Tag: Don

Havas kicks off Q1 2025 with a 2.1 per cent growth spurt

MUMBAI: Havas has announced a solid start to 2025, with organic net revenue growth of 2.1 per cent in the first quarter, aligning with its full-year projections. Reported growth surged to 5.2 per cent, driven by recent acquisitions and favourable currency effects.

Havas CEO & chairman Yannick Bolloré, highlighted the agency’s performance, particularly in North and Latin America. He added: “We continue to focus on the group’s development, through the global roll-out of our “Converged” strategy and operating system – which is powered by the best data, tech and AI – the expansion of our capacity in high-growth sectors, and an unwavering commitment to creative excellence. We are therefore confirming our objectives for 2025, while keeping a close eye on the global geopolitical and economic situation, in order to respond quickly and effectively, supporting our clients and teams in this context. I’d like to thank our clients for their trust, and highlight the dedication of our talented teams worldwide, who are key to our success.”

In Q1, Havas acquired CA Sports in Spain, Channel Bakers in the US, and Don in Argentina, strengthening its presence in sports, e-commerce, and creative sectors.

Europe experienced a slight 0.2 per cent dip, while North America saw a 3.2 per cent increase, led by Havas Health. Latin America delivered a robust 16.6 per cent growth. APAC & Africa continued to post satisfactory organic growth, with net revenue up 1.9 per cent year on year, driven by Havas Media.

Despite economic uncertainties, Havas maintains its 2025 guidance: organic net revenue growth above two per cent, an adjusted EBIT margin between 12.5 and 13.5 per cent, and a dividend payout ratio of approximately 40 per cent. The agency also confirmed its 2028 medium-term financial targets.

Havas agencies continue to receive industry recognition, with Uncommon New York named “Agency of the Year” by Campaign, and Havas Play topping the French agency list in the WARC Media 100 Ranking.

April 10, 2025
Sony MAX2 celebrates 40 years of Don

Mumbai, 9th May, 2018: When we think of the films from the 70s era, we are transferred to a world that saw the birth of new genres of movies – be it action, thriller or musical. One such film, a masterpiece that stands out for being the perfect blend of action, thrill, music and dialogues is the Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman starrer Don.

As the film completes its 40 years’ milestone, Sony MAX2, India’s iconic Hindi movie channel from Sony Pictures Networks with its proposition Kuch Filmon ka Jaadu Kabhi Kam Nahin Hota, presents this cult classic on Saturday, 12th May 2018 at 7pm.

Don is a crime thriller set against the backdrop of Mumbai’s underworld and revolves around Vijay, a Bombay slum-dweller who resembles the powerful crime boss Don and is asked by law enforcement officer DSP D’Silva (Iftekhar) to masquerade as Don, in order to act as an informant for the police and track down the root of the criminal organization.

For those born in the 60s-70s era, Don was the perfect example of flower-power with an adrenaline rush, be it Roma (Zeenat Aman) who could be the girl next door and a deathly assassin with the same élan or the poor guy Vijay (Amitabh) as the one and only DON.

One cannot forget the stellar star cast supported by Pran, Iftekhar, Helen, Om Shivpuri and Satyen Kappu who served powerhouse performances making Don one of the highest grossing films of 1978, with Amitabh Bachchan bagging the most coveted Filmfare Award in the Best Actor category.

This is the film that saw the best in fashion with stylish bell bottoms, polka dots and tinted glares, best in music with Yeh Mera Dil and Khaike Paan Benaras Wala by Kalyanji Anandji, the best in action sequences and car chases and not to forgot one of the most iconic dialogues till date, ‘DON ko pakadane ki koshish 11 mulkon ki police kar rahi hai, lekin DON ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai!’. Don is what we call the prefect dinner spread with the right ingredients.

May 9, 2018
Sony MAX2 to air Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic movie ‘Don’

MUMBAI: Who can forget the blockbuster songs like ‘Yeh Mera Dil’, ‘Khaike Pan Banaraswala’ and the gripping plot of crime thriller Don? It’s still one of the most loved movie of Amitabh Bachchan fans across the country. Sony MAX2, India’s iconic Hindi movie channel from Sony Pictures Networks is all set to take you back to that era as it airs the iconic movie Don on Friday, 16^th February, 2018 at 7pm.

