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Tag: ZenithOptimedia

  • ZenithOptimedia hires Hari Krishnan as MD

    ZenithOptimedia hires Hari Krishnan as MD

    MUMBAI: ZenithOptimedia Group has roped in Hari Krishnan as ZenithOptimedia India managing director.

     

    Based out of Gurgaon, he will be taking charge of the agency’s pan-India operations.  ZenithOptimedia India Group CEO Anupriya Acharya said, “Hari’s appointment is in line with our strategy of seeking diverse talent in order to accelerate our transformation agenda. The market and marketers are fast evolving to keep up with the convergence in the marketplace and the changing, more complex, consumer journeys. We have excellent specialist capabilities across media, research, data and analytics, content, experiential, performance marketing and the like. Hari’s rich experience in brands and integrating different verticals will add immense value to our clients and the Group that comprises ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix, Newcast and Ninah.”

     

    Krishnan moves in from Cheil Worldwide SW Asia where he was chief operating officer. He has spent over 22 years in advertising agencies including Bates, Ogilvy, Grey and JWT and has worked across product categories on brands such as Samsung, PepsiCo, Vodafone and Nokia. He led WPP’s first co-located, integrated set-up for Ford in India, the Blue Hive by bringing together separate teams from JWT, Mindshare and Wunderman Digital. Subsequently he joined Cheil as COO where he was part of the massive growth and integration journey – from 135 people to 480 strong team; capability expansion from ATL to Digital, Activation, Visual Merchandising and Retail. He also worked closely with Lodestar UM to set up a joint Cheil- Lodestar operation.

     

    Krishnan said, “This is indeed an exciting opportunity. The consumer journey is ever-evolving and brands are being challenged on an hourly basis. ZenithOptimedia believes that these new trends and advances in technology will provide innovative communication opportunities for clients. Not many agencies take bold steps like this and I am glad to work among people who are embracing new thinking, new perspectives and new ideas.”

     

    ZenithOptimedia Group’s client list in India includes Nestle, OLX, Micromax, LVMH Group, Honda, Uninor, Jabong, Yatra, Toshiba, Viber and Fabfurnish. Performics and Resultrix also deliver digital strategies for MaxBupa, ICICI Bank, Airtel, Standard Chartered Bank, Star India, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Tata AIG Life Insurance, Musafir and Games 24X7.

  • Havas Media Group appoints Josh Gallagher as regional strategy director

    Havas Media Group appoints Josh Gallagher as regional strategy director

    MUMBAI: Havas Media Group has appointed Josh Gallagher as its regional strategy director. Based out of Singapore, he will report to Havas Media Group Asia Pacific chief strategy officer SK Biswas.

     

    In his new role, Gallagher will be responsible for driving offline and online strategy for the agency’s key clients including AXA, Emirates, LG Electronics and Shangri La Hotels. He will also lead the adoption of agency’s proprietary planning process Meaningful Connections Planning with an eye to deliver innovative solutions to new and existing clients.

     

    An integral part of his mandate is to propel the uptake of Havas Media Group’s Meaningful Brands research, a unique framework that analyses and tracks the connections brands have with quality of life and well-being of consumers.

     

    Gallanger said, “I had heard about Havas Media’s Meaningful Brands vision and found it very compelling. As brands enter the digital age it becomes critical for them to increase their meaningfulness quotient or they face the risk of extinction. The agency’s framework is a very unique roadmap for brands, as they embark on their journey to become meaningful and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to support this vision.”

     

    Gallanger joins the agency with 10 years of experience working with international media and digital agencies in Australia. Prior to this, he was with ZenithOptimedia Melbourne, where he worked as a communications strategist, driving strategy for Honda, Lion Nathan and Reckitt Benckiser. He has spent seven years with Universal McCann Brisbane, where he worked as client services and strategic director. He has also had a stint at digital agency Kruse Digital.

     

    Biswas said, “Josh is a very welcome addition to the regional strategy team. He has an unrelenting curiosity for uncovering consumer insights and is a champion of integration. He is one of those rare strategists, who have a hands on and practical experience of working on integrated strategies and expertise in both offline and digital communications planning processes.”

