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Tag: Mindshare

  • SMG Convonix appoints Surajendu Sinha as VP & business head

    SMG Convonix appoints Surajendu Sinha as VP & business head

    MUMBAI: SMG Convonix has appointed Surajendu Sinha as vice president and business head (west & south).

     

    Sinha will be responsible for overseeing all key client relationships and will lead the media team in these regions.

     

    SMG Convonix CEO Vishal Sampat said, “SMG Convonix has always focused on providing real-time and meaningful digital solutions. We have always believed in staying ahead of the curve and Surajendu’s addition to the media team will allow us to do that by embracing changes in media and mobile faster. We’re focused on attracting reputed and experienced hands to lead our media teams and further bolster our offering. Surajendu fits the bill perfectly, and we’re glad to have him on board.”

     

    SMG Convonix COO Sarfaraz Khimani added, “Media consumption trends clearly indicate the increasing skew to digital and mobile. Surajendu’s addition to the leadership team at SMG Convonix is a reflection of the evolution of the medium and its consumption, and to ensure that our solutions to clients are always impactful and leading-edge.”

     

    Sinha has over a decade of experience in digital media planning and buying in companies like Neo@Ogilvy and Mindshare (Group M). In his last role at Mindshare, Sinha was senior director – digital media buying for Mindshare (west). He was responsible for growing digital revenues, rate benchmarking and driving annual strategic partnerships. He has handled clients like Kellogg’s, ICICI Bank, Idea Cellular, Ultratech, Birla White, Videocon d2h, HDFC Bank, Diageo, Tata Motors among others.

     

    Sinha said, “The decision to join SMG Convonix was easy based on the great work done by the team on digital including SEM, SEO, SMM, Display, ORM and analytics for its various clients. It will be great to be working with a passionate bunch of people with a focus on strengthening the paid media and mobility functions armed with  award winning, innovative media offerings and the addition of new revenue streams and benchmarking ensuring better value to be passed on to clients.”

  • Mindshare sets up GEMS, promotes Deepika Nikhilender as CEO

    Mindshare sets up GEMS, promotes Deepika Nikhilender as CEO

    MUMBAI: Mindshare has launched a new full service media unit in Singapore called Growth and Emerging Market Solutions or GEMS, with Deepika Nikhilender as its CEO.

    GEMS will serve the needs of a number of companies who use Singapore and other Asian cities as their central marketing hubs for managing their emerging and developing growth markets across Asia, Middle East, Africa and others. GEMS will provide marketers who have responsibility for these regions with a broad spectrum of services including emerging class consumer activation, mobile marketing, category communications planning, ROMI, digital analytics, consulting, content development and management of quick data for insights. As specific sub-regional needs from clients grow, Mindshare will look to support the GEMS Singapore hub with talent based in China, India, Middle East, Africa and other developing markets.

    GEMS provides a simplified single-window access to clients looking for specialist planning skills and implementation partners in all the areas of marketing communications described above. It will house a team of client leaders along with specialists in these service areas who will help develop solutions for clients. GEMS is designed to be an open-source partner to its clients. It will bring in bespoke planning platforms and a real-time campaign data-tracking centre, which will facilitate open-source collaboration with various marketing communications partners to develop integrated marketing solutions. These partner companies will focus on word-of-mouth, activation, insights, data analytics and technology, and digital media – like Kantar, Geometry Global, Advocacy, VML and several others. In addition, GEMS will harness global partnerships with digital and mobile companies that Mindshare already has in place.

    Deepika Nikhilender previously led Mindshare Business Planning across Asia Pacific where she led and developed Mindshare’s offering in analytics, insights, strategy and data and technology solutions. She brings extensive experience on multiple product categories across Asia. In 2010 she was chosen Regional Client Leader for Mindshare APAC as recognition of her contribution to clients. In this role, Deepika will report to R Gowthman, recently appointed COO for Mindshare APAC. Deepika has been with Mindshare for 15 years.

    Deepika said, “At Mindshare, we have always kept our clients’ business at the centre of all that we do. Their expectations from Mindshare have also changed significantly in response to the changing marketing and media opportunities. We continue to evolve ourselves to stay ahead of market, while ensuring we stay relevant and competitive. Thanks to our clients who keep pushing us to raise the bar, inspiring us to open up new streams and encouraging us in all our new initiatives.”

    Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman & CEO for APAC & Growth Markets at Mindshare, said “GEMS is part of an exciting new approach, using technology to create centres of excellence at a few hubs, look at data centrally and share precious talent across more markets when developing solutions. Hopefully this model will enable clients to use all their partners more collaboratively – to create more impactful solutions and drive growth, in markets where lack of experienced talent is currently a huge handicap. We are going to run GEMS like a start up – data and tech driven, fast and flexible, provocative and founded on collaboration, with ability to dial up and down for clients without tying up massive resource for clients.”

