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Tag: GroupM

  • Wavemaker elevates Ajay Gupte as CEO Wavemaker South Asia

    Wavemaker elevates Ajay Gupte as CEO Wavemaker South Asia

    MUMBAI: Wavemaker announced the appointment of Ajay Gupte as chief executive officer for Wavemaker, South Asia. Gupte who is currently COO of Wavemaker India, takes over from Kartik Sharma who steps down to pursue other opportunities in the industry. He will continue to be based out of Wavemaker Gurugram and will report into Prasanth Kumar, CEO – GroupM South Asia and Gordon Domlija, President Wavemaker Asia-Pacific and China CEO.

    GroupM South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar said, “I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kartik for his contribution over the years and wish him all the very best.”

    He added, “At GroupM we always believe in building on the hard work and passion of our people and it gives me great pleasure to see Ajay take over as the new CEO of Wavemaker South Asia. He comes with vast experience working in multiple markets and categories. He is a well-rounded professional, and I see him bring in distinctive and increasing value for our clients and the overall ecosystem. I am confident that he will continue to grow Wavemaker as an agency of the future.”   

    Wavemaker President Asia-Pacific and China CEO Gordon Domlija added, “India is a hugely important market for Wavemaker, and we’ve got a very successful team here. I’ve gotten to know Ajay as a strong client and team leader, and I’m convinced he is the right choice to help Wavemaker to future sucesss and, ultimately, to keep looking for better ways to unlock growth for our clients, our agency and our people.”

    Gupte said, “I am humbled and very excited to take over the role of the CEO of Wavemaker South Asia. It is an exciting time for the Indian market as the Indian advertising industry is also having a global impact, and I see lots of opportunities for growth.”

  • Industry hopes pinned on a better 2020 for mainline advertising

    Industry hopes pinned on a better 2020 for mainline advertising

    DELHI: 2019 was a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges for the advertising industry. Television primarily witnessed a great drop in its growth with an ambiguous first quarter because of the new tariff order and a slow final quarter because of the economic slowdown. While the second quarter gave some hope with IPL, cricket world cup and general elections holding the trends up, the overall performance of the industry was disappointing. The growth, as shared by GroupM in its report, was in single digit numbers, at 9.4 per cent, less than half of what it recorded in 2018 and much lesser than the estimates of 12-14 per cent predicted during the beginning of the year.

    Madison Media Ultra CEO and head investments Amol Dighe shared, “As we all know, categories like FMCG, Telecom, Ecommerce, BFSI, Auto, etc. have a significant share in all Mainline Mediums. Most of these categories were affected by the economic slowdown resulting in the slowdown of advertising spends as well. We had to revise the Madison Pitch estimates in terms of growth across mediums. The growth forecast for leading mediums like TV was revised downward.”

    However, mainline agencies are positive that the growth trends will change for positive in 2020, as they are pinning their hopes towards seeing a revival in the economy.

    Havas Media Group managing director Mohit Joshi said that the wrapping year was a bit challenging for the industry and firm and he is expecting it to improve in 2020. “2019 was a tough year but we managed to reach our aggressive targets. Economic slowdown did have an impact on the advertising spends especially on our auto and white good clients. For 2020, I see a slow Q1, however, I am hopeful that it will balance out in the next three quarters,” he shared with his fingers crossed.

    Dighe is expecting more product launches with a revival in the economy in 2020. He said, “We are all hoping for a better 2020. We expect that consumer demand will pick up in 2020 as the government is taking steps to revive the economy, which will lead to higher spends on advertising. 2020 might see more product launches which were postponed due to the weak consumer demand in 2019.”

    GroupM has predicted the growth for television to be 11.1 per cent in 2020, stating that the global economy will remain soft during the year. It has predicted that India will remain the world leader in advertising across media and ad spends will continue to grow at 12-13 per cent each year from 2020 to 2024.

    The industry seems quite positive about the growth in the sector however economic uncertainty within the country and the ongoing situation of unrest will surely impact the overall performance, which will be interesting to see through the year. 

  • GroupM closes 2019 with billings exceeding $50B: COMvergence report

    GroupM closes 2019 with billings exceeding $50B: COMvergence report

    Mumbai: GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, will close 2019 with more than $50B in annual billings for the first time, and three GroupM agencies in the top five of global media agency networks based on billings, according to COMvergence’s projections. Mindshare, MediaCom and Wavemaker rank number two, four and five, respectively, with MediaCom posting the highest growth among all agencies in the top ten over the last year at +6.8 per cent.