  • Maxus brings Navin Khemka on board as managing partner

    Maxus brings Navin Khemka on board as managing partner

    MUMBAI: Maxus has appointed Navin Khemka as its managing partner. Khemka will be heading the north and east regions for the media agency and will also be responsible for new business development across the country. He will report to Maxus south Asia managing director Kartik Sharma.

     

    With over 17 years of experience in the advertising and media industry, Khemka’s last appointment was with ZenithOptimedia, where he left as managing partner. With a tenure spanning the last eight years, he was initially the trading lead for key accounts such as Nestle and HP. He subsequently took over the business leadership of the HP account, delivering some award winning campaigns such as the HP Serena Williams campaign at Lakme Fashion Week. Thereafter he took on the additional role of new business director for India. He was instrumental in bringing on new clients such as Honda, Toshiba, Uninor, McVities, Karbonn Mobiles, Godfrey Philips, Best Rice, Greenlam Laminates, Olx.in, Jabong.com, Yatra.com at ZenithOptimedia.

     

    Sharma said, “Navin comes with a varied skill set and extensive experience across various product categories. He is an ideal leader to spearhead the Maxus team, and uphold our PACE value system across the organistaion.  At Maxus we endeavour to push the boundaries to delivering excellence for our clients, to achieve our 10/10 mandate.”

     

    Khemka said, “I am delighted to be a part of India’s most dynamic agency – Maxus.  Brand needs are changing and Maxus is geared up to providing a holistic solution to its clients. I look forward to work closely with the team and help provide seamless, media neutral solutions to our clients. Driving growth for Maxus in existing and new geographies also makes my role challenging. I am looking forward to exciting days ahead.”

     

    A graduate of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and MICA, Khemka started his career with Mudra where he worked for five years. Prior to ZenithOptimedia, Navin worked at Cheil Communications, Mindshare and Carat.

  • ZenithOptimedia gets a new CEO and managing partner

    ZenithOptimedia gets a new CEO and managing partner

    MUMBAI: ZenithOptimedia has seen two major exits with Satyajit Sen and Navin Khemka moving on from the agency after eight years.

     

    Sen held the position of chief executive officer of agency while Khemka was the company’s managing partner.

     

    On their exit, ZenithOptimedia Group CEO Anupriya Acharya said, “After putting in eight years with ZenithOptimedia, Satya has decided to embrace a new challenge. We thank him for all his contributions to ZO and wish him all the very best. ZOG thanks Navin also for his contributions and wishes him well in his next assignment.”

     

    The agency has got on board Madison Pinnacle COO Dnyanada Chaudhari as the managing partner for ZenithOptimedia India and former JWT digital ECD Prasanna Kulkarni as the chief creative officer.

     

    Chaudhari will be based out of the agency’s Gurgaon office and on her appointment said, “I’m excited to be back and strongly believe in ZenithOptimedia’s Live ROI principle and am very keen on partnering marketing teams to not just look at efficiencies but to also strategically leverage alliances to drive thought leadership and brand ROI.”

     

    On her appointment, Acharya said, “Chaudhari brings with her the exact expertise needed for this role. Her diverse background across strategy, buying and media management as well as experience with large scale businesses, is especially suited to create and refresh our trading architecture and execution across all media including TV, print, radio, digital, OOH, experiential and other specialist services.”

     

     Based out of Mumbai, Kulkarni will be in-charge of creative and content marketing solutions across ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix and Newcast.

     

    Commenting on his new role, Kulkarni said, “Great opportunity to work across the focus groups like performance based marketing, content led communication solutions, and integrated campaigns with ZenithOptimedia and its divisions, extremely glad to be part of such multidisciplinary team at ZOG. I look forward to taking the organisation’s creative capabilities to the next level by elevating the bar for innovative content. I am confident we are on our way to making ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix and Newcast a stimulating place for creatives and patrons alike.

