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Tag: Sabyasachi Mitter

  • Fulcro launches Fulcro Communications, forays into mainline with dedicated communications agency

    Fulcro launches Fulcro Communications, forays into mainline with dedicated communications agency

    Mumbai:  Fulcro, announced its entry into the mainline communication space through their new company, Fulcro Communications. The move comes after they onboard mainline industry young talent to bring creative firepower and build a  completely independent business unit that would compete with the best mainline agencies out there.

    Fulcro has always been a disruptive agency, they yet again prove it by reverse integrating the integrated agency structure. In a perfect world mainline agency have forayed into digital through partners, Fulcro takes a disruptive step of integrating mainline into digital integrated ecosystem.

    Commenting on the move, Mr. Sabyasachi Mitter, Founder and Managing Director, Fulcro, said, “When the world has moved onto a multi-screen experience, then why does mainline advertising have to be just a TV experience. The integration of Digital with TV was inevitable, we have just positioned ourselves as the ultimate hybrid, since we have a legacy of digital and now the creative brains of mainline.”

    “In a digital first world, where ideas are born with a digital audience in mind, the lines between ‘mainline’ and ‘digital’ are purely imaginary. While mainline agencies have either acquired digital agencies or setup in house digital teams to stay competitive, it was time for Fulcro to add the mainline story telling might to its portfolio so as to be able to offer clients a real fully integrated service. We had always had best in industry strategy, planning, digital, technology and data capabilities, by adding world class mainline communications capabilities we complete our portfolio. This will give clients a nimble, digital first and cost competitive mainline offering that can compete with the best out there.” adds Mitter.

    Fulcro communications, will be spearheaded by 3 seasoned advertising specialists, they bring together their young energy and over a decade of advertising experience

    Akshat Trivedi, who brings in the storytelling expertise that he has proven through work on Saregama Carvaan, FOGG, Star TV, Cadbury Perk, Nutrela, Zeel Rainwear, ASUS, SBI Life insurance, Coverfox, TB awareness campaign and so on. 

    Brijesh Parmar, who has bagged a bagful of national and international awards including Cannes for his design, for work on brands like McDonalds, Bajaj Electricals, Tata Capital, Cadbury Eclairs, etc.

    Jugal Kathuria leads the charge on the agency management and strategy front with experience across brands like Tata Sky+, Microsoft, FOGG, Aditya Birla group, Saregama etc.

    The trio are moving steadfast towards a singular goal to make communication truly integrated, memorable and disruptive.

    Currently, the new arm has been serving the needs of current clients of Fulcro, but soon they will be visible on the pitch block against some of the best in the industry. Fulcro has been in business with reputed Indian companies like NPCI, ACC Cement, Hero MotoCorp, ASUS, Airtel, Tata Docomo, Pepsi, Kotak Mahindra, Whisper, Zee, Canara HSBC OBC Insurance, Tata Motors, P&G, Croma, MakeMyTrip, Renault, SBI, Marico, Bajaj Auto, Tata Strategic Management Group, Bajaj Electricals, Tata Teleservices, Morphy Richards, Bajaj Finserv, Aristocrat, GAP, Standard Chartered Bank, Pearson Education, Kohler, Religare, Vivanta By Taj, and many others. The integrated digital marketing and communication agency has been instrumental in creating innovative and effective marketing campaigns that synchronize the approach of the creative medium backed by technology and data. The parent company is dedicated to catering to the business needs of a brand in every aspect.

  • Fulcro appoints Akshat Trivedi as executive creative director

    Fulcro appoints Akshat Trivedi as executive creative director

    MUMBAI: Fulcro, an integrated digital marketing and communication agency that works with brands to build effective and innovative brand campaigns leveraging the power of creative, technology and data, has appointed Akshat Trivedi as the executive creative director. He will lead the creative team at the venture.

    Trivedi brings over a decade of experience in creative communication to the Fulcro team.

    He started his creative career at Ogilvy, Mumbai. Where he worked on different brands  including Star TV, Cadbury Perk, HUL, Mumbai Indians, Nutrela, and SBI life, to name a few. Akshat also scripted social awareness campaigns at Ogilvy like ‘TB Haarega, DeshJeetega’ and ‘KarodonAansoon Hain LekinKarodon Hum Bhi Hain’ for Star TV’s Pro Bono programme ‘Saath Hain Hum Uttarakhand’ during the unfortunate floods that shook the entire country.

