ITV

Tag: month

  • Verizon slashes broadband rates to $14.95 a month

    MUMBAI: It is a move aimed at encouraging Americans to switch from dial up services to a high-speed broadband connection. US communications services provider Verizon has announced a deal with Yahoo! to offer a new, fully integrated DSL service to Verizon Online DSL subscribers.
     
     

    The service, named Verizon Yahoo! for DSL, combines the strengths of the two companies, including a range of broadband speeds at affordable prices and a wide variety of premium Yahoo! features at no additional charge.

    Verizon’s marketing alliance with Yahoo displaces the earlier deal it had with Microsoft for MSN to be its web portal. Yahoo has created a web portal for Verizon customers.

    Verizon has also introduced a new, entry-level consumer DSL Internet access service with a maximum connection speed of 768 Kbps (kilobits per second) downstream and 128 Kbps upstream for $14.95 a month with an annual service agreement, designed to attract dial-up users to broadband.

    In June, SBC Communications had announced that it would sell broadband access for $14.95. But the low-cost service, though twice as fast as Verizon’s new service, is a promotional offering.

    The pricing is aimed at converting dial-up customers and competing with cable companies. Comcast and other cable companies charge over $39.99 for high-speed lines.
     
     

    The new service includes premium Yahoo! features valued at over $200 a year at no additional charge, including premium e-mail, 100 MB (megabytes) of storage, an all-in-one security suite and commercial-free Launchcast Radio service.

    Verizon’s retail markets group president Bob Ingalls says, “We are breaking down the price barrier for people who want high-speed Internet service, but have not had a place for it in their budgets. With speed that’s faster than dial-up, and at a price that’s lower than many dial-up service plans, our new service will promote the use of broadband, attract more subscribers to Verizon DSL and further increase our competitiveness with cable modem service providers.”

    “Our new DSL service and our alliance with Yahoo! reflect our commitment to offering Verizon broadband customers real choices and exceptional value. From the busy small business that shares large documents, to the young adult who enjoys online games, to the grandparents who enrich their e-mails with photos – Verizon offers a range of great speeds, affordable prices and superior content and services to meet every need.”

    Verizon already offers Verizon Online DSL service to qualifying consumers with maximum connection speeds of up to 3.0 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 768 Kbps upstream for as low as $19.95 a month for the first three months and $29.95 a month thereafter when purchased with an annual service agreement or in combination with a qualifying package of calling services from Verizon.

  • AAAI to hold seminar ‘The Block’ later this month

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) has announced that they will hold a 10-session 30-hour experience, The Block The Triple A Creative Workshop.

    The aim is to help mid-level creative people in advertising agencies become creative directors. Going by popular belief that creativity cannot be taught, but an environment has to be created to nurture it, the course’s faculty are 10 senior creative directors and ad film producers. Each of them will take one three-hour session every alternative Friday at the World Trade Centre Mumbai. The programme kicks off on 19 March.

    The faculty includes Rediffusion’s R Balakrishnan, Sumantra Ghosal, Preeti Vyas Giannetti, Prasoon Joshi, Piyush Pandey and Prasoon Pandey. They will share their personal experiences, showcase their star campaigns and will cover subjects like: extracting a provocative brief, selling a creative campaign internally and to the client, connecting with the consumer’s heart, creating for sales, creating for awards and common pitfalls.

    In a release, AAAI stated that the format and syllabus of the workshop was arrived at in order to bring out the participants’ own creativity and help them develop a point of view.

  • Animal Planet showcases the ‘Land of the Tiger’ next month

    MUMBAI: Vast, exotic and awe inspiring! These are a few of the adjectives that come to mind when one thinks of the natural habitats for animals in India. Animal Planet has announced that it will launch a series next month Land Of The Tiger which will air every Saturday in April at 10 pm.
     

    Filmed over three years each episode focusses on one region or habitat type highlighting its opulent beauty. From the Himalayas to the coral reefs of the Indian Ocean the programme takes viewers on a journey across the subcontinent. Along the way it offers unique glimpses like a tiger stalking a monkey, flying lizards, swimming elephants, singing apes and dancing spiders

    Viewers get an insight into the array of wildlife that the Indian subcontinent supports. The show also brings to light India’s fragile eco-systems. The show will be presented and narrated by Valmik Thapar. The show explores the close but growing uneasy alliance between the human population and wildlife and the means through which humanity finds its close empathy with nature – myth, legend, culture and religion.
     
