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Tag: MEC

  • GroupM wins highest number of awards at Yahoo! Big Chair 2013

    GroupM wins highest number of awards at Yahoo! Big Chair 2013

    MUMBAI: GroupM agencies won the highest number of awards at the Yahoo! Big Chair Awards 2013.

    While GroupM Interaction won the gold for the best use of technology for the Heineken Inner Voice campaign, Maxus India won four awards including three silvers and one bronze. The silvers were won in the following categories: ‘Best content Marketing Award’ for the Mentos Riddle campaign, ‘Best Use of Display’ for Mathrubhumi and ‘Best Use of Mobile Advertising’ for the Tata Sky campaign. MEC Global took home one bronze for the Colgate Mahakumbh Mela activity.

    “We are extremely delighted with the awards we won at the Yahoo! Big Chair 2013. Over the last year the digital teams across the GroupM agencies have been winning an award every other day, a testament to the great work and innovations the teams are churning out for our clients. It is great to end the year with six more awards to add to our tally of 204,” said GroupM Interaction south Asia managing partner Tushar Vyas.

    Added Maxus head of digital Unny Radhakrishnan, “We are happy for the continuing recognition of our work and also that these awards span different verticals in digital as well as a wide range of brands.”

    The GroupM agencies manage the digital and integrated communications mandate for some of the country’s most iconic brands including Vodafone, Google, Star TV, Tata Sky, Nokia, Kellogg’s, Colgate, Aditya Birla Group, Castrol, United Breweries, Pepsico, Uninor, Domino’s Pizza, Britannia and Havell’s to name a few.

  • MEC India wins at 2013 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards

    MEC India wins at 2013 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards

    MUMBAI:  MEC India has bagged an award for the ‘Most Effective Location-based Service/Campaign’ at the recently concluded 2013 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards ceremony held on 28 November in London.

    The agency received the award for one of its campaign designed for Colgate at Kumbh Mela. Centered around the Maha Kumbh Mela held in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, the campaign was aimed at connecting with audiences at the festival, that is one of the world’s largest religious gatherings witnessing over 80 million people in attendance this year.

    Speaking on the occasion, Red Fuse Communications CEO Shubha George said, “We feel honoured to be recognised on a renowned global platform like the 2013 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards. Executing and implementing the campaign was a challenging task for the team, especially for a mammoth project of the scale of the Maha Kumbh Mela. The prime objective at the Maha Mela was to attract and engage consumers in a highly competitive environment, which inspired us to think beyond traditional methods. The award encourages us to push further boundaries in the future.”

    Mobile phone was selected as the medium to connect with the large audiences at the Maha Kumbh Mela. “This was the very first time in India that a brand had used location-based voice communication to convey the desired message and generate direct response from the audience” said George.

    A total of over 700,000 pilgrims visited a specially erected Colgate stall during this whole Maha Kumbh Mela promotion.

  • No Talkies brings out maximum Deewangi in media agencies

    No Talkies brings out maximum Deewangi in media agencies

    MUMBAI: SONY MAX, the premium Hindi movies and special events channel which recently launched its latest initiative“NO TALKIES”-India’s first National Dumb Charades competition for Media Agencies across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, has received an overwhelming response. The activity had its first ever regional rounds in Delhi on 18th September, followed by Bangalore on the 19th and Mumbai on 25th September. The media agencies who had enthusiastically registered for the initiative were waiting to get on stage and put their best foot forward.

     

    Five teams have qualified for the finale of NO TALKIES. Delhi MAXUS had a clean sweep by clearing the regional round with 2 winning teams namely ‘Engineers’ & ‘MAXUS ke Deewane’. From Bangalore, ‘Thakur ke Aadmi’ from MAXUS qualified for the deciding round. The teams which performed the best in the Mumbai regional round were ‘Eena Meena Deeka’ and ‘MEC Fimly Deewane’ from Mindshare and MEC respectively.

     

    The preliminary rounds of the activity witnessed team participation from top media agencies across Mindshare, Maxus, MEC, Motivator, Lodestar, Madision, Starcom, Lintas, OMD, MPG amongst others in the three cities.

     

    Witnessing the passion of the participants, Vaishali Sharma, VP Marketing, MAX commented, “We are overwhelmed to see the enthusiasm with which media agencies have connected and participated in ‘NO TALKIES’. Everyone has a little bit of filmy deewanapan in their life and ‘NO TALKIES’ has given them the perfect avenue to showcase it. We look forward to an even more successful finale in Mumbai.”

