ITV

Tag: Dentsu

  • Carat & dentsu X announce senior leadership appointments

    Carat & dentsu X announce senior leadership appointments

    New Delhi : Dentsu International on Friday bolstered its senior leadership team with the appointment of Fiona Lloyd as the global client & brand president at Carat and Sanjay Nazerali as the new global client & brand president, dentsu X.

    The two executive appointments mark the culmination of a strategic re-set of global brand leadership within the dentsu international global media agency brands: Carat, dentsu X and iProspect.

    Dentsu international, global CEO Media & Global Clients, Peter Huijboom said, “We now have new faces and fresh thinking driving each of our global leadership media brands, each with the determination and spirit needed to deliver meaningful progress and growth for our clients and our business. Even before taking on these new roles, both Sanjay and Fiona have already been instrumental in shaping our new, simpler and streamlined market proposition.  Sanjay helped to establish and grow the dentsu X brand outside of APAC when it launched and Fiona has been driving an entire global rebrand of Carat and created its new ‘Designing for People’ proposition ready for the next phase of our growth plans.”

    Lloyd has been with dentsu since 2005. Starting first as an account director, she has held key leadership roles in both the Carat UK and Global business, including chief client officer and global CMO. Most recently, as MD Carat Global she spearheaded the global re-brand. Lloyd on her new role and the direction of the brand said, “Empathy, collaboration and value exchange are at the heart of our brand.  I’ll be focussed on driving these hard across our network to ensure Carat continues to be the industry powerhouse it is, maximising the contribution media makes to growth for our clients and creating a place where our people can thrive.”

    Nazerali joined dentsu over seven years ago, originally at Carat as global chief strategist, he then moved over to dentsu X in 2018 as part of the plan to make the brand a worldwide media agency, outside of its Japanese heartland.  Since then, dentsu X has been on an upward trajectory and was named the fastest growing agency by RECMA for two years. Before joining dentsu, he was SVP marketing at the then newly-launched MTV Europe and subsequently the first ever Global CMO at BBC News.

    Talking about his ambition for the brand, Nazerali said,“dentsu X is dentsu international’s bridge builder, across clients, partners, and civil society, creating value for all.  We’re the radical collaborators who forge meaningful progress through awe inspiring work.”

    Lloyd and Nazerali, alongside Amanda Morrissey, who joined as global president of iProspect in October 2020 now form the global leadership of the three global media brands within dentsu international.

  • iProspect India wins digital mandate for AU Small Finance Bank

    iProspect India wins digital mandate for AU Small Finance Bank

    New Delhi: iProspect, the digital-first end-to-end media agency from the house of dentsu India, has won the digital mandate for AU Small Finance Bank, a Scheduled Commercial Bank and Fortune India 500 Company.

     

    As per the mandate, the agency will handle the entire gamut of digital duties for AU Bank including performance and branding campaigns. iProspect India will utilise its proprietary tools and solutions to help the brand achieve its digital marketing objectives via innovative digital campaigns.

     

    Commenting on the win, iProspect India, CEO Rubeena Singh said, “We are delighted that our in-depth domain experience of the BFSI sector won us the mandate. We are excited to partner with AU Bank and work towards driving business growth and achieving their brand KPIs. We look forward to delivering our best services to the brand through the intersection of Brand, Tech, Media and Communication.”

     

    Speaking on the partnership, AU Small Finance Bank executive director, Uttam Tibrewal said, “Over the last few years there has undoubtedly been a fast-track shift towards digital adoption among customers. As a tech-led Bank focused on offering customer-centric solutions, we are continuously working to optimise our customer engagement through digital media. The partnership with iProspect India is an important step in that direction which will strengthen our data-driven approach to digital marketing and media planning.”

  • Dentsu’s content creation engine now leverages the power of GPT-3 model

    Dentsu’s content creation engine now leverages the power of GPT-3 model

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Asia Pacific’s Data Sciences division has unveiled a GPT-3 powered content generation engine. The engine is designed to produce several iterations of creative copy tied to historic and predictive performances of content and is embedded in dentsu Marketing Cloud (DMC) – the media-marketing giant’s proprietary consumer insight and intelligence platform for creative and performance marketers.

    Generative Pre-trained Transformer version 3 (GPT-3 or GPT 3) by OpenAI is, by far, the most powerful language model in history. By linking GPT-3 with performance data, this content generation engine puts the power of artificial intelligence-led copy-creation in the hands of every creative across dentsu.

