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Tag: Vikas Mehta

  • Lloyd partners Mullen Lintas for brand restage

    Lloyd partners Mullen Lintas for brand restage

    MUMBAI: Consumer durables brand Lloyd, has partnered with Mullen Lintas for its upcoming campaign. The initiative has been taken to strengthen Lloyd’s position as a consumer-centric brand to gain stature and market share across product categories, as part of the next stage of the brand’s roadmap.

    Commenting on the association, Mullen Lintas CEO Vikas Mehta said, "With Lloyd, we are delighted to further extend our long-standing partnership with Havells. We are grateful for their continued faith in Mullen Lintas and are committed to creating another success story for their business. Lloyd is a great opportunity for us to leverage Mullen’s challenger thinking to get the brand an unfair share of attention in the crowded consumer durables category."

    Speaking of the association with Mullen Lintas, Havells India vice president marketing Amit Tiwari said, “Lloyd is a crucial piece in our brand portfolio and we want to fuel this business as a strong engine for our growth. We felt the brand needed a fresh perspective and proposition at this stage in its journey and found the narrative shared by Mullen Lintas compelling.”

    In an attempt to appeal to young couples as its core target audience, Lloyd recently named Bollywood’s power-couple, Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, as its newest brand ambassadors.  The campaign features the innovative LLOYD Grande AC. This campaign will further strengthen the brands belief of keeping their consumers happiness and lifestyle in mind while making products to cater to the needs of the young Indians.

    The agency has been working with the brand to leverage the new celebrity couple to create an emotional connect with the audience. Initial phase of the campaign for Lloyd air conditioners, created by Mullen Lintas, has already started rolling out with more expected in the coming weeks.

    The campaign is being handled by the Delhi (NCR) Offices of Mullen Lintas, under the leadership of its president, Syed Amjad Ali.

  • Mullen Lintas appoints Azazul Haque, Garima Khandelwal as CCOs

    Mullen Lintas appoints Azazul Haque, Garima Khandelwal as CCOs

    MUMBAI: Mullen Lintas, announcing its new creative leadership, has named Azazul Haque and Garima Khandelwal as its new chief creative officers. While Haque joins from Ogilvy, where he was CCO-South, Khandelwal has been elevated from the executive creative director post from within the agency. The announcement closely follows Vikas Mehta’s appointment as the agency’s chief executive office.

    Both of them will be based out of the agency’s Mumbai office.

    Haque started his career with Lowe Lintas (then Lowe Lintas + Partners) back in 2001. Over the years that followed, he has worked with Bates, Publicis, Mudra, McCann, Contract, and Ogilvy on well-known brands like Nescafe, Coca Cola, Nestle Maggi, Domino’s Pizza, Dabur, Maruti Suzuki, Havells, Amazon, Titan and Motorola, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Auto, and Rajasthan Tourism, among others.

    Khandelwal had kicked-off her career in advertising with Ogilvy Delhi approximately 18 years ago. She moved to Mullen Lintas in 2015, and her former role as executive creative director gave her an opportunity to influence the creative direction for some of India’s most celebrated brands. As the founding member of Team Mullen Lintas, she is responsible for the agency’s marquee work such as – Motilal Oswal (Equity experts), Tata Tea (Alarm bajne se pehle Jaago Re), MTV Beats, Bajaj Avenger (Feel Like God + Independence Day) and Too Yumm (National launch). Before moving to Mullen Lintas, she has also worked with Lowe Lintas where she lent her creative expertise to a diverse set of clients across categories. Some of the clients that she has been associated with include Suzlon PALS, Tata Tea (Kala Teeka), Axe (Boat Party), Liva, etc. She has also worked for Leagas Delaney, on the Skoda account for the European market, based out of Prague.

  • Vikas Mehta appointed Mullen Lintas CEO

    Vikas Mehta appointed Mullen Lintas CEO

    MUMBAI: Creative agency of the MullenLowe Lintas Group, Mullen Lintas, has appointed Vikas Mehta as its new CEO. He will operate out of the company’s Mumbai office.

    Mehta takes this role from Virat Tandon, who was recently elevated to the position of group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group.

