Category: MAM

MUMBAI: Cannes International Advertising Festival has nominated 29 pieces of work from India across 13 broad entries in the Press Lions category this year. A total of 244 entries had been sent this year to contend in this category. 
 
While Mudra DDB has been nominated in four broad entries, two entries of McCann World Group have been shortlisted. TapRoot India too has pocketed two nominations.
 
Leo Burnett‘s four pieces of work have received nominations, one work of Ogilvy India has been shortlisted, RMG Gurgaon has three pieces of work has been shortlisted while Bates 141 Mumbai‘s one entry has made it to the nominations.
 
 

MUMBAI: Percept Limited has entered into a business alliance with US-based The Brand Gallery to offer specialized brand development and positioning implementations that are focused and category specific.

The alliance will offer solutions to broadcasters and media & entertainment companies across the Indian subcontinent that are looking for high-end expertise to strategically create a new design, distinctive visual identity and quality content.
 
Through this partnership, Percept will give ‘The Brand Gallery‘ a physical presence in the Indian market, with a team of servicing people deployed for each client. All creative execution will be delivered from The Brand Gallery‘s US office and Percept will service the business from the India office.

The size of the market is estimated to be Rs 500 million and Percept aims to target a minimum share of 20 per cent. 
 
Located in Greenwich Connecticut, The Brand Gallery is a creative boutique offering specialized and long-term solutions in the development of brand strategies, especially for broadcasters. Its client list includes HBO, CNN, ABC Network, BBC, ESPN, AXN, CBS Network and BRAVO.

Says Percept Pictures COO and India head of the Percept-Brand Gallery alliance Sanjay Ahire, “Our association with The Brand Gallery will enable us to inundate the Indian market with additional services for the media sphere. We strongly believe that this will add tremendous value to any broadcaster in today‘s market that has intense competition and increased consumer fatigue.”
 
Adds The Brand Gallery CEO Phil McIntyre, “India is rich in terms of business potential of this kind…it is completely untapped currently with respect to the skill-set that we bring on to the table. I am confident that our Indian clients will only stand to gain by what we have to offer.”

Percept believes channel packaging changeover once every 2-3 years would cost anywhere between Rs 5 million to Rs 25 million.

In 2009, walking through the recession heat, Mudra Connext had registered a meagre 5 per cent revenue growth. 
 
Says Manas Mishra EVP & country head Manas Mishra, “2010 is far better than 2009. April-May has seen higher levels than same period last year across most categories (FMCG, financial services, durables etc) and I expect this trend to continue. The focus on digital is growing, especially after the slowdown when all media saw conservative investments. Sports is big with so many major events in the same year.”

Another mandate for Mudra Connext for the year will be to focus on building the organisation from the top and consolidating some of its perations.
 
“We have already consolidated our Ahmedabad and Kochi operations with Mudra Connext. Now we will be looking at consolidating more of our operations across geographies. We will also be looking at centralized buying at the all-India level and consolidate learning across our companies to operate like a national agency.”

Meanwhile, talking about the overall advertising industry, Mishra expects the digital medium (display, search, social media and mobile) to show the highest growth as a media platform. “Our assessment is that the monetisation of the medium is far lower than what it deserves,” he says.  
 
Connext  has clients across seven offices – Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata. Some of its clients are Jyothy Labs (fabric care and other FMCG products), Apollo Munich (health insurance), Wipro Consumer Care (FMCG), Gulf Oil (lubricants), Amway (FMCG), V Guard (electrical appliances and accessories), IndiaFirst (life insurance), Apollo Group (health care), TTK (Prestige), ACC, Paragon and Federal Bank.
 

MUMBAI: Cannes International Advertising Festival has nominated one work each of Ogilvy India and Bates 141 in the Promo Lions category.

Incidentally, the number of Indian entries in this category has substantially increased from 47 last year to 103 this year. 
 
Ogilvy has been nominated for its Meltdown campaign for All India Council for Mass Education and Development that aimed at raising awareness on global warming. Meanwhile, Bates‘ nomination is for the Stolen Signature campaign for India Anti-Virus.

Bates 141 has earned a nomination in direct category too for the same piece of work while McCann‘s two public service campaigns have been nominated in the sub-categories, Dimensional Mailing and Ambient & Print Collateral.
 
Grey Worldwide is the other agency from India that has pocketed a nomination for its AIDS Mask campaign for Ojus Medical Institute in the Direct category.

This year, Indian entries in the Direct category has moved up to 105 from 69 last year.

