MxMIndia

Category: Ad Agencies

  • FMCG revival only in Nielsen data, say CEOS of some majors

    Achche or Burre Din for FMCGs?

     

    By Sagar Malviya & Ratna Bhushan

     

    Chief Executive Officers of FMCG companies and market research firm are at loggerheads yet again, this time over what is an accurate measure of current growth in consumption.

     

    Nielsen data suggests the industry is experiencing a strong revival now, compared to last year which witnessed the slowest growth in a decade. It estimates that FMCG sales grew 11.8% in the first nine months of this calendar year compared to the 6.8% growth the industry experienced during the same months of 2014.

     

    But CEOs of FMCG companies dismiss these estimates as faulty. The market researcher is overestimating growth and is not capturing pricecuts accurately, they argue. “There are no signs of improvement and the market is not supporting demand revival,” said Sunil Duggal, CEO of Dabur.

     

    “We are well into the festive season and two weeks away from Diwali, but there’s no visible uptick in consumption. The outlook continues to look challenging,” he added.

     

    “Our sense is that demand revival is still a few quarters away,” the chairman of another leading foods maker said. “Nielsen is over reporting growth.”

     

    Dabur on Wednesday, reported a 5% domestic volume growth during the quarter ended September, but managed an 18.7% increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 341 crore.

     

    During the same period, HUL, Dabur and Jyothy Laboratories all reported sales growth that was substantially lower than the previous year. Godrej Consumer Products, with a slight improvement in revenue growth, was the only exception. Other companies are yet to announce their last quarter results.

     

    Sanjiv Mehta

    A fortnight ago, HUL’s CEO Sanjiv Mehta had said that Nielsen has failed to capture sales trend accurately for a year now. It is still showing price inflation when most companies are taking price cuts to post higher volume growth, not value growth, he had argued.

     

    Nielsen though is singing a different tune. “2015 has seen revival of conspicuous consumption. Positive macro environment, lower inflation and consumer confidence is leading to improved consumption across all key FMCG categories,” Vijay Udasi, senior VP, Nielsen India said. Nielsen said price growth rose 3.9% during last nine months ended September compared to 4.7% last year. However, companies including HUL, Procter & Gamble and Nestle have all taken average 10% price-cuts on most products from detergents and shampoo to dairy after commodity (crude oil and LAB) prices declined by 20- 50%. This, in turn, boosted growth for companies such as HUL and Godrej Consumers that saw last quarter performance entirely driven by volume growth.

     

    Consumer goods companies and Nielsen have had a love-hate relationship since more than five years, after HUL first disputed its data in 2009 when Nielsen contradicted the consumer product maker’s internal estimates as well as data from other research firms. Yet, most companies use their data regularly during presentations, especially when it shows an increased market share for their brands.

     

    But some are hopeful. “We remain optimistic that as the economy improves, the FMCG sector should see a gradual uptick in demand,” said Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group, after reporting 9% increase in sales for the domestic market. The growth was entirely volume-led.

     

    Stockmarket analysts are enthused by growing sales, but they are trimming their profit estimates due to price-cuts. Still, the MSCI India Consumer Staples Index is currently trading at a 12-month forward price-to-earning ratio of 32.5x, a.29% premium to its 10 year average.

     

    “Despite sturdy commodity tailwind benefits, the sector’s margin expansion has not been striking. These elevated valuations warrant our cautious stance,” said Nitin Mathur, an analyst at French financial services firm Societe Generale.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2015, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • 'vivo' is all set to redefine Indian music with its latest campaign, #NotSoFilmy, being executed by GREY group's Batey

    Grey’s ‘Batey’ launches new campaign #NotSoFilmy for ‘Vivo’ smartphones

    By A Correspondent

     

    GREY group’s BATEY has launched a new campaign for the growing global smartphone brand ‘vivo’. The vivo smartphones are designed excellent in appearance, extreme video display, and importantly, professional acoustic fidelity. Hi-Fi or High Fidelity music is the unique technology in vivo smartphones to allow its customers to enjoy high quality and high fidelity tunes in their phones.

     

    As pioneers of Hi-Fi music smartphones, ‘vivo’ is all set to redefine Indian music with its latest campaign, #NotSoFilmy, being executed by GREY group’s Batey.

