Category: MAM

MUMBAI: RK Swamy BBDO’s Media Direction unit has signed on Partha Ghosh as director – business development. 
 
Ghosh moves in from GroupM Motivator where he was general manager. He will be reporting to RK Swamy BBDO Media Direction president Les Margulis.

Partha has serviced clients such as DSP Black Rock, Unilever, Pepsi, Marico, Nokia, and Unicef.
 
“Media Direction has strengthened their position by winning a number of accounts in the past few months. My senior team members and I share a common vision for the company and I look forward to assisting the organisation in scaling new heights,” says Ghosh.
 
Les adds, “Ghosh will bring his experience and market knowledge to bear and move our new business efforts to overdrive.”

Media Direction is the specialist arm of RK Swamy BBDO providing integrated media solutions.

MUMBAI: India’s gold drought ended at Cannes on Wednesday. RMG India and Taproot India brought home the awards in the Press and Design categories as the total tally ended at 16 metals.
 
RMG, a JWT company, won gold for the Fuji film campaign which spun a visual drama around the product benefit. Taproot, on the other hand, bagged the gold for Transasia papers.

India also added two silver and two bronze Lions. Leo Burnett and Taproot won a silver each for Tide and Transasia papers respectively.
 
Bates 141 fetched a bronze for Virgin Mobile while Mudra DDB took the bronze for Bangalore Traffic Police.

India, thus, made an impact in the Press category, earning two gold, two silver and two bronze. 
 
In the Design Lions category, Publicis won gold for work on Publicis communications while Ogilvy won bronze for its work done for the Department of Post. The Grand Prix in the Design Lions was won by Happiness Brussels for Toyota.
 

MUMBAI: Zee TV ranks at the top as the channel having the strongest favourite characters, according to a study by consumer knowledge firm Ormax Media.

Zee TV’s characters have an overall 27 per cent share, while Colors lagged at 20 per cent and Star Plus at 18 per cent, Ormax said in its fourth edition of “Characters India Loves” (CIL) track.
 
Though Anandi, the protagonist of Balika Vadhu (Colors) retains her No 1 position, the rest of the top 10 list shows a dramatic shift.

The previous top rankers including Sadhana (Bidaai, Star Plus) and Akshara (Yeh Rishta, Star Plus) have gone to position 15 and 11 from second and third. Also, Ichha (Uttaran, Colors) has slid from fifth position to 13 in the latest report.

Contrary to two positions in the top-10 list of the previous quarter, Zee TV ups the scale and has five characters this time, including Archana and Maanav (Pavitra Rishta), Manu (Jhansi Ki Rani) and Remo and Terence (Dance India Dance judges).
 
The study measures the popularity of characters on Indian television. This edition reports the ranking of the 251 most liked characters across various channels on Indian television. The report also lists the top characters across gender, age, SEC and market segments.

Further, a section of the report illustrates reasons for likeability of the top characters.
 
The fourth track for CIL was conducted during May-June this year. Interviews were conducted among 2,500 respondents (70 per cent females, 30 per cent males) in the 15-44 year age group from SEC ABC across six cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Indore and Jalandhar.
 

MUMBAI: Surely it has basked in its magnificence for plenty – nine years of continued leadership at the top and then salvaging its lost glory from Viacom18‘s Colors after a year-long gap. But never has its achievements been such a historic feat since the first season of KBC.

Star Plus, now walking the path of a new self discovery with its rebranded look, has touched a new GRP high for the week ended 19 June with 445 points in its kitty. And to differentiate it further from the Hindi GEC gang, the channel has taken an exorbitant jump of 108 points in just one week to cross the 400 fence patch and break its own record since its KBC days.  
 

 
                                                                                                                Source: TAM 

What has primarily helped Star Plus to attain this huge jump is its weekend event, Star Parivaar Awards, that attracted 55 GRPs to the channel as it delivered a TVR of 7.2. The show achieved a peak TVR of 9.9 at 9.35 pm while the red carpet delivered 2.2 TVR (7:30 pm- 8 pm).

Said Star India EVP marketing and communications Anupam Vasudev, “Also, the new look of Star Plus has had huge sampling by new viewers while there has been an increased consumption from the existing viewers.”

The other element that has helped Star Plus to upgrade its GRP grades is its weekday prime time. The band delivery saw a positive high wherein shows either registered a healthy and upward viewership over the previous week or maintained stability.
 
 
Pratigya (Monday-Friday 10.30 pm) is at 5.1 TVR (4.8), the highest average for the show since launch that continued to lead the slot. Bidaai (Monday-Friday 9 pm) has also moved up the TRP ladder to post an average TVR of 5 (3.6). Its one hour special on Saturday delivered 5.8 TVR.

