Category: MAM

MUMBAI: ‘Maruti Wagon R‘ has been able to create the highest brand experience followed by ‘Maruti Alto‘, reveals the latest study by TNS.

At the same time, Tata Nano‘s brand experience is the lowest among the 18 brands studied. The success of Wagon R is evident from the fact that it has been able to displace ‘Hyundai Santro‘ from the top position and is able to garner a higher brand experience than the larger selling Maruti Alto.
 
 
The study findings also show that `word of mouth‘, `test drive‘ and `cars on the road‘ are among the five most influential contacts apart from TV and newspaper ads. The influence of the word of mouth has grown over last three years and that of newspaper ads has actually come down.

Still the car marketers spend a huge amount of money on full page ads in newspapers and very little is spent on buzz marketing. Predictably, the influence of manufacturer websites has grown over the years. The younger age group notices the websites more than the older age group. The influence of test drives has also shown a consistent rise. Once again the younger people seem to experience the test drives more than the older buyers. 
 
Majority of car companies use celebrities in their advertisements. Overall influence of celebrities is low in the category but has been increasing. The older age groups notice celebrities less than the younger age groups. The influence of car test reviews on TV has been going up and they are viewed more by the younger buyers. It is understandable because a moving car shown on TV with accompanying expert comments is more interesting and informative than a press article. However, the advantage of a press article is its easy irretrievability when required. But the younger generation constantly up on the learning curve can probably do the same on the YouTube and such other internet portals.

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don‘t know which half” said John Wanamaker, a visionary businessman of America.

“Today, almost a hundred years later, his statement still sounds refreshingly true” says TNS Automotive SVP Pradeep Saxena. According to him, all brands build relationships with their stakeholders by creating a brand experience. If this brand experience can be quantified, then John Wanamaker could possibly get his answer.
 
The key challenge in measuring the brand experience is identifying a common unit to measure the effect of different media. As per Saxena, Integration – a company owned by ex-media and advertising professionals, has developed just such a unit. It is a measure called ‘Brand Experience Point‘ or BEP. It measures the quantity of brand experience created by a brand through individual contacts (media) used by it. This is a common unit, which can be used across all contacts and is amenable to all arithmetic operations.

The Contact Point Optimization (CPO for short) study of TNS uses this concept to compare the Brand Experience generated by various car brands. It is a study conducted across ten media markets amongst recent buyers and current owners of cars in addition to the intending car buyers.
 

MUMBAI: aMap has stitched a contract with Tata Sky, securing the company‘s DTH audience measurement business.
Under the agreement, aMap will provide DTH viewership and interactive service usage data through their syndicated DTH measurement panel, aMap Digital. 
 
Says Tata Sky CMO Vikram Mehra, “With a subscriber base of 4.5 million, Tata Sky has played a significant role in the growth and development of the DTH sector that is poised to touch the 40-50 million mark by 2015. At the stage that the industry is in, we think it‘s time that efforts are made to understand and measure the audience viewing habits of these viewers better and are excited to associate with, aMap.”

aMap Digital uses a proprietary – format independent content identification – technology which measures all types of interaction with the TV, be it digital broadcast, use of interactive service or time-shifted viewing. 
 
Adds aMap CEO Joseph Eapen, adds, “DTH measurement is vital for the industry as it will manifest the true choice of the viewers, as the DTH space is devoid of placement games, last mile chaos and related influence. It is a boon to niche channels as well.”
 
aMap is known for its overnight ratings system in the analogue space. aMap Digital now covers the Digital space.

MUMBAI: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has pulled mobile service operators Reliance Communication and Idea Cellular for running misleading ad campaigns for the period from July to October 2009.
 
ASCI has said that Reliance Communications‘ television campaign (TVC) of ‘fastest mobile broadband service in India‘ has failed to substantiate its claim, after comparing data of other mobile services.
 
Another Telecom operator Idea Cellular has been pulled up for its TVC ‘Walk When you Talk.‘ According to ASCI, the TVC encouraged unsafe act of talking on the phone while walking on the road.
 