Written by the duo Salim-Javed and music given by Kalyanji Anandji, Don stars Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman as the lead, along with Pran. Iftekhar, Helen, Om Shivpuri and Satyen Kappu in supporting roles. Amitabh Bachchan plays a double role, as Bombay underworld boss Don and his lookalike Vijay. The film’s plot revolves around Vijay, a Bombay slum-dweller who resembles the powerful crime boss Don, being asked by law enforcement officer DSP D’Silva (Iftekhar) to masquerade as Don, in order to act as an informant for the police and track down the root of the criminal organization. Will Vijay be successful in helping police to find the master mind behind all the crime?

February 13, 2018
Sony Max2 initiates Double Trouble film festival

MUMBAI: The Double role formula has wooed the Indian audience ever since and has been a major success in Bollywood. This September Sony Max2 attempts to ride high on this formula by doubling up the entertainment quotient for its viewers with Double Trouble film festival starting from 19 September until 23 at 8 pm.

Max 2’s film festival, will bring some of the most iconic movies of the yesteryears that guarantee to offer double the action, comedy and drama. The movie festival will be showcasing films of some of Bollywood’s favorite superstars like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, etc.

September 19, 2016
Sony Max2 initiates Double Trouble film festival

MUMBAI: The Double role formula has wooed the Indian audience ever since and has been a major success in Bollywood. This September Sony Max2 attempts to ride high on this formula by doubling up the entertainment quotient for its viewers with Double Trouble film festival starting from 19 September until 23 at 8 pm.

Max 2’s film festival, will bring some of the most iconic movies of the yesteryears that guarantee to offer double the action, comedy and drama. The movie festival will be showcasing films of some of Bollywood’s favorite superstars like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, etc.

September 19, 2016
The Grammy Awards 2016: A not-so-appealing “starry” affair

MUMBAI: Music world’s much awaited award show of the year, The Grammys, created a lot of buzz before its telecast; but unfortunately did not impress viewers. Only few performances, which had the potential to be interesting, grabbed the eye balls. Apart from those, the show, by its usual standards failed to impress the audience due to poor production ideas.

The award night from The Recording Academy had a “starry” line-up of more than 30 artists, including the multiple time Grammy nominee Taylor Swift, who opened the show with a song from her Grammy-nominated album, 1989. The show also faced some audio glitches and concerns with the entertainment quality. While performances by Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift are to be appreciated, Lady Gaga clearly was the showstopper of the big awards show.

The show had a total of 83 categories and 15 performances and tributes. The Recording Academy handed many awards early in the Grammy Awards pre-ceremony. The first big winner of the awards this year went to Swift for Best Pop Vocal Album for 1989. The list of big winners also included Meghan Trainor, who took Best New Artist; and Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, who won Record of the Year for “Uptown Funk.”

Lamar led the Grammys 2016 ceremony with 11 nominations, and won five awards. Mentioned below are the winners from the different categories at The Grammy Awards 2016:

Record of the Year: “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
Album of the Year: 1989 — Taylor Swift
Best New Artist: Meghan Trainor
Best Rock Performance: “Don’t Wanna Fight” — Alabama Shakes
Song of the Year: “Thinking Out Loud” — Ed Sheeran
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
Best Pop Solo Performance: “Thinking Out Loud” — Ed Sheeran
Best Rap Song: “Alright” — Kendrick Lamar Featuring Pharrell Williams
Best Music Video: “Bad Blood” — Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar
Best Rap Performance: “Alright” — Kendrick Lamar
Best Music Film: Amy
Best Pop Vocal Album: 1989 — Taylor Swift
Best Urban Contemporary Album: Beauty Behind the Madness — The Weeknd
Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals: “Sue (Or In A Season of Crime) — David Bowie
Best Historical Album: The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol 11 — Bob Dylan And The Band
Best World Music Album: Sings — Angelique Kidjo
Best Spoken World Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling): A Full Life: Reflections At Ninety — Jimmy Carter
Best Dance Recording: “Where Are Ü Now” — Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber
Best Dance/Electronic Album: Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü — Skrillex and Diplo
Best Metal Performance: “Cirice” — Ghost
Best Rock Song: “Don’t Wanna Fight” — Alabama Shakes
Best Rock Album: Drones — Muse
Best R&B Performance: “Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Gray)” — The Weeknd
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: “These Walls” — Kendrick Lamar Featuring Bilal, Anna Wise & Thundercat

For the entire list of the winners, click here

February 16, 2016
The Grammy Awards 2016: A not-so-appealing “starry” affair

MUMBAI: Music world’s much awaited award show of the year, The Grammys, created a lot of buzz before its telecast; but unfortunately did not impress viewers. Only few performances, which had the potential to be interesting, grabbed the eye balls. Apart from those, the show, by its usual standards failed to impress the audience due to poor production ideas.

