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Tag: Sunita Rajan

  • CNN International Commercial hires Laura Greally as digital account director APAC

    CNN International Commercial hires Laura Greally as digital account director APAC

    MUMBAI: CNN International Commercial has appointed Laura Greally to the newly created role of digital account director, Asia Pacific.

     

    With over a decade of digital marketing experience, Greally’s primary role is to identify and develop a range of solutions across CNN International’s digital portfolio from both direct sales and programmatic trading across Asia.

     

    Prior to joining CNN International, Greally worked for both BBC Worldwide as the APAC pricing and inventory manager, and Fox International Channels as the digital sales operations manager.

     

    Based in Singapore, Greally is part of a new team of specialists working under CNN International Commercial head of digital advertising sales and data Rob Bradley. She will also work closely with the APAC sales team, led by CNN International Commercial vice president of advertising sales, Asia Pacific Sunita Rajan.

  • DHL increases global visibility with multi-platform campaign on CNN

    DHL increases global visibility with multi-platform campaign on CNN

    MUMBAI: Following its successful sponsorship of CNN’s The Circuit, DHL is extending its brand campaign with the network spanning multiple platforms and new CNN feature strand Traders.

     

    CNN is DHL’s exclusive international media partner as the leading logistics company positions its solutions to a wide range of global businesses – from large enterprises to SMEs. The campaign includes sponsorship of The Circuit andTraders linear TV content and all online components on CNN.com and CNN Money, as well as spot advertising across the network.

     

    DHL is expanding its relationship with CNN due to the results delivered through its existing campaign focused around The Circuit. This relationship is built on CNN’s commitment to delivering a wide range of brand, advertising and content solutions that meet DHL’s marketing objectives, and CNN’s reach amongst the global business community.

     

    DHL’s new sponsorship is of Traders, a feature strand that tells the extraordinary stories of trading goods and services worldwide. Covering the human stories behind the global import and export markets, Traders is a segment airing fortnightly from 19 May during CNN International’s The Business View with Nina Dos Santos. DHL branding also runs exclusively on a Traders microsite hosted on CNN Money, combining video content with a wide range of additional interactive and informative elements.

     

    The renewed sponsorship of The Circuit sees DHL enter its third year of connecting with fans of one of CNN International’s most popular sports shows following a successful 2014. This programme spans every facet of F1 that appeals to an upscale, informed and passionate audience – from precision technology and performance, to business and strategy, to human endeavour and achievement.

     

    “We are delighted that DHL is expanding its exclusive relationship with CNN International to reach and engage with an audience of business decision-makers and influencers. Being strategically associated with relevant, high-quality content is an ideal way for DHL to connect with the CNN audience through multiple touchpoints and reiterate its excellence in logistics and enabling global business. We are confident that CNN will continue to deliver significant results for DHL as part of this long-standing commercial relationship,” said CNN International Asia Pacific vice president, news advertising sales Sunita Rajan.

     

    “DHL sees examples every day of the positive influence that global trade can have on the world, so we are thrilled that Traders will be shining a light for a worldwide audience on the people who work so hard to make it a reality. CNN, with its global reach and commitment to high-grade storytelling, is the perfect media partner to help us to highlight the vital role that logistics plays as an enabler of the world’s trade flows,” said Deutsche Post DHL Group SVP global brand marketing Arjan Sissing.

  • CNN is most watched international news brand in APAC: Ipsos Survey

    CNN is most watched international news brand in APAC: Ipsos Survey

    MUMBAI: Newscaster CNN has maintained its number one position as an international news brand in Asia Pacific, according to the latest Ipsos Affluent Survey.

     

    The channel reaches to 34 per cent upscale consumers and 53 per cent to the C-level executives every month. The independent survey also reveals significant audience growth for CNN on both its TV and digital platforms.

     

    On TV, CNN is the most watched international news brand in Asia-Pacific in daily, weekly and monthly reach. As per the survey, the channel has 47 per cent more viewers each month than the next placed news channel and 125 per cent more viewers than the leading business and finance news channel.

     

    The survey further reveals that in digital, CNN’s monthly reach is 51 per cent higher than the next largest brand. CNN’s lead is even more clear-cut in key target groups with an 80 per cent advantage with top management and 64 per cent with business decision makers.

     

    CNN also recorded substantial growth in TV and digital consumption. In TV, there was strong growth in daily (+13 per cent), weekly (+11 per cent) and monthly (+six per cent) audience numbers. These numbers surge when it comes to International travellers (+49 per cent weekly) and luxury spenders (+29 per cent weekly).