     

    On the appointment, Acharya said, “Increasingly we are finding our client requiring creative content solutions across not only online but even on integrated campaigns. Kulkarni’s role is towards driving competitive edge in our product through superior integration of creative and content solutions. In fact as we move ahead, we will be looking at getting more and more diversified talent on board.”

  • ZenithOptimedia, Mindshare get top ad awards at India Radio Forum

    ZenithOptimedia, Mindshare get top ad awards at India Radio Forum

    NEW DELHI: The radio spot for ‘Nescafe Mornings on Red FM’ by ZenithOptimedia won the award for best Use of Music/Song/Jingle by an Advertiser at the  recently held India Radio Forum in the capital.

     

    Mindshare won awards for Most Effective Use of Radio in an Activation Campaign with ‘Close Up Come Fall In Love – Valentines Day Activity’ and Most Outstanding Use of Radio in an Ad Campaign for ‘India’s Favourite Non-Sporting Game’ (Antakshri).

     

    Reliance Life Insurance Co won the best CSR initiative from an advertiser on radio with ‘Greatest Fan’.

     

    Meanwhile, Mindshare got the award for India’s Favourite Non-Sporting Game (Antakshri) for participants Virendra Bapardekar, Priya Chanda and Salil Mahadeshwar in the Radio Pitch Challenge held during the day of the Forum.

     

    ZenithOptimedia was runner-up in this category with Lavanya Tagra and Aditya Singh taking part.

     

    Both won prizes from Big FM, Red FM and Radio Mirchi. These awards were decided immediately after the Radio Pitch Challenge on the spot by a jury.

     

    However, the winning team Mindshare walked away with the gold trophy and three tickets worth over Rs 170,000 to the 2014 Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix. 

  • ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad spend to grow by 5.3 per cent in 2014

    ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad spend to grow by 5.3 per cent in 2014

    MUMBAI: Global advertising expenditure is expected to grow by 5.3 per cent to $ 532bn, according to a report from media agency ZenithOptimedia.

    The agency has increased its forecast for 2014 by 0.2 percentage points since September, after recent signs of stronger growth from markets like the US, the UK, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Australia and Mexico, together with evidence that Spain’s steep downturn is finally bottoming out.

    Interestingly, this is the second time that the agency upgraded its expectations for 2014 this year, the first was in June (from 5.0 per cent to 5.1 per cent). In fact, for the year 2015, it expects the global ad market to accelerate to 5.8 per cent, followed by another year of 5.8 per cent growth in 2016.

    As part of its global analysis, the agency has also included Ireland in the so-called Peripheral Eurozone category. It assumes that the growth for these countries will be somewhat more muted.

    The agency says that in Europe, it has separated the ‘PIIGS’ markets (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), which have faced the full brunt of the Eurozone crisis, into the Peripheral Eurozone. “Their ad  markets have fallen even more sharply than their economies, as local advertisers cut back to reduce losses and preserve cash, and multinationals withdraw budgets to redeploy in more economically healthy regions. We estimate that ad expenditure in Peripheral Eurozone fell by 11.1% in 2013. 2014 looks a lot better, with ad expenditure forecast to shrink by just 0.9%, followed by a slow recovery of 1.8% growth in 2015 and 2.5% growth in 2016. This assumes that the Eurozone avoids disaster over our forecast period, and in particular assumes that no country crashes out of the euro, or falls into disorderly default on its debts,” says the report.

    The report also reveals that the rest of Western Europe, as well as Central European countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which are currently performing more like countries such as France, Germany or the UK than the much-faster growing markets of Eastern Europe, such as Russia and Ukraine. “This is partly because many of these Central European markets are in the Eurozone, and because they have strong trading links with Zenith Optimedia Group Limited,” it says.

    As far as the Asian market is concerned, the agency has divided it in to four parts – Japan, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Advanced Asia and Fast-track Asia.