    “This year, GroupM won and successfully defended $2 billion of businesses,” said GroupM chief growth officer Elizabeth McCune. “This is an incredible accomplishment on top of delivering breakthrough and award-winning work for our clients. A big part of this success, among other things, is attributed to a combination of data-led insights that drove our clients to new ways of thinking about their business, creativity in activation ideas, and the ability to connect client teams across markets with a more aligned strategy. I’m thankful to our client partners for choosing us and proud of our teams for earning their trust.”

    According to the report, the total estimated billings handled by the media agency networks and standalone/dedicated client units and agencies – operated by the big six holding companies – reached about $166B (across 41 markets representing 94 per cent of the global media investments covered by COMvergence – Brazil and Japan excluded). GroupM had the largest industry market share at 17.2 per cent and 30.2 per cent intra-Big 6 group share.

    GroupM’s m/SIX was also one of three networks that increased their billings by a double-digit figure (+14.8 percent) over the last year on a global level, while Essence grew double digits in both EMEA and APAC.

    COMvergence will release final 2019 billings figures in April 2020.

  • Mindshare India creates India’s largest audio-conferencing bridge solution ‘mSamvaad’

    Mindshare India creates India’s largest audio-conferencing bridge solution ‘mSamvaad’

    MUMBAI: Mindshare, India’s largest full-service media agency and part of GroupM, collaborated with Cosmic Information and Technology Ltd to launch a new voice-driven platform called ‘Audio Conferencing Bridge’ called ‘mSamvaad’. The solution helps connect leading brands of the country to the audience in media-dark areas on the largest voice conferencing infrastructure with a capacity of 25,000 concurrent calls.

    A large segment of Indian audiences cannot be reached through the traditional or the new-age digital mediums. This problem of low penetration coupled with low levels of literacy makes it difficult for brands to surpass the barriers of communication in remote areas. However, the rural centres of the country have been recorded as driving the telecom growth in the nation. In the Indian ecosystem, about 450 million active SIM cards are resting on feature phones, the highest across the world. This renders telecom as the medium with the largest penetration in the markets that have low access to data.

    Mindshare devised a solution that uses the power of telecom as the key channel to engage, educate and create awareness through SMS, chat rooms and voice calls for one-on-ones as well as conference connections. It also enables a two-way communication on a selected basis. The key differentiator of the platform is that it operates independent of the internet and can be used with any voice-supported device, even landline and feature phones.

    In its first venture, Mindshare rolled out a high-scaled engagement program for Horlicks to reach out to mothers in the media dark areas of Bihar for its new variant that improves nutrient absorption among children. The aim of the program was to generate awareness on the brand's scientific credentials through an audio message recorded in the voice of legendary Bhojpuri star, Ravi Kishan.

    Mindshare’s approach to deliver the brand message via a 2-way dialogue bore great results. The Horlicks nutrient absorption communication reached 4 million unique users. The 10-minutes conference bridge saw a breakthrough of 29 percent completed listenership. Through the campaign, Mindshare answered the call for nutrition with resounding effect, 81 percent recalled the new variant for its emphasis on nutrient absorption in children. Horlicks observed an impressive increase of 33 percent TOM and 12 percent of L3M usage.

    With carrier grade infra, the alliance is one of the largest in-house telecom infrastructures in India on a single location from all leading telecom operators, managed in a high-tech data centre. It has advanced servers, big-data platform, cloud backups, secured firewalls, high speed primary and backup Internet leased lines, and 24×7 power backups under the supervision of team comprising network engineers, data scientists, and engineering minds. The bridge enables massive outreach in minimum time in the most cost-effective way.

    Sharing his thoughts on the innovation, Mindshare India national head – mobile Niraj Ruparel said, “Since the past decade, our efforts have enabled number of top brands to engage their end-consumers with the most advanced and innovative voice-based solutions. Our solutions are aimed at penetrating the fragmented consumer segments of India and surpassing the barriers of communication due to low literacy rates and lack of access to data and connectivity. "mSamvaad" is one of our most successful voice product which we plan to take to the next level in the near future. We look forward to extending this platform to all prospects that are looking at customer engagement in rural India.”

