MUMBAI: The shortlist of Effies 2013 is out. The total number of shortlists this year is 243 with Ogilvy & Mather topping the list with 43 entries for 24 categories.Next to it is Lowe Lintas with 31 shortlisted case studies.
It is interesting to note that in the 13 years of its existence, Effies has received the highest ever entries this year with the tally reaching 419.
The award function will be held on 15 January in Mumbai.
MUMBAI: Bookmyshow.com, an entertainment ticketing platform, has unveiled its new brand identity comprising of a refreshed company logo and tagline.
After a multi-agency pitch held in Mumbai, the company has appointed Lowe Lintas as its creative partner to represent the company’s ideology of ensuring simplicity and accessibility in its offerings to customers.
Speaking of the appointment, Lowe Lintas and Partners chairman and chief creative officer R Balki said, “There can be no greater joy in advertising than creating ideas for a product you use and love. BookMyShow is one of the rare products where we can craft communication as consumers. Such a rare pleasure!”
The account will be handled by the agency team in Mumbai, led by Lowe Lintas president Raj Gupta. Speaking of the partnership, he added, “BookMyShow is a transformational business model and we wish to make it a revolutionary brand too”
Unveiling the company’s new identity, Bookmyshow.com founder and chief executive officer Ashish Hemrajani said, “Bookmyshow.com has evolved rapidly and has become synonymous with online entertainment ticketing in India. Keeping this in mind, we felt that the company identity no longer reflected what Bookmyshow as a company represents. This re-branding is our inflection point. Extensive research and many integral aspects were taken into consideration during the creation of this new identity. We believe the new identity perfectly captures our current standing and future aspirations as a company. We have also introduced a refreshed tagline, which perfectly captures and communicates the three key things we do for our customers – we book their show, time and seats. Simple and clear!”
The new company identity has been designed by Lemon Designs and retains continuity from the older logo of an enclosed ‘my’ and the ‘book’ and ‘show’ on either side, with a transition from the 3D ball to a ‘ticket’. This transition and the retention of the older construction suggest progressive evolution of the company’s offerings. The new tagline‘My Show. My Time. My Seat’ represents consumer choice and convenience i.e. an assured seat, for a show and time of choice.
In addition to the unveiling of its new identity, the company also announced its first ever ATL (Above the Line) marketing campaign. The marketing campaign mainly comprises of three mediums i.e. television, cinema and digital.
Talking about the key objective behind the marketing campaign, Hemrajani added, “Currently, only 10 per cent of the Indian audience buys tickets online on an average. We see a great potential for market expansion, especially with the accelerated growth of the Indian film industry and emergence of smart phones in India. In fact, India ranks as the second highest country in the world in terms of digital buys through mobile. Even in the Tier II – Tier III cities, we have witnessed a phenomenal growth ranging from 150 – 600 per cent. Being market leaders in the online ticketing space, we are now looking at growing the online ticketing category with this marketing campaign. We are aiming to change consumer habits and persuade the 90 per cent offline ticket buyers to buy tickets online.”
The creatives of the campaign have been conceptualised around movies and cinemas, with the advertisements centered on different genres of films such as suspense, tragedy and love triangle. The advertisements have been dubbed in five other languages namely Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil.
MUMBAI: LinOpinion GolinHarris, a public relations consultancy and the PR division of Lowe Lintas India, has announced that it has won the mandate for Tata Mutual Fund. The deal will further strengthen its finance practice.
LinOpinion GolinHarris president and Lowe Lintas & Partners executive VP Kavita Lakhani says, “We are very proud to partner with this prestigious brand. We have in the past, and currently worked with some of the best brands in the finance practice and are delighted to add Tata Mutual Fund to our list of clients. Post our partnership with GolinHarris, we continue to enhance our product and deliver PR strategies with greater focus on quality and measurable results. We look forward to doing some noteworthy work for both these brands in the years to come.”
The agency’s past and current experience includes campaigns for JP Morgan AMC, Principal AMC, Principal Retirement Advisors, Financial Planning Standards Board, National Bank of Australia, IDFC AMC when it was Standard Chartered AMC, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered Private Equity, Taurus MF, Religare Group, Department of Sales Tax, among others.
MUMBAI: Jewellery adds to your celebrations, isn’t it? That is the mantra on which Tanishq is cashing on this wedding season with its new campaign conceptualised by Lowe Lintas.
Tanishq had launched its wedding collection in 2010, and though it has a range of wedding jewellery, it’s not the preferred choice of wedding specific customers. To deal with this setback that it is facing, the brand has introduced a range of wedding jewellery that is a fusion of new age and contemporary design set in age-old Kundan polki, which makes it unique.