Additionally, the newly launched Ekta Kapoor produced Tere Liye (Mon-Fri. 10 pm) seems to have given the channel an incremental push as the show opened with a 4 TVR on Monday and averaged 3.8 TVR.

“We want to lead in every primetime slot. Tere Liye performed extremely well for us and is a good bet to eventually lead the 10 pm slot. We are also launching the new show Chaand Chhupa Badal Mein at the 8 pm slot as it is a weak band right now,” Vasudev said.

Star Plus had already begun experimenting on its programming content to understand the changing viewership patterns with shows like Bidayi and Yeh Rishta. “The shows fetched good eyeballs and the channel knew that “times are a changing”. It led to bolder formats with Aap Ki Kachehri and Sach Ka Saamna and now, with the reinvention of self, Star Plus seems to have bounced back with the audiences well,” says a top media executive on conditions of anonymity.

Fitting into the new image of the channel, Star chalked out an innovative strategy. The channel ran no commercial ads for 24 hours from Monday primetime but filled up the inventory with its own promos. “The exercise to promote ourselves during breaks began on Monday primetime and ran for 24 hours,” said Vasudev.

While Star Plus seems to have marked a clear top slot territory for itself, vibrant Colors is evidently losing its bright tint. The channel has dropped 12 GRPs over the previous week to score 276 points.

Except Balika Vadhu that posted 4.8 TVR (4.7), the highest rating on the show in the last 12 weeks, the other primetime shows including Uttaran at 3.9 TVR (4.4) and Na Aana is Des Laado at 3.6 TVR (4.4) slid downward.

Where the channel has actually gained eyeballs is the afternoon slot (30 GRPs, up from 19 GRPs in the previous week) and weekend movies (24 GRPs, from the previous week‘s 14 GRPs).

Kitchen Champion, the one-hour afternoon cookery show, rated 1.8 TVR in its launch week. 
 
Clearly, apart from its primetime shows, movies have always been a dependable GRP delivery for Colors and it telecast six of them during the week (five on weekend and one on Friday). There were three movies on Sunday that played breakless – Ajab Prem… on Sunday at 7.30 pm delivered 1.5 TVR, Bhootnath on Sunday at 12 noon delivered 1.2 TVR and Welcome on Sunday at 5.30 pm rated 0.8 TVR.

Other movies on the channel were – Jab we met (Friday 9.30 pm 0.6 TVR), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (Sun 3.30 pm 0.6 TVR) and Life Partner (Saturday 2.30 pm 0.6 TVR).

There were also two event repeats on the channel with limited / no breaks – Maa Tujhe Pranam played breakless at Sunday 2 pm and delivered 1.1 TVR and Apsara Awards (Sunday 10 pm) played with 1 5 minutes break and delivered 1 TVR.

Zee TV also saw a drop of 25 GRPs (231 GRPs during the week) wherein the fall was primarily propelled by its weekday primetime bands. Its top rated show, Pavitra Rishta, fell to average 5.3 TVR (6.1 TVR) while Agle Janam is at 3.6 TVR (4.5 TVR). DID Lil Masters fetched an average TVR of 3.1 in the week (3.7 TVR last week). On the movie front too, the channel has lost 10 GRPs to lock it at just 5 points this week. The channel had shown Ishq at 4.30 pm on Saturday.

Overall, the channel genres which have grown this week are: Hindi GEC – 1374 GRPs (1338 GRPs), Sports – 187 GRPs (75 GRPs) and Hindi News – 147 GRPs (143 GRPs).

The genres which dropped are: Hindi movies – 439 GRPs (483), Youth – 121 GRPs (138) and Kids – 239 GRPs (290).
 

BANGALORE: In a bid to garner more eyeballs for its movie of the month ‘Forbidden Kingdom’ on 25 June, UTV Action has planned a multimedia campaign.
 
UTV Action’s initiatives for the ‘Forbidden Kingdom’ include 3D ads on the cover page of the daily ‘Midday’ in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Delhi to coincide with the newspapers 31st anniversary. The channel plans to distribute 3D glasses along with a copy of the paper. Radio One will be plugging the anniversary 3D issue of Midday.
 
Apart from this, the channel is conducting a host of online activities to promote the movie by conducting contests and awarding the winners with gifts. Outdoor hoardings are also being used to promote the film.