    Mindshare Asia Pacific’s GEMS unit and Deepika’s role are effective immediately.

     

  • Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its hold in market and understanding the ever-changing, technology- driven time, Mindshare has appointed R Gowthaman as chief operating officer and Sudipto Roy as regional chief client officer for Asia Pacific.

     

    Gowthaman will take on the role of COO Asia Pacific after spending a year as chief client officer, APAC and CEO south and south-east Asia. During this time, he was responsible for Mindshare’s key clients across the region and expanding the agency’s services, including the launch of an emerging market activation unit across ASEAN in partnership with Geometry Global.

     

    In his new role as COO, Gowthaman will focus on continued development and delivery of Mindshare’s services to marketers across the marketing value chain – from emerging consumer activation at one end to big data management on the other, and a more effective business model for working with clients.

     

    Gowthaman said, “I am extremely delighted to take on this role. I am especially looking forward to designing and rolling out new work streams that provide Mindshare’s clients with great new opportunities and accelerate sustainable growth of our business. Despite our scale and size, we are increasingly behaving more and more like a start-up – provocative, hungry, adaptive, full of energy all underpinned by a promise to be the agency of the future.”

     

    Roy takes over from Gowthaman as chief client officer Asia Pacific following a two-and-a-half-year stint as managing partner of Client Leadership and Partnerships. During this time, his primary responsibility was to run some of Mindshare’s key accounts including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Lenovo and others.

     

    In his role as CCO, Roy will focus on growing Mindshare’s relationship with its key clients across Asia Pacific, by creating faster, more agile and adaptive marketing services for them.  Roy will also spearhead creation of a stronger open source collaboration model around Mindshare’s key clients, with relevant partners from WPP as well as other independent companies. Roy will report to Gowthaman in this role.

     

    Mindshare is forging a number of partnership programmes with ‘hot’ companies coming up in emerging economies, in analytics, media technology, e-commerce, B2B, social media, mobile and more, to complement the current global partnerships already in place with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. Roy’s new role focuses on leveraging some of these partnerships to help its clients’ brands be more adaptive to near real time consumer response, and continuously improve the way they use various media platforms to grow their brands.

     

    Commenting on his appointment, Roy said, “I am passionate about our clients’ businesses and how we think about them, so this move is exciting as it enables me to focus on what I really love. I believe we have a great opportunity to drive cutting-edge thinking for Mindshare and our clients, and fundamentally re-imagine how we think about media services while continually raising the standards for how media agencies can drive ROI. I really look forward to this part of the journey.”

     

    Mindshare chairman & CEO for APAC and growth market Ashutosh Srivastava said, “We are privileged to have highly talented people like Gowthaman and Roy stepping into these roles. Over the years, they have developed trusted relationships with our clients, by focusing on what they value most. These roles are incredibly crucial for us at this stage and will help Mindshare continue to lead the industry thinking, and shape its development and growth at an exciting time, where understanding of media, technology and effective data usage are becoming more and more central to brand success.”

     

    Both Roy and Gowthaman’s roles are effective immediately and will be based in Singapore.

  • Maxus elevates Sanchayeeta Verma to Managing Partner

    Maxus elevates Sanchayeeta Verma to Managing Partner

    MUMBAI: Maxus, the country’s leading media investments firm today announced the promotion of Sanchayeeta Verma as Managing Partner, Maxus South India& South Asia. She joined Maxus in 2009 as head of the Bangalore office. Over the years she has successfully managed the Bangalore operations and established the Kerala set-up. She helped the team bring in some key clients such as Wipro, Tata Tea, RedBus.com, Google, Myntra.com, Manapuram, Kerala Tourism (for digital) into the Maxus fold. Sanchayeeta has been key architect in driving the entertainment & sports programming, digital and activation agenda for all Maxus clients in the Southern region. Under her stewardship, Maxus won the agency of the year title in Ad Club Bangalore awards for 4 years in a row.

    Speaking on her appointment, Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia said, “Sanchayeeta is one of our star Maxusites.  A team player to the core, her sharp strategic thinking and keen sense of innovation keeps her and her team at the cutting edge of media investments and planning. We wish her all the best for her future endeavors at Maxus.”

    Upon her appointment Sanchayeeta Verma, Managing Partner, Maxus said, “The effort till now has been to put together a formidable setup, be it in terms of the clients we handle, the work we do and most importantly the rich and diverse talent pool. Going forward the biggest thrust will be on making our clients future ready. The future of media is about choreographing convergence between traditional, digital and experiential media, content & data being the epicenter of it all. To survive today’s complex, always under stress market conditions, brands need to master how to navigate the same. Maxus is best poised to lean into change towards this exciting new future and I look forward to it!”

