ITV

Tag: Dentsu

  • Dentsu acquires 85% stake in UK’s John Brown Media

    Dentsu acquires 85% stake in UK’s John Brown Media

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired an 85 per cent stake in UK based branded content agency John Brown Media.

     

    As per the deal, Dentsu also has an option that would allow expansion to 100 per cent shareholding after 2018.

     

    Founded in 1987, John Brown Media started out as a publisher of consumer magazines and newsletters, and then evolved into a company that provides its portfolio of high-profile, multinational clients with a range of services such as print and digital publishing, content management, website strategy and film production.

     

    In addition to the U.K., John Brown Media has offices in South Africa, Hong Kong and Dubai, facilitating the expansion of innovative content marketing services on a global scale.

     

    The Dentsu Group has to date provided its clients with services in the digital performance domain through iProspect. The acquisition of John Brown Media will strengthen the cooperative relationship that the company already has with iProspect and other Group companies, and contribute to the maximization of client ROI through highly differentiated value-added solutions.

     

    John Brown Media reported annual revenue of GBP 1.67 million for the year ended March 2014. Established in 1987, the agency has 225 employees and is headed by Andrew Hirsch as CEO.

  • Dentsu to acquire 33.3% stake in Californian sports agency

    Dentsu to acquire 33.3% stake in Californian sports agency

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Inc’s subsidiary Dentsu Sports will be acquiring a 33 per cent stake in sports agency Athletes First, LLC, which is headquartered in California.

     

    Founded in 2001, Athletes First is a full-service agency, which represents National Football League (NFL) players, NFL and college coaches, professional baseball players, individual athletes in other sports, and other sports-related clients, including broadcasters, with regard to individual contract negotiations, marketing/commercial endorsements, and other client services.

     

    The firm’s core expertise involves the representation and management of athletes and coaches associated with the NFL, a sports league, which boasts a popularity and economic scale that is unparalleled even among the four major professional sports leagues in the US. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, holds nine out of the top ten rankings for the most watched television broadcasts in the US.

     

    Athletes First has more NFL clients than any other privately-owned representation agency including the reigning NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, as well as several other high-profile NFL players including Clay Matthews, Carson Palmer, Earl Thomas, Von Miller and Jamaal Charles. Athletes First also represents ESPN broadcasters Steve Young, Ray Lewis, and Trent Dilfer, as well as NFL head coaches Chip Kelly and Jason Garrett.

     

    The Dentsu Group has to date been involved in business with sales of marketing and broadcasting rights for professional sports leagues in the US, and the investment in Athletes First will enable it to expand its array of services to its client base in terms of sports marketing and related endeavors in the United States.

     

    Going forward, Dentsu will work toward the further expansion of Athletes First’s agency business and the diversification of its sports representation, sports marketing and consulting business across the United States, and internationally as well. 

  • Industry reactions on BARC India’s first TV ratings data roll out

    Industry reactions on BARC India’s first TV ratings data roll out

    MUMBAI: The seeds for a new television measurement body were sown in 2008 and after a good seven years, on 29 April 2015, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, a joint industry body, rolled out its first set of data for week 16.

     

    Post the release of the data, BARC India said in a statement, “It’s a momentous day in the history of Indian television that will change how content consumption will be monitored and measured. The wait for the industry is over as BARC India rolls out its first set of data.”

     

    The body will be releasing data for 1lakh+ C&S markets, which corresponds to a sample size of 10,760 households. BARC India will actually monitor 12,000 sample households for this, using a stratified random sampling technique that is proven statistically. This will go up to 20,000 reporting homes, with addition of the less than 1 lakh urban markets and rural areas to represent “What India Watches” in line with the Government of India, January 2014 notification.

     

    Speaking on the industry body’s new journey, BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “I am thrilled to share the first set of Data and Highlights. Solving this puzzle has been an exciting experience and Team BARC India is proud to be creating history as the world’s largest and future ready television audience measurement service. Thanks to IBF, AAAI, ISA and all our partners for coming together and making this happen.”