    The report says that the Eastern European advertising markets, such as Russia and Ukraine, recovered quickly after the 2009 downturn and have since continued their healthy pace of growth, largely (though not entirely) unaffected by the problems in the Eurozone. “Their near neighbours in Central Asia, such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, have behaved very similarly, so we have gathered them together under the Eastern Europe & Central Asia bloc. We expect this bloc to have grown 11.7% by the end of 2013, followed by 8%-10% growth for the rest of our forecast period,” it says.

    The agency has kept Japan separate as the market behaves differently from the other markets in Asia. Even after the recent economic stimulus, Japan remains stuck in its rut of persistent low growth and grew 2.1 per cent in 2013. The agency estimates the growth rate of the country to remain at 2 per cent per year through to 2016.

    Apart from Japan, there are five countries in Asia with developed economies and advanced ad markets and thus they are categorised as “Advanced Asia”. It includes Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. The report reveals that growth here has been a disappointing 1.3 per cent in 2013, after a period of heightened tension between North Korea and its neighbours caused advertisers in South Korea to cancel or postpone several campaigns. “We forecast a much healthier 4.5 per cent growth in 2014, followed by 6.6 per cent growth in 2015 and 4.8 per cent growth in 2016,” says the agency in the report.

    Fast-track Asia includes countries like China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam as these economies are growing extremely rapidly as they adopt Western technology and practices. This group barely noticed the 2009 downturn (ad expenditure grew by 7.2 per cent that year) and since then has grown comfortably at double-digit rates. We estimate that ad expenditure in Fast-track Asia has grown 10.7 per cent in 2013, followed by 10 per cent to 12 per cent annual growth in 2014 to 2016.

  • VivaKi scales audience on demand in APAC through regional activation center

    VivaKi scales audience on demand in APAC through regional activation center

    MUMBAI: VivaKi continues the global expansion of audience on demand (AOD) and announced the launch of a regional activation center for Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. Following substantial growth of AOD and increasing global demand, the center will launch and aggressively scale Publicis Groupe’s addressable media practice throughout Asia Pacific. Grace Liau has been appointed to lead the operations as regional GM.

    AOD is Publicis Groupe’s multi-channel digital addressable media buying practice that enables global and local advertisers to reach the right audiences, at the right time, at scale, across all digital touchpoints in real-time. Combining the talent of some of the industry’s leading addressability experts along with industry-leading technology and data partnerships, AOD delivers data-driven display, video, social and mobile advertising buys for Publicis Groupe agencies including Starcom MediaVest Group, ZenithOptimedia, Razorfish and DigitasLBi.

    As one of the first entrants in the real time bidding marketplace, AOD is recognised as the most trusted solution in the industry. Globally, AOD has served more than 280 billion impressions across more than 110,000 campaigns for 2,283 advertisers in 23 countries.

    VivaKi country chair in southeast Asia Jeffrey Seah said: “Audience On Demand (AOD) is VivaKi‘s proprietary trading desk technology. It represents the epitome of laser-targeting consumers – a real-time matching of advertising inventory to consumer profiles. Just like programmatic trading in the financial stockbroking houses, AOD will bring an industrial-level of efficiency over “retail” media buying and will provide our agencies with the competitive advantage needed in our technology-infused industry.”

    The aim of the regional Activation Center is to proficiently scale the Groupe’s digital addressable media practice across Asia Pacific, whilst maintaining global consistency and the high standards AOD is synonymous with. Following highly successful beta testing of AOD across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia this news also formally launches AOD in South East Asia.

    “AOD was built to provide clients with quality, service, safety and transparency in the programmatic space. Our commitment is to preserve these benefits even as we pursue an aggressive growth strategy. Establishing an activation center in Singapore, and installing a respected, experienced AOD expert at the helm, allows us to scale AOD in a vital region while ensuring the unique value proposition of the offering. Grace and her team will activate all the attributes of AOD, including the VivaKi Verified standards, which no other programmatic option can offer,” VivaKi CEO Frank Voris expounded.
    Originally from Singapore, Grace has spent the past 20 years living in Boston and transfers into her new role with a formidable track record in the online advertising sector. Grace is a digital marketing pioneer and was part of the original VivaKi team that launched AOD in 2008. Most recently at VivaKi, Grace has lead the Platforms Partnership team and the Ad Operations Center of Excellence (Ad Ops COE), an internal consultancy focused on establishing a community of world-class digital advertising professionals that develop and lead digital ad operations best practices across VivaKi.

