Category: MAM

MUMBAI: Mudra West, Triton Communications and Concept Communication have been empanelled to handle the creative and media duties of General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC).
 
The agencies won the account duties after contesting a multi-agency pitch. The account was earlier handled in-house. 
 
GIC, formed in 1972, GIC provides reinsurance to the direct general insurance companies in the Indian market.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan, which has generally been blamed for its slack publicity methods, has decided to go out-of-home – particularly in view of the Commonwealth Games and the launch of high definition television by the pubcaster.

The channel has invited tenders for outdoor publicity from agencies that have an average annual billing of Rs 500 million during the last three financial years and have a minimum net worth of equal amount. Additionally, the agencies should have handled such campaigns for general entertainment channels during the past three financial years for out-of-home (OOH) advertising for its various programmes. 
 
Doodarshan director general Aruna Sharma told indiantelevision.com that the agencies should have at least an experience of handling three outdoor campaigns in more than 50 cities during the last financial year.

Doordarshan is looking at 100 high-visibility sites in major cities, especially in metros, state capitals and important business towns. Apart from hoardings, the public broadcaster will also be looking at bus panels, especially in Mumbai.

The sites will be used to showcase the various programmes on Doordarshan apart from telecasting information about the Games. The creatives will be changed on a monthly basis.
 
While several producers of sponsored programmes on Doordarshan have gone in for OOH campaigns, this is the first time that the channel is planning to use outdoor media on such a large scale.

Sharma said that even if one went by TAM ratings, Doordarshan‘s viewership had gone up by 4 points in the last one year for entertainment programmes in the metros ad even higher for news. But the aim of the OOH campaign will be to reach out to larger viewers in urban areas since DD is already dominating in the rural areas.
 
Interested agencies will be required to submit their bid for the tender with the earnest money deposit of Rs 500,000. The agencies must have offices in more than 12 cities in the country, necessarily including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. The last date to submit the tender is 22 July.

Shortlisted agencies will be needed to present their credentials and creative proposal for Doordarshan between 27 and 29 July.

MUMBAI: Ogilvy India has elevated Kunal Jeswani to country head of OgilvyOne, the agency‘s CRM and interactive arm, with immediate effect.

Jeswani has been involved in a variety of important roles within Ogilvy India since 2005 and has over 14 years of agency management experience that he brings to the table.
 
In addition to having run some of Ogilvy‘s most important relationships, including Unilever, Cadbury and BCCI, Jeswani has been instrumental in leading strategic planning for OgilvyOne and has most recently been involved in Vodafone and Unilever.
 
The combination of strategic and operational management skills provided by Jeswani comes to OgilvyOne India at a special time of rejuvenation and reinvention for the group.
 
Says OgilvyOne Worldwide regional director South Asia Chris Riley, “We are lucky to have Kunal Jeswani join us at an important time of change and growth for OgilvyOne. This is a direct continuation of strategy to investment significantly in talent, to create new competencies and services and to provide sponsorship from the global OgilvyOne network in the Indian business.”

Jeswani joined Ogilvy India in 2005 and has over 14 years of experience across advertising, activation and digital marketing. Since early 2009, he has spearheaded the strategic planning function at Ogilvy Action and OgilvyOne and now takes over as country head.
 

MUMBAI: Grey India has named Ketan Desai as associate vice president and branch head for the Delhi region.

Desai began his career with the then Trikaya Grey in Kolkata 11 years ago. He has worked in several Grey offices and across many verticals like automobiles, media, FMCG, hospitality and tobacco. 
 
More recently Desai had been focusing on developing Grey‘s unique HoReCa offering. With the new mandate at hand, he will report directly to Grey India COO Jishnu Sen.
 
Prior to this, Desai was associate VP – director, client servicing at Grey Mumbai. 
 
Said Sen, “I am pleased to have Ketan, a Grey veteran, head our Delhi office. We have great clients in Delhi like Dabur and GSK and I am excited about what we can do with Ketan leading our Delhi team.”
 

MUMBAI: JWT has appointed Adrian Miller as chief creative officer for the Delhi region.

Miller will report to JWT managing partner Rohit Ohri and JWT India CEO Colvyn Harris.
 
As part of his new mandate, Miller is expected to lead clients into an idea driven space that is media neutral. 
 
Prior to this, Miller was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi for Malaysia and Singapore.
 