    Sancheyeeta has been with the GroupM system for over 10 years, earlier with Mindshare.

     

  • 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.

  • Mindshare appoints John Thangaraj as head – strategy (North)

    Mindshare appoints John Thangaraj as head – strategy (North)

    MUMBAI: Mindshare has appointed John Thangaraj as the head of strategy for the Northern region. In his new role, John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients.

    Commenting on what he hopes to achieve at Mindshare John said, “First and foremost, I hope to future proof myself. I have a strong belief in the fact that ‘advertising‘ as is currently practiced in India does not have a shelf life of more than a decade (at the very most).”

    Announcing the appointment, leader – strategy (South Asia) Alok Sinha said, “We are glad to welcome John to Mindshare and the extended GroupM family. He’s got category and industry experience, and is a great team leader. I am confident he will be able to lead the strategy division to even greater heights.”

    John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients

    Mindshare leader South Asia Ravi Rao said, “I am pleased to welcome John. He has the combination between being imaginative, strategic and entrepreneurial that our strategy community and clients need. Consumption of information and entertainment is rapidly moving screens and I feel that Mindshare is on the cutting edge of optimizing and leveraging this. ‘Digital‘ has become a buzz word we all love to throw around, and I am looking to Mindshare to help me make the journey from ‘thinking about digital‘ to ‘thinking digitally‘. Perhaps most of all, Mindshare represents a new journey for me- new skills to acquire, new people to meet and new challenges to deal with. Which is what excites me the most about it.” 

    John has over 12 years of work experience spanning a marketing role at Adidas, a research role at Quantum and as head of strategic planning for Redifffusion Y&R. In his last role John was vice president – strategic planning at Lowe, where he was responsible for the product planning on a cluster of brands that included Wills Lifestyle, Nestle Confectionary, Hindustan Times, Dabur Real, Shine.com, Woodland, Expedia.co.in and OLX.in.

    John is extremely proud of the Effie’s and Cannes that he has worked hard to win over the years. These include – Effie 2010 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘It Is Time‘ brand campaign, Effie 2012 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘ campaign, and Media Lion at Cannes 2013for Best Use of Print for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘.

    He is also very proud of the work that he did when he led a global strategic project for LG Korea in 2009 on understanding the super affluent consumers in India.

  • The Emvies: It’s what everyone envies

    The Emvies: It’s what everyone envies

    MUMBAI: Sounds of the Nasik Dhol, trumpets, and people screaming and shouting as they cheered their respective teams filled the air.

    The audience comprised not suits but people dressed casually yet tastefully, wearing mostly colourful tee-shirts bearing the name of the media agency they represented.
    And no, it wasn’t the wine-and-cheese affair you’d normally associate with those oh-so-snooty ad agency-types…

    Rather, this year’s Emvies, organised at the Taj Lands End on Friday, 6 September, 7:00 pm onward, was more like a festival you’d suddenly found yourself in the midst of.

    The decibels kept rising and so did the energy levels of the swelling crowd.

    While there were some 500 attendees, it was easy to spot the different teams; be it Mindshare, MediaComet, Madison, Ogilvy that had huddled into groups across the hall.

    Not only did the extravaganza open to the beats of the dhol, till the very end, and especially, each time a winner was announced, the professional dhol players went into overdrive, accompanied by the team’s loud cheering.

    The volume never dropped from the beginning till the end, what with dhols, trumpets, whistles, hooting… the works. Towards the end, it reached a crescendo when the Mindshare team took to the stage in purple tee-shirts and bandanas to receive their ‘Agency of the Year’ award.

    The atmosphere was enthralling and even the well-suited Ajay Devgn, who put in a special appearance, was completely bowled over by the high spirits. “This is how an award ceremony should actually be like,” he said, adding, “In fact, looking at everyone here, I feel I am over dressed.” Shouts of Satyagraha and Singham promptly followed suit.

    The celebrations, punctuated by band/guitar performances by various media companies, continued well past midnight. There was a sumptuous spread and drinks flowed. Everyone was at their jovial best and ‘high’ in spirits.

  • Mindshare’s mind-boggling might

    Mindshare’s mind-boggling might

    MUMBAI: The purple bandanas and shirts took over the stage as the company continues its purple patch.

    Mindshare was, yet again, named as the ‘Best Media Agency of the Year‘ at the 13th edition of the Emvies. The agency scored the highest points of 165 (five more than last year) and added three golds, nine silvers and six bronzes to its kitty.