     

    Just a few minutes after the first data was rolled out, BARC India chairman and ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted, “The launch of BARC India’s world class television audience measurement system makes it a historic day for the entire industry! With the implementation of @BARCIndia , the ecosystem has certainly turned absolutely transparent! @BARCIndia will certainly be the best solution to report what the nation is actually watching! I would like to thank @parthodasgupta, @paritoshZero ,#ShashiSinha,#SmitaJha & the entire @BARCIndia team for their commitment and hardwork!”

     

    According to Goenka, BARC India is committed to build a world class television audience measurement system. “With an aim to bring in utmost transparency within the ecosystem, BARC India will certainly be the best solution to report what the nation is actually watching,” added Goenka.

     

    Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO South Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “Well I think overall BARC is a great step for us as a television measurement system as for the first time we will have transparent, robust measurement. While a lot of excitement is being generated over the data but the only word of caution I would give is that this is one week data of household level. We should give it a few months time for the data to stabilize before the real trends start emerging.  A trend is formed by several data points’ and this is just one. We will have to wait for a while for more trends to emerge.”

     

     

    Times Network MD and CEO MK Anand is happy with the results as it shows the network’s strength. “We are happy that the new measurement system is finally in place. We look forward to reaping the benefits of this evolved system to the maximum. BARC is technologically advanced and is larger than the erstwhile base of meters by almost two-and-a-half times. An extended viewer base will certainly help bring in more consumers into the analysed set and improve our services to them and thus generate more value. With BARC, we have retained the No.1 spot across channels, and we continue to lead the broadcast space in the respective genres we are present in with a clear margin. Times Network’s ‘Now or Nothing’ philosophy, helps us sustain our leadership across genres with differentiated and hard hitting content and stay on top of the audience pyramid as always.”

     

    Times Now editorial director and editor in chief Arnab Goswami added, “I am delighted with the BARC numbers. It shows us dominating half the market with the other half shared between the smaller English news channels. At 9 pm, we have 2/3rds of the audience with us, with the other one third shared between the smaller channels. Proves our theory that the viewer always chooses the number one news team. In English news now, there is no number 2.”

     

    On the other hand, India Today group CEO Ashish Bagga believes that the ratings by BARC India only adds credibility to the leadership status of Aaj Tak and the trust it enjoys with the news viewers. “The channel’s superiority is backed with years of unwavering focus towards excellence in journalism. I would like to congratulate the entire team at Aaj Tak for crossing another milestone and likewise to BARC for putting together a robust measurement system,” he said.

     

    Network 18 group CEO AP Parigi said, “The first week’s data shows CNBC TV18 as the #1 English business channel, CNBC Awaaz as the #1 Hindi business channel and CNN IBN as the #2 English news channel and IBN 7 as the #6 Hindi News Channel. Colors is #1 Hindi General Entertainment Channel in the prime time slot (7 pm to 11:30 pm). We should be patient and not jump to conclusions; a deeper understanding of how viewership numbers should be interpreted suggests that while one celebrates BARC’s roll out it would be prudent to wait till the system evolves.”

     

    Times Network senior VP and head- English entertainment cluster Vivek Srivastava said, “The first week BARC numbers are in sync with our expectations. Both our brands Movies Now and Romedy Now have been consistent leaders in their respective genres on TAM and we continue to lead the pack on BARC as well.”

     

    Contradicting the general reaction, Helios Media managing director Divya Radhakrishnan said, “These are initial knee jerk reactions. One will have to wait for individual level data as one cannot do media planning with household level data. Secondly, it does not cover all the markets. And thirdly in terms of upsets, it’s more or less the same pecking order except for one or two and there are real reasons why they are not featuring as well.”

     

    Knee jerk reactions aside, over the coming few weeks it will nonetheless be interesting to analyze, evaluate and interpret data from a larger television audience base as recorded by BARC.