    “Cosmic Information & Technology Limited is committed & will continue to leverage its large & robust Voice Infrastructure and in-house innovation lab, to co-create quality solutions, which addresses brand challenges and help them to have a simple, yet targetted delivery of message as well as meaningful conversations with their brand audience, resulting into deeper level of engagements.”, said Cosmic Information and Technology Limited CEO Nilesh Bhagat.

    Speaking about the success of the campaign, area marketing lead, nutrition, GSK Vikram Bahl, said, “This is a laudable initiative by Mindshare India along with Cosmic Infotech and we are glad to have been a part of it. We have always undertaken efforts to create awareness around holistic nutrition, especially in rural areas and this was a great opportunity for us to achieve our objective. We look forward to many such innovations in technology that can help us deliver intended message to rural markets.”

  • DAN appoints Asha Suvarna as CFO India

    DAN appoints Asha Suvarna as CFO India

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), the global media & marketing communications conglomerate, has roped in Asha Suvarna as chief financial officer (CFO), India. Prior to this, the role was held by erstwhile COO and CFO Anand Bhadkamkar who was promoted to lead the country operations as chief executive officer (CEO) in September this year.

    Armed with more than 20 years of experience in media and advertising, Suvarna is also a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA). She joins DAN India from GroupM where she held numerous roles over the years. Prior to this, Asha was Finance Director at GroupM.

    Suvarna will take charge of her new office, effective October 16. In her new role, she will report to Dentsu Aegis Network India CEO Anand Bhadkamkar, and Dentsu Aegis Network CFO Greater South David Neal.

    Commenting on Suvarna’s appointment, Anand Bhadkamkar said, “I am pleased to announce Asha’s appointment as CFO of the Group in India. Asha brings with her considerable experience in our industry as well as a very strong understanding of our business. With her financial acumen and leadership capabilities, I am sure Asha will be a great addition to the DAN India executive team and a critical strategic business partner in these transformational times.”

    Commenting on her new role, Asha Suvarna said, “Home to 23 super-successful agency brands of the country, Dentsu Aegis Network today is undoubtedly the fastest growing network in India. I am extremely honoured and happy to take up this new role and now ready to embark upon this new challenge under DAN’s strong One P&L philosophy.”

  • WPP and InMobi Group enter into a multi-year strategic partnership to co-build unique benefits for marketers

    WPP and InMobi Group enter into a multi-year strategic partnership to co-build unique benefits for marketers

    Bangalore: WPP and InMobi Group have entered into a  long-term strategic partnership to build unique benefits for marketers. Leveraging the best of expertise from InMobi Group and WPP agencies, including GroupM and Kantar, the partnership aims to simplify complexity for Indian marketers.

    The collaboration between WPP and InMobi Group will enable brands to create personalized consumer experiences at scale. Through this partnership, brands will be able to translate up-to-the-moment insights into timely marketing action.

    WPP will provide in-depth expertise and a creative approach through four pillars – content, media, data and research. WPP’s GroupM will provide data-driven marketing and media planning with end-to-end audience insights integration and will also be sharing its unique engagement approach for in-app mobile content marketing. This partnership will also benefit from Kantar’s research insights, including recommendations that combine delivery, engagement and impact measures through media.

    InMobi Group will provide deep, mobile-first expertise across marketing software and media, data and consumer platforms. As a result of this partnership, brands will gain insights on and access to 200+ million mobile users in India through the InMobi Marketing Cloud, the only mobile platform to synthesize adtech and martech platforms. The InMobi Marketing Cloud includes Pulse, the world's leading mobile research platform and InMobi DSP, its in-app programmatic buying platform. Through Glance, the world's first screen-zero platform, brands will be able to reach more than 36 million Indian smartphone users on their lock screen. 

    CVL Srinivas, WPP country manager for India, said: "WPP's partnership with InMobi will simplify marketing processes for businesses. We recognize the challenges associated with managing and translating data insights into timely and relevant brand activity. Today's consumers are inundated with brand messages and we want to enable marketers to cut through the noise to provide their consumers with meaningful connections."

    "User journeys in a mobile-first world have become increasingly complex, and brands need an end-to-end solution that helps them to uncover and drive insights into action seamlessly," said Naveen Tewari, Founder & CEO of InMobi Group. "InMobi and WPP's strengths in technology and marketing expertise mean that we are best positioned to take the guesswork out of complex data and provide integrated solutions for brands to help them drive real connections with consumers."