    Between the hooting and dancing, leader (South Asia) Ravi Rao proudly said, “What can I share about the win; it‘s thanks to the young talent. We are glad to win for the sixth time, but of course, it was a close run. We have to tighten our belts if we want to break the jinx of the seven year itch.”

    The Young Emvie of the Year went to Mindshare‘s Farah Siddiqui who was sitting with her fingers crossed and praying hard to win the award. She won it for her work on Close Up, Pepsodent, Domex and CIF.

    Mindshare won two golds for its ‘5.2 years of digital content viewed in just six months!‘ campaign for Axe Deodorant in the Best Media Innovation – Digital (social media) category. The ‘Cholchhe Na Aar Cholbe Na!‘ (Can‘t Happen, Won‘t Happen Anymore!) for ABP Ananda in the Best Integrated Campaign – Media/ Media Property category fetched the agency its third gold.

    The silver awards were received from its campaigns for Godrej Appliances Range (Best Media Strategy – Consumer Durables), ABP Ananda (Best Media Strategy – Media/ Media Property), Closeup Toothpaste (Best Media Innovation – Radio), Horlicks (Best Media Innovation – Out of Home), Lay‘s (Best Media Innovation – Sponsorship), Closeup Toothpaste and Axe Deodorant (Best Media Innovation – Branded Content), Lifebouy Handwash (Best Media Innovation – Print (dailies) and Idea (Best Media Campaign – Services).

    The agency‘s six bronze metals came from campaigns for Clear Anti Dandruff Shampoo (Best Media Strategy – Consumer Products), American Express (Best Media Strategy – Services), Lifebuoy Handwash (Best Media Innovation – Cinema), Horlicks (Best Media Innovation – Ambient Media) and Surf Excel and Clinic Plus (Best Ongoing Media Campaign).

    We hope that the agency breaks the jinx and continues with its winning streak.

  • Emvies 2013 announces shortlists

    Emvies 2013 announces shortlists

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Club has announced the shortlisted case studies for the 2013 edition of the Emvies award online. In total, 124 case studies made the cut and out of which Mindshare has the highest number of shortlisted entries, followed by Maxus and Lodestar UM.

    The awards are spread across seven categories comprising Best Media Strategy (four sub categories), Best Media Innovation (18 sub categories), Best Media Research (two sub categories), Best Ongoing Media Campaign, Best Integrated Campaign (four sub categories), Young Emvie of the Year and Best Use of a Bollywood Celebrity in media. The case studies will be screened during August 21-23 in Mumbai.

    The other agencies whose case studies have been nominated include MediaCom Communications, Madison Media Pinnacle, Ogilvy India, DDB Mudra Max, MEC, Starcom MediaVest Group, Madhouse India, ibs, Interactive Avenues, Madison Media Infinity, Madison Media Plus, OMD India, GroupM Dialogue Factory and Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.

  • MindShare promotes Amin Lakhani to head Fulcrum

    MindShare promotes Amin Lakhani to head Fulcrum

    MUMBAI: Here is another media professional who is getting more regional responsibility. And that gent is Amin Lakhani whom Mindshare has elevated to Leader – Team Unilever south Asia.

    In his new role Amin Lakhani will be heading Fulcrum, a unit of Mindshare that manages the media planning & buying for the Unilever business in South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He will be replacing Anupriya Acharya who is moving on from the organisation.

    Amin has around 15 years experience which includes a stint as a product manager with an Indian pharmaceutical company and in media agencies. During his time with GroupM India, Amin has handled various roles starting with Maxus as the training head for west region, moving on to GroupM as west trading head and then on to Mindshare where he played the architect of The Exchange function in 2008, finally leading up and becoming the trading lead for Unilever business.

    Announcing the appointment, Mindshare leader south Asia Ravi Rao said, “Amin was our unanimous choice and we know he will turn a new chapter in Mindshare Fulcrum by raising media excellence in strategic planning and world class execution backed up with award winning innovations for Unilever. We wish Anupriya all the best and thank her for a short but great stint at Mindshare Fulcrum.”

    Commenting on his new role Lakhani said, “It is an exciting opportunity especially in challenging times. Mindshare Fulcrum has been a centre of excellence. I am looking forward to building on our strong base and continuing to provide delight to India‘s most esteemed client, Unilever.

    Speaking to indiantelevision.com Anupriya Acharya said, “I leave as new challenges beckon me! But I have thoroughly enjoyed leading Team Unilever south Asia for Mindshare, especially through the challenging review year of 2012. The significant progress made in strategic initiatives, content, experiential, awards won and many other best practices has been truly rewarding for me both personally and professionally. Both the client and my larger organisation have been very supportive. I leave with rich experience and happy memories of steering this massive ship and will miss my rock-star team! I wish all of them all the very best.”