  • Dentsu acquires Israel’s digital performance agency abaGada

    Dentsu acquires Israel’s digital performance agency abaGada

    MUMBAI: With the aim of strengthening its presence in Israel and neighbouring countries and enhancing the range of digital services provided, Dentsu Aegis Network Ltd. has acquired Israel’s digital performance marketing agency abaGada Internet.

     

    Founded in 2010, abaGada does not just stop at search engine optimization (SEO) when it comes to search engine marketing practices; the company’s grasp of various internal and external factors such as the analysis of customer and user behavior and other strengths in the digital performance marketing domain leads to results. 

     

    Moreover, abaGada offers a variety of services including search engine marketing (SEM) to increase the number of visitors from the search engine to owned media such as a corporate website, and the creation and dissemination of owned media content coupled with social media. Although many of its clients are companies operating in Israel, abaGada also provides services targeting the customers of multinationals in 40 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

     

    There are a number of excellent venture companies in Israel, and the country’s reputation for its innovative strengths has resulted in its being referred to as the second Silicon Valley. With its advanced technological strengths and development capabilities, abaGada is expected to function as the Group’s digital technology hub in Israel and neighboring countries in the region. 

     

    The Dentsu Group has to date provided services to clients in Israel through its media communications agency Carat, one of the Group’s global network brands. Post-acquisition, abaGada will transition toward operating as iProspect, another of the Group’s global network brands which has strengths in the digital performance domain, and provide impetus for the development of a collaborative framework with Carat in the media and digital domains. 

     

    For the year ended December 2014 abaGada revenue stood at GBP 3,500,000.

  • Dentsu launches corporate VC fund with $42 million corpus

    Dentsu launches corporate VC fund with $42 million corpus

    MUMBAI: Advertising behemoth Dentsu Inc has established a new corporate venture capital (VC) fund called – Dentsu Ventures Global Fund I, with a total capital of approximately $42 million (five billion yen).

     

    With companies in the US, Europe and Asia as its main targets, the fund will not only provide businesses with capital but will also focus on providing entrepreneurs with extensive business support that leverages the problem-solving resources cultivated by the Dentsu Group to date in order to help them bring innovation to the world.

     

    The changes in the business environment surrounding the Dentsu Group and the advertising industry itself are accelerating, and the importance of open innovation through business collaboration with promising external partners is increasing even more. Under such circumstances the Dentsu Group will, through this fund, promote investment in ambitious venture companies that will create an as yet unseen future as well as open up new areas of development through the provision of business development support to the investees.

     

    The Dentsu Group has to date made proactive investments in venture companies and promoted business collaboration through the Dentsu Digital Fund, a fund managed by its subsidiary Dentsu Digital Holdings Inc. Through investments mainly in venture companies outside of Japan as well as seed and early stage investments in Japanese companies, coupled with the building of a complementary relationship with the Dentsu Digital Fund, Dentsu will accelerate open innovation across the Group as a whole.

     

    The fund will have a seven-year period of operation from April 2015 until March 2022.

     

    Dentsu is looking at investing in areas that can change the marketing and communication business in a broad sense. The VC fund is interested in companies that look at new areas that have a high potential for innovation.

  • Dentsu-UNFPA join hands to launch CSR Advisory Services

    Dentsu-UNFPA join hands to launch CSR Advisory Services

    MUMBAI: Dentsu India’s social and development sector communication division, Citizen Dentsu, in partnership with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) India, has launched CSR advisory services, to assist corporates with their CSR planning and implementation.

    The provisions of CSR Policy, notified under the Companies Act 2013 promises to be a historic milestone, as India becomes the first country in the world to bring social responsibility to the centre stage of corporate reporting framework. The real challenge, however, for the 6000-odd corporates above a certain size, who now will be required to plan, implement and report their CSR activities annually to their stakeholders, is really coming out of a familiar domain and diving deep into a much-talked-about, but fairly unchartered CSR territory.

