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Tag: Deepak Kumar

  • Gaurav Nabh and Deepak Kumar launch Thrive

    Gaurav Nabh and Deepak Kumar launch Thrive

    Mumbai:  After successfully building the full-service digital agency Korra over the last five years, seasoned creative and marketing experts Gaurav Nabh and Deepak Kumar launched Thrive, a new-age creative capital.  Through Thrive, both Gaurav and Deepak aim to bring their expertise and experience to new-age and digitally native brands, support them with their brand story and infuse them with capital to accelerate their growth. While Gaurav Nabh served as the founder and CEO of Korra, Deepak Kumar, served as the agency’s chief creative officer.

    Thrive will infuse new-age brands with a unique incubation platform. Focused on partnering with early-stage direct-to-consumer brands, Thrive will guide them with their narrative, go-to-market strategy, ROI-based media and content. Thrive will support brands with creative and capital investment, thus enabling founders to focus on their growth story and scaling their business.

    Having spent over two decades in marketing consulting and having worked closely with brands of all sizes, Gaurav has led multiple successful brand launches in India during his roles at NIIT, Virgin Mobile & Telenor. He has served as the Chief Marketing Officer at fast fashion brand Koovs and led a digital consulting business at GroupM.  Deepak on the other hand has over 15 years of experience in building brands like Mamaearth, Uber, Taco Bell and Land Rover along with agencies like Ogilvy, Havas and Wunderman Dubai. His work has won him several metals at Cannes, New York Festival and ADFEST along the years.

    Speaking on Thrive’s creative capital, Thrive founder Gaurav Nabh said, “Having been a part of the industry for over 2 decades, we believe that the world has changed, and brands are being built in more guerilla ways than ever. Advertising today is no longer limited to a campaign and brands with a purpose coupled with strong brand narratives will have a better right to win. Thrive is founded with the idea to partner with founders, who are building for the audiences of today, a consumer who is far more aware, educated and conscious of their choices. We believe founders today need the right advice backed by experience, relevant brand narratives, razor-sharp creativity and creative capital to grow. Whether it is finding a brand’s purpose, helping scale business through new product introductions and launches or even disrupting with never-seen-before brand marketing and content, Thrive will change how new-age brands are built.”

    “No brand is born to just survive but Thrive. We believe brands thrive when the brand partners directly collaborate with marketers and founders and own outcomes more than owning ideas. Having built a couple of unicorn brands, including India’s biggest IPO in 2023, we believe that our creative capital infusion will enable brands to find new ways of creating brand love. This begins with handpicking talent across industries and looking beyond traditional solutions. We are sure that the next generation of brands will be built on creative capital and Thrive is well positioned to support them on their journey.” added Thrive co-founder Deepak Kumar.

    Built to help brands in a highly dynamic environment, Thrive has partnered with brands in the sexual wellness, personal care, pet food, and fintech category.  Thrive is already working with brands across Reckitt, Nestle India, DS Group, and RP Sanjiv Goenka Group as they launch.

  • Dentsu International merges The Story Lab with C’Lab in India

    Dentsu International merges The Story Lab with C’Lab in India

    NEW DELHI: Dentsu International has announced the merger of its celebrity, influencer, and sports marketing division C’Lab with its global branded content division The Story Lab (TSL) in India. Deepak Kumar, erstwhile director C’Lab, will now lead the business in India as country head TSL.

    The unification of these two agencies is aimed at simplifying clients’ needs in the content space and leverage TSL’s footprint and IPs across the globe. The merged entity will operate under the TSL brand and further strengthen its foundation in the country. 

    For the record, TSL is a global content specialist that inspires and delivers innovative content solutions. These solutions, in-turn, help in creating connect with audiences and thus, deliver value to clients and partners. Some of its popular IPs are Game of Clones, Ninja Warrior, No Sleep No FOMO, and a host of other exclusive IPs and branded content properties. C'Lab, meanwhile, specialises in creating tactical content in the space of sports and entertainment. In its last three years of operations in India, C’Lab has created some very effective campaigns with celebrities and influencers.