    The top 5 teams are now sharpening their acting skills to clinch the title of being crowned as the winner of ‘NO TALKIES’on 1st October at Blue Frog, Mumbai. It’s going to be a perfect recipe of a delightful & entertaining evening.

  • WPP Q1 2013 revenues grow 6%; looks to maintain tempo

    WPP Q1 2013 revenues grow 6%; looks to maintain tempo

    MUMBAI: Sir Martin Sorrell‘s charge is doing very well, thank you. Take a dekko at the Q1 2013 financials that the global advertising and marketing leader WPP has posted. Revenue growth is at 5.85 per cent, which seems not much, but it is far better than some of its peers‘ performances (Omnicom at 2.8 per cent and IPG at 2.4 per cent). Revenues were at ?2.53 billion as against Q1 2012‘s ?2.39 billion.

    On a like-for-like basis, excluding the impact of acquisitions and currency fluctuations, revenues were up 2.1 per cent with gross margin up 1.9 per cent compared with the same period last year.

    North America led the media communications conglomerate‘s growth by contributing 35 per cent of the total revenue pie followed by the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa & Middle East and Central & Eastern Europe region at 29.1 per cent. Western Continental Europe accounted for 23.4 per cent of WPP‘s Q1 2013 revenues while United Kingdom pitched in the rest 12.5 per cent. The UK and the Asia Pacific Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa & Middle East and Central & Eastern Europe region were the only two regions which showed a growth in share of the revenue pie.

    Business sector wise, advertising and media investment management continued to be the strongest sector accounting for 40.8 per cent of the total revenues, followed by branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications with 27.3 per cent, while consumer insight and public relations and public affairs made up 23.2 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively.

    In line with the group‘s strategic focus on new markets, new media and consumer insight, WPP completed 13 transactions in the first quarter. Nine acquisitions and investments were classified in new markets (of which eight were in new media), two in consumer insight, including data analytics and the application of technology and two driven by individual client or agency needs.

    Specifically, in the first quarter of 2013, acquisitions and increased equity stakes have been completed in advertising and media investment management in Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand; in consumer insight in the United States and Myanmar; in public relations and public affairs in China; in direct, digital and interactive in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and Australia, says the media group‘s release.

    WPP gained a total of ?940 million in net new business wins (including all losses) in the first quarter, compared to ?1.159 billion in the same period last year and in line with the quarterly average in 2012 of approximately ?940 million. Of this, JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Y&R, Grey and United generated net new business billings of ?281 million.

    Also, out of the group total, GroupM, its media investment management company,which includes Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, Maxus, GroupM Search and Xaxis, together with tenthavenue, generated net new business billings of ?465 million ($743 million).

    In its financial guidance for the rest of 2013, WPP says “our prime focus will remain on growing revenues and gross margin faster than the industry average, driven by our leading position in the new markets, in new media, in consumer insight, including data analytics and the application of technology, creativity and horizontality. At the same time, we will concentrate on meeting our operating margin objectives by managing absolute levels of costs and increasing our flexibility, in order to adapt our cost structure to significant market changes and ensuring that the benefits of the restructuring investments taken in 2012 are realised.” It has targeted like-for-like revenue and gross margin growth of 3 per cent and also improving its operating margins by half a point.

  • MEC India bags Dixcy Scott’s media biz

    MUMBAI: MEC India has been awarded the media duties for the innerwear brand Dixcy Scott, following a multi-agency pitch.

    The agency‘s Bangalore office will handle the account.

    Dixcy director Raghul Sikka said, “We have very aggressive plans for the coming year and we wanted a like-minded partner on board. It was a tough fight between equally competent agencies. We believe we have found that partner in MEC. We look forward to working with MEC”.

    Dixcy Scott heads – advertising and promotion Ganesh Sharma added, “Being a low involvement category, our media product needs depth coupled with an innovative approach to reach our target audience, which will eventually deliver the desired results for us”.

    MEC India MD T Gangadhar said, “Dixcy is a key player in the Indian innerwear market and we are delighted to have them on board. We look forward to a mutually rewarding association”.

    For the record, MEC, a GroupM agency, has a repertoire of clients that include Colgate Palmolive, Britannia, Reliance Industries, LG, Honda, FlipKart, Citibank, Nivea, Zee Network, CavinKare, DHL, Jaypee Group and Accenture.

  • MEC predicts 2.6% higher TV ratings of IPL 2013

    Mumbai: Average television rating for the Indian Premier League is expected to go up from 3.8 last year to 3.9, an increase of 2.6 per cent (15+ years, Male/Female, SEC ABC), as per the IPL TV Rating Estimation Study of MEC, a GroupM media buying and planning agency.