    Dentsu Webchutney & dentsumcgarrybowen India chairman Sidharth Rao said, “While compelling storytelling is paramount to connecting brands with their audiences, data enables one to move beyond a single limiting thought to unlock the full potential of an idea. As a digital-first creative network, products such as the GPT-3 powered content engine will enable our teams to mitigate the pressure that content creation requires through the intelligent use of technology to drive efficient creative product and deliver better customer experiences.”

    Available in 15 languages and applicable globally, the product is extremely easy to use. The GPT-3 powered Creative Engine will be merged with dentsu international’s marquee data-driven marketing engine – the dentsu Marketing Cloud. Users simply feed the engine with a seed social media caption, theme or topic and the engine generates several iterations of the best predicted performing caption(s) or post copy within a few seconds. The underlying intelligence of the tool can apply quantitative analysis to both pre and post-live-testing cycles and uses AI & ML (machine learning) to predict how audiences will engage and react to any creative message in real-time.

    “AI & ML allow for the intelligent processing of information to deliver better efficiencies. With neuro-linguistic programming and deep learning coming to the forefront of data-driven creative messaging, enabled by GPT-3 and its applications, the link between effective creative messaging and content generation at scale is entering its golden era. The use of this new technology within our creative product is testament to intelligence augmentation at the driving seat of creative innovation and yielding better outcomes for clients and marketing practitioners the world over,” added dentsu Programmatic CEO & dentsu Asia Pacific chief data officer Gautam Mehra.

  • Dentsu is APAC agency partner for spirits label William Grant & Sons

    Dentsu is APAC agency partner for spirits label William Grant & Sons

    MUMBAI: Dentsu has been appointed as agency partner for William Grant & Sons, an independent, family-owned Scottish company that distils Scotch whiskeys Glenfiddich and The Balvenie, as well as other spirits like Hendrick's Gin.

    The appointment is the result of an APAC business consolidation which concluded at the end of 2020 and will be managed out of Singapore, the network stated. 

    Dentsu is expected to drive omnichannel marketing for William Grant & Sons, focusing on strategic pillars of connections planning, digital acceleration and driving media effectiveness and efficiency across APAC.

    William Grant & Sons global head of communication strategy & planning Susie O'Donoghue said the company was impressed with Dentsu's "well-rounded thinking, demonstration of planning capability, as well as expertise in driving omnichannel thinking". It also helped that Dentsu has experience working with alcohol and spirits clients, she added. 

    “We have been working with William Grant & Sons globally and are delighted to have managed to expand this partnership within Asia Pacific," said Dentsu CEO of media for APAC Prerna Mehrotra. She contends that by understanding the consumer’s digital-first world, Dentsu can "unlock new growth opportunities" throughout the consumer journey.

  • #FinanciallyEqual: It’s time to separate finance from gender

    #FinanciallyEqual: It’s time to separate finance from gender

    MUMBAI: While modern Indian women do not lack ambition or ability when it comes to financial conversations, many are still surprisingly uncertain and not confident. To date, the importance of financial knowledge for women has not been given its due significance. It is primarily believed and followed that men handle financial matters better and are the ones who should be in control.

    Despite not being widely spoken about, the matter of financial literacy poses deep questions we need to ask ourselves today, especially in the context of gender disparity in Indian society. 

    Consequently, Dentsu Impact India has partnered with fintech platform Paytm to launch an impactful social experiment – #FinanciallyEqual – that centres around this very topic. 

    An experiment conducted by award-winning director Ruchi Narain, the campaign has aimed to make viewers realise that making women in India financially literate and confident is a major and crucial step on the path to practicing gender equality. The film urges the audience to separate gender from finance, while driving home the point that every one of us, regardless of gender, needs to be adequately aware about money management and the financial decisions of our lives.

    You can watch the film here : 

  • Dentsu names Prerna Mehrotra as APAC media CEO

    Dentsu names Prerna Mehrotra as APAC media CEO

    NEW DELHI: dentsu International APAC has named Prerna Mehrotra as its new CEO for APAC Media. She will take on the additional responsibility along with her role as the managing director of the media group in Singapore. 