    With the merger of these two entities, TSL will work with brands to innovate the art of storytelling. It will also introduce global learnings into the local market, infused with local understanding. The merged capability will help enhance the current offering and provide access to global IPs with local flavor.

    Kumar said, “‘Content is king’ is an old adage but the relevance continues. Its significance, in fact, has increased manifold during the lockdown and further fueled with the advent of newer platforms. It’s an exciting and challenging time to be in this business wherein harnessing a brand’s interest and relevance to the consumer will be the key guiding force for us.”

    dentsu COO India – media brands Haresh Nayak added, “As we enter an era of simplification, this move will only help clients achieve single-window content solutions. TSL will redefine content across multi-platforms and multi-devices, offering brands immersive experiences. Our global and local experiences will only help brands to get the best of both worlds.”

  • Posterscope India announces key elevations and leadership changes

    Posterscope India announces key elevations and leadership changes

    NEW DELHI: Posterscope India, location-based marketing specialist from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), has announced the elevation of Deepak Kumar to the role of director, while Fabian Cowan dons the new enhanced role of country head, effective immediately. They will continue to report to Haresh Nayak, president, Posterscope APAC & COO DAN Media Brands.

    Under the fresh mandate, Kumar will continue to lead Ambient, ROOH, C Lab. Additionally, he will also take charge of Brandscope, the hyperlocal out of home specialist under DAN. Kumar joined Posterscope Group as vice president in 2013. Prior to that, Kumar was with Times of India.

    In the new expanded role, Cowan will be responsible for scaling up Posterscope’s business, nationwide and drive growth for the budding entities – Eunoia and Indeed Smart City. He joined Posterscope India in 2011, and today boasts of an advertising career straddling over 26 years. 

    “The agency’s endeavour is to build on the organisation’s strength and continue to drive data-led technology and creatively fuelled solutions for clients. Over the years, Deepak and Fabian have significantly contributed towards this vision. They have played a pivotal role in introducing new services and even accelerating the growth. Their valuable experience across the space and the proven track record of success has earned them additional responsibility. I believe, in the new role, Deepak and Fabian will take our business to greater heights,” said Nayak.

    Kumar said, “I am truly honoured by the appointment and the confidence placed in me by the leadership team. In the new role, I will strive to strengthen our brands, build powerful client-agency relationships, and bring value to the industry. I have always believed that a leader’s true strength is revealed in challenging times. The Corona phase is the testing time and I have geared up to make a breakthrough.”

    Cowan said, “Follow your curiosity, wherever you can find it – This quote from Anna Holmes has kept me excited about the things I do every day. From out of home, and ambient in my earlier stint when I started at Posterscope to leading creative, smart city and government initiatives now the challenges have never ceased and the curiosity to explore has only kept manifesting itself. This is an opportunity I am looking forward to and I know that I have a team and a belief system that will make this a very exciting phase professionally”

  • C-LAB creates hustle and bustle with MTV India, JBL association

    C-LAB creates hustle and bustle with MTV India, JBL association

    MUMBAI: C-LAB, the influencer marketing company under Dentsu Aegis Network is the catalyst for the recent association between JBL and MTV for its new property called Hustle. With an aim to strengthen the power of collective action and scale up growth as well as visibility, C-LAB banked on its proprietary big data AI platforms, to break down the music choices and genre affinities of the relevant target audiences. The revealed data guided the agency to strike an association between JBL and MTV Hustle. This association will provide a massive platform to the hip-hop and rap genre and take it to a wider audience in India.

    Staying true to its promise of delivering the best music experiences, JBL will be seen across various segments of the show from JBL Dare to Hustle – the final rap battle every week to JBL Xtreme performance of the week. For those dreaming about their moment of fame, JBL will also launch a special social media contest where consumers will be offered the opportunity to upload video entries of them rapping their respective stories. The top ten shortlisted entries will have a LIVE battle on Facebook LIVE and Insta LIVE. The brand has also created a special TVC that will be aired during the show.

    “The mandate of our Indian youth is clear, culture-defining music like rap and hip-hop will no longer be confined to the underground. With MTV Hustle, JBL will provide the platform to India’s budding wordsmiths who deserve the grand stage. We are excited to partner with MTV and take the rap and hip-hop revolution to a wider audience,” said HARMAN India country manager Pradeep Chaudhry.