    “WPP and InMobi have had a long-standing successful relationship,” said Abhay Singhal, Co-founder of InMobi Group and CEO of InMobi Marketing Cloud.  “We are thrilled with the evolution of this relationship into a strategic arrangement. We hope to co-create value for the entire ecosystem through innovation that leverages data, technology, media, and content.” 

    India represents one of the largest and fastest-growing consumer markets globally. WPP and InMobi Group's partnership will see both companies co-building more innovative mobile-first products for the future, to help position businesses ahead of the marketing curve.

  • Paytm Wins BCCI Title Sponsorship Second Time in A Row, with able facilitation by Wavemaker & ESP Properties

    Paytm Wins BCCI Title Sponsorship Second Time in A Row, with able facilitation by Wavemaker & ESP Properties

    Mumbai: Wavemaker and ESP Properties, GroupM’s sports and entertainment marketing agency, has collaborated and facilitated the renewal of the partnership between Paytm and BCCI for the title sponsorship rights for BCCI’s International and Domestic cricket matches at home from 1st September 2019 to 31st March 2023. Paytm first bagged the title sponsorship rights in 2015.

    Earlier this month BCCI invited online bids for the title sponsorship rights for the BCCI organised domestic and international cricket matches. BCCI confirmed that Paytm will be the title sponsor of all domestic series/events organised, managed and administered by BCCI and played in India, between 1st September 2019 and 31st March 2023.

    Jaskaran Singh Kapany, Head- Marketing, Paytm said, “We decided very early in our journey to partner with India Cricket. Over the last few years, our association with the sport has given us a huge platform to be visible in front of half a billion Indian cricket fans. This has helped the brand immensely at various levels to build long term salience & stature. Paytm is a brand for the masses and continuing as the Title Sponsor of Cricket in India will help us bolster Paytm’s leadership position in the minds of millions of consumers, on the back of the most popular sport in the country.”

    Kartik Sharma, CEO, Wavemaker – South Asia added, “Partnering with ESP properties to help Paytm win BCCI title sponsorship rights for the second time in a row is a huge feat for all of us. It is our constant endeavour to offer best platforms to all our partners and help them grow along the journey.”

    Vinit Karnik, Business Head, ESP Properties, GroupM India said, “Paytm over the last four years has demonstrated its faith and commitment towards Indian Cricket. They understand & appreciate the potential of the game very well. Paytm & BCCI continuing their existing relationship will be huge win for both. The following that cricket gets in the sub-continent is at times more than any other sporting event across the planet and Paytm can continue to benefit from this.”

    “Earlier this year in ESP’s annual trends report we predicted that cricket would dominate the media and mind measure in 2019 and with such start to the new cricketing season we believe that this will only grow and improve over the next few months and years to come,” Vinit added.

  • Xaxis’ Alok Kapase joins Madison Media as account director for digital buying

    Xaxis’ Alok Kapase joins Madison Media as account director for digital buying

    MUMBAI: Alok Kapase has joined Madison Media as account director for digital buying ending his three year-long stint at Xaxis, a part of GroupM, where he was working as group head for supply operations.

    Kapase has more than 8 years of experience in web and mobile advertising industry, gaming, business development & account management. He has earlier been associated with companies like Audience Science, PubMatic, Vserv and Vmax.

    He had joined Xaxis in 2016 and was responsible for managing entire programmatic buying for Xaxis India. During his stint at the company, he had direct ownership of approximately INR 42 cr+ inventory buying including Youtube mastheads and Truecaller roadblocks along with OTT partnerships and other inventory deals.

    Kapase is RIT College of Engineering graduate and has his MBS degree from Maharashtra Institute of Technology.

  • The Glitch conceptualises #RiseUpChallenge for Horlicks Protein+

    The Glitch conceptualises #RiseUpChallenge for Horlicks Protein+

    MUMBAI: The Glitch, an independent creative agency under GroupM, recently created a digital campaign called #RiseUpChallenge for the brand Horlicks Protein Plus. The campaign was aimed at generating awareness about muscle health among urban consumers who are 30+ in age.

    Horlicks Protein+, a protein variant under Horlicks, aims to spread awareness about muscle health deterioration. Due to lack of awareness, people fail to identify the early symptoms of poor muscle health.

