Tag: Karthi Marshan

  • Maddys 2025 goes global, gets glossier

    Maddys 2025 goes global, gets glossier

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Club Madras is bringing the heat with the 43rd edition of Maddys, giving India’s longest-running advertising awards a slick new sheen – and a global passport. This year’s rebooted avatar doesn’t just honour great work, it redefines the very format with new categories, a heavyweight jury, a transparent scoring system, and an international welcome mat.

    Themed ‘AI vs AI – Awesome Ideas vs Awesome Ideas’, Maddys 2025 goes all in on the creative wars in a tech-saturated world – and the stakes are high.

    For starters, it’s going international. The awards will now invite entries from across borders, aligning themselves with global benchmarks. With 155 categories across six streams – Creative, Digital, Media, Design & Print Craft, Film & Audio Craft, and Regional Pride (Tamil) – this isn’t just a celebration, it’s a campaign for creative excellence.

    The 2025 edition also introduces Grand Prix honours, a one-day celebration that starts with breakfast and ends with a cocktail, and a robust, two-tiered judging system scored on Strategy & Insights, Originality & Creativity, and Execution & Impact – minus the fluff of performance metrics.

    The dream jury team includes:

    . Karthi Marshan, former Kotak CMO, and Senthil Kumar of VML India co-chairing Creative MADDYS

    .  Ajay Gupte of Wavemaker chairing Media

    .  Dr. Apurva Chamaria of Google helming Digital

    .  Filmmaking duo Gayatri & Pushkar chairing Film & Audio Craft

    .   Santosh Padhi of Into Creative on Design & Print Craft duty

    .   Chocka of OPN taking charge of Regional Pride Maddys

    Process czar Gokul Krishnamoorthy returns as honorary jury convenor and process auditor, ensuring the judging stays squeaky clean and crystal clear.

    Aside from bragging rights, agencies and clients can win titles across streams. Grand Prix winners bag 30 points, with Gold (15), Silver (7), Bronze (3), and Shortlists (1) rounding out the leaderboard — all contributing to the prestigious “Agency of the Year” and “Client of the Year” crowns across categories.

    From art directors to Tamil-language storytellers, from global digital campaigns to handcrafted print ideas — Maddys 2025 isn’t just turning up the volume, it’s tuning into the future. Ready, set, pitch.
     

  • Masculinity needs a makeover, not a rescue mission, say ad leaders at Goafest 2025

    Masculinity needs a makeover, not a rescue mission, say ad leaders at Goafest 2025

    MUMBAI: Goafest 2025’s day two lit up with sharp insights and simmering provocations during the session “Mardon Wali Baat: A discussion on Masculinity in Advertising”. Held under the banner of ASCI Academy’s report ‘Manifest: Masculinities beyond the Mask’, the panel challenged brands to move past rigid and reductive representations of men.

    Moderated by Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) CEO & secretary general Manisha Kapoor, the panel featured Marshan.Ink (formerly Kotak) principal Karthi Marshan, and Infectious Advertising co-founder & director Nisha Singhania.

    “Masculinity is not unidimensional—it has many facets”, said Singhania, kicking off the discussion. She stressed that the emotional complexity of men is often neglected in ad narratives, where strength is still seen through a bicep rather than vulnerability. “Men are tired of being portrayed as a ‘work in progress’ or needing to be fixed”.

    She also took aim at legacy brands. “They rely too much on past data and lack the patience to build new narratives”, she said, pointing out that India’s evolving masculinity isn’t as entitled or rigid as marketers presume. “The narrative of ‘get him married and he’ll change’ is outdated and unfair”.

    Marshan pushed for a fundamental mindset shift: “Masculinity vs. feminism is a false dichotomy—we need to move beyond gender and sexuality labels”. He challenged the belief that long-term investment alone makes a campaign successful. “Disruption works—if a brand gets attention, people will engage, regardless of target audience”.

    Echoing Singhania’s view, Marshan said, “Marketers underestimate audiences—viewers are more progressive than assumed”. He called on creatives to stop playing safe and start trusting viewers’ ability to embrace evolved storytelling.

    The session served less as a sermon and more as a mirror—reflecting both the flaws in the way men are marketed and the possibilities that await when brands loosen their grip on stale stereotypes.

  • NPCI launches UPI awareness campaign in association with payment ecosystem players

    NPCI launches UPI awareness campaign in association with payment ecosystem players

    MUMBAI: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in association with the payment ecosystem players have co-created an industry campaign “UPI Chalega” to promote UPI as easy, safe, and instant mode of payment. The campaign is aimed to guide users towards the right usage of UPI and help create a habitual change, use of UPI in their daily life. The campaign also focuses on safety aspects while transacting on UPI enabled apps.

    The campaign targets the Indian smartphone users to guide them on the ease of using UPI through various use cases where UPI can be used instead of cash or any other payment mode. The campaign targets users across all ages and aims to promote how to safely use UPI. UPI Chalega campaign educates customers about using UPI for their daily expenses such as at the vegetable shop, petrol pumps, restaurants, e-commerce, bill payment, etc.

    Campaign’s creative agency Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) has created a relatable character, Mrs Rao, who is the mouthpiece of the brand UPI. Whenever there is a cash crisis at hand, Mrs Rao appears as the voice of reason, and introduces UPI transactions as the simple solution to the problem. In the six TVCs, the story is satirically narrated by Mrs Rao who gently reprimands the viewers for their faith in the old ways of buying things and splitting bills. The ad films end on an instructive note, ‘Batwe ke jagah mobile nikalo; len den ki nai aadat dalo’.