    Mehta comes with an experience of nearly two decades and has spent over 12 years with the global MullenLowe Group, working in multiple countries across the Asia-Pacific region. He started working for the company in India in 2013 and played several roles including group chief marketing officer, head of the digital and president—group marketing services. His last assignment was to set up the omnichannel creative agency, PointNine Lintas, which he ran as CEO until its merger with Lowe Lintas, announced last week.

  • MS Dhoni asks audiophiles to #JusBol for SoundLogic’s new ad

    MS Dhoni asks audiophiles to #JusBol for SoundLogic’s new ad

    MUMBAI: PointNine Lintas has conceptualised and executed a multimedia campaign for the launch of SoundLogic’s new voice assistant wireless audio range.

    As the omnichannel agency of the brand, PointNine Lintas designed the entire campaign leveraging SoundLogic’s partner-evangelist, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The new campaign, #JusBol, emphasises how easily you can manage all your chores with just voice commands.

    As the voice assistant-enabled audio segment is still nascent, one of the prime objectives for the agency was to build awareness about the category and highlight the product’s utility. To achieve this goal, PointNine Lintas built a digital-first omni-channel strategy.

    The campaign started with the first-ever flash sale in the audio equipment category on Flipkart. To celebrate Mahi’s birthday, SoundLogic is giving away a personalised gift from him along-with the product during the flash sale. The agency has created a go-to-market plan that will unveil over the next few weeks. The mix includes films, video content, social media conversations, retail merchandise, e-commerce partnership and PR.

    PointNine Lintas CEO Vikas Mehta said, “We are delighted to help SoundLogic create its first major marketing campaign in India. It’s a singular campaign that maps the entire user journey from awareness right upto commerce. Mahi’s upcoming birthday presented a great topical opportunity for us to offer something exciting to his fans and a limited edition range was born. Flipkart has been an invaluable partner in agreeing to do a first-ever flash sale for our products, giving us a great platform for the brand to make a debut.”

    SoundLogic is amongst the first voice assistant products to work on a Bluetooth technology making it platform and OS agnostic. Coupled with an attractive price point of Rs 1,299 onwards, it allows a much larger group of Indian audiences to have the first taste of smart audio devices.

    SoundLogic CEO and co-founder Sagar Gwallani added, “With this campaign we want to communicate how user-friendly SoundLogic’s voice-assisted range of audio products are. As the campaign is all about giving commands to the voice assistant, there cannot be any better choice than Captain Cool, who is known for his leadership qualities on and off the field.”

    The campaign revolves around the idea #JusBol. Vikas explains the idea further, “Most of our audience is not yet familiar with the concept of voice assistants. We needed to simplify the proposition down to something they can easily relate to and yet be compelling enough for them to try out. People are used to speakers playing sound (a speaker, speaks!); but here is a range of audio products that also listen. With this range, your speaker just got smart enough to be your assistant. Your voice is its command.”

    SoundLogic was founded in the USA in 2006 and has presence across various markets including India, UK, Europe and Australia. The brand entered the Indian market in 2011 and soon became one of the fastest growing brands in the audio and electronics industry providing consumers with innovative products at affordable prices. Introducing innovative gadgets, SoundLogic has an array of gadgets and gizmos for daily lifestyle.

  • PointNine Lintas forays into mar-tech via Probitec

    PointNine Lintas forays into mar-tech via Probitec

    MUMBAI: Omnichannel agency PointNine Lintas has announced its foray into marketing techbologe (mar-tech) and launched the beta version of its first product, Probitec Deemed as the world’s first technology platform for activation management, Probitec is an end-to-end solution for executing and monitoring on-ground programs for consumer engagement.

    Announcing the go-live, PointNine Lintas CEO Vikas Mehta says,  “A few years ago, we saw the wave of ad-tech sweeping the advertising business. The action is now shifting towards (mar-tech), and we’re really excited about the possibilities it presents for innovations and inventions. Until now, agencies have primarily viewed their business model as ‘service providers’. At PointNine Lintas, we are committed to an equally strong focus on developing products that can add value to the marketing ecosystem. Probitec is a fine example of that, because it offers a platformic solution to a decades-old problem of transparency in the activation business.”