With an objective of creating an eye catching effect in Delhi, Pune, Chandigargh, Lucknow and Kanpur, the channel will be placing 10 men dressed in Kung Fu attire with every alternate person holding a placard stating the tune in time for the movie of the month.
 
“We plan to come out with innovative communications that have not been attempted by anybody else,” said UTV Action Associate VP for marketing Kunal Mukherjee.

MUMBAI: India has bagged four awards in the Outdoor category at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival this year. 
 
Mudra DDB Group was awarded a Silver Lion for its work on the Bangalore Traffic Police and Ogilvy & Mather won a Bronze Lion for its work on The Economist. Creativeland Asia, on the other hand, bagged two metals – a Silver Lion for Parle Agro‘s Frooti campaign and a Bronze Lion for Cholayil (Medimix).
 
In the Radio Lions category, it was Leo Burnett that managed to bag the only metal for India. The agency won a Bronze Lion for its work on Bajaj Electricals, called ‘Pleasure of Mixing‘.
 
In the Media Lions category too, India managed to take home just one metal as Leo Burnett pocketed a bronze for its work on Tide.
 

MUMBAI: PDM India, a division of Percept, has appointed Rukin Kizilbash as chief operating officer.

Kizilbash will replace Manuj Agarwal who has stepped down from the post. 
 
Kizilbash will be responsible for overseeing the entire business of PDM India, including activation, sports marketing, promotions, sponsorship sales, events, and IPR development & management.

Prior to joining Percept, he was heading Ten Sports in India and was responsible for the overall growth of the channel in the sub-continent. He was a part of Ten Sports since its inception in India as VP- ad sales.
 
Said Kizilbash, “I am eagerly looking forward to taking up the mandate of guiding PDM to new and exciting horizons. With the roster of impressive brand activations and intellectual properties already in place at PDM, we are well poised to take the company to the next level and create a powerhouse of talent and a wide range of products, which will be the very best in its field.”

Added Percept Limited joint MD Shailendra Singh, “Rukin has abundant experience in the arena of Sports Management and Activation, and we are confident that PDM will grow even further under his able leadership.”
 
Kizilbash joined Ten Sports with more than 15 years of experience in the television sports broadcast industry in India including five years with ESPN Star Sports and a brief stint with IMG.
 

MUMBAI: Technology and mobile media company StratosHear Technologies has roped in Surmeet Kaur as group account manager, media sales – India.
 
Kaur will spearhead the sales team and will advise the StratosHear senior management team on the future direction of the company, ideas for growth and the overall business and marketing analogy strategy.
 
Kaur has an experience of eight years with expertise in offline and online media. During her last stint with Affle India, Kaur established the distribution network, the company brand and also mobilized funds. She was also associated with Webdunia Media as regional head- sales and marketing and helped in revitalizing the media brand.
 
Said StratosHear Technologies business development and alliances executive director Kushal Sanghvi, “Surmeet‘s experience in media across various organizations will provide StratosHear not just the credibility, but also direction for the business to make a quantum leap in its service offerings, management strategies and profitability.”
 

MUMBAI: The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival has shortlisted seven pieces of work from india in the design lions category. 
 
These include three entries from Publicis Communication, two entries from Ogilvy India (Department of Post and Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary) and one entry from Rediffusion Y&R (Pioma Industries). 
 
The total number of entries from India in this category has dropped from 93 last year, to 89 this year. 
 
The winners for Design will be announced on 23 June, 2010.
 

MUMBAI: India’s scorecard started ticking at the Cannes International Advertising Festival as it won a silver and a bronze Lion in sunny conditions.

Ogilvy posted India’s first winning run at Cannes with a bronze Lion in the Promo category. The honour was for the Meltdown campaign, created by Ogilvy Kolkata, for All India Council for Mass Education and Development. (AICMED). The campaign aimed at raising awareness on global warming.
 
BBDO India bagged a Silver Lion in the PR Lion category for its work for Gilette ‘Women against Lazy Stubble’.

There were two shortlisted entries from India: AICMED and India Anti-Virus from Bates 141 Mumbai.
 
The Grand Prix in the Promo and activation category went to to Los Angeles-based TBWAChiatDay‘s Replay campaign for Gatorade. The campaign encouraged those who were above 40 years of age to get physically active. Gatorade ‘Replay’ also won the Grand Prix in the PR Lion category. Heineken Italia ‘auditorium’ work created by JWT Italia Milan bagged two Gold Lions.
 
India will now look at the Press, Radio, Media and outdoor categories to improve its scorecard. In the shortlists announced on Monday, there are 12 Indian entries in outdoor, six in media, five in radio and 29 in the press Lion category.