MUMBAI: Mudra India has roped in Gopal Krishnan as VP for North and East. This is Krishnan‘s second stint with Mudra who will report to EVP and Head – North & East Ajay Naqvi.
 
Prior to this, Krishnan was business head at Rediffusion Y&R.

As part of his new mandate, Krishnan will strengthen key client relationships and lead organic and inorganic growth. 
 
Said Naqvi, “We have just about finished setting up a formidable creative team, and our account management function is getting bolstered as we go. Gopal will play a very important role in rallying our creative and planning resources.”

Added Krishnan, “My main goal here is to make Mudra North & East a powerhouse of creativity, servicing and planning. I have seen some very good work coming out of the agency and now it is time to push the envelope and explore new horizons.” 
 
Krishnan brings with him nearly 2 decades of experience working with agencies such as Rediffusion Y & R and TBWA, apart from the Mudra Group. Krishnan has played an instrumental role in establishing the Airtel brand in the country.
 

MUMBAI: Though there is enough positivity reining the global economy, world‘s top executives feel that there exists fragility in the market as consumers remain demoralized while challenges across the digital landscape are only increasing. 
 
Additionally, the executives who have gathered at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference believe that small-sized acquisitions and strategic buys will be the next lookout for the media moguls.
 
The conference, which is said to be the birth place of a number of major deals in the sector, is expected to see more hectic deal talk this year as there is approximately about $500 billion of private equity cash ready to be put into investments, state various media reports.
 
Reports further state that the focus of the conference this year is more about challenges rather than cheque books, with the need to monetise digital operations.

MUMBAI: DB Corp, publishers of Hindi news daily Dainik Bhaskar and Divya Bhaskar, has hiked its advertising rates and expects to clock a 14 per cent growth in revenues in FY’11.

“We have hiked our advertising rates by 10 -12 per cent since 1 May. We expect a substantial boost in our ad revenues from this move,” a senior DB Corp official said on condition of anonymity.

For DB Corp, the ad growth at over 15 per cent has been faster in May and June than the previous quarter.
 
 
“Until the slowdown, ad rates always underwent an annual hike to offset inflation. And now as the economy is back on pace, it was time to up the rates,” the executive added.

DB Corp had posted an 11.5 per cent ad revenue growth to end FY’10 at Rs 8.08 billion while net profit almost quadrupled to Rs 1.8 billion.

“While FMCG and telecom have been advertising consistently, national corporates, energy, automobile and education sectors also have begun to spend a bit more lavishly,” the executive said.
 
 
The company, which went public earlier this year, plans to enter Bihar, Jharkand and Jammu & Kashmir. While the plan is to launch the Jammu edition by July-end, Jharkhand should come up in August.

“We will launch the Bihar edition next year. Although these editions will take two-three years to break even, they will boost our revenues,” the executive added.
 
 
DB Corp publishes in three languages (Hindi, Gujarati and English) across 11 states in India.

“The increasing number of middle and higher income households has made Tier II and Tier III cities attractive markets, thereby resulting in growth in regional advertisement. DB Corp is likely to garner a major chunk in regional advertisement pie as most of its editions enjoy leadership positions in these cities,” according to a media analyst.
 

MUMBAI: Entertainment Network (India) Ltd has agreed to sell its out-of-home (OOH) subsidiary to parent company Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) at valuations that has visibly upset investors.

ENIL, which holds 83.44 per cent in Times Innovative Media (TIM), is selling its stake for a cash consideration of Rs 450 million.

The total deal, which includes debt, values TIM at Rs 1.1 billion. This is way below the price tag of Rs 12 billion that Goldman Sachs and Lehman Bros. had attached in 2008 when they acquired 16.56 per cent stake in TIM for Rs 2 billion.

The current deal with BCCL works something like this: BCCL agrees to repay ENIL‘s loan to TIM and also absorb the obligations under the financial guarantees provided by it on behalf of the OOH company. As on 8 July, the loans advanced by ENIL to TIM and the financial guarantee obligations of ENIL on account of TIM were Rs 425 million and Rs 312.3 million respectively.

Explains ENIL CEO Prashant Panday, “The total valuation of TIM stands at Rs 1.1 billion. For our 83.44 per cent stake, we get a direct cash Rs 450 million from BCCL, while the debt of Rs 560 million of the OOH business will also be borne by BCCL. So we will get Rs 1.01 billion cash on our books.”
 