    Mehrotra will be reporting to dentsu APAC CEO Ashish Bhasin and global CEO – media & global clients Peter Hujiboom. She will be responsible for driving dentsu’s global media strategy and delivery in the APAC region. Her focus will be on developing a portfolio of tools and capabilities to maximise effectiveness, relevance, and performance of the campaigns.  

    Mehrotra joined DAN back in 2016 as Amplify APAC head of investment management. She was also the client president at Carat. Previously, she has worked with Starcom and Zenith. 

  • #Throwback2020: Not letting a crisis go waste

    #Throwback2020: Not letting a crisis go waste

    NEW DELHI: While battling the great recession in 2008, then chief of staff in POTUS Barack Obama’s office Rahm Emanuel had famously stated, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. I mean, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Emanuel was possibly inspired by Sir Winston Churchill, who’s believed to have said something along those lines in the mid-1940s, when the world was engulfed in the second World War. The thought became an anchor for a number of entrepreneurs in the Indian advertising and marketing industry too,  as they navigated a world turned upside down by the Covid2019 pandemic. The result – we witnessed a number of new agencies and specialist arms popping up throughout the year. 

    ^atom

    It began with the launch of ^atom, an ad agency floated by Ogilvy ex-president – Mumbai and Kolkata Abhik Santara along with Yash Kulshresth and Ananda Sen. While the agency had been in the pipeline for more than five months before it was finally launched in April this year, it was a courageous decision on the team’s part to enter the market during the first phase of the lockdown. Well, the risk paid off, as they quickly won several accounts, including Lifology, Ahimsa Trust and Ezee. 

    Dentsu Marketing Cloud Video+

    Dentsu International’s Indian data science division fielded a unique OTT planner called Dentsu Marketing Cloud Video+ in April 2020. The tool provides an agnostic approach towards planning and buying on over-the-top TV (OTT) platforms. It, reportedly, became the first holistic product catering to planning and buying OTT audiences within the ecosystem. The tool was launched under the umbrella of DMC Explore, the proprietary Audience Intelligence tool of the data sciences division under its suite of products – the Dentsu Marketing Cloud (the overarching platform that houses DAN Data Labs).

    Happyness.me

    House of Cheer Pvt Ltd, which was founded by former Viacom18 COO and media personality Raj Nayak in 2019, announced the launch of their new division, Happyness.me in June. Happyness.me is a proprietary tool that measures the happiness quotient of corporations and its people using behavioural psychology, neuroscience, and data analytics, with inputs from experts in the field. 

    Ipsos Digital

    Ipsos India unveiled its platform Ipsos Digital to provide the clients with cutting edge online research tools to aid their decision making. Ipsos India also announced the launch of its first online research offering of Fast Facts, which is a fully automated, DIY, AI-supported express tool to cater to clients’ quick research and advisory needs.

    brandhalō

    After quitting a 12-year-long stint with Volvo Cars, its first Indian director Sudeep Narayan founded the brand advisory firm brandhalō in August 2020. It is a boutique advisory firm providing marcomm and integrated e-commerce solutions to deliver business performance. The firm intends to add the halo-effect to a brand/corporate reputation, thereby turning customers to evangelists and fans.

    DoyenOink Consulting

    Expanding its elaborate portfolio of offerings, Zoo Media kickstarted DoyenOink Consulting in September this year. DoyenOink is a transformation and management consulting firm which leverages data intelligence, technology interventions, inventive strategic thinking and impactful communication to drive systematic solutions for business challenges across the spectrum, be it business and product strategy; operational and process structure; revenue and sales strategy; growth strategy; and consumer outreach. 

    Kombat

    A niche marketing agency for the wellness industry, Kombat was launched in September 2020. The Delhi-based agency will provide services for brands in a variety of areas including social media, PR, events, collaborations, marketing strategy and more. It is founded by Neha Lidder, a specialist in marketing for over 20 years, and includes a team of professionals with backgrounds in design, PR, and digital marketing.

    RD&X Network

    Rajiv Dingra (previously founder and CEO of WATConsult, a digital agency part of Dentsu International), floated his latest entrepreneurial venture, RD&X Network, in October. It is said to be a deep-tech network that will drive brand, business, media and data transformation helping businesses globally become real-time, disruptive, and thereby achieve exponential growth. The company will leverage the impending deep tech and business model disruption across marketing, advertising, media, and business consulting with its offerings.