    It is precisely to assist companies to negotiate these challenges, that Citizen Dentsu and UNFPA have come together to launch the Citizen Dentsu-UNFPA CSR Advisory, a partnership uniquely poised to help create an ecosystem where CSR efforts will eventually benefit the client’s brands.

    Citizen Dentsu, manned by a team of professionals, has years of experience in strategic communications for numerous development sector issues like child survival and safe motherhood, immunisation, HIV and AIDS, education, water and sanitation and environment. Besides, Dentsu companies all over the world work on CSR initiatives for many of their global and local clients.

    UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) is a leading United Nations agency working across 155 countries. It has decades of experience in policy and projects linked to gender, health and human rights. In India, where over 50 per cent of the population is below 25 years of age, UNFPA strategically focuses on youth, especially adolescent girls and young women.

     Both organisations will draw upon their local experiences, as well as, global repositories of iconic CSR case studies and expertise, for their clients here.

     Emphasising the respective roles of the two partners, Dentsu India Group executive chairman and Dentsu APAC CEO Rohit Ohri said, “While Citizen Dentsu will work closely with clients in strategising and planning their CSR initiatives, helping clients extract the maximum through brand-CSR synergy, which we think company heads will be greatly interested in, UNFPA will provide technical support for projects undertaken by pre-evaluated and approved set of NGOs.”

     United Nations Population Fund India representative Frederika Meijer added, “We have a range of CSR-ready projects that companies can partner on to meet their CSR commitments in India. More importantly, with UNFPA employing globally certified protocols to monitor and evaluate non-government and civil society organisations (NGOs), as well as their work, the CSR projects can be expected to be far more efficient and effective.” She believes that while there are thousands of field-level organisations ready to take up CSR projects, Citizen Dentsu’s experience with social and developmental projects in India and UNFPA’s inputs in terms of NGO selection and planning, monitoring and evaluation of projects, would be a clear and unique differentiator.

    Rajendra Singh from Citizen Dentsu and Rajat Ray from UNFPA India will be steering the partnership. With both being seasoned hands in brand and corporate advertising, as well as in handling development-led projects, it is easy to understand why they have been picked for the task.

     Setting up and managing in-house CSR divisions will require investments by companies in specialised skills, time and infrastructure.  This unique and first-of-its-kind partnership – Citizen Dentsu-UNFPA CSR Advisory – can help companies with faster and customised solutions, without them requiring to make huge initial investments, while in the long run, passing on expertise to them through capacity building.

     

  • Leo Burnett forecasts 2014 Cannes Lion winners

    Leo Burnett forecasts 2014 Cannes Lion winners

    MUMBAI: With a day left for the biggest event of the advertising industry to commence, the industry is keeping its fingers crossed to pick up the coveted Lion.

     

    Like every year, Leo Burnett Worldwide has revealed its 27th annual Cannes Predictions anticipating the results of this year’s 61st Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity..

     

    With more than 84 per cent accuracy, the agency’s predictions have an unparalleled track record, year over year, recognizing Cannes contenders most likely to win. Leo Burnett Worldwide’s chief creative officer Mark Tutssel curated the list to encompass the most forward thinking, compelling creative products across channels.

     

    “We sifted and sieved through hundreds of the most brilliant pieces of work from every cranny of the world, spanning Lions award categories,” said Tutssel. “This year’s work is full of humanity, imagination and pure creativity, and remarkable for finding fresh and innovative ways to connect emotionally with people.”