    He later functioned as an independent creative consultant before joining The Womb, where he scripted popular TV campaigns for Fogg. Some of these include ‘Kya ChalRaha Hai’; ‘Baaki sab uddjaayega, Fogg RehJaayega’, Fogg ‘Train’TVC. He also wrote the launch campaigns for youthful brands like Asus Zenfone 4 ‘JinkiDuniyaBadiUnki Selfie Badhi’ and Zeelrainwear’s ‘Fiyer’ film.

    Trivedi is renowned for writing SaregamaCaravaan’s sensitive campaigns like ‘Aapkepehleypyaarkeliye, aapkimaakekiye’, ‘Iss Diwali Shor YaSangeet’, andJinheshaayadaapkabhikehnahipaaye,unhekahiye‘Thank You’ have been impactful in creating a pure voice for the brand. Carvaan’s Mother campaign not only won people’s hearts but also creative and effectiveness awards.

    Apart from this, as a creative consultant to Coverfox, he scripted the campaign ‘Cover Karo, KaamAayega’ that also bagged the South Asia Pacific Gender sensitivity Award at LaadliAwards.

    Speaking about his association with Fulcro, Trivedi said, “It is indeed heartening to lead the creative souls at Fulcro,  I look forward to sharing my learnings while creating a few of my own, through the young tech brains at Fulcro. So together we can do some awesome work for a new set of brands and take the company to greater heights.”

    On this appointment, Fulcro founder and managing director Sabyasachi Mitter said, “As we grow, it is also important to continue to offer our partners the very best output. We’ve long admired the incredible campaigns that Akshat delivers and at a time of increasing opportunity for our long form content, we are excited to welcome him to the team.”

  • Last word for Orkut before it retires!

    Last word for Orkut before it retires!

    MUMBAI: It was in 2004 when internet got one of its first social media network – Orkut. Google, the online media giant that had launched Orkut, picked up its business from then. With competitiveness creeping in the online space, the popularity of Orkut gradually fell. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter that has grabbed the attention of netizens during the course of time.

    After a decade, Google has decided to shut down the social networking site which got its user base from countries like India and Brazil. The company took the decision so that it could focus on its other social businesses such as Google+ and YouTube. Internet users will not be able to log on to their Orkut account post 30 September 2014.

    Indiantelevision.com goes down the memory lane with digital professionals and notes few things that will be missed about Orkut.

    Scraps, communities and profile views will always be remembered!

    Messages in the Orkut era were called scraps. Like-minded people could create communities. One could even see who all viewed his/her profile. The number of testimonials defined the popularity quotient.  

    Mindshift Interactive founder & CEO Zafar Rais recalls scrapping as a fun tool to interact with friends and the profile visits as a great way to know who’s keeping a check on your profile; a feature that is consistently famous on social networks, till date. 

    For ibs managing director Sabyasachi Mitter the site was our introduction to social media. “The funniest memory I have of Orkut is to login every day and see who has viewed my profile. And, then go across and see who they were. Some new friends were made that way. Also, to count the number of scraps and compare this with friends was something I remembering doing. The numerous discussions in groups and the sheer volume of conversations were fond memories,” he recalls. 

    Similarly, FoxyMoron creative head – north Kumar Abhishek who also belongs to the Orkut generation that looked forward to know who viewed his profile. “It was always exciting and fun to find a girl I may have liked or had a crush on in the list of those who viewed my profile,” he mentions.  

    According to BBDO Proximity India Digital creative leader Dinesh Swamy when Orkut began, it was one of its kind experiences. “It was ‘cool’ to be there. One memory which I can recall is that we created a group only for family members, just for gossiping.  We enjoyed that phase,  but by the time brands started leveraging, people lost interest in it and moved on to other social networking sites. I don’t remember when was the last time I scrapped,” says Swamy.

    Advertising wish list!

    There were a few brands that partnered with the social networking site for display ads. However, it can be noted that Google had pulled all AdSense ads from Orkut in 2007.

    If given a chance to endorse a brand on Orkut, Rais would have endorsed brands with a larger mass and youth appeal so anything within the FMCG to retail sector would have done exceptionally well. 

    “The one brand would have loved to have seen on Orkut is Oreo,” said Mitter. “If I had the chance to endorse a brand on Orkut, it would be Foster’s as a ‘daaaamn cold’ beer is best enjoyed with friends only,” adds Abhishek.