MUMBAI: Global Advertisers, the outdoor advertising agency headquartered in Mumbai, is pushing for a 45-50 per cent revenue growth in 2010.

Says Global Advertisers MD and chairman Sanjeev Gupta, “We are going to post a 15-20 per cent growth in our revenues this year and and as we see 2010 to behave fertile for the advertising industry once again, we expect to witness a 45-50 per cent revenue growth during the year.”
 
According to Gupta, the sectors that have contributed most towards the company’s revenue growth are retail and FMCG. “While retail contributed almost 40 per cent to the total revenue, FMCG added about 20-25 per cent,” he says.

Gupta further notes that though profit from the retail sector was not much, “its demand for outdoor advertising had increased and as a result, our vacancies were utilised.”
 
The other sectors that have added to the agency’s revenue pie are automobile, banking, construction, electronics, film industry, garment and jewellery.

With the advent of the New Year, Global Advertisers, which derives 70 per cent of its revenues from local clients, is expecting to increase its client base by 20-25 per cent.
 
“For 2010, our main focus will be to tap the local market further and increase the entertainment industry profile portfolio too. We are also coming up with new ideas and various innovative schemes to attract even very small clients.”

Meanwhile, with the total advertising market poised to grow by 10.5 per cent this year (ZenithOptimedia 2009 report), Gupta expects out-of-home to contribute 10-15 per cent to the total growth.
 

MUMBAI: Sony Entertainment Television (Set) has partnered with online matrimonial site Shaadi.com for its new show Rishta.com. Produced by YRF TV, Rishta.com is a one-hour fiction that debuts on the channel on 3 January.

Says Set marketing head Danish Khan, “To market the show, it was necessary to go online and Shaadi.com was a perfect fit. Both Shaadi.com and Rishta.com are targeted towards like-minded consumers. Thus a synergy made a lot of marketing sense.”
 
The tie up, symbiotic in nature, is a long-standing deal between the two properties. Says Set spokesperson, “Initially the deal will introduce three stages. However, going further, more innovations would be done.”

Firstly, a microsite of Rishta.com will feature on Shaadi.com, thus, helping market the show the online way.
 
Also, at a pre-designated time every month, the lead characters of the show will chat with prospective Shaadi.com members and help them find their partner.

Finally, the show will involve the lead characters going to ‘Shaadi Point‘, where they will meet up with prospective people and help them in choosing their partners.
 
Rishta.com is a show on how searching for the right partner has evolved from traditional means to using online matrimonial services because of the change in lifestyle.

The show that has Alpenliebe as the title sponsor will air every Sunday at 8 pm.

MUMBAI: SBI Life Insurance is launching a new television campaign with a major focus on the emerging tier II and tier III towns.

According to SBI Life Insurance, inspite of 22 private players operating in India post opening up of the life insurance sector, the market still remains hugely underpenetrated. The apathy is further aided by poor understanding of products and their core benefits – thus, leading to consumer inertia towards insurance.
 
“This, however, not only gave us an insight into the huge opportunity to take the lead towards aligning the category benefits with the consumer needs,” said SBI Life head brand & communications Chandramohan Mehra,

“We are sharply focusing on the target group in the emerging tier II and tier III towns who we define as “the new thirties on their way to accomplish bigger dreams,” Mehra added. 
 
Playing on the tagline, ‘Celebrate Life‘, the commercial has been conceptualised by Ogilvy and Mather. The communication strategy looks at enabling a clear articulation of the life insurance benefits by simplifying and developing a message that consumers resonate with it.

Said Ogilvy and Mather SVP Asheesh Malhotra, “In contrast to most players who focus their efforts on the archetypal metro audience with propositions that overlap each other and often fail to create brand differentiation, the SBI Life commercial not only breaks clutter but manages to reach to a far wider audience.”
 
Produced by Chrome Productions, the creative director of the TVC is Nitin Pradhan.