     

    In digital, the monthly digital reach increased by 11 per cent and was most significant in the key target groups of international business travellers (+72 per cent) and international leisure travellers (+57 per cent).

     

    Even in India, CNN is the number one international news brand for top management with a 39 per cent lead in multiplatform reach over BBC. On TV, CNN reaches twice as many top management viewers on a daily basis and 41 per cent more on a monthly basis than BBC World News. Among India’s affluent audience, CNN is yet again the international news leader as a multi-platform brand reaching more than one-in-five upscale consumers (22 per cent). On TV, CNN is the most watched international news brand reaching 16 per cent more viewers each month than BBC World News.

     

    The lead continues on digital platform as CNN reaches 42 per cent more audiences than BBC each month. CNN also recorded substantial growth in audience numbers across all platforms including multi-platform (+28 per cent), digital (5.1 times) and TV in weekly (+35 per cent) and monthly (+24 per cent).

     

    CNN International Asia Pacific vice president advertising sales Sunita Rajan said, “This is a spectacular result for CNN and a testament to the commitment we made to our audience – to provide first-class content across multiple platforms. Our audience’s appetite for global news and staying connected has never been greater. In response, we’ve boosted our resources across television and made major investments in digital including an integrated newsroom, designing a new responsive website and creating a slate of new dedicated digital content. These survey results show unequivocally that CNN is the number one international news brand and the first choice for affluent consumers.”

  • CNN International commercial makes senior level appointment

    CNN International commercial makes senior level appointment

    MUMBAI: Sunita Rajan is joining CNN International Commercial’s executive team under Chief Commercial Officer Rani R Raad with a remit to continue building CNN’s business growth trajectory in the Asia Pacific region.

    Joining from BBC Worldwide from March 2015, Rajan will oversee an extensive client base across the breadth of the Asia Pacific region and will lead teams based across 5 offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Delhi and Mumbai and a network of representatives across Asia, overseeing the strategy to drive advertising revenue for CNN’s global portfolio of multi-platform products among Asia Pacific based advertisers. She will also be part of Raad’s management team which guides the brand’s international commercial strategy.

    With an emphasis on bespoke integrated advertiser solutions across the full range of CNN’s linear and non-linear properties, her focus will be on overseeing strategic relationships and brand partnerships across the Asia Pacific region. Her appointment comes at a time of particular momentum for the CNN brand: the leading international news brand continues to mark clear distance between its nearest competitor in all key independent viewing surveys both in Asia and worldwide and marks the second consecutive year as Asian TV Awards’ Cable & Satellite Channel of the Year and the Royal Television Society’s News Channel of the Year.

    “Sunita’s wealth of experience coupled with her dynamic leadership style will be a huge asset to CNN as we look to continue our growth path in the Asia Pacific region,” said Raad. “Her expertise fits perfectly with CNN’s multi-platform offering and she is ideally equipped to take CNN’s long-standing commercial success in the region to the next level.  She will undoubtedly prove a valued colleague to the entire Asia business across the full spectrum of our commercial activity in the region where CNN continues to enjoy a strong leadership position.”

    “This is a tremendous opportunity to build further growth for the global news leader across its extensive portfolio of tv and digital products in a region as exciting and dynamic as Asia Pacific,” said Rajan. “I’m looking forward to taking up this new role working with such a highly talented team.”

    Rajan will be supported in her new role by Sonali Chatterjee, Stacey Rabsatt, Atsushi Saito and Sally Young, directors respectively for South Asia, South East Asia, Japan and North Asia (including New Zealand & Australia.)

    Rajan’s media career has spanned 25 years and has included roles at Star Television, News Television (India) and BBC Worldwide, where she was most recently Executive Vice President Advertising Sales, Asia Pacific.

    Rajan joins CNN as the news provider continues to invest in all its platforms, including a recently re-launched CNN.com site and a suite of additional business programming for its international audiences.  Its ongoing leadership position in digital, social, and mobile news and information sits alongside the unrivalled TV offering which currently reaches over 385 million households around the world.

    “In welcoming her to my international executive team, I know Sunita will help shape our future success beyond her role as a senior ambassador for the business in Asia Pacific,” added Raad. “Her drive and expertise will help to further establish CNNI Commercial as the go-to home of innovative commercial propositions for those wanting to engage with our unique global audience across multiple platforms.”

    Rajan is another senior level appointment to Raad’s executive management team since CNNI Commercial was formed two years ago. In February 2013, parent company Turner International made the decision to align all of CNN’s international commercial activity – spanning advertising sales, content sales, affiliate relations, out of home distribution, business development, marketing and research – into a single operation under Raad’s leadership.