    Prior to joining VivaKi, Grace headed up the Media Operations & Technology practice for Digitas where she was responsible for developing bespoke strategies for clients and leading their Advanced Targeting technologies work. Grace will transition into her new role at the beginning of October and will report into Kurt Unkel. Also joining the Activation Center team in Singapore is Stephen Tompkins as AOD Director. Stephen transferred to his new role in August and will be tasked with driving growth of AOD across the APAC network. Stephen joined VivaKi in 2011 as a platform expert and has been an instrumental part of the team. Most recently Stephen has been based in Beijing where he has been responsible for driving adoption of AOD across the region. Kurt Unkel, President, Products & Solutions for VivaKi comments: “Grace and Stephen are industry experts in addressable and programmatic media. Both have global experience, are proven collaborators which have made them instrumental to AOD’s success. They will preserve and enhance the benefits of AOD as we scale the offering and grow markets.” This news follows the recent announcement that VivaKi has launched an Activation Center in Amsterdam to proficiently scale AOD across Europe. A third regional activation center is currently being planned in China.

  • Global adspend online to overtake print by 2015: ZenithOptimedia

    Global adspend online to overtake print by 2015: ZenithOptimedia

    NEW DELHI: Global advertising expenditure will grow by 3.9 per cent in 2013, reaching $518 billion by the end of the year.

    ZenithOptimedia has said this forecast for ad expenditure growth this year is down slightly from the 4.1 per cent forecast in December, mainly because 2012 turned out better than we expected, leaving tougher comparatives for 2013. In dollar terms, our forecast for 2013 is marginally ahead of last forecast, by $430 million.

    ZenithOptimedia has included India among the fast-track Asian countries, which also include China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam

    As has been the case since the start of the economic downturn in 2007, this growth will be led by rising markets, which will grow by 8.2 per cent on average in 2013, while the mature markets grow by just 1.8 per cent, weighed down by the Eurozone crisis. Over the next two years, growth will pick up in both rising and mature markets, reaching 9.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively in 2015.

    Internet advertising is supplying most of the growth in expenditure by medium, driven by technical innovations, such as better measurement of exposure to advertising, greater localisation, and integration with mobile devices. It is forecast that internet advertising will grow by 14.4 per cent in 2013, while traditional media will grow by 1.6 per cent.

    Display is the fastest growing medium within internet advertising, with annual growth of 20 per cent. This is being driven by the rapid rise of online video and social media advertising, each of which is growing at about 30 per cent per year. Continued innovation among the search engines – including richer product information and images within ads – is seeing a healthy rise in paid search. Paid search will grow by 13 per cent a year to 2015. Much of the growth in internet advertising is at the expense of print – internet advertising will increase its share of the ad market from 18 per cent in 2012 to 23.4 per cent in 2015, while newspapers and magazines will continue to shrink at an average of one per cent – two per cent a year. By 2015 online adspend will overtake print.

    Rising markets are outperforming the rest of the world. ZenithOptimedia predicts that rising markets will contribute 63 per cent of growth between 2012 and 2015 and will increase their share of global adspend from 34 per cent to 38 per cent.

    The high growth markets are in Latin America, Fast-track Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which are well ahead of the rest of the world, with an average of between 10 per cent and 11 per cent growth a year expected between 2012 and 2015. Despite this rapid growth, the US is still the biggest contributor of new ad dollars to the global market. Between 2012 and 2015, and the US is expected to contribute 28 per cent of the $76 billion that will be added to global adspend.

    There will be some change among the top 10 advertising markets between 2012 and 2015. USA, Japan, China and Germany will remain in first to fourth positions, and Australia and South Korea will still stay in eighth and tenth positions, respectively. However, the UK will fall from fifth to sixth position, France for seventh to ninth and Canada will fall out of the top ten altogether. Brazil is set to rise to fifth position and Russia will move from eleventh to seventh.