The award night from The Recording Academy had a “starry” line-up of more than 30 artists, including the multiple time Grammy nominee Taylor Swift, who opened the show with a song from her Grammy-nominated album, 1989. The show also faced some audio glitches and concerns with the entertainment quality. While performances by Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift are to be appreciated, Lady Gaga clearly was the showstopper of the big awards show.

The show had a total of 83 categories and 15 performances and tributes. The Recording Academy handed many awards early in the Grammy Awards pre-ceremony. The first big winner of the awards this year went to Swift for Best Pop Vocal Album for 1989. The list of big winners also included Meghan Trainor, who took Best New Artist; and Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, who won Record of the Year for “Uptown Funk.”

Lamar led the Grammys 2016 ceremony with 11 nominations, and won five awards. Mentioned below are the winners from the different categories at The Grammy Awards 2016:

Record of the Year: “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
Album of the Year: 1989 — Taylor Swift
Best New Artist: Meghan Trainor
Best Rock Performance: “Don’t Wanna Fight” — Alabama Shakes
Song of the Year: “Thinking Out Loud” — Ed Sheeran
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance: “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars
Best Pop Solo Performance: “Thinking Out Loud” — Ed Sheeran
Best Rap Song: “Alright” — Kendrick Lamar Featuring Pharrell Williams
Best Music Video: “Bad Blood” — Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar
Best Rap Performance: “Alright” — Kendrick Lamar
Best Music Film: Amy
Best Pop Vocal Album: 1989 — Taylor Swift
Best Urban Contemporary Album: Beauty Behind the Madness — The Weeknd
Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals: “Sue (Or In A Season of Crime) — David Bowie
Best Historical Album: The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol 11 — Bob Dylan And The Band
Best World Music Album: Sings — Angelique Kidjo
Best Spoken World Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling): A Full Life: Reflections At Ninety — Jimmy Carter
Best Dance Recording: “Where Are Ü Now” — Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber
Best Dance/Electronic Album: Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü — Skrillex and Diplo
Best Metal Performance: “Cirice” — Ghost
Best Rock Song: “Don’t Wanna Fight” — Alabama Shakes
Best Rock Album: Drones — Muse
Best R&B Performance: “Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Gray)” — The Weeknd
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: “These Walls” — Kendrick Lamar Featuring Bilal, Anna Wise & Thundercat

For the entire list of the winners, click here

February 16, 2016
Bajaj Allianz addresses road safety with WATConsult through Boo Boo campaign

A road safety campaign by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance features animated characters, Boo Boos, in a ‘Don’t be a Boo Boo’ song.

Mumbai: Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. is creating awareness about road safety via a unique ‘Don’t be a Boo Boo’ campaign. This is a special campaign co-conceptualized, designed and executed by WATConsult, Dentsu Aegis Network’s digital arm.

The campaign launched on November 14 with a video featuring colorful animated characters called Boo Boos, who are a family of five notorious cartoon characters infamous for breaking traffic rules in a relatable yet funny way.

These characters, along with the ‘Don’t be a Boo Boo’ song, are currently being promoted across all social and digital media platforms, educating users about Bajaj Allianz Motor insurance features. Engaging social media posts will be promoted, Dubsmash contest has been planned and a game has been created as a part of the campaign. Along with the digital promotions, the organisation aims to take it further through “Boo Boo” coasters, bookmarks, greeting cards, posters, etc. The ad spends for this campaign had been the highest in the history of Bajaj Allianz and has already generated enormous response from the audience. On the launch day itself, 1,10,000 impressions came only from Twitter and Facebook.

Referring to the campaign, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance digital marketing and web sales, IT- head, Saurabh Chatterjee said, “The aim of this campaign is to raise awareness and start a conversation on the serious topic of road safety, in a light hearted and humorous way. We hope that our ‘Don’t be a Boo Boo’ campaign’ will be fun to watch and carry home the message on road safety along with the need to follow traffic rules.”