    In the sixth season of the event, Mumbai Indians (4.5 TVR), Kolkata Knight Riders (4.2 TVR) and Chennai Super Kings (4.1 TVR) games will have the highest ratings, the study said.

    Meanwhile, home team (84 per cent), favourite team (79 per cent) and Indian stars (64 per cent) will continue to be deciding factors to watch a match. And time of the match (49 per cent) is also gaining importance, the report said.

    According to the study, MI (23 per cent), Chennai (19 per cent) and KKR (14 per cent) are the most popular teams. Support for Hyderabad has gone up by 200 per cent (2 per cent to 6 per cent), Bangalore has dropped by 50 per cent (12 per cent to 8 per cent)

    Also, Sachin Tendulkar (80), MS Dhoni (79), Yuvraj Singh (76), Virat Kohli (74) and Virender Sehwag (73) are the most popular Indian players in the League; Chris Gayle (60), Ricky Ponting (55), Brett Lee (51) and Kevin Pietersen (50) are most popular foreign players.

    MEC India MD T Gangadhar said, “Our study suggests that IPL seems to have matured as a property. The study clearly establishes that ratings in the first phase (first 18 games) impact the fate of the entire league. With Pepsi activating their title sponsorship in a big way, the BCCI launching the IPL Fantasy League and India‘s strong performance against Australia, the first stage of the league could get further momentum.”

    “We expect the IPL Fantasy League to become a key part of the live broadcast experience and as a result, social chatter around IPL could grow significantly”, Gangadhar added.

    Meritus Analytics Managing Partner Sunder Muthuraman also believes that the IPL brand is reflecting the behaviour of a typical mature consumer product. “Our proprietary survey, that is integral to the forecast, shows that there is a segment of audience who will watch more than last year (say, the loyalists) and another segment who will watch lesser (say, the rejecters). Given that the former segment is larger than the latter, the ratings are likely to be marginally higher than in 2012. Given our past successes, we hope our pioneering rating forecast methodology will be adopted by all broadcasters and advertisers.”

    The research was conducted in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. As in previous years, the study has been carried out in association with Meritus, WPP‘s analytics company.

  • Casbaa organises TV Upfront in Manila

    MUMBAI: Casbaa‘s TV Upfronts road show 2012 landed in Manila this month with a programme of ad sales presentations for agencies, clients and media. The Philippines Screenings followed similar engagements in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

    A showcase for pay-TV networks to screen their upcoming programming. The Philippines Screenings included presentations from BBC Worldwide, Discovery Networks Asia Pacific, History, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting.

    The enthusiastic audience included agencies MediaCom, Mindshare, OMD, PHD, Starcom, Maxus, MEC and ZenithOptimedia, along with audience data providers AGB Nielsen and Kantar Media. The range of clients ran from senior buyers from Samsonite to P&G Philippines.

    SkyCable chairman Eugenio Lopez III said, “The upscale consumer is one of the most difficult to reach and engage. Cable TV allows for the regularity of reaching this young, affluent, urban audience. Brands that are premium in nature, or that seek to create aspirational imagery, need to reach out to this segment of the market. Companies that do business with upscale consumers should recognise the power of the platform.”

    Casbaa CEO Christopher Slaughter said, “The Philippines has incredible growth potential. The multichannel TV market is expected to benefit from economic development in the coming years, attracting more advertisers looking to target an economically advancing population.”

    With approximately 7.6 million television homes in the country‘s urban areas, Metro Manila accounts for nearly half of TV households, where TV penetration exceeds 95 per cent.

    “The growth potential of the pay-TV market is extremely favourable especially as multichannel TV digitizes and offers services beyond simply a greater choice of content but also high-definition programming and interactive services,” said Slaughter.

  • MEC helps Citibank use Twitter to kick off festivities

    MUMBAI: Media planning agency MEC has conceived a first of its kind online orchestrated offline activation for its client Citibank called “Tweet a cloud, Dil Se”. The initiative is aimed at gauging peoples‘ sentiments on how they would like to splurge this festive season. The campaign went live at the DLF promenade in New Delhi and High street Phoenix in Mumbai on 10 November from 12 noon.

    The campaign employs a new advertising technique called ‘skyvertising‘ which releases differently shaped clouds into the sky. The “Tweet a cloud, Dil Se” campaign will be powered by tweets from consumers to the #DilVsBill hashtag .