     

    Top 25 Contenders

     

    1. Guinness “Sapeurs” by AMV BBDO / London, UK

     

    2. Not Impossible Labs + Intel “Project Daniel: 3D Printing Prosthetic Arms” The Ebeling Group / Not Impossible Labs / Venables Bell & Partners / Venice, USA

     

    3. Skype “The Born Friends Family Portrait” Pereira & O’Dell / San Francisco, USA

     

    4. British Airways “The Magic of Flying” OgilvyOne / London, UK

     

    5. New Zealand Transport Agency “Blazed” Clemenger BBDO / Wellington, New Zealand

     

    6. Colombian Ministry of Defense “You Are My Son” Lowe SSP3 / Bogota, Colombia

     

    7. Harvey Nichols “Sorry I Spent It On Myself” Adam&EveDDB / London, UK

     

    8. Mimi Foundation “If Only For A Second” Leo Burnett / Paris, France

     

    9. Volkswagen – Side Assist “Living Room” / “Bathroom” / “Bedroom” AlmapBBDO / Sao Paulo, Brasil

     

    10. Terre des Hommes “Sweetie” Lemz / Amsterdam, Netherlands

     

    11. HBO GO “Awkward Family Viewing” SS+K / New York City, USA

     

    12. P&G – Old Spice “Smellcome to Manhood” Wieden + Kennedy / Portland, USA

     

    13. Chipotle “The Scarecrow” Creative Artists Agency + Moonbot Studios / Los Angeles, USA

     

    14. Google + Warner Brothers “A Journey Through Middle Earth” North Kingdom / Skellefte?, Sweden

     

    15. Inakadate Village “Rice-Code” Hakuhodo / Tokyo, Japan

     

    16. Brazilian Association of Organ Transplantation “Bentley Burial” Leo Burnett Tailor Made / Sao Paulo, Brazil

     

    17. 350 Action “Climate Name Change” Barton F. Graf 9000 / New York City, USA

     

    18. Honda “Hands” Wieden + Kennedy / London, UK

     

    19. Samsung “Maestro’s Academy – Smart Bike” Leo Burnett / Milan, Italy

     

    20. Honda – Internavi “Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989” Dentsu / Tokyo, Japan

     

    21. Nike “The Nike SB App” R/GA / New York City, USA

     

    22. Adidas “D Rose Jump Store” TBWA / London, UK

     

    23. Southern Comfort “Karate” Wieden + Kennedy / New York, USA

     

    24. Newcastle Brown Ale “If We Made It” Droga5 / New York City, USA

     

    25. Volvo Trucks “Live Test Series: The Epic Split” Forsman & Bodenfors, Sweden

     

    “Our annual Cannes Predictions offer not only Leo Burnett Worldwide’s take on the leading creative work likely to earn Lion trophies, but a magnified view of the bravest ideas and boldest thinking that jolts our craft boldly forward,” said Tutssel who will present “Why Borderless Creativity is the Future of Communications” master class at Cannes. “These are the stimuli that fuel imagination and ignite us to change human bahaviour in vigorous, disruptive bounds.”

  • Ashish Medhekar joins Triton Mumbai as executive director

    Ashish Medhekar joins Triton Mumbai as executive director

    MUMBAI: Triton Communications has appointed Ashish Medhekar as executive director.  In his new assignment, Medhekar will be a part of the core management team with the mandate to drive growth.

     

    He moves in from JWT, where he was vice president and executive business director.

     

    Medhekar said, “We are in exciting times and I am looking forward to the opportunity of taking the Triton story forward. Triton has a history of building solid brands and has long and deep rooted relationships with its clients and I look forward to partnering them and taking the relationships to the next level.  The task is growth through great brand ideas and integrated solutions.”

     

    Triton director Ali Merchant added, “Bringing with him a wealth of integrated experiences in communication, we are confident and looking forward to Ashish’s leadership role in Triton.  Particularly in the areas of helping dynamic growth for our clients, converting new business opportunities into the Triton fold and building a team of professionals in each area of client need.  We wish him the very best in this leadership role.”

     

    In a career spanning over 20 years, he started his career with Contract Advertising and has worked with Agencies like Rediffusion Y&R as head of the Chennai office, Wunderman and Everest Brand Solutions where he headed the Mumbai office. He has also worked with Dentsu, and Enterprise Nexus.