    Having said this, Orkut will always remain special for early Internet users!

    We will miss you Orkut.

     

  • Online & mobile advertising service tax levy: Industry says ouch!

    Online & mobile advertising service tax levy: Industry says ouch!

    MUMBAI: Budget 2014 brought with it the announcement that the 12.36 per cent service tax would be levied on online and mobile advertising also. These two were earlier exempt from the levy which was applicable to advertising on television. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, however, chose to continue to keep the much larger print media sector out of the tax net. Service tax on advertising on TV had been hiked to 12 per cent (plus 3 per cent sucharge) from 10 per cent in 2012, by the then government. The new levy will come into effect from a date to be notified after the passing of the Finance Bill.

     

    Indiantelevision.com spoke to digital agency heads to check out whether they were ok with the inclusion of online and mobile advertising under the service tax umbrella.

     

    “Okay to be on par with others”

    Online marketing and ad agency Pinstorm Technologies  founder & CEO Mahesh Murthy doesn’t think that it is a big issue. “We are now a grown-up industry and though the tax that’ll be mopped up here will be just around Rs 500 crore, I’m okay with us being treated on par with taxes on broadcast,” says Murthy.

     

    “The grey area here is what exactly constitutes advertising in the online world. Is a Facebook post by a brand an ad? What about a tweet by an influencer? What about native content-driven solutions being used by sites like Buzzfeed? I believe the definition of what exactly constitutes digital and mobile advertising would help a lot. Right now there isn’t any clarity,” observes Murthy.

     

    It can be noted that all agencies were charging service tax as it was in non-exempt category. Only recently it was moved to the exempt category.

     

    Online digital agency ibs MD Sabyasachi Mitter thinks the industry will be going back to how things were a little over a year back.

     

    “At the agency the billing complication is reduced as we don’t need to raise different bills for media cost and commission. Also, reconciliation becomes easier. For most clients who take input credit it will also not be a big deal. What will happen is for clients who release pay orders for all inclusive budgets, the spendable value will go down, ” mentions Mitter.

     

    Vdopia APAC VP Preetesh Chouhan says bringing online advertising in the service tax ambit will help digital players understand whether the medium has arrived or not.

     

    “As a video advertising company, our numbers show that we are witnessing an amazing organic growth of both online and mobile audiences and this is not going to change. So my opinion is that tax levied will not affect how brands are allocating spends on digital media. It could be a good opportunity to see if we have made the final transition from niche to mainstream advertising,” says Vdopia VP-APAC Preetesh Chouhan.

     

    “Time to re look at online advertising budgets”

     

    Digital L&K Saatchi & Saatchi CEO and managing partner Anil Nair expected this to happen.

     

    According to him it will mean that brand managers and media companies will have to relook at their online budgets and account for accommodating the service tax component now given that their overall budgets are already fixed.

     

    “It may augur well for social media though as monies could be diverted into content, apps etc. While online display will see a marginal cut back for a couple of quarters till it picks up again,” says Nair.

     

    “While some sections of the industry are not happy with the online and mobile advertising being included under the service tax, we believe that the philosophy of pruning the negative list in order to promote GST in the industry, is in the right direction and thus inclusion of such services in the taxation is a small price to pay in the short-term,” said PricewaterhouseCoopers leader- entertainment & media practice India Smita Jha.

     

    Foxymoron co-founder Suveer Bajaj believes the finance minister’s decision is likely to have a negative  impact as most brands and large corporations have already budgeted their online media spends for the year.

     

    “This would imply that these marketing and advertising budgets would eventually get undercut. Owing to the fact that, online and digital advertising in India is fairly nascent, this move might discourage new entrants to the industry and allocation of spends towards digital marketing. The speedy rate at which the industry was evolving now faces a setback,” adds Bajaj.

     

    Bajaj, however, says the budgetary initiative to set aside  close to Rs 500 crore for the digital India programme to ensure connectivity at the grass-root level is laudable. “Brands and organisations on digital will now also focus on the rural markets, if they haven’t already so through the online mediums. Going forward, there will be a paradigm shift in the communication and marketing strategies by digital and technology agencies to specifically target this new audience by including unique and innovative rural marketing campaigns,” he opines.