    CNNI Commercial currently oversees a global portfolio of world-class advertisers after a significant period of client retention and growth. It manages a dynamic content sales, affiliates and hotels business and has recently announced innovative new marketing initiatives to increase CNN’s reach to new audiences, including most recently the opening of the inaugural CNN Traveller Café in Abu Dhabi.

  • BBC Worldwide appoints John Williams and Katy Xu for ad sales in Asia

    BBC Worldwide appoints John Williams and Katy Xu for ad sales in Asia

    MUMBAI: BBC Advertising is boosting its ad sales team in Asia to tap into the growing opportunities in the region. Recent studies have predicted strong growth in advertising revenues in Asia Pacific.

     

    Two new roles have been created within the Asia leadership team to get closer to customers and identify new cross-platform opportunities. John Williams has been appointed ASEAN and India vice president, based in Singapore while Katy Xu will be Greater China and North Asia vice president, located in Hong Kong. They both have commenced their new roles from 1 September 2014 and report to BBC Worldwide advertising sales EVP Sunita Rajan.

     

    Williams was earlier located in New York where he was BBC Worldwide North America international advertising VP. Xu takes up an expanded role while currently being Hong Kong and Greater China regional director.

     

    Speaking on their appointment, Rajan said, “With their knowledge and valuable experience in operating across both mature and emerging markets, John and Katy will lead our region to further growth. I am looking forward to working with them to drive the strategic direction and new business across Asia Pacific.”

     

    Williams said, “I am excited about this opportunity to work in one of the most exciting regions in the world with a new team eager for continued success, representing a suite of BBC products that are both in demand by audiences and advertisers alike.”

     

    Katy Xu commented, “BBC is already a successful brand in countries across Asia and I am looking forward to building partnerships in new and existing markets to take our ad sales business to the next level.”

     

    BBC Advertising plans to focus on its key priority markets such as India, China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia.

  • Sunita Rajan is BBC Worldwide executive VP ad sales Asia

    MUMBAI: Sunita Rajan, who is currently BBC Worldwide senior VP, ad Sales, Asia, becomes an executive VP.

    She adds responsibility for BBC.com and Lonely Planet ad sales activities in Australia, reporting into Carolyn Gibson who is in the new position of executive VP International ad sales.

    This is all part of BBC Worldwide‘s changes to its ad sales business as the company continues its re-organisation along geographic lines. It is also worth noting that BBC Worldwide last year pulled two of its channels from India citing a difficult economic environment for pay TV. Only BBC World News continues to air here.

    Under the restructure, BBC Worldwide‘s ad funded media assets will be partially decentralised as its wholly owned local channel businesses are migrated into the company‘s regions, and it moves these businesses into regional P&Ls.

    As a result of the changes, which alters the scope of the current UK-based leadership role, BBC Advertising executive VP, GM Chris Dobson has decided to leave the business in the summer this year.

    Remaining centralised and based out of London will be global advertising sales for BBC World News, BBC.com and BBC World Service, and for external clients such as Lonely Planet and Viki.com in international markets.

    Mark Gall who is executive VP ad sales, US and Canada will add responsibility for Latin America to his remit for the same assets. He will work with the regional executive VP and will have accountability into Gibson for news elements. This group, along with other key executives in finance and business strategy, will operate the Global Ad Sales Council with Herb Scannell as head.

    Gibson has extensive experience within the BBC most recently as BBC Advertising senior VP, international sales – Europe, Middle East and Africa and Americas. Prior to that, she was one of the founding members of the BBC World News airtime sales team when it was formed in July 1998, following a number of years in international sales positions at IP Network in Europe and Star TV in Asia.

    In her new capacity, Gibson will set strategy and oversee BBC Worldwide‘s key clients that conduct business on an international and global basis. Most prominently will be the international commercial TV channel BBC World News, which is seen in over 200 countries, and its related international site BBC.com, both of which form part of BBC Global News, a separate entity from BBC Worldwide, and strategically imperative for the BBC‘s global ambitions.

  • Katy Xu is BBC Advertising’s regional director for Hong Kong, Greater China

    MUMBAI: BBC Advertising, part of BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of UK pubcaster the BBC, has announced the appointment of Katy Xu as regional director for Hong Kong and Greater China.

    Xu will be responsible for BBC Advertising’s business in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Philippines and China, and starts with immediate effect.

    Xu will be based in Hong Kong and report to senior VP sales Asia Sunita Rajan.

    She joins BBC Advertising from Eurosport Asia Pacific where she was regional account director (Greater China, Thailand and Singapore) for two years.