    Digital Edify

    Former FabIndia head of digital and social advocacy Gauri Awasthi also took the entrepreneurial route this year with the launch of an innovative design thinking and digital transformation enterprise named Digital Edify, DTBU, along with her co-founder Aakash Shrivastava. The agency aims to help build brand awareness, brand salience, desire, generate demand, convert into sales for brands by being advisors, brand advocates, and growth hackers. 

    Wondrlab

    Advertising and brand communication leaders Saurabh Varma, Vandana Verma and Rakesh Hinduja collaborated to launch a platform-first start-up Wondrlab. The unique agency comes with three key verticals – content, experience, and digital business transformation to help clients win in the new marketing landscape. The agency also partnered with Amit Akali’s WYT in its first acquisition. 

    Sensibly Weird

    A former WPP talent, adman Subhas Warrier along with his partner Shyam Musthafa started a multidisciplinary creative solutions platform – Sensibly Weird Company in November this year. Based in Kochi, the company will help brands grow by creating “honest stories, designs, and creatives that break through the noise.”

    Branding Edge

    Former Enormous Brands’ strategist Rahul Tekwani floated his own strategic communication venture Branding Edge Strategic Communications and Advisory in December. It focuses on developing a brand and reputation program to help achieve business goals, build awareness and credibility, and will enhance the long-term enterprise value of the clients.  The company will also be providing 360-degree services, which include branding, design, digital strategy and research and data-driven storytelling, and influencer engagement strategies. 

    Catalysts

    Former president of Mullen Lintas, Syed Amjad Ali announced the launch of his own firm Catalysts in December. The start-up will be a content and brand strategy platform. 
     

  • PubNation: Converging segregated data should be next big martech success

    PubNation: Converging segregated data should be next big martech success

    NEW DELHI: The confluence of marketing and technology has reshaped how sales and promotions are done by marketers. With the infiltration of digital technologies even in the remotest corners of the world, marketers now sit on loads of data and possess the means to target their customers better. However, most of them might be missing the bus by a few miles. 

    Dentsu Performance Group CEO Vivek Bhargava pointed out, “There is so much information we have in the marketing world that we are not using effectively to make advertising more targeted and result-oriented. The data remains segregated in so many disparate sources and we need to connect them.” 

    He was speaking at PubNation (print & digital) organised by Indiantelevision.com, in partnership with Quintype and Gamezop, in a panel discussing ‘Marketing & Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin.’ Other speakers on the panel, moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, were Affle co-founder, chief revenue & operating officer Anuj Kumar, Xaxis country head – India Bharat Khatri, Gamezop co-founder Gaurav Agarwal, Publicis Groupe COO – Indigo Consulting Jose Leon, Schbang co-founder, chief design & technology officer Sohil Karia, and Foxymoron & Zoo Media Network co-founder Suveer Bajaj. 

    Bhargava cited the example of a food delivery platform to make his point. “Say one person gets registered on Swiggy and the platform doesn’t have any algorithm in place to identify what food one actually likes. It identifies it as a virgin. So, if in the past he has skipped 10 ads of various pizza-delivery platforms and had clicked on a keto diet programme, there is data in the marketing world available. There should be a merging of this data for both the platforms, so they can build on each other. This will create significant efficiencies on both ends of the system.” 

    He added that he sees a great opportunity for companies that can aggregate this data and find out niche tools to support this segment. 

    The panel agreed that there is a huge scope of growth in the martech world and digital advertising – if all brands start keeping consumers at the core of their marketing functions and not as mere numbers. 

    Kumar highlighted that it is very important for brands and marketers to understand how consumers are engaging with technology: what kind of devices they are using, what platforms they are present on, etc, to reach them better using the power of programmatic advertising. 

    Karia noted, “What I am seeing is that a lot many brands are now working with the D2C (direct to consumer) model and they have consumers at the centre of their experience. For B2B operations, websites are becoming their focus. While we speak about programmatic buying and driving traffic to the website, it is also essential to look at how we’re retaining these consumers and how we are serving them better during and after-sale. Personalising their experience on the site post-sale is how we can nudge them to make repeat purchases.” 

    He added that if the marketers have third-party data visible and the right tools to identify what industry is this person (customer) coming from and what are his preferences, they will be better able to serve him with a personalised experience on the platform. 