     

    The episode titled The Tiger’s Domain plots the evolution of all life within the Indian subcontinent and explores the close relationship between religion and wildlife, showing how Hindu and Jain festivals can be seen as celebrations of the natural world. Sacred Waters showcases the great northern plains which are watered by the Ganges, the Indus and the Brahmaputra. Wild buffalo, elephants and one-horned rhinos share the rivers’ bounty with the crocodile-like gharial and freshwater dolphins.

    Unknown Seas features water worlds as far apart as Andaman and Nicobar islands, including swimming elephants, giant manta rays and weird octopus at Lakshadweep, and the spectacular coral reef in the Gulf of Kutch.

  • Sony, Colgate ‘Spread A Smile’ this month

    xMUMBAI: A children’s music video with a social message! That is what Colgate and Sony have come up with on the occasion of Oral Health Month. The video will air on Sony on 10 October at different time slots following which it will go to other channels like Max.
     
     
    Colgate had run a songwriting contest at 210 schools for the song. It conducted a direct school contact programme through fun-filled activities for the kids. They included a quiz on oral care and tooth song and dance with Colgate’s global mascot Dr Rabbit. Six hundred and thirty entries were shortlisted and then 36 were chosen. Javed Akhtar who penned the lyrics for the ‘Spread A Smile’ song captured the essence of these entries. The song brings to the core the importance of dental hygiene and how it can improve one’s life.
     
     
    Speaking on the initiative Sony executive VP sales and revenue management Rohit Gupta said, “We are honoured to be associated with Colgate and The Indian Dental Health Association on their Oral Health Month initiatives. We used the show Hum 2 Hain Na as a platform to create awareness among kids to send in their entries. We did a promotional video for the contest which featured the stars of the show. Our star Hansika was the ideal choice to create enthusiasm among the kids. In fact later on this month one episode of the show will have the kids talking about dental care. We are also running another promotional video now showing the joy kids got in participating.
     
     
    “As a responsible corporate we do social initiatives. Last month we had worked with the Indian Labour Organisation on a series of PSAs on the evils of child labour. Our initiative with Colgate is a refreshing change from the usual ad sales deals that are done. We had also gotten involved with Akanksha through our show Boogie Woogie. In August we had worked with the World Health Organisation. In a year we usually do four to five activities with organisations that have a social message to spread,” Gupta added.

    Colgate-Palmolive India executive VP marketing Vinay Hegde added that through out this month the company would be organising free dental health check ups in schools, slum areas. This weekend the company is organising an oral fest campaign in Mumbai. The company will now come out with print ads and TVCs across different channels promoting its dental healthcare initiatives.

    Akhtar added that going through the 630 entries had not been easy. “The thing is that with seasoned poets you find a lot of cynicism, bitterness. The innocence and honesty is sometimes missing. The kids entries had these two qualities in abundance. Of course we had rejected some entries outright if they looked too mature. They gave the impression that outside help had been sought from teachers and parents.”

  • Timex ‘Life is Ticking’ campaign kicks off next month

    CONNECTICUT: Watch manufacturer Timex Corporation has announced the launch of a global advertising campaign with a newly developed tagline, “Life is Ticking”.

    The campaign was created by Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York.

    It includes print, online and cinema advertising executions and will appear from next month. Explaining the strategy, Timex’s senior marketing vice president Mark Shuster was quoted in an official release, as saying, “Over time, Timex has built one of the most innovative and well-designed product lines in the industry. And now we are redirecting all of our marketing efforts to let the world know it. With this new campaign, we are firing the first salvo in the battle to capture attention and — more importantly — change perceptions.”

    “Life is Ticking” is a modern evolution of the tag “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. The release adds that the new tagline gives a respectful nod to the old while sending the message that Timex is a contemporary and relevant brand.

    The bold, simplistic and graphic “Life is Ticking” print campaign leverages wry visual humour and subtle product hints paired with minimal copy. The release says, the ad allows consumers to make the connection between Timex’s innovative product attributes and their implication in everyday life. Each visual execution depicts a slightly exaggerated real world “problem”, in which Timex product offers the solution.

    For example, one ad shows two pairs of legs peeking out from under tangled blankets in a dark bedroom. A Timex watch sits underneath the photo. The copy reads “Indiglo Night Light”, — highlighting Timex’s watch illumination technology.

    The campaign aims at demonstrating how Timex helps one to make the most out of time, and the most out of life. For instance, instead of showing a guy with a Timex digital compass in the woods, the ads show how a Timex can help in finding your way through the sameness of suburbia, states the release.