The brief given to the creative agency was to establish Tanishq as the ‘differentiated wedding jeweller’.
“Everything about the ad has to reflect the brand as the new-age product. Hence, we came up with a subject like this to make a bold statement talking about the brand which hasn’t been tapped in the past, says Lowe Lintas’ NCD Arun Iyer about the TVC.
The TVC opens with a bride getting ready for her wedding, when a little girl walks up to her and starts interacting with her. The bride and the little girl walk together to the wedding mandap where the little girl goes and sits next to an elderly couple and the pheras start. Alongside, the little girl is shown telling the elderly couple to be a part of the pheras too but is denied. Finally, the little girl calls out to the bride and says “Mama, I also want to go round and round”. The bride shushes her, but the groom, on seeing how sad the little girl is, calls out to the girl and carries her. The couple completes the rest of the pheras with the little girl.
What is catching everyone’s attention is the concept. Another talking point is the ‘dusky’ woman who features in the TVC. “Yes, we know everyone is talking about it, but nothing was done intentionally. The girl suited the role so we got her onboard,” clarifies Iyer.
About the expectations from the campaign, Tanishq senior VP sales and marketing Sandeep Kulahalli says, “We wanted to do something different this time and do something which is usually not done by this category. And maybe, that’s why the camapign has been well recieved by people.”
He adds, “Tanishq as a brand has evolved over the years and this showcases that we arent a ‘traditional’ brand. We show the progressiveness in people’s mind.”
The campaign will be executed on TV, print and OOH.
MUMBAI: Lowe Lintas has conceptualised a new campaign for Alto 800. The car from Maruti Suzuki went through significant changes to make it contemporary and stay relevant.
The ‘Let’s Go’ campaign symbolises younger attitude but also has dabs of emotion. The company wanted to capture the essence of festivals In India and the insight it got was that the festivals are celebrated by travelling; people go out shopping, meeting friends, relatives. Hence, Alto 800 wanted to integrate its promise of offering the best mileage in its class to the spirit of festivals in order to drive brand’s consideration.
Commentating on the campaign, Lowe Lintas Delhi president Naveen Gaur says, “In India, festivals are celebrated by travelling. People go out shopping, meeting friends, relatives. Families get together to jointly celebrate. In such times a car with exceptional mileage is an ideal car to own. With the new Alto 800 commercial, Maruti Suzuki and Lowe Lintas wanted to integrate this insight, with the festival led car buying season and the brand promise of ‘Let’s go’. Additionally it was an opportunity for us to infuse a sense of festivity into the market.”
Elaborating more on it, Gaur adds, “Mileage is something that can become very functional and manufactures’ speak, however this TVC captures the benefit unequivocally in a very warm and emotional storyline. It also captures a progressive attitude among today’s couples who are increasingly equal partners in their relationship.”
The commercial signs off by saying ‘Agar khusiyaan baatney se badhti hain, toh rukna kyon?’ An Alto ad has always been known for its music, the latest TVC is no different, the lyrics are penned by Gulzar, sung by Shilpa Rao and composed by Rajat Dholokia.
On the campaign, Maruti Suzuki India chief general manager Manohar Bhat says, “Alto is an iconic car. It is the largest selling car in India and is known for its fuel efficiency. Keeping the festival season in mind, we wanted to make sure that it also builds a relationship through the campaign.”
The campaign led by TV and supported through digital and radio along with POS and outdoor presence.
MUMBAI: Keeping with the brand’s fun, bold and irreverent image, Fastrack has launched its latest campaign for its watch collection.
The TVC conceputalised by Lowe Lintas features finger break dancing choreographed by Lilach Chen. The youth brand wanted to draw attention to the product category using finger break dancing as a major player as its core thought has always been about the mating game and it wanted the TVC to have a twist on it.
Commenting on the campaign, Lowe Lintas’ national creative director Arun Iyer says, “We had to showcase a new collection of watches in a quick, snappy manner while being true to the brand essence. Hooking-up is no big deal and the commercial conveys exactly that. And that to us is very Fastrack.”
The campaign will be showcased on television and digital medium.
On the association, Fastrack marketing head Simeran Bhasin says, “We wanted to do something different to introduce our new line of watches. The finger break dancing in the ad is a unique way to showcase the watches and also plays on the irreverence of the brand.”