     

    HDFC Life senior executive VP marketing Sanjay Tripathy thinks this move will have an impact on the growth of this medium. He also states that this might lead to cut down on marketing spends in the coming days.

     

    According to Future Group president (customer strategy) and CEO (Bengal warriors & T24) Sandip Tarkas the announcement is a bit of a hit but not a surprise. “As we move towards a GST regime, this anomaly had to be removed. This also reflects the growing size of online ad market which is large enough to be taxed,” says Tarkas.

     

    Industry leader and Hungama Digital Media Entertainment MD & CEO Neeraj Roy speaks for the entire online industry in this comment he sent out to publications.  “The aspect of bringing back online advertising into the service tax ambit, whilst it is still a fledgling segment, is almost a conflicting action and not a welcome move.”

  • Digital agencies eye GoaFest 2014

    Digital agencies eye GoaFest 2014

    MUMBAI: While the 2013 edition wasn’t exactly the best, with the controversy around ‘scam ads’ and a couple of heavyweights like Ogilvy and Creativeland Asia bowing out, this year’s Goafest promises to be a definite improvement over its predecessor.

     

    The ninth edition has been postponed to May because of the ongoing elections and will revolve around the theme ‘Brand Baaja Baraat’. The fest will focus on macro-economic issues affecting advertising. There will be a first-of-its-kind leadership summit addressed by an interesting line-up of speakers. Among other changes, Goafest 2014 will have a new category ‘promo activation and PR’ while adding Broadcaster and Publisher Abbys to the existing list of awards.

     

    Speaking of awards, taking a cue from last year’s fracas, the committee has introduced changes to the judging process after feedback from creative professionals. The selection process will comprise two rounds with a gap of 10 days in between. Short-listed entries from round one will be put up on the Goafest official website. Complaints backed by evidence will be considered for review by jury chairman for that particular category.

     

     Significantly, the ‘digital’ category – which caught the industry’s attention last year – promises to be even bigger this year. Goafest 2014 chairman Srinivasan Swamy said he would be able to give the exact number of digital entries post 23 April, the extended deadline for submission of entries.

     

    It can be noted that in the Media Abbys’ category which received 660 entries, 40 – 45 per cent of them came from digital-related categories. The organisers had expanded the digital category to include relevant sub-categories in the 2013 edition. This year there are around nine sub-categories in digital, two in mobile, six in digital craft and nine in best use of digital media

     

     Though the likes of Leo Burnett, Ogilvy and Creativeland Asia are not participating, lots of digital agencies are really looking forward to the fest.

     

    Ahead of Goafest 2014, ad2campaign co-founder and managing director Madan Sanglikar tells indiantelevision.com, “Last year’s Goafest got everyone talking about the burning issue of ‘scam ads’ rather than brush it under the carpet. Scam ads are a reality and we need to have regular debate and discussion to keep them under control.”

     

    Sanglikar went so far as to suggest ways to curb scam ads. “Firstly, by creating a separate category called ‘proactive ads’ that would showcase ads which were never released but could have made a difference because of their innovative appeal. This would give creative people due recognition while acknowledging that these ads did not constitute real campaigns. Secondly, by instituting an open rating/meter which shows how many brands have been participating in questionable tactics. The assumption here is that clients are usually in cahoots with creative people in the making of scam ads,” he explains.

     

    Speaking of digital agencies, Sanglikar says, “Digital is main-stream by now. So digital agencies are no different from other agencies and if there is a fest for the advertising industry, it cannot be complete without digital agencies. Having said that, there have lately been too many award shows for digital agencies, so Goafest will also have to create a better differentiation.”

     

    ibs, which won the Grand Prix last year for its Tata DoCoMo digital campaign, is eager to participate in Goafest this year too.  “We are letting the younger lot to lead this year. We are allowing them to enter their work and make the submissions with absolute freedom and empowerment. Given this change, we are hopeful that the rank and file of the agency will get more deeply involved in the Goafest. While we are optimistic of some of our work getting noticed, winning awards is not the most important objective for us at Goafest this year”, says ibs MD Sabyasachi Mitter. He adds that success at Goafest would help draw the immediate attention of the entire advertising fraternity.

     

    According to sources, while a few mid-sized digital agencies are giving the fest a miss as they are cutting down budgets and will be selective while entering awards. On the other hand, a few big digital agencies are submitting a good number of entries and are positive about being recognised for their good work.