    Adding to this, Viacom18 head – youth, music and English entertainment Ferzad Palia said, “With hip hop being India’s next big trend, we believe MTV Hustle will be a genre-defining platform. We are delighted to have JBL as our partner in pushing the envelope further in the independent music genre. As a brand that offers the most sought-after music experiences, JBL is a seamless fit to our intent of giving the budding talent in the country a rightful place and offering our audience the most disruptive content.”

    Commenting on the association, C-LAB EVP Deepak Kumar said, “As a specialised agency it's our prerogative to suggest the appropriate platforms for our brands. Taking into consideration the aspirations of both the brands, we decided to bring the legendary audio brand, JBL to partner with India’s number one youth entertainment brand, MTV. JBL’s brand essence is the perfect fit for MTV’s TG. We are confident that this association will offer the audience a gripping and enjoyable experience. Additionally, the fate of any association is defined by its viewership and we believe we have taken the right measures to contribute to MTV’s expectations of 5 billion minutes of watch time for the second half of the year.”

  • ASICS India collaborates with Ambient OOH to amplify #PaceToGlory

    ASICS India collaborates with Ambient OOH to amplify #PaceToGlory

    MUMBAI: Japanese high-performance sports brand, ASICS in collaboration with Ambient OOH hosted a range of engagement activities to further amplify the #PaceToGlory campaign. The #PaceToGlory campaign is a combination of the brand’s commitment in making India fit and their core value of delivering high-performance sportswear. The objective of the campaign is to inspire people of all ages and abilities to move more and enjoy the physical and mental benefits of exercise.

    Keeping in mind the spirit of the ICC Cricket World Cup there couldn’t be a better time to leverage this activation in Delhi and Mumbai. Additionally, cricket being a very important segment for ASICS globally, they have titled Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar as its brand ambassadors in India as their attributes like pace, rhythm and perfect timing resonates highly with the brand.

    The #PaceToGlory on ground activation encouraged participants to wear the ASICS shoes available at the kiosk and run on a spot that had motion calibrated to the screen. On running faster, the avatar of Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar was unveiled. Those unveiling the image in the least amount of time won vouchers from ASICS.

    As part of the second engagement activity named Pace to Store, participants had to slip on the ASICS shoes and put on the complete cricket gear. Post which they had to run towards the store in the least amount of time and on completion their time was displayed on the leaderboard. To increase the excitement, participants could share their warm wishes and messages to the India Cricket team through the Wishing Wall available at the venue.

    The idea of bringing together a whole lot of engagement, a pinch of challenge and a complete product experience generated the necessary attraction for the brand. The two-week long activation is an extension of the brand’s marketing philosophy, focused on the 70-year philosophy of ‘making people move’. The activation executed at malls across Delhi and Mumbai garnered 1500+ engagements and 2.5 lakh impressions.

    Speaking on the campaign, Ambient OOH EVP Deepak Kumar said, “The enthusiasm around the World Cup fever has been steep, while our Cricketers were sporting ASICS gears on field, so spotting an ASICS activation on ground naturally takes the excitement up a notch. Additionally, ASICS and Ambient offered audiences an opportunity to experience the comfort and grip that our sportsmen have been raving about. Pace to Glory is a one of a kind, purpose led initiative and we feel privileged to be a part of the same.”

  • Posterscope launches ROOH – Digital OOH Ad Exchange

    Posterscope launches ROOH – Digital OOH Ad Exchange

    MUMBAI: Posterscope India, the out-of-home specialist from Dentsu Aegis Network, has announced the launch of ROOH (Real Time Out Of Home), a unique planning-buying platform (including programmatic) for digital OOH inventories.

    Based on the extensive use of APIs (application programming interface), Posterscope’s ROOH uses a wide variety of data feeds to create customised and targeted advertising. The tool aims to help Posterscope to further strengthen and bolster its real-time capabilities in India as billings from digital OOH are estimated to grow at a rate of 60 per cent by the end of 2019.