    The 360-degree campaign uses various media channels like television, cinema, outdoor, digital and radio to drive the traffic to UPIChalega.com microsite. This microsite has TVCs, ‘how to’ videos about using UPI safely, information about live banks and third party Apps as well as social feeds among other information. From Registration process, what’s a UPI id, pin change, complaint redressal, sending money, PIN secrecy to the uniform UPI payment page that users should always remember, the campaign covers everything in the how to videos in UPIChalega.com microsite.

    NPCI COO Praveena Rai said, “We are excited to announce the launch of “UPI Chalega” campaign. We believe this campaign has extreme potential to educate users, exponentially accelerate the adoption rate of digital payments and support our vision of a less-cash payments economy. We are happy to associate with our member banks, payment service providers and third party Apps and design this fun-filled and educational UPI awareness campaign. We hope the highlight of our campaign, Mrs. Rao, would motivate customers to shift to easy and safe UPI payments and restrict the usage of cash.”

    SBI DMD strategy and chief digital officer Swaminathan J said, “SBI as a founding member of NPCI is happy to be a part of FLAC (Financial Literacy & Awareness Campaign) committee to create awareness and increase the adoption of UPI. Over the years, endeavor of SBI has been to promote safe and convenient digital payment methods including UPI among its customers. It is important for the payment eco-system to constantly educate and inform customers about UPI as the simple, instant and one of the most secure modes of payment methods in the country.”

    FLAC (Financial Literacy and Awareness Campaign) Committee chairman and Kotak Mahindra Group CMO Karthi Marshan said, “This is possibly the first time that banking, payments and fintech players are coming together with NPCI to promote safe usage of UPI via a massive multi-media campaign that aims to provoke interest as well as educate in an engaging manner. It’s been a privilege for me to work with my peers and NPCI in championing this truly important agenda, of leading India to a less cash, more digital economy. Digital money is the simplest alternative to carrying cash. And it’s safer. But most consumers aren’t aware of that. They still rely on cash for most of their transactions. We wanted to come up with a simple creative solution that encourages behaviour change. Our message – UPI chalega – is a short and effective trigger.”

  • Pune franchisee all set to battle it out in Pro Kabaddi League2014

    Pune franchisee all set to battle it out in Pro Kabaddi League2014

    MUMBAI: Insurekot Sports Pvt. Ltd., a Mumbai-based firm, today announced the launch of ‘Puneri Paltan’, the franchise that will represent Pune in Pro Kabaddi League 2014. Pro Kabaddi League is slated to kick-off later this month. On the occasion, the Puneri Paltan team logo, anthem and jersey were also unveiled.

     

    Puneri Paltan will be captained by Wazir Singh, who has a long and distinguished record in the sport of Kabaddi. Wazir Singh has represented India, the State of Rajasthan and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). He was part of the team that won the Silver medal for India at the 2011 South Asian Beach Games. Ramphal Kaushik, winner of the Best Coach Award 2011 of CISF, is the official coach of Puneri Paltan.

     

    Sumanlal Shah, Director, Insurekot Sports Pvt. Ltd., said, “Kabaddi is an ancient Indian sport that has lost out to other sports in terms of popularity and investments over the years. The sport is an integral part of India’s rich cultural heritage. It is also a hugely competitive and dynamic sport that makes for compelling viewing. Insurekot Sports Pvt. Ltd. is extremely proud to promote Kabaddi and be associated with Pro Kabaddi League. We are geared up with our team, Puneri Paltan, for an exciting season ahead.”

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Karthi Marshan, Director Insurekot Sports Pvt. Ltd., said, “A truly Indian sport, Kabaddi represents both ‘attack’ and ‘defense’. We have captured this essence in the Puneri Paltan logo, aptly represented by the ‘sword’ and ‘shield’ as well as in the lyrics of the team’s anthem. More importantly, we have used this theme as a guiding principle in putting together a fabulous team.”

     

    The Puneri Paltan team includes Wazir Singh (Captain), Arabinda Khuntia, Jitesh Joshi, K Balamahendran, Mahipal Narwal, Manoj Kumar, Mostafa Noudehi (Iran national), Nitin More, Pravin Niwale, Simon Kubura (Kenya national), Sunil Lande and Waleed Hasani (Oman national).

     

    Wazir Singh, Captain of Puneri Paltan, said, “It is my privilege and honour to lead this team. I would like to express my gratitude to Insurekot Sports Pvt. Ltd. for reposing faith in the team and in the sport, which is by and large recognised as a rural and semi-urban sport in India. I am sure this professional format of Kabaddi will make it popular. I urge every individual from the city of Pune and across the country to extend their support to Puneri Paltan and the League. I am confident that our team will pose a strong challenge and we look forward to a hard-fought and successful tournament.”

     

    The Pune franchise has also launched the team anthem sung by well-known music director, Ajay Gogavale (of Ajay-Atul fame). The anthem captures elements of power, tactics and strategy involved in this heritage sport, and is all set to rekindle the passion and spirit of fans and supporters across India.

     

    Puneri Paltan is currently undergoing training sessions at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Sports Complex located at Balewadi in Pune, and will be playing its first match in Mumbai on July 27, 2014. The inaugural edition of Pro Kabaddi League starts on July 26, 2014.