Brands
Economic slowdown impacted ad spend in H2 2019
MUMBAI: Economic slowdown in 2019 brought the country, as well as the media industry, to a standstill. It visibly impacted advertising spends. This view was shared by advertisers present during the sixteenth edition of the Video and Broadband Summit 2019 that took place on 11 December in Mumbai.
The panel was moderated by indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, with panellists ITC Ltd head media and PR Jaikishin Chhaproo, Havas Media Group managing partner west and south Kunal Jamuar, Godrej Consumers Pvt Ltd VP and head of media services Subha Sreenivasan Iyer and Madison Media vice president Vandana Ramkrishna.
Chhaproo, in his opening statement, said, “There has been a yo-yo syndrome since January 2019 and the only two media-mela events (Indian Premier League and World Cup) in the first half of the financial year saw some advertisement growth.”
He further added that since June people have been quite cautious about advertisement spend.
Agreeing to Chhaproo’s perspective, Jamuar said, “2019 has been something like that of 2008 double dip. And, with respect to advertisement spend on television is as similar as of last year.” Many of Havas Media Group’s clients are from the auto and finance sectors.
All of the four panellists were of the view that along with other sectors, the advertisement spends on television has also been slow and has hardly seen any growth this year.
Accepting the slowdown in the market, Iyer said, “This year had made us re-look at all our advertising plans due to lack of resources and we have been far more prudent in terms of evaluating the need for further spend with quantifiable ROI."
Meanwhile, Ramkrishna believes that one of the reasons for the slowdown could be because of the poor performance of world economies.
According to Ramkrishna, her agency being associated with retail brands, the festive season has not turned up to be a happening one. Adding further, she said people are very cautious on spends and there’s a fear that the economy is going to crash.
However, despite facing a slowdown, Iyer said that in terms of volume, the company’s growth is very strong, which is a positive sign. This goes with competitors as well, especially, in the FMCG sector.
She added, “Consumers are not completely cutting down on their basic essentials, especially in segments where value for money is core.”
In the same context, ITC’s PR head said, “Consumers seek value for money and this is what is happening in the current economic situation. Moreover, there have been steady volumes all over.”
Ramkrishna, talking about NTO’s impact on advertising spend, said, “GEC and movie channels continue to be there and the new order has hardly affected the brands' television spends.” However, she pointed out that the smaller set of channels will certainly have an adverse effect.
GPCL’s media head said there has been a vast difference between DTH and cable networks in data capturing granularity and that helps brands to decide on advertising spends on television.
Havas Media’s managing partner questioned the importance of a proper measurement of audiences’ rating that has seen improvement after DTH’s existence. He said, “Today, niche channels are offering niche content, making the existing eco-system a bit difficult.”
Iyer said that companies are ready to test any medium, just that accurate third party data is needed.
Brands
Ahmad Muneeb elevated to VP – HR centre of excellence at Zepto
MUMBAI: Zepto has elevated Ahmad Muneeb to vice president – HR centre of excellence, placing him at the helm of the company’s total rewards, executive compensation and organisational effectiveness as the quick-commerce firm powers through a high-growth phase.
The move follows his stint as senior director of the HR COE, where he played a central role in preparing the company for IPO readiness while scaling its people analytics capabilities. During this period, Muneeb helped align complex performance management structures with more streamlined and scalable employee experience frameworks.
In his new role, he will steer the design of total rewards strategies, executive compensation planning and organisational design, while also overseeing performance management, employee experience initiatives and people analytics programmes.
Before joining Zepto, Muneeb spent nearly three years at Meesho, where he held multiple rewards and HR business partner roles. Earlier in his career, he worked as a senior rewards consultant at Mercer, advising high-tech clients on compensation benchmarking, pay structures and talent-focused reward frameworks.
He began his hr journey at Cognizant, where he supported compensation programmes for nearly two lakh employees across India and worked on m&a compensation alignment and skill-based pay initiatives. Prior to moving into HR, Muneeb started his career as a software engineer at Netcracker, bringing a technical grounding to his people strategy work.
With a mix of consulting rigour, start-up agility and enterprise-scale experience, Muneeb’s elevation signals Zepto’s continued focus on building robust people systems as it races towards its next phase of growth.
Brands
Dell names Aishwarya Sudhakar director of marketing intelligence
INDIA: Dell Technologies is doubling down on artificial intelligence in marketing. The company has elevated Aishwarya Sudhakar to director of marketing measures and intelligence engineering, tasking her with building an enterprise-wide framework for AI-led measurement and customer intelligence.
In the role, Sudhakar will oversee unified data strategy, advanced modelling and context engineering: areas increasingly central to how large technology firms link marketing performance to business outcomes. Her remit includes shaping scalable systems that support Dell’s next phase of AI deployment across marketing functions.
Sudhakar steps into the position after holding a series of senior roles at Dell, including AI lead for marketing orchestration, senior manager, and senior data scientist in customer insights. Across these roles, she led global teams working on large-scale machine learning models, data pipelines and customer analytics.
Before joining Dell, she began her career at Tata Consultancy Services as a systems engineer and later founded Oclor, a shopping discovery start-up, where she built end-to-end technology platforms. The combination of enterprise-scale data work and entrepreneurial experience has shaped her focus on product-led, engineering-first innovation.
As technology companies seek sharper attribution and intelligence in an AI-saturated market, Dell’s move underscores the growing importance of marketing measurement as an engineering discipline rather than a reporting function.
Brands
Gaurav Pathak returns to Adidas in key accounts leadership role
GURUGRAM: Adidas has appointed Gaurav Pathak as director of key and field accounts, bringing back an executive who began his leadership career at the company.
In the role, Pathak will be responsible for deepening strategic partnerships and expanding key, field and export accounts, with a mandate to accelerate growth across the Indian market. The appointment marks a return to Adidas after nearly a decade across premium retail and footwear brands.
Pathak most recently served as head of retail and business development at Ecco, where he focused on partner-led growth, market risk mitigation and operational scale. Before that, he spent eight years at House of Anita Dongre Limited, rising to general manager and leading regional operations across western and southern India.
His earlier career includes a stint as regional sales manager for Karnataka at United Colors of Benetton India and a six-year run at Adidas, where he held sales leadership roles.
With competition intensifying in India’s lifestyle and footwear market, Pathak’s brief will centre on strengthening field execution while aligning large accounts with Adidas’s broader commercial priorities.
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