    LinEngage, the consumer engagement division of PointNine Lintas, has led the product development of Probitec in collaboration with technology partner, TalentBridge Technologies – a Bangalore based technology firm.

    Served as a mobile app, Probitec is a unified platform where field staff, activation agencies and clients can access relevant modules to collaborate, train, manage and monitor assignments simultaneously across multiple geographies around the country.

    The app helps in talent assessment and hiring for field staff including promoters, training through interactive sessions and multimedia materials for execution, geo-location tracking of on ground initiatives including live audio-video streaming, real-time monitoring and a live dashboard reporting for clients and data capture and database integration for the entire activity. 

    PointNine Lintas national director of consumer engagement Sriharsh Grandhe adds, “Clients have echoed how there is very little control on an activation program once it goes live. Technology can aid in improving monitoring and measurability of activation programs that gives better control and greatly improve its performance and effectiveness. Probitec has been designed to achieve this by mimicking a typical activation program workflow with the aim to improve management of activation projects. This can be more effective for the larger and complex projects.”

    Probitec derives its name from ‘probity’ (Latin origin ‘probus’), which means adherence to the highest principles and ideals. It aims to set a new standard in transparency for the activation business, while making the entire process more collaborative and efficient. The development cycle for Probitec lasted about 15 months including rigorous testing. User testing in live environments has been carried out in over 125 towns and villages spanning five states. The beta version continues to be tested for further enhancements, and is currently live in 200 villages in the state of Tamil Nadu.

    Early assignments include brands for an auto-lubricant major, a leading foods company, an entertainment network amongst others. PointNine Lintas is in talks with several large activation clients to create custom-builds of Probitec for enterprise level integrations.

  • MullenLowe Media Mub comes to India as Lintas MediaHub

    MullenLowe Media Mub comes to India as Lintas MediaHub

    MUMBAI: MullenLowe Mediahub from MullenLowe Group has entered India and will operate as a division of MullenLowe Lintas Group’s omnichannel agency, PointNine Lintas. Lintas Mediahub is being launched as a full-service media offering for a digitised world, and will offer media strategy, communications planning, media planning and buying across all touch-points, both on and offline. The agency will also include a performance marketing offering and a programmatic buying engine.

    In India, Lintas Mediahub aims to offer a counterpoint to the current crop of monolithic, volume hungry, singularly data-obsessed media agency models. As a part of the omnichannel offering of PointNine Lintas, it is designed to bring creativity and media together.

    PointNine Lintas CEO Vikas Mehta says, “The separation of creative and media in the past two decades has gradually sucked ideas out of the media business. Media innovations have been largely ‘standardised’ and whilst there are some breakthroughs, they are few and far between. With Lintas Mediahub, we want to bring ideas back to the heart of the media offering. The addition of media capabilities to our service stack brings PointNine Lintas another step closer to our omnichannel vision.”

    Lintas Mediahub will be headed by Vidhu Sagar, who joins as national director for media and will be based in Mumbai. Sagar joins from WPP where he was the business lead at Global Team Blue (GTB) – WPP’s integrated agency for Ford Motors. Prior to that he was an EVP at Carat Media India, served as general manager, FCB‐Ulka Delhi and was also head of marketing at India Today Group, amongst other roles.

    Sagar comes with rich experience across the diverse disciplines of media planning, brand strategy and account management. Throughout his career he has acted as a brand champion for groundbreaking communication solutions for a variety of clients, including international brands such as BMW, General Motors, Ford, British Airways, Bausch & Lomb, Tropicana, MasterCard, Reebok, and Bose, as well as prominent Indian players such as ITC, Dabur, Hero, HCL, NIIT and Muthoot Group.

    Lintas Mediahub national director for media Vidhu Sagar notes, “I am extremely excited to join Lintas Mediahub. It’s a magical combination really. PointNine Lintas, with its omnichannel thrust and an unmatched service stack, is uniquely positioned to address the growing need for a comprehensive surround approach to communication planning. And MullenLowe Mediahub, a robust yet edgily creative, media agency group, remains unparalleled across the globe in its appeal. Lintas Mediahub will be the perfect amalgam of science and art, seamlessly fusing logic with lateral thinking. We hope to challenge the status quo by adding a layer of imaginative thinking that’s missing from the offering of most media agencies today.