     

    As the tagline #NotSoFilmy rightly gives an impression about creating a non-filmy stuff, and for ‘vivo’ it is about composing an independent non-filmy music for the brand. The campaign by GREY group was initiated with an unbranded video that showed up on multiple locations online, followed by an announcement that introduced #notsofilmy and its broad intent.

     

    Two days after the video surfaced online, three famous Indie musicians were offered a challenge on social media, by vivo, to walk the talk. Independent of each other, Uday Benegal, Monica Dogra and Prateek Kuhad accepted vivo’s challenge to compose a not-so-filmy song for Diwali. Over the next 24 hours, conversations around this unique challenge peaked, as each of these artists began engaging with their fans on twitter. Asking for suggestions on what this song should be.

     

    Alex Feng

    Explaining the concept behind the #NotSoFilmy campaign, Alex Feng, CEO –vivo Moblile India Pvt Ltd said “Vivo is a pioneer of Hi-Fi music smartphones. We are striving to make a difference in the industry by offering distinctive user experience to our customers. In India, we found that music is increasingly associated with and defined by Bollywood. Young enthusiasts go through a lot of struggle to gain recognition but end up being the voice behind Bollywood heroes and heroines. Therefore, we want, through #NotSoFilmy, to inspire original Indian music. We expect that this campaign may influence our young, energetic TG with high aspirational values.”

     

    Varun Goswami, Executive Creative Director, GREY group Delhi said, “At a time when phones are being sold on screens, speeds, and selfies, high fidelity audio as a proposition makes for an interesting brief. The rising popularity on Independent music, evident from the exponential increase in music festivals across the country, gave us an interesting in. Via one of the most relevant conversations in pop culture. The eminence of not-so-filmy music in India.”

     

    The campaign is presently in its final leg, and is set to end with the release of the final track, accompanied by a music video, featuring all three artists. Needless to say, GREY group will utilize every experience of working on this campaign, as well as the promotion of the song to drive vivo’s unique positioning ‘as makers of phones with high fidelity audio’.

     

    Samir Datar

    “Most brands usually ride a music property, whether it’s on TV or an on ground event. There are very few which have worked towards building an identity for non-filmy music. #notsofilmy is an endeavor to create a platform for talent across the country to collaborate and co-create music that is unique. With Uday, Monica and Prateek on board to create the Diwali song, this is just a beginning. There is lot more to follow,” said Samir Datar, Vice President & Office Head, GREY group Delhi.

     

  • HolidayIQ is India's largest travel community and holidays recommendation engine powered by user-generated content

    HolidayIQ appoints Happy Creative its creative partner

    By A Correspondent

     

    Bangalore based Happy Creative Services has notched up the communication mandate for online travel community HolidayIQ.

     

    This win comes close to the agency’s recent announcements of winning the creative and digital mandates for hyper local discovery platform LookUp.to and the amusement park brand Wonder la.

     

    HolidayIQ is India’s largest travel community and holidays recommendation engine powered by user-generated content. Travel information is generated through varied forms of content including reviews, photographs, videos and interactive travel forums, connecting travellers to each other and to hoteliers, tour operators and online travel agents.

     

    Diptakirti Chaudhuri

    Commenting on the creative partnership, Diptakirti Chaudhuri, CMO at HolidayIQ said, “Holidays are a happy – pun intended – experience and HolidayIQ is in the business of making them perfect. We plan to communicate our offering – holiday reviews, information and options – to a large number of Indian travellers and be the first stop in their holiday planning. We are looking forward to working with Happy Creative Services, a creative powerhouse known for their stellar creds in building digital brands.”

     

    Kartik Iyer

    On the association with HoiidayIQ, Kartik Iyer, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer said, “Creating a category is always fun and exciting. HolidayIQ has been in this business, that too ahead of its time in India. Now it’s our job to take the magic of the brand to its consumers. The travel and holiday category is growing year on year, pushing the importance of holidaying for every kind of consumer. Unearthing the little joys of all trips, no matter how big or small, is at the core of it all. We look forward to creating some great work on the brand.”