Said Ogilvy & Mather (India) chairman Piyush Pandey, “We have always reached out to people and connected with them emotionally. And this new commercial is a fresh and romantic take on a young couple‘s dreams of their older age.”
 

MUMBAI:The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) have joined hands in an attempt to develop the digital advertisement business that comprises banner, classified and search marketing.
 
The IAMAI is the representative body of internet and mobile value added services companies including all leading online publishers in India.

Said AAAI JWT India chief executive officer Colvyn Harris, “The lack of strong partnership between the publishers and agencies was a critical impediment to the growth of the digital advertising business. The partnership will fill that gap and offer an opportunity to replicate the success of print and electronic media, where such partnerships have existed for a long time.”
 
Through this partnership, both, the AAAI and the IAMAI aim to grow digital advertisement, put good business practices and processes in place and streamline payment process for publishers as well as agencies.
 
As per the partnership, terms of the agreement would be applicable only to the members of the AAAI and IAMAI.

NEW DELHI: Can one get rid of pesky mosquitoes by using a mobile handset as a mosquito repellant?

Apparently yes, if one goes by the claims of Micromax and the MTV music channel, which will introduce a buzzing sound that the blood-suckers are unable to tolerate and so will keep away from the person holding the handset.
 
MTV, which has forayed into everything from shoes to credit cards, has now tied up with Micromax to launch a new range of mobile handsets that among other things contains a range of the best music on 3-D surround sound.

The handset is priced at a maximum retail price of Rs 5,000 but Micromax executive director Rahul Sharma said it would be sold at the market operating price of Rs 3,750. The instrument will have hand-picked Indian and international music from MTV, high fidelity earphones with noise cancellation, and a 1.3 MP camera. The instrument has the facility of long-life battery, dual sim and will be launched by March 2010. A total of five instruments will be introduced during the year.
 
VIACOM 18 VP (communications and consumer products) Sandeep Dahiya said the agreement with MTV was on a year-to-year licensing deal but extendable. He said royalty will also be paid by Micromax on every set sold by it, though these will be on ‘special rates’. He said the instruments would also be sold at stores selling MTV products and music.
 
Sharma said requisite permissions had been taken from Health authorities by the R&D team before installing the mosquito repellant sound in the set.
 

MUMBAI: Ignitee Digital Solutions has partnered with Om Books International to launch a digital media handbook titled, ‘Honey I Shrunk the World‘.
 
Targeted at the global audience, the book is a guide on the online marketing platform, aiming to provide details and statistics on online consumption, behavior patterns across global regions and digital marketing domains.

Said Ignitee Digital Solutions vice chairman V Ramani, “The online space is witnessing rapid movement over the past decade. Corporates, marketing gurus, brand managers and even the lay internet users have understood the power of the digital medium in terms of communication and engagement. We at Ignitee have always believed that knowledge is best utilized when it is shared amongst people and this book is a true testimony of that.”
 
The book spans nine global regions including Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Middle East, North America, Oceanic and South America. ‘Honey I Shrunk The World‘ also features detailed numbers of markets within each of these regions along with information on top sites and net surfing behaviour of consumers. 
 
Said Hegde, “Honey I Shrunk the World has been designed to empower, educate and entertain various audiences like digital media professionals, brand managers, marketers and students interested in learning the ropes of this industry and digital consumers who are always on the lookout for new and interesting nuggets that the internet has to offer.”

MUMBAI: 141Sercon, a WPP company that specializes in executing effective business events and below-the-line marketing initiatives, has launched the “1Click, 1Tree” online initiative.
 
The CSR (corporate social responsibility) activity will talk on climate change and ask consumers to sow at least on plant of their choice.

The agency will utilize the digital medium to spread the awareness. As per industry sources, 141Sercon is spending close to Rs 5,00,000 on the activation process.
 
The campaign will be high across five cities that include Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. 
 
Says 141Sercon managing director Vijay Singh, “While digital will remain the root platform to spread awareness about the campaign, the implementation of the drive will be on-ground of course.”