Shares of ENIL plunged 15.55 per cent to close Friday at Rs 198.25 on BSE. Several broking firms that Indiantelevision.com spoke to said OOH was a high-growth area and the valuation arrived at for the transfer to the parent company was unjustifiably low.

Panday offered a different view to the whole issue of valuations.”The OOH business is strongly dependent on the contracts that you have. Two-thirds of the revenue of our OOH business is coming from the Delhi and Mumbai airport contracts, of which Mumbai contract is going to expire on 26 July. Delhi is now with a joint venture. We do not know what‘s going to happen, and thus, it makes sense for us to focus on our core business,” he explained.

Panday, however, agreed that the investors were deeply dissatisfied. “I am not unduly worried about the stock price. We will explain to them how the move is beneficial for ENIL,” he said.
 
ENIL reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 153.2 million for the fiscal ended March 2010 as against a loss of Rs 602.9 in FY09. Consolidated net income dipped marginally to Rs 4228.2 million, as compared to Rs 4270.9 million in the year-ago period.
 
Now with the surplus cash, Panday is looking forward for phase III to arrive. “We are going to keep this Rs 1.01 billion aside for investing in Phase III,” he said.

In FY‘10, TIM‘s net loss stood at Rs 325.4 million on an income of Rs 1.56 billion. Expenses stood at Rs 1.71 billion.

ENIL had engaged Morgan Stanley to advise on the transaction.
 

NEW DELHI: The first major step towards nation-wide audience research was taken today with the Indian Broadcasting Foundation announcing the formal registration of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) which is expected to begin work within the next few months.

The BARC has been set up as a joint venture between the IBF and the Indian Society of Advertisers on a 60:40 ratio and initial investment of Rs 300 million.

Subsequently, every channel which wants to receive the ratings would have to subscribe to the BARC, the format of which would be decided by an eight-member Technical Committee headed by the ISA and having an equal representation from both the IBF and the ISA.
 
The registration of the BARC under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956 was announced at a joint meeting addressed by IBF President Jawahar Goel, ZEEL managing director Punit Goenka, Star India CEO Uday Shankar, Times Television Network managing director Sunil Lulla, Star CJ CEO Paritosh Joshi, and Network18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla.

Noting that BARC will not conduct audience measurement directly and instead will commission independent specialist research vendors, Goenka said that requests for proposal will be invited and he could not deny that Tam, which presently covers 8000 homes, may also be one of the vendors.
 
 
Preliminary clearance has been received from the concerned authorities and the necessary formalities for incorporation of members and operations are expected to be completed over the next few weeks.

The primary objective of BARC is to conduct and commission market research using appropriate research methodologies, to provide accurate, up to date and relevant findings relating to broadcast audiences, including TV Ratings, “without fear or favour in a completely transparent, sustainable and objective manner.”

With the formation of BARC, the quality and scope of TV audience research in the country will get upgraded, the findings will be more robust and financials more transparent, Goel said.

Answering a question, Shankar said BARC, which was modeled on the lines of the UK-based Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board (BARB), may draw from the final report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India when it comes.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni had recently said the Trai report on BARC was expected around September.

Goenka said after the Technical Committee finishes its work, there will be a base line study of rural and urban India to see the methodology for measuring audience research.
 
Goel said all broadcasting modes – Terrestrial, Cable & Satellite, DTH, analogue and digital platforms, developing and new platforms such as IPTV and Mobile TV – will be covered in the research. Though no decision had been taken on who will head BARC, the chairman will be a director of the IBF. The Board of the council shall initially comprise seven members, four members from the IBF and three members from the ISA.

A professional corporate executive team headed by a CEO will be responsible for running the council. The CEO and executive team shall be responsible for the conduct and management of BARC including requesting industry inputs, contracting process, developing service standards and guidelines in conjunction with the technical committee, coordinating operational requirements, maintaining quality standards, financial affairs, and technological development.

BARC shall shortly engage in extensive industry consultations with stakeholders, specialist research consultants, existing & potential measurement service providers to identify the key concerns and requirements with regards to audience measurement. This may be followed by an R&D exercise to evaluate potential solutions including technologies & techniques.

BARC will put forth an “Audience Measurement Blueprint” for audience measurement in India. The blueprint will capture key concerns, requirements and a proposed roadmap to the new measurement service.

The research parameters shall be regularly updated so as to reflect developments in delivery platforms, growth in viewership, while ensuring financial viability of the service. A key activity would be to identify and use technology capable of capturing data over different platforms and constant up-gradations of the same as required.