    In the same vein, Khatri highlighted, “If you look at young brands like Mamaearth, they worked excellently in the D2C category. They opened with a reverse approach that okay, I don’t want to create a big buzz or have millions of views on my YouTube videos, but they instead identified their target customers and pitched to them directly. They did not say that I want 10 million customers in that market but instead, they said that they want 50 per cent of their revenue from there and this is the return on my advertising spend I am expecting.” 

    He continued, “So, they got themselves present on each channel they found fit to reach their target audience. Be it through Amazon or Flipkart, or having influencers onboard whose single post or tweet would have converted into hundreds of buyers.” 

    There are more than 8,000 platforms today, offering various data and tech solutions, noted Leon, but what should remain any brand’s focus is to realise who the consumer is and what the consumer wants. “Is the platform able to differentiate the consumer behaviour on a real-time basis and hence you can go back to the advertiser and monetise it better? The way to this is to start (campaign) testing on digital platforms,” he advised.

    Another interesting insight was brought to the table by Bajaj, who said that marketers should also keep into consideration how technology can support and enable the content they are creating. 

    “Today, the right tools and technologies could even tell me what should I name my video, which ‘influencer’ should be starring in my video, what music I can use, what keywords are to be used, and how to package my video using predictive intelligence. That’s where open-source platforms guide us, they let us use their tools and marketing intelligence,” he stated.

    Agarwal seconded the thought and shared how better and engaging content can help acquire and retain new consumers. “With Gamezop, we work on a B2B2C model, that means we partner with publishers who want to create unique gamified experiences for their consumers and help them with that. So, we are in the process of creating better experiences where users might compete for discounts and offers.”

    The panel opined that publishers and advertisers both should be focusing on creating better experiences for consumers, and ethically use the data available to curate unique products and services. 

  • Nabendu Bhattacharyya moves on from Milestone Brandcom

    Nabendu Bhattacharyya moves on from Milestone Brandcom

    NEW DELHI: Nabendu Bhattacharyya, an industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in the Indian out-of-home (OOH) space, has decided to move on from his current role as CEO and MD of Milestone Brandcom, the India-based OOH specialist agency from the house of dentsu international.

    He will leave the business on 31 December, ending his more than six-year-long stint with the network, to explore and pursue his personal interests.

    Bhattacharyya said, “My almost seven-year-old journey with dentsu in India has been nothing less than a celebration with a bagful of wonderful memories and some exceptional people that I met across the global network. Dentsu International is an incredible place to be in. It is packed with extraordinary talent and remarkable professionalism in every little pocket of the globe and I must forever reiterate that working with Ashish and Anand has been one of the most phenomenal experiences of my life, professionally and personally.”

    “Even as I embark upon a new journey hereon, my adventures and escapades will, of course, continue to be in the field of creative and business communication. However, it must now go beyond the scope of work that I have been engaged in for the last two decades. I intend to explore and delve deep into the other expanded ranges of advertising and communication and see what I can freshly withstand. I am leaving behind Milestone Brandcom in a rock-solid state and I know it will continue to grow with the strong leadership team that currently sits at its helm,” he added.

    dentsu CEO- India Anand Bhadkamkar said, “Nabendu is a fantastic professional and a veteran in his field. His creative vision, coupled with his leadership skills, makes him an absolute powerhouse. He charges ahead with unrelenting clarity and determination, translating businesses into the unadulterated largeness that they eventually become. I wish him all the luck for his future endeavours, hoping that one day we will get to work together once again.”

    It is pertinent to note here that dentsu international, formerly known as Dentsu Aegis Network, acquired a majority stake in Milestone Brandcom in July 2014. It was by far one of the biggest deals in the outdoor space in India then, and together with Posterscope – the network's global outdoor media agency – went on to establish dentsu as the largest player in the Indian OOH segment.

  • PhonePe’s Kunal Dubey joins Vedantu

    PhonePe’s Kunal Dubey joins Vedantu

    NEW DELHI: Kunal Dubey has joined Vedantu as head of marketing. He was previously working with PhonePe as head of business marketing and media planning, a brief stint of under six months. He had joined the cashless payments app in June 2020.

    Prior to that, Dubey was with Dentsu India Slingshot as country head.

    His longest stint has been at Flipkart between 2014 and 2019, where he served in multiple capacities such as director – brand marketing communications, and head of media planning and buying; associate director brand marketing and social media head; and others.

    Dubey has an overall 14 years of experience in the industry. He has worked at multiple agencies and brands including eBay, Reliance Communications, McDonald’s India, and Reliance Communications.