    Previous to that, Xu was regional sales manager for both Greater China and South East Asia at Microsoft Advertising, and regional account director (Asia Pacific) for MTV Asia. She has also held sales roles at Lycos Asia and ChinaQuest Software.

    Key achievements over her past 12 years of international media background have included helping major Chinese brands such as Haier and Huawei launch their first ever international advertising campaigns – Haier sponsoring MTV Asia Awards in 2006, and Huawei (device) sponsoring the broadcast of London 2012 on Eurosport.

    Rajan said: “With vast experience in both pan regional TV and digital, having worked with global media companies such as Viacom, Microsoft Advertising Solutions and most recently Eurosport, Katy is well poised to drive growth for our business from these markets with her expertise in multi-screen and content solutions Ad Sales and her added knowledge and fluency in Mandarin.”

    Xu said, “I am delighted to have joined the BBC Advertising team, and am looking forward to working with businesses in Hong Kong and Greater China to promote their goods and services alongside some of the world’s best, most watched and most trusted content.”

    She moves into the role vacated by Michael Rees, who has relocated to Singapore as BBC Advertising’s regional director for Singapore, Korea.

  • BBC Worldwide ups Sunita Rajan to BBC Advertising senior VP

    BBC Worldwide ups Sunita Rajan to BBC Advertising senior VP

    MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide has promoted Sunita Rajan to BBC Advertising SVP Asia.

    Formerly BBC Worldwide VP of ad sales Asia for channels, Rajan reports to BBC Advertising executive VP, GM Chris Dobson. She will continue to be based in Singapore.

    Dobson said, “Sunita has been instrumental in the growth of BBC Advertising’s business and has led strong growth of our advertising revenues in Asia. As our business further expands to include Lonely Planet and branded content, Sunita‘s leadership in this key region is even more important”.

    Part of the BBC Worldwide’s senior management team, her new Asia-wide remit includes overseeing all advertising activity across BBC Worldwide‘s commercial businesses on multiple platforms. This includes television, online, mobile products such as World News, BBC.com, Worldwide Channels, Lonely Planet and BBC Mobile – under BBC Advertising, the newly launched the bespoke internal sales house for all wholly owned and operated BBC assets.

    “BBC Advertising enables us to position our broad and exciting ad sales opportunities in a way that allows brands to connect with a quality audience across multiple platforms. With Sunita’s expertise and knowledge, we are well-placed to offer our clients even more complete solutions to their advertising and brand communication needs across Asia,” adds Dobson.

  • ‘Over one third of BBC’s revenue comes from Asia’ : Sunita Rajan – BBC Worldwide VP- advertising sales, Asia and Australasia

    ‘Over one third of BBC’s revenue comes from Asia’ : Sunita Rajan – BBC Worldwide VP- advertising sales, Asia and Australasia

    BBC is expanding in the media space in India with not just new channel launches but also in the arena of FM radio and TV production.

    Among the recent launches are BBC Entertainment and Cbeebies. BBC World which was for years a free-to-air news channel, has gone pay to open up subscription revenues.

    BBC has also taken a minority stake in Mid Day Multimedia’s private FM station Radio One.

    And to expand its footprint in India, BBC has recently set up a production centre in Mumbai to tap the rapidly growing TV content market.

    In an interview with Indiantelevision’s Nasrin Sultana, Sunita Rajan, BBC Worldwide VP – advertising sales, Asia and Australasia, talks of BBC’s growth plans for this market.

    Excerpts:

    How is BBC giving the Asian region a push with its content, marketing and ad sales strategy?
    We have a strong presence in the Asia Pacific region. As far as the editorial position goes, our news bureaus are spread widely all over. We have Asia centric programming like Asia Business Report, Asia This Week and news features for Asians. We recently launched an Asia specific show – World News Today presented by Nik Gowing. All the shows are produced in London but our target is Asian audiences.

     

    Our India specific show India Business Report was favoured so much that we had to bring it back on air. But we are an international news channel. So our competition is not the local news channels of any country.

    Asia has been a strong revenue driver for BBC. How much does India contribute as a percentage to BBC’s total ad sales kitty?
    Over one third of the revenue comes from Asia. We do not break it down market by market. So I won’t be able to tell you about the Indian market alone. We have six beams of ad slots and rates across the globe. So an ad rate can be similar for India as well as in Latin America or South Asia. We kind of dice and slice it all across the globe.

    But the good thing is a good amount of ad sales comes from the Asia Pacific region. In recent times, we have seen a huge interest from our Indian clients to reach out to the Asia Pacific markets. At the moment, we are carrying campaigns by Indian clients targeted at the international audience.