MUMBAI: LinOpinion – the PR division of Lowe Lintas & Partners India and GolinHarris have jointly announced their coming together under a joint venture (JV) agreement, intended to bring clients into India’s new integrated communications services with a focus on providing the deepest insights, the boldest ideas and the broadest engagement across both traditional and digital channels. Under the agreement each partner has an equal stake and the entity will now be known as LinOpinion-GolinHarris.
Lowe Lintas & Partners CEO Joseph George said “LinOpinion, with its large portfolio of blue-chip clients, is one of the fastest growing business units within Lowe Lintas & Partners India. And GolinHarris, a company that has revolutionised the way PR agencies work world over. While I am very excited with our mutual obsession with building brands, I am also convinced that their inputs, influence and involvement will not just help us scale up our operations in India, but also transform our PR offering to be more differentiated and better placed to respond to the ever evolving media environment and engagement dynamics.”
“We have enormous respect and admiration for LinOpinion and the Lowe Lintas & Partners Group. Their current client portfolio and professional staff are best-in-class. This partnership will formalise our long association with them and will take things to the next level,” said GolinHarris CEO Fred Cook.
“The timing could not be better as PR is evolving and so is the communications market in India. I believe there is great potential hereand I look forward to helping expand the range of services we will offer our clients in India through our award-winning technology, training and talent.” added GolinHarris president Jonathan Hughes.
“LinOpinion has had an excellent run so far. But the market is evolving and clients are ready for something new. We have restructured our service model and have made significant investments to strengthen the team with vertical heads. We are very excited to partner with GolinHarris. The LinOpinion-Golin Harris JV will offer our existing clients and new prospects a differentiated service, with a greater focus on quality and measurable results. We intend to scale this business significantly in the next few years.” said Lowe Lintas & Partners executive director Ameer Ismail.
MUMBAI: OLX.in, India‘s largest local online classifieds site has chosen Lowe Lintas as its creative partner to further build up on its brand communication and strengthen its position as the No.1 online classifieds site in India.
Being a multi-agency pitch, Lowe Lintas won the OLX account amidst fierce competition from other top agencies of the country. In a nation where people have a tendency to hoard and aggregate goods, the agency will play a pivotal role in extending OLX‘s communication of being the largest C2C marketplace in India and an ideal platform for buying and selling of such aggregated goods lying around in households.
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OLX is a platform that enables buyers to sell anything ranging from vehicles, household furniture, mobile phones electronics and real estate; Lowe Lintas has now been given the mandate to create engaging communications that caters to the further development of such categories while strengthening the message that people can now sell their pre-owned stuff easily on OLX.
OLX India CEO Amarjit Singh Batra said, “The initial TV ads and messaging of ‘Sab Kuch Bikta Hai‘ and ‘OLX pe bech de‘ has witnessed positive mass appeal resulting in immense brand recall and a clear user preference for the brand. Building up from here, we want to take this notion a step further to fortify OLX‘s brand equity and humanise the brand. We were overwhelmed to see the interest and response from the top most agencies in the country and we are thankful to all of them who participated in the pitch process and showed an eagerness to work with us. Having weighed all the proposals and looking at the best fit, we chose Lowe Lintas for their ‘Populist‘ creativity, their focus on business results and their understanding of our brand. We are confident that Lowe Lintas will be able to help us fulfil our objectives.”
Lowe Lintas national creative director Amer Jaleel commented on the win, “OLX is an extremely dynamic and exciting brand. The most interesting thing about OLX is that it‘s a completely new category with challenges of changing human behaviour. There will be opportunities to crack new insights, and therefore the brand would allow us to introduce absolutely fresh communication.”
“We are exceptionally excited to partner with OLX.in. OLX is at the forefront of a genuine consumer revolution in the Indian online space by creating a new selling culture that sees value in almost everything. OLX was seeking creative excellence based on strong strategic thinking and I think we as Lowe Lintas delivered to that. We look forward to partnering them in creating bigger, better and bolder creative work based on a distinctive brand promise,” added Lowe Lintas president Naveen Gaur.
MUMBAI: Dollar Industries, a hosiery manufacturing company is looking for a creative agency for its Lifestyle clothing.
The multi pitch process is going on in Kolkata. There are different agencies vying for the space. The creative duties for men‘s innerwear Dollar Bigboss is handled by Lowe Lintas.
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Dollar Industries head advertising corp comm Bidyut Nath |
Dollar Industries head – advertising cooperate communications Bidyut Nath said, “Dollars new Lifestyle brand now includes casual wear for man. We are planning to introduce women‘s range two under this category shortly. The man‘s range is already soft launched in east and the next spring summer, we will launch the new brand across the country. Dollar industry is 575 crore in 2012 – 2013. So out of which the turnover of 60 per cent comes from man‘s innerwear, 20 per cent from woman and 10 per cent from the low range product.”