In the Media Lions category, six entries from India have been shortlisted out of the total 98. These include one campaign each from Leo Burnett (Tide), Grey Worldwide India (Ojus Medical Institute) McCann Worldgroup(Republic of Chicken), Creativeland Asia (Parle Agro) and two works of MediaCom India (Gillette and Dell India). 
 
In the Radio category, six pieces of work have been shortlisted. These include two entries of Publicis, two entries of Leo Burnett, one entry of JWT India and one entry of Bates 141.
 

MUMBAI: Airtel Digital TV is looking at exploiting technology and content as platforms to give the brand a big push.

The DTH player has already launched a campaign to promote the kids channels available on the platform – Cartoon Network, Pogo, Nick, Disney, Disney XD and Hungama. 
 
The campaign primarily focuses on parents whose kids are on vacation due to the summer holidays.

Said Bharti Airtel chief marketing officer Sugato Banerji, “The campaign is majorly running on ESPN as we are a sponsor on the channel and will be getting a GRP push. Also, as it‘s the football season, this is the best time to capture the audience attention.”

This campaign will run till June end and then Airtel Digital TV will roll out a new series of campaigns to promote its other content genres such as music, general entertainment, movies and news.

“Currently, our research is still going on and we will begin to unveil the ads once the kids‘ campaign is over. All the ads will run for six to eight weeks. Also, there will also be a balance maintained as we will also focus on campaigns promoting technology as well,” added Banerji.
 
Apart from the channels, Airtel digital TV has i-Learn, an interactive channel for kids up to third standard. i-Learn can be accessed with a top up of Rs 10.

The DTH player also has six dedicated gaming channels (i-games) for kids. Among these, three channels are free and the rest can be obtained at Rs 10-15/month with facility of unlimited playing option. These games are specially designed for kids of age group 4-12.
 
 
Getris, meanwhile, is part of Airtel digital TV‘s three screen strategy. Getris is a game which kids can play on mobile, digital TV and computer (through Airtel broadband). This game has different levels and the levels keep unlocking as one switches to a different medium (mobile>digital TV>computer).

While JWT is the creative agency, Madison is the DTH player‘s media partner.

MUMBAI: While the soccer World Cup has got off to a promising start, the question is what happens once the event is over? Will the additional viewers that have come in forget about the sport or will they follow leagues? The consensus is that at least some of them will follow.

Relay Worldwide India GM Mahesh Ranka notes that the reach will grow. “A lot more sampling will happen. After that, viewership will depend on people‘s preferences in terms of teams, players.
 
“I expect most gains to happen from the major Metros. There will even be gains from some second tier towns. While television ratings do not capture it, I am sure that in some of those towns people are excited about the World Cup. The hard core soccer markets of Goa, Kerala and West Bengal are anyway tuning in heavily.”

He adds that perception has improved for the game among the media fraternity. “There is more awareness that it is a passion-led sport, that it appeals to the upper class males. Brands buy on the basis of perception and marketers take a punt that the property will be a good fit for the values that their brand stands for. More advertisers are starting to look beyond just ratings.” He, however, notes that revenues that other properties get will depend to an extent on how the World Cup fares.

It would also help if broadcasters push their soccer properties more aggresively.

Ten Sports CEO Atul Pande says that while perception of the sport is improving, it is mostly on the English Premier League (EPL) side.

He adds that soccer, especially Indian football, has been seeing double digit growth in terms of viewership year on year. He, however, also feels that advertisers should support the game more.

A top media executive, on conditions of anonymity, notes that there are advertisers who support alternate sports like soccer and who are willing to look beyond just numbers. However, while they have been growing in number, they are still few. Many are those who advertise on cricket as well, for example Vodafone.

“There are brands who understand that soccer evokes passion in certain pockets. The sports values are about working as a team and achieving goals. If a brand wants to have itself identified with those values then there will be some rub off by associating with the sport. Having said that, perception is more than what the reality is in terms of people watching soccer. Year on year some properties like the Uefa Champions League have seen around 10 per cent viewership growth. Whether it will be more this year due to the World Cup effect remains to be seen,” says the media executive. 
 
He also adds that soccer fervour post the World Cup might last for around six months. “A league runs for several months. So viewership might not be consistent across the period like it is for the World Cup which is of a shorter duration. That is because the soccer fervour will drop off after a certain point of time.” Media buyers are satisfied at the soccer World Cup‘s delivery thus far. The prediction is that the event would deliver a TVR of 1.8 -2 among upper class males for the duration of the event. Tam data shows that for males SEC A,B C&S 15+, it has delivered an average TVR of 1.9 so far.