    The Glitch came up with an easy yet engaging digital solution for the brand’s core messaging. A video film was created showcasing six individuals from different backgrounds, participating in a simple test to help identify their muscle strength. The test required them to attempt to stand up from a seated position balanced on one foot, with the other foot stretched straight ahead and arms folded. Completing the test would indicate the person has good muscle health.

    GSK Consumer Healthcare India executive vice president marketing Vikram Bahl said, “Muscle health has a crucial role in the normal functioning of a human being. However, it usually goes untracked. With this campaign, we intend to educate the people about the importance of muscle mass and how it starts declining as they move into their 30’s. We are confident that after taking up the challenge, people will understand its significance and take corrective actions for building muscle strength and consequently foster a healthy lifestyle. Horlicks Protein+ is an offering from our portfolio to help consumers with quality protein intake.”

    The Glitch amplified the video on social media platforms using the #RiseUpChallenge, which then evoked interest from various influencers who attempted the challenge and further nominated their influencer friends to assess their muscle health.

    Commenting on the campaign The Glitch founding partner Kabir Kochhar said, “We used a seemingly simple test as a vehicle to draw attention to diminishing muscle health and thereby the need to consume adequate protein. Through the #RiseUpChallenge, we were able to make the consumer aware that poor muscle health could be the reason behind their tiredness.”

  • GroupM and Lifesight launch India’s first online to offline attribution playbook

    GroupM and Lifesight launch India’s first online to offline attribution playbook

    MUMBAI: GroupM India and Lifesight, a location intelligence platform and data company, have co-created a playbook answering key questions advertising clients have on online to offline attribution and outlining ways in which marketers can use intelligence on consumers’ online behaviors to impact offline sales. This is the first-of-its-kind attribution study in India examining the conversion of online ads into offline sales.

    Given that large populations of consumers and businesses are still operating out of physical stores and the fact that India has also witnessed e-commerce brands moving into offline spaces, it is critical to have data to help marketers connect the dots and uncover insights on how the offline consumer behavior is impacted by online advertising.

    GroupM understands that new age consumers' buying journeys are blended and multi-channel. Customers switch quickly and continuously between online and offline realms. Hence, considering behaviors, patterns and journeys are crucial, not just in contextual and personalised advertising but also marketing measurements.

    GroupM South Asia president – growth and transformation Tushar Vyas said, “The importance of omnichannel strategies has grown exponentially, and the lines between online and offline have begun to blur. Given that the consumer journey between online and offline is becoming seamless, it is critical to have the right technology to manage location data and location-based attribution models to provide better insights to clients.”

    Marketing attribution is the science of crediting marketing touchpoints with consumers for actions they take after exposure and consequently allocating advertising budgets according to performance. GroupM and Lifesight have identified six different attribution models for accurate footfall attribution: first touch, last touch, position-based, linear-based, time decay and data-driven.

    Vyas added, “For a marketer to understand what’s working in their campaigns, it is important to attribute the right conversion to its apt source. At GroupM, we understand the constant need to create, invent and reinvent the right measurement frameworks to help our clients address their business problems.” 

    In 300+ campaigns run through Lifesight, with over 200 brands, there were remarkable insights discovered: 

    1) The average costs to drive in consumer footfall is the most for consumer durables and the Auto sector and the least for Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and Fashion.

    2) Offline attribution works best for auto and QSR since most people would visit a physical store

    3) The retail sector takes the least time (2-3 days) to drive a walk-in from exposure. On average, it takes approximately 6-9 days across verticals to drive store walk-ins

    4) 70 per cent of the initial walk-ins to physical stores happens within the first 8 exposures. Retail takes the least number of exposures while fashion requires the most.

    Lifesight co-founder and CEO Tobin Thomas said, "Marketers today have unlimited options for building, targeting, and delivering a campaign. But even with all these options, one question remains- is my advertising working? With a large number of channels to choose from, it’s imperative to understand how each campaign component performed comparatively. As a result, location attribution has emerged as a powerful solution to stitch together channel, audience, and platform signals to understand reactions to online advertising in the real world.” 

    Thomas added, "Lifesight is leading efforts to take campaign success metrics beyond the click. We are excited that leading a marketing powerhouse like GroupM has joined us at the forefront of online-to-offline attribution.”