    This initiative is the culmination of the marketing campaign “DilVsBill” that Citi has been running this festival season. It is aimed at promoting Citibank‘s EMI offering on credit cards across 1700 merchant partners, which aides a consumer in making a decision when stuck in a ‘Dill Vs Bill‘ dilemma.

    Citibank CMO Sanjeev Kapur said, “Consumers like to make personal purchases as well as gift family and friends during festivals, but are conscious of budgets and costs. Citibank understands these needs and have provided an opportunity to amortize such expenses over a period of time, through EMI Privileges at No extra cost. This allows them to manage their finances better, while enjoying the festivities with family and friends.”

    MEC managing director T Gangadhar said, “At MEC we have always believed in setting the benchmark for the industry when it comes to innovating strategically. “Tweet a cloud, Dil se” is a stellar example of the same. It is an activity that interconnects online and offline spaces mirroring the path that consumer journeys have evolved to.”

  • MEC launches Partnership Intelligence study

    Mumbai: MEC, media and planning agency and a founding partner of GroupM, has announced the launch of its global research study Partnership Intelligence.

    Partnership Intelligence is an online tool that enables in-depth analysis into consumer interest, media consumption and attitudes towards partnership platforms including Sport, TV programming, Art, Entertainment and other global properties.

    This Partnership Intelligence global research has been conducted via an online survey across 17 markets including India, with a sample size of 1500 in each market.

    Besides delivering an analysis of property attributes, the tool also provides “comprehensive assessment” of the potential fit of a property with a brand‘s own values.

    MEC national director- Analytics and Insight Geetha Shiv said, “Partnership Intelligence provides insights that help in deciding the most effective partnerships for brands based on how engaged their Target Audience is with different properties. It also helps select properties based on image profiles that fit with brand values.”

    Some of the key findings from the research include among cricketing properties, ODI World Cup and T20 World Cup were considered the most preferred with ‘love‘ and ‘like‘ score of 80-81 per cent. IPL only came third with a 71 per cent ‘love‘ and ‘like‘ score. FIFA World Cup had the highest interest among non-cricket properties with 66 per cent ‘love‘ and ‘like‘ score whereas Formula1 is far below in the seventh position with a score of only 51 per cent.

    The research also revealed that loyalty towards teams was translated with the national cricket team scoring the highest at 75 per cent ‘love‘ and ‘like‘ score, followed by the National Hockey and Olympics teams at 59 per cent and 54 per cent respectively.

    Within the entertainment segment KBC dominated television reality shows cutting across age groups. Other than KBC, Dance India Dance (62 per cent), Indian Idol and Sa Re Ga Ma (59 per cent) and India‘s Got Talent (56 per cent) are among the Top five properties.

    The interest in KBC is greater than IPL as per the study. KBC is the only non-cricket property with a ‘love‘ and ‘like‘ score of 74 per cent, which made it to top five properties in MEC‘s Partnership Intelligence study.

    MEC India managing director T Gangadhar says, “This is a unique, never-done-before study that helps advertisers make choices between seemingly disparate opportunities. It offers an intelligent view on how one can go about choosing the right partnership or association for a specific brand. The study offers terrific insights based on people‘s motivations and choices.”

  • MEC forecasts 30% increase in Big Boss’ debut ratings

    Mumbai: MEC, a leading media buying and planning agency and a founding partner of GroupM, has estimated 30 per cent increase in the debut ratings of the sixth season of Big Boss on 7 October.

    MEC has predicted the opening TVR for this season to be at 3.9 among all Adults, 15 years+, SEC ABC, all India. This is 30 per cent higher compared to the opening TVR of 3 in the last season.

    Big Boss is moving from the late night slot of 10:30 pm last season to the prime time slot of 9 pm this season. This in itself should lead to an increase in rating compared to last season. However, it will compete with KBC in this time slot.

    MEC national director, analytics and insight Geetha Shiv said, “We have found in our model that promos are a key influencing factor. While the promos on Colors are comparable to last season, we are seeing a spike in promos on other channels in the last one-week. This can add to the rating increase.”

    It may be noted that Colors has been holding its share in the 9 to 10 pm slot with Jhalak Dikhla Ja even post the launch of KBC.

    The search volume index which has been taken as an indicator of buzz is comparable to the last season.

    Meritus Analytics managing partner Sunder Muthuraman added, “Analytical process of forecasting is fine-tuned with testing/ validating various variables that are affecting the results and a sound business appreciation of those variables. Continuous forecasting helps in managing and timing investments better.”