While talking about the Don’t Be a Boo Boo campaign, WATConsult founder and CEO Rajiv Dhingra stated, “When team Bajaj Allianz briefed us on the kind of campaign they wanted to execute for road safety, we decided to use comic tone rather than walking the conventional path. A team at WATConsult worked with complete dedication for the campaign right from sketching the Boo Boo characters to creating the song, to making the full animation video. We hope the campaign goes beyond digital and impacts society at large.”

November 26, 2015
Bryan Adams makes come back with new album ‘Get Up’

MUMBAI: “There is a carefree feeling about this album and in many ways it is the album I wish I’d been able to make 25 years ago,” said the multi platinum record artist Bryan Adams, while announcing his brand new studio album Get Up.

The album is produced by famed ELO frontman Jeff Lynne and co-written with his long-time collaborator Jim Vallance. Packed with nine fresh compositions, this 13-track album will be released on 16 October.

Deemed as a solid collection of rock songs, well collaborated with upbeat numbers, the album will feature singles such ‘Brand New Day,’ ‘You Belong To Me’ and ‘Thunderbolt’ as well as melodious ones like ‘Don’t Even Try’ and ‘We Did It All.’

Die hard Adams fans will also get treated to a deluxe version “Get Up,” which will be packaged in a high-quality case and containing an exclusive interview with Adams and a selection of quality photographs, alongside the music.

Talking about the conception of the album, Adam says, “It came together quite organically song by song.”

On his collaboration with Lynn, he adds, “It was a great partnership as it gave me plenty of time to write the songs, most of which are collaboration with Jim Vallance. We all worked primarily over the internet from Canada, Europe and LA, sending demos and parts of songs until we got it right.”

Lynn says, “I’ve always been a big fan of Bryan so getting to work with him was a great pleasure. Bryan would send me a demo across the internet, then I would play most of the instruments to make a finished backing track and send it back to him in England. There he would put the lead vocal on to the song and send it back to me in California. 5,400 miles apart! And it’s turned out to be a rockin’ album!”

“Get Up” tracklisting:

•You Belong To Me

•Go Down Rockin’

•We Did It All

•That’s Rock and Roll

•Don’t Even Try

•Do What Ya Gotta Do

•Thunderbolt

•Yesterday Was Just A Dream

•Brand New Day

•Don’t Even Try – Acoustic

•We Did It All – Acoustic

•You Belong To Me – Acoustic

•Brand New Day – Acoustic

August 25, 2015
Shemaroo loads 1000+ movies & TV shows on HOOQ

MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment and video-on-demand service HOOQ have inked a partnership, which will see the addition of more than 1000 movie titles across multiple genres and languages on the OTT platform.

With a content library of over 30,000 hours, HOOQ will now distribute Shemaroo’s library that includes a mix of classics to super hit films, TV serials and fitness videos. The content catalogue includes titles like Hunterrr, The Dirty Picture, Ishqiya, Don, Kaalia, Khuda Gawah, Mughal-E-Azam, Nukkad, Shilpa’s Yoga and Bipasha’s Fit & Fabulous amongst others.

Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo said, “We are excited to partner with HOOQ for Indian content. With increasing number of devices and its users, the consumption of content on these platforms will certainly see an upward swing. We believe that services like this will catalyze consumers’ shift towards premium paid services and thus will ultimately benefit content owners like us. The deal affirms our focus to deliver quality content to our consumers on a variety of media and a network of their choice.”

HOOQ chief executive officer Peter Bithos added, “Partnering with Shemaroo Entertainment, one of the largest content houses in the country will no doubt strengthen our ever-growing catelogue. We aim to satisfy the entertainment needs of the Indian consumers by ensuring that they continue to enjoy the largest and best catalogue of Hollywood and Indian content for only Rs 199 per month.”

“We have put the Indian customers at the heart of our design to ensure that HOOQ serves their needs given the various challenges of India and other developing countries. This is evident in the world’s first download feature for Hollywood content, where customers can download up to five of their favourite movies to watch at a later time even when they are not connected to the internet,” he added.

Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros launched HOOQ in India earlier this year and has also inked deals with the likes of Yash Raj Films amongst others.

August 24, 2015