    With the launch of ROOH, Posterscope India has collated and brought together more than 60,000 digital screens on a single platform. This tool not only uses analytics around the screen when consumers frequenting the location but also exploits Dentsu Aegis Network’s research, insights and planning tool – CCS (Consumer Connections Study Planner) along with Dan Explore (a tool that examines consumer passion points) to arrive at the right screen mix for the brand to help optimise the plan.

    Posterscope Group South Asia group MD Haresh Nayak said, "The ability to deliver dynamic content in real time, driven by highly relevant data and optimised to audience type and audience mindset, represents an enormous leap in the power of the OOH medium. I am certain that it will attract new advertisers to the medium, particularly those that need highly flexible and agile brand communication."

    ROOH senior vice president Deepak Kumar said, “Over the last two years, we have worked across 2500 towns, dealing with over 50 key media owners, to develop this tool. This has helped us in understanding and curating ROOH. The flexibility of ROOH will enable some interesting campaigns and will make OOH truly a dynamic medium. The Posterscope Group predicts that the year 2020 will be a defining year for real time out of home.”

    During the test phase, Posterscope India activated programmatic triggers, specific to time and location, with multiple creatives on a limited number of screens to observe market reaction. “In turn, the agency observed exponential increase in client queries to understand the medium so that it could help them execute their campaigns more effectively. Currently, BFSI, mobile, e commerce and automobile categories are at the forefront of usage of this tool,” a press statement shares.

    Only accessed by its planning team now, Posterscope will soon extend ROOH’s access to its clients and partners. ROOH will provide insights and data to them – right from the brief stage juxtaposed against consumer analytics that will help then detect and decipher the apt triggers for their campaign. Human intervention, then, will be limited and utilised only if necessary.

  • CLab, Dentsu Impact team up for V-Mart’s latest campaign

    CLab, Dentsu Impact team up for V-Mart’s latest campaign

    MUMBAI: V-Mart Retail has partnered with Dentsu Impact and CLab, to launch its new campaign introducing the Bollywood pair of Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar as brand ambassadors.

    V-Mart Retail commenced operations in 2003 and has grown to become one of the most preferred destinations for all fashion and lifestyle needs for consumers residing in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. With a presence across 14 states with 176 stores across 148 cities, V-Mart caters to approximately four crore customers every year. According to a data compiled by Bloomberg, V-Mart, which has recently been conferred as the ‘world’s best performing department stores chain this year’, is one of the leading value-retailers of the country and caters to the aspirational middle class residing in tier-2,3 and 4 cities across India.

    V-Mart Retail senior vice president of marketing and operations Snehal Shah says, “We are super-excited to associate with young talents like Ayushmann and Bhumi. We are a brand that believes in hard work, understands the requirements and dreams of the country that resides outside the reach of metros. It is these beliefs and values which make both Ayushmann and Bhumi a great fit to represent us as our brand ambassadors. Making their way into the tinsel town through sheer hard work and talent, their stories are what connects and resembles with V-Mart’s DNA and that of the millions enduring through daily struggle and yet daring to dream big.”

    The association was designed by CLab, the entertainment and sports marketing arm of Dentsu Aegis Network. CLab vice president Deepak Kumar mentions, “We are extremely happy to have crafted a successful alignment between the celebrities and V-Mart. Our approach for the brand was based principally on factors of immediacy, quick recognition and response, relevancy and lastly demographic integration and acceptance.”

    CLab has been set up under the mentorship of Haresh Nayak who is the managing director at Posterscope India. He says, “We have evolved from the time in which celebrity endorsements were a product of gut feeling and perception to the time which involves intelligent and scientific planning for celebrity-brand matchmaking. With Star Matrix, our proprietary celebrity recommendation tool, our vision is to bring accountability and informed decision making in a discipline which functions on probability and gut feeling of advertisers in getting celebrities/sports personalities to associate with their brands.”

  • DAN launches data-driven celebrity endorsement and sports marketing agency ‘CLab’

    DAN launches data-driven celebrity endorsement and sports marketing agency ‘CLab’

    MUMBAI: With the launch of CLab, the media and advertising conglomerate Dentsu Aegis Network, which operates 25 businesses in India, has expanded its footprint into celebrity endorsement and sports marketing.