    The consensus among economic forecasters is that the global economy will gradually build up speed over the next three years. The Eurozone should start to pull out of recession towards the end of this year, which will help stimulate world trade. The global ad market will strengthen in step with the economy, although ad expenditure growth will remain behind GDP growth for the rest of our forecast period. The forecasts for 2014 and 2015 are unchanged at five per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively.

  • Big 4 control 64% of global internet ad market; Google is largest media owner-ZenithOptimedia report

    Big 4 control 64% of global internet ad market; Google is largest media owner-ZenithOptimedia report

    MUMBAI: Despite the apparent low barriers to entry, the internet ad market is highly polarised and just four companies control 64 per cent of all global expenditure. The four internet media owners -Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! generated $49.2 billion in revenue from internet advertising in 2011, out of the total $77 billion spent on internet advertising around the world.

    Google alone accounted for 49 per cent of the world‘s internet ad expenditure, while Yahoo! in 15th position accounted for six per cent and Microsoft and Facebook at 26th and 27th positions respectively accounted for four per cent each.

    Google‘s media revenues of $37.9 billion made it the world‘s largest media owner according to ZenithOptimedia‘s Top Thirty Global Media Owners report. The search and digital advertising giant moved up from second position and now boasts media revenues that are 39 per cent higher than its nearest competitor DirecTV.

    News Corp, Disney, Comcast, CBS and BSkyB also made the list, while a notable exception, Twitter, with revenues of $140 million failed to make it to this group for the period of the report.

    The Top Thirty Global Media Owners report is a ranking of the world‘s largest media companies by media revenue as estimated by ZenithOptimedia. The latest report covers financial year 2011. The Top Thirty Global Media Owners report was launched in 2007 and was last published by ZenithOptimedia in 2010. ZenithOptimedia defines media revenue as all revenue deriving from businesses that support advertising, not just the ad revenue itself.

    Despite the rise of digital media, the majority of media revenues were generated by traditional media and entertainment companies that create and distribute content. Of the Top Thirty global media owners, 22 were companies whose main business is to attract audiences with strong content, which remains fundamental to generating media revenues. Six of the top 10 media owners during the period were content producers, including third-placed News Corp and fourth-placed Disney. Between them, these 22 generated $169 billion in media revenue in 2011, or 61 per cent of the total generated by the Top Thirty.

    Since the agency last published ranking in 2010, five companies have entered the ranks of the Top Thirty: Facebook, Microsoft, Globo, ProSiebenSat.1 and Sanoma. The entrance of Facebook and Microsoft demonstrates the growing dominance of internet advertising, which now accounts for 20 per cent of global ad expenditure. Facebook has spearheaded the explosive growth of social media advertising across the world, which is currently growing at about 28 per cent a year, while Microsoft has benefited from the slower but still rapid growth of paid search and traditional display, which are growing at about 13 per cent a year.

    Although China is now the third largest ad market, the Top Thirty ranking does not currently include any companies from China, where media ownership is highly fragmented. However, the report says that Baidu, China‘s leading search engine only just missed out on a place this time, and is a likely candidate for inclusion next year, while the national broadcaster CCTV won‘t be far behind.

    ZenithOptimedia‘s Top Thirty ranking for 2011 includes four digital media owners, and it expects that there to be at least one more next year. It also expects more media owners from other rising markets to join the two Latin American media owners in the top thirty.

    The driving force behind Google‘s success is its search algorithm, which has been by far the most successful at delivering search results that consumers want and monetising them through paid search advertising.

    No other company has been able to compete effectively in each segment of the digital ad market. The agency estimates that Google attracts 15 per cent of global display advertising, including traditional display, online video and social media, supplementing its 82 per cent share of search.

    With the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft‘s flagship operating system has become an advertising platform for the first time; the next couple of years will show what effect, if any, this will have on Microsoft‘s ranking.

    For ZenithOptimedia‘s Top Thirty list click here
    http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k13/jun/ZenithOptimedia.php