“Total marketing budget of Dollar is around 50-60 crore, out of which around 20-30 per cent would be invested for this new brand,” added Nath.
Business in India has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis and contributing in no small measure by visionaries like Shri Dindayal Gupta, Chairman of Dollar Industries.
Dollar Bigboss has been promoted by Salman Khan. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar and choreographer Prabhu Deva appeared this year in March in a TVC. For which Dollar had a 360 degree advertising campaign via print, electronic and outdoor media to promote the commercial.
MUMBAI: Trust the man with the beard to do it differently. 10 years ago, the creative guru and the current Lowe Lintas chairman & chief creative officer R. Balki took a decision to put a full stop to his agency‘s participation in the advertising industry awards. But even he knows creatives have this innate desire to be patted on their backs for good creatives and advertising that they have slogged to create over zillions of cups of chai, ciggies and sometimes rum and coke or single malt scotch.
Hence, to keep those in his agency in good cheer he created his own internal awards gig calling it
‘The True Show‘ way back in 2003. And the agency has been putting it together randomly once every few years; whenever it thinks the time is right. The first was in 2003, the next in 2005, the third in 2008 and finally the last one which was held last night at the Shangri La Hotel in Central Mumbai.
At the fourth True Show, Balki made an appearance with his lovely and talented wife Gauri Shinde accompanying him as he entered the venue. And he quickly got down to the business for the evening.
R Balki chairman and CCO of Lowe Lintas strikes a pose
He was pretty blunt when he spoke: “I don‘t give a damn for awards shows. Awards are just an excuse to drink and have fun and they change no one‘s lives. True Show is not about awarding our self it‘s about awarding good work.”
And indeed it was time to down a pint or two. Instead of the usual trophies, Balki handed out bottles of wine to each of the winners onstage. He even went as far as forcing them to down a few shots before letting them go. Post their pumping their fists in the air, they returned their bottles back, for each to be handed over to the next winner.
Balki obviously was in good spirits and hence it was strange to see some vets like DDB Mudra chairman & CCO Sonal Dabral shying away from receiving their bottle of wine. Ditto with ‘Vicky Donor‘ director Shoojit Sircar, who was recognised for his film for Gujarat Tourism with Amitabh Bachchan. Both had to be pushed by their former colleagues on to the stage. They were not from Lowe, but from other agencies, and there only to have a good time.
Prasoon Joshi and R Balki – ‘The True Showmen‘
Of course, old friends like Bang-Bang Films‘ Roopak Saluja, BBDO India‘s Josy Paul, Lodestar‘s Shashi Sinha, Axis Bank‘s Shikha Sharma, Leo Burnett‘s K.V. Sridhar, McCann Erickson‘s Prasoon Joshi, O&M‘s Madhukar Sabnavis and Abhijit Avasthi, Taproot‘s Agnello Dias, Draft FCBUka‘s KC Chakravarthy ‘Chax‘ were all there to take part in the party. And clients like Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, HUL‘s Nitin Paranjpe, among others.
Rajeev Bajaj and K V Sridhar in conversation
Leo Burnett India CCO K.V. Sridhar was full of praise for Balki‘s effort. Speaking to indiantelevision.com he said: “True Show is true to the personality of Lintas and Balki. At the end of the day, it is all about celebrating good work. Unless you care about the work done by you the world will not.”
Way to go Balki!
Here‘s a list of those who got a chance to take home a bottle wine and were forced to down shots by Balki:-
| True Craft Awards |
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| True Show Talent | Anupam & Urfee | |||||
| True Show Best Editor | Ad: Axis Bank – Shekhar | |||||
| Work that we truly envy | Ogilvy and Mather – The Hindu | |||||
| Work that we truly envy for craft |
Shoojit Sircar for directing the TVCs for Gujarat Tourism |
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| Work that we truly envy | Ad: Big Bazaar – Mudra | |||||
| True Simplicity | Ad: Havells Idli – Sriram Iyer & Team | |||||
| True Activation Idea | Ad: Tata Tea Jaago re campaign, Chotti Shuruvat | |||||
| Best Continuing campaign |
Ad: Surf Excel |
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| True Brand Portfolio |
Ad: Tanishq |
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| Blockbuster of the year | Ad: Idea Honey Bunny campaign | |||||
| True Idea |
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| Truly Special Award | Ad: Lifebuoy Gondappa |