    CLab will deliver solutions that range from brand endorsements, brand integrations, property and content creation to digital associations and sports marketing offerings including in-stadia branding, image rights, associations, activations, live events and appearances.

    CLab aims to introduce actionable insights with informed decision-making into the process of celebrity endorsement. Therefore, to address the existing gaps and evolving nuances of the industry, the unit has developed, The Star Matrix, a unique celebrity insights tool. The tool enables both, qualitative and quantitative learning, of the celebrity’s social sphere, giving a deeper understanding of their multifarious influence vis-à-vis their social interactions.

    Dentsu Aegis Network – South Asia chairman and CEO Ashish Bhasin said, “We hope to bring a data-based, scientific approach in the area of establishing brand image with the help of celebrity endorsers under CLab.”

    CLab ‘mentor’ Posterscope MD Haresh Nayak said, “Our vison with CLab is to bring accountability and informed decision-making in a discipline which functions on perception, probability and gut feeling of advertisers.

    CLab aims to break the myth of notional acceptability that has its roots in experimentation rather than information. A team of experts is now in place at CLab to deliver it.”

    CLab VP Deepak Kumar said, “If we look at celebrity and sports marketing separately, the two might differ in their operational mechanism but the driving force is common. People, popularity, occasions and influence share the common angle, governing the dynamics of the business. We took timely cognizance of the lacunae and (formed CLab).”

  • Posterscope launches measurement tool Ambit Analyser

    Posterscope launches measurement tool Ambit Analyser

    MUMBAI: In a bid to attract well-thought-through investments into the growing out-of-home (OOH) category of ambient media, Ambient OOH has designed and launched a new path breaking research tool to drive away advertisers’ woes. Ambient OOH, the ambient media agency under Dentsu Aegis Network’s Posterscope umbrella, has invested a substantial amount towards the crafting and development of this new research matrix.

     

    Ambient media is all about capturing captive audiences who spend considerable amount of their leisure time at various active locations such as gyms, coffee shops, multiplexes, clubs, salons and shopping malls. Therefore, in a bid to develop the new tool, Ambient OOH took the help of Dentsu Aegis Network’s proprietary research study – the Outdoor Consumer Survey (OCS) that aided in analysing the target audience touch-points. 

     

    Ambit Analyser will help craft a rationalised multi touch-point plan across more than 24 dwell time locations that house captive audiences. Also, given Ambit Analyser’s system design, the plans can be fashioned within much lesser time and with more accuracy.

     

    As part of the development process of Ambit Analyser, Ambient OOH graded each property across the various touch points on multiple factors including footfalls, trade density, ticket pricing and thus, arrived at a visibility index. The tool has been linked to the OCS, which has a sample size of 12,000+ respondents. It has also incorporated the data for 24 touch-points across metros, mini metros and tier II cities.

      

    Dentsu Aegis Network chairman & CEO South Asia, Posterscope and psLive – Asia Pacific chairman Ashish Bhasin said, “Posterscope’s Ambient OOH has done pioneering work in developing Ambient Analyser. Ambient media is becoming extremely important and has very little research and tools available. So, in keeping with Dentsu Aegis Network’s leadership status in OOH, we felt that the time was right to make this large investment in a proprietary tool, the only one of its kind in India.”

     

    Posterscope Asia Pacific regional director and Posterscope Group managing director Haresh Nayak added, “Ambient OOH is the future and, with the growth of digital and technology in this space, it will lead to accountable and engaging communication with the consumer in a relaxed mind frame. Ambit Analyser is one such initiative to give our clients a first of its kind, accountable and impactful campaign, leading to physical and digital engagement.”

     

    Ambient OOH vice president Deepak Kumar said, “Currently, ambient media in India is extremely fragmented and diverse in nature. And with no comparative data to fall back on, each media owner claims to be the best. Simultaneously, advertisers are constantly pressing on media effectiveness and efficient ROI. Hence, there was a need for transparency and accountability for advertisers to have trust on the ambient media touch-points.”