as there are lots of things to do both internally and externally. I‘ll be working hard to build more collaborative partnerships with the very best design, digital, film and experiential businesses across India.”

    BBH India handles various clients such as Marico, L&T, TVS and Lakme.

     

  • Lenovo India appoints Shailendra Katyal as its marketing head

    Lenovo India appoints Shailendra Katyal as its marketing head

    MUMBAI: Lenovo India has appointed Shailendra Katyal as the its marketing head.

    Based out of Lenovo‘s Bangalore head office in Bangalore, Katyal will be responsible for handling the Lenovo master-brand and leading marketing for the three business segments it operates in like consumer, relational and SMB.

    Katyal‘s primary role in Lenovo will be to aggressively grow Lenovo‘s brand preference in the consumer and SOHO segments, according to an official statement.

    Says Lenovo India managing director Amar Babu, “We are pleased to appoint Shailendra, a versatile marketing professional, who has a proven track record in leading marketing campaigns of marquee consumer brands. We continue to strengthen the management on the back of our strong success in the Indian market and want to continue the momentum on our double digit market share.”

    Katyal comes with 12 years of industry experience, having worked in varied roles in sales and marketing in the FMCG space.

    Avers Katyal “It is a great opportunity for me to be working with a global force like Lenovo. It is one of the leading forces in the technology space today and leads with a strong core of product innovation. It is also a truly multicultural organization with high emphasis on entrepreneurial behavior, which is what I really thrive in. It‘s an honor to be associated with the Lenovo brand and iconic sub-brands like the ThinkPad.”

    Prior to joining Lenovo India, Katyal was category head at Marico for nearly a decade.

    Besides playing a significant role in charting out the hair care strategy for Marico, he had successful stints in managing large brand franchises like Parachute and Saffola, integrating acquired brands like Nihar Naturals and handled equities like Shanti and Hair & Care.