    With this trend, how has BBC evolved an ad sales strategy?
    After some amount of internal research we found that there is a common trend among our audiences across countries. One commonality is that they are internationalists. Internationalists are those who are concerned about international news and have an international lifestyle. Keeping this in mind, we launched the “Internationalists campaign.” The campaign is nothing but telling “this is what our audience looks like”. What we did was we picked and chose the basic commonality of all the internationalists, which we identified.

    What is the basic idea behind the ‘Internationalists campaign’?
    Reaffirming and re-auditing that our audience are affluent. It is to give us a profile of our audience. We are focusing on this – through our content as well as on the advertising front. We are talking about Indians who are ‘internationalist’ in their attitude. We also did the Global Indian survey to find out who are affluent, who work in MNCs, who travel abroad, who use foreign products, and who are interested in the stock market.

    What is BBC’s audience profile in India?
    Affluent Indians living in the top 20 cities form the BBC audience profile. They are reflected in the ‘Internationalist’ campaign. The Indian audience or the ‘Internationalist’ is identical to any other Internationalist living in Tokyo, Korea or USA.
    ‘Affluent Indians living in top 20 cities form BBC’s audience profile’

    Who are your major advertisers in India?
    We have 90 brands advertising coming from India on our channel. They are from various categories – financial institutions, IT and auto. Blue chip companies like Nokia and Samsung are strong advertisers on our channel.

    Since BBC has also launched a GEC, how are you tapping advertisers beyond the traditional news genre?
    GEC definitely has a different profile of advertisers. FMCG companies are an important breed of advertisers who back GECs. We are looking at tapping such companies.

    What are the marketing and advertising plans for the kids channel Cbeebies?
    Cbeebies is for pre-schoolers. No kids channel in India has such a target group. Cbeebies is very popular in other markets where we have launched. BBC’s Teletubbies is a most liked brand. We are looking for advertisers for our kids channel.

    Cbeebies is still restricted to a DTH footprint. How are you getting into carriage deals with the cable networks?
    Right now we are available on the TataSky DTH platform. But we are in talks for distribution deals across cable networks.

    How do you tap advertisers for Radio One where you are an equity partner with Mid-Day Multimedia?
    Though BBC has a stake in Radio One, we do not handle the advertising at all.

    BBC recently launched BBC Knowledge in Singapore. When are you bringing it to India?
    We launched BBC Knowledge in August on the IPTV platform. The channel showcases some of the best features and documentaries. We have 3000 hours of content in our archives. We are soon to launch BBC Knowledge in other markets too.

    How is the recently launched commercial venture BBC.com faring?
    BBC.com is our commercial venture to offer advertising on BBC’s international online service for users outside the UK. The current site has been very successful in attracting international traffic. Currently, it has more than 40 million unique users per month from outside the UK who mainly access the news pages.
  • Tourism Australia ties up with BBC for “Peschardt’s People”

    Tourism Australia ties up with BBC for “Peschardt’s People”

    NEW DELHI:Tourism Australia has signed an agreement with BBC World to sponsor the popular series Peschardt’s People, which profiles famous and infamous people in the Asia-Pacific region.

    The deal, announced by the BBC’s 24-hour news and information channel yesterday, covers the channel’s South Asia/Middle East feed and reaches nearly 25 million viewers. It is the first regional sponsorship for the series and provides Tourism Australia with a strong presence in India – considered to be one of its most important tourism markets, a press statement issue by the broadcaster said today.

    Presented by the BBC’s Michael Peschardt, the series provides viewers with a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the lives of some of the most famous and infamous people in the Asia-Pacific region.

    The series is also a perfect fit for Tourism Australia as it has a strong Australian flavour. Michael Peschardt, is a well-respected BBC journalist based in Australia and the series also features several famous Australians. The line up of guests include; former ‘Australian of the Year’ and world-leading plastic surgeon Atticus Fleming; Narayana Murthy – one of India’s most respected business leaders; New Zealand actor, Sam Neill and cricketing legend Rod March.

    Michael spends an average of three days with each of his guests, interviewing them about the people, places, and issues that really matter to them, in a relaxed and informal style, encouraging them to open up and talk sincerely and passionately about their lives.

    BBC World’s VP of sales for Asia and Australasia, Sunita Rajan, says: “We are delighted to have Tourism Australia showcase their destination message on BBC World. BBC World is the leading international news channel in India, and the country is now one of the world’s largest democracies and its influential and affluent individuals are travelling more than ever.”She said also that the fact that BBC World was voted as the leading television channel for travellers two years in a row also makes this the perfect environment for Tourism Australia to launch its campaign in.