    Lintas Mediahub will offer its services to clients across agencies of MullenLowe Lintas Group in India – Lowe Lintas, Mullen Lintas and PointNine Lintas. The launch in India, marks the expansion of the MullenLowe Mediahub network into 14 cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, London, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai. Recently MullenLowe Mediahub was named MediaPost’s Creative Media Agency of the Year for the second consecutive year, and has an enviable client list that includes Chipotle, Eurosport, JetBlue, Harley-Davidson, Netflix, Royal Caribbean, Staples, and Western Union.

  • PointNine Lintas announces new leadership team

    MUMBAI: PointNine Lintas, the newest independent agency from the MullenLowe Lintas Group, announced the first set of names in its leadership team. It’s a lineup of senior domain-experts that will work with the CEO, Vikas Mehta. All teams of PointNine Lintas will be co-located in offices in Mumbai, New Delhi (NCR) and Bangalore respectively.

    Ameer Ismail has been named Chief Growth Officer, Sumanta Ganguly takes on the role of National Director – Digital Marketing and Transformation and Sriharsh Grandhe would be National Director – Consumer Engagement. Along with Vikas; Ameer, Sumanta and Sriharsh will work with clients to build bespoke agency solutions geared to maximize return-on-marketing-investments.

    Speaking of the lineup, Vikas Mehta said: “The biggest challenge in getting an omni-channel model right is the ability to bring multi-disciplinary expertise together upfront. This leadership team is made up of seasoned practitioners. It allows us to bring multiple disciplines to the table right at the start and offer clients, a customised agency team that’s built around their brand opportunities. This is in sharp contrast to the administrative structure most agencies follow for their verticals. We are lucky to have experts like Ameer, Sumanta and Sriharsh within the organisation, to be my co-founders at PointNine Lintas.”

    As Chief Growth Officer, Ameer’s mandate would be to work with clients towards creating growth strategies and build full-service agency teams. Commenting on his vision and role for PointNine Lintas, Ameer Ismail commented: “I believe a truly omni-channel agency is imperative for today’s market. We will be amongst very few agencies that kick start with such a deep and diverse capability line-up. To exploit the full potential of our offering, my role as Chief Growth Officer will be to create a dynamic strategy that will ensure PointNine Lintas works with some of the best brands and develops into one of the most significant agencies in the country.”

    The consumer engagement practice for PointNine Lintas; including activation, experiential and shopper marketing; would be led by Sriharsh Grandhe. His mandate will be to author go-to-market programs built around physical and digital consumer-journeys. Sriharsh would also be involved in developing the agency’s product –stack of mar-tech offerings.

    Commenting on the role and responsibility at PointNine Lintas, Sriharsh Grandhe said: “Over the last two years at LinEngage, a considerable effort has been made on creating effectiveness for our clients and we have successfully demonstrated reach-to-conversion ratios as healthy as 35 per cent. We have worked closely with a few of our longstanding clients to experiment and continually improve on engagement KPI’s. At PointNine Lintas, the goal would be to take these models to even more touch-points to create greater business impact.”

    The digital practice for PointNine Lintas would be led by Sumanta Ganguly. His mandate would be to place platforms, technology, devices and ecosystems at the heart of marketing programs in the early stages of brand development. Speaking of his role, Sumanta Ganguly says, “Digital is no longer the purview of communication alone, today it’s leading the discussion of business transformations. We are at the crossroads of design, data and platforms, and will continue to focus on digital transformation stories for a larger set of clients at PointNine Lintas.”

    Ameer, Sriharsh and Sumanta will retain their divisional responsibilities for GolinOpinion, LinEngage and LinTeractive respectively. Explaining the rationale behind this choice, Vikas adds, “One of the big reasons why full-service is preached more often than practiced, is because every skill-set comes with its own administrative layers. For example, when you need a PR expert, you also inherit the administrative layer of a PR agency. In a day-to-day working scenario, this becomes a major barrier to collaboration. We’ve made a conscious choice to cast our best minds as both, ‘practitioners’ and ‘managers’ making it easier to collaborate seamlessly.”

    The agency is planning more additions to the leadership team, which would be announced in the coming days.