GroupM ESP managing partner Hiren Pandit says that broadcasters should focus on building hype prior to their events kicking off. 
 
“What will help is the amount of coverage being devoted in the media to the soccer World Cup. The awareness about the sport is much more. Broadcasters will do things like promotions, contests where winners can get tickets.”

Ranka goes further to say that some push has to come from the foreign leagues themselves if soccer is to become bigger in India. “It all depends on whether they feel that India is an important enough market for them. If it is then they would have to do some research and on the basis of that draw up an all India plan. Even the Manchester United bar that had come up here is not the initiative of that club,” he says.

MUMBAI: The final NBA match between The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics on ABC has fetched a record Nielsen preliminary overnight rating of 18.2.

It was the Los Angeles Lakers that beat the Boston Celtics to win the NBA Championship while an average 18.8 million viewers watched the match from 9 to 11 pm.
 
The Los Angeles Lakers- Boston Celtics match has been the highest-rated NBA Finals game ever on ABC after the Lakers-Pistons game five in 2005 that pocketed a 15.5 preliminary household rating.
 
ABC, thus, surely drove in all the eyeballs amongst the 18-49 and 18-34 viewership gaze while original programming on other channels lost ground.
 
For instance, . Fox‘s “So You Think You Can Dance” slid 15 per cent to a 2.2/6 rating among 18-49-age-olds while NBC‘s “100 Questions” garnered approximately one-third of the “Dance” numbers at 0.7/2.
 

MUMBAI: Grey India has appointed Goral Ajmera as senior creative director – Art.

Ajmera started her career with Enterprise Nexus and has over ten years of experience in adversiting. She has worked with agencies such as Leo Burnett and O&M.
 
Prior to this appointment, Ajmer was with JWT. Her client profile includes prominent brands like Sunsilk, Dove, MTDC, Ponds, Femina, Thomas Cook, Whisper and Lux.
 
Said Grey ECD Art Karan Rawat, “Goral is exceptionally talented and brings to Grey her diverse experience. I worked with her when I started out and I am confident of her creative capabilities and believe she will be a great fit in this creative space and will surely be an asset to Grey.”
 
Added Grey NCD Malvika Mehra, “I have seen some stunning art direction from Goral in the past – I particularly love what she did on MTDC and Lux. Besides being naturally good at her craft, I also think she has the right attitude and maturity to lead a team here.”

MUMBAI: Big FM has appointed Paikar Jamal as programming head.

She will be leading the Delhi programming team to put forth a creative mix for the city. In her new role, Jamal will report to Delhi station head Ashwin Padmanabhan. 
 
Jamal brings with her an experience spanning 13 years in radio programming across both the Indian and international markets.
Prior to joining Big FM, Jamal was with Arabian Radio Network (network of International FM Stations) in the capacity of a senior producer. She was also playing the role of a jockey for their most popular programme “bend it like city” and was based out of Dubai. 
 
Padmanabhan said, “Paikar‘s hands on experience in working as an RJ and producer coupled with her rich industry expertise promises to work as a huge advantage to the station.”
 
Jamal said, “Delhi is a melting pot for people with diverse language and cultural backgrounds and I look forward to giving them relevant content that engages and enriches their lives. I am hopeful that with the extremely charged programming team, we will be able to offer Delhi, clutter breaking and innovative programming that will keep them tuned in to the station.”
 

MUMBAI: Reliance Media Worlds has formed Big Connect, a 200-people sales team, which will use all the company verticals and reliance ADAG‘s Big Cinemas and Zapak, to offer integrated and holistic marketing solutions to clients.

The different business verticals of the group include radio (Big 92.7 FM), out-of-home (Big Street), experiential marketing (Big Live) and the mobile and online space (Big Digital). 
 
Big Connect, a part of the key account management for RMWL, is being created as a sales team to integrate and sell all the various options the company can provide to clients. 
 
RMWL CEO Tarun Katial said, “Our integrated approach to re-align RMWL with emerging consumer dynamics is resulting in new expectations from clients. The re-alignment will enable the company to leverage the cohesive strength of different media platforms within RMWL and Reliance ADAG in a proactive and strategic manner. We are confident that this integrated approach will help us strengthen market leadership as it firmly lays the foundation for an exciting future ahead.”
 
However, the company is not trying to break into the advertising agencies space as it does not want to get into creating campaigns for their customers. Instead it wishes to provide a place wherein a customer can use all media forms available in the urban and rural areas to hit the consumer at multiple times, be it radio, out-of-home, streets, online, mobile and other mediums in the future, to have maximum impact.