     

    Praveen Das

    On adding the HolidayIQ brand to their portfolio, Praveen Das, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, said, “As an integrated agency, we understand business objectives and match it with creative output across media. We have a young team with a proven record of building technology brands. We are excited to partner with Holiday IQ and create clutter breaking communication that not only resonates with viewers but inspires them to go on a holiday.”

     

  • The move will redefine the company's brand purpose in line with its ambition and in keeping with changing market landscape and incredible opportunities in its field of operation

    Leo Burnett partners Sterlite Technologies

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sterlite Technologies Limited, a leading provider of solutions for high speed data and power transmission networks, has announced its association with Leo Burnett India to redefine the company’s brand purpose in line with its ambition and in keeping with changing market landscape and incredible opportunities in its field of operation.

     

    Sterlite Technologies recently completed the 100 per cent acquisition of Elitecore Technologies, a global telecom software product company in a bid to widen its telecom portfolio of offering to global customers. The company is enriching its solution offerings along with increasing its global presence at a quick pace and the need to communicate what it stands for is of vital importance.

     

    Commenting on the decision to partner Leo Burnett India, Dr Anand Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, Sterlite Technologies, said, “In line with our current organizational demerger, we wish to redefine our core purpose and communicate clearly what we do, and how we make a difference in the life of every one who is connected to us. It is with this belief we have appointed Leo Burnett, which has a rich history of defining the purpose for many great brands and helping them grow in complex business scenarios. They will help us re-define and disseminate our purpose amongst our employees and other stakeholders, thus laying a robust foundation for future growth.”

     

    Saurabh Varma, Chief Executive Officer, Leo Burnett India, added, “We are witnessing a tremendous change on a global and socioeconomic landscape, thanks to the evolution of Internet and a greater degree of connectivity. The services provided by Sterlite are at the very core of this spurt, impacting positively at micro and macro levels. It is very exciting to partner a company that is playing a key role in the changing dynamics of technology in our lives. We will deploy our HumanKind tools to re-define Sterlite’s human purpose and help create a sustainable brand identity amongst the company’s stake holders. We hope our rich experience in this field will eventually prove to be of great value to the organisation.”

     

  • He would oversee creative strategy and design for brands

    LinTeractive appoints Parag Shahane as Unit Creative Director

    By A Correspondent

     

    LinTeractive, the digital arm of the Mullen Lowe Lintas Group India, has announced the appointment of Parag Shahane as Unit Creative Director. Parag has joined the team effective October 2015 and will report into Vikas Mehta, Group CMO | President, Group Marketing Services.

     

    At LinTeractive, Parag’s remit would be to provide creative answers to clients who are seeking cutting-edge digital solutions for their brands. He would oversee creative strategy and design for brands.

     

    LinTeractive has been witnessing promising growth in recent months with a host of clients making a beeline to lap up digital solutions being offered by the firm. With more than 25 clients in its fold including heavyweights like Woodland, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Godrej, Karvy, Dabur etc LinTeractive is looked upon as a preferred agency for brands that’re looking for fresh and innovative online & offline ideas to achieve their stated objective.

     

    Welcoming Parag onboard the team, Vikas Mehta said: “Since its reboot last year, LinTeractive has seen growth on all fronts – business, brands and clients. To sustain this momentum, it’s imperative for us to keep adding more fire-power to our digital ambitions. We’re thrilled to welcome Parag on board. His upbringing in Lintas, coupled with his more recent successes in other digital companies will come in handy towards fulfilling our objective of mainlining digital.”

     

    A former Lowe Lintas hand, Parag joins LinTeractive from Pinstorm where he held the post of VP – Creative. Prior to Pinstorm, Parag has played senior roles in agencies like Y&R, Mudra, JWT Colombo and FCB Ulka.

     

    Commenting on his appointment, Parag said, “Lowe Lintas is not just an advertising agency, it is looked upon as an institute of communication in this country. As a proud product of this institute, I am honoured to be a part of LinTeractive. Of late, digital has been adding new dimensions and has been at the forefront of creating new eco-systems for brands. Building great brands and creating more meaningful conversations around the brand, through new-age media and technology will be our mantra. In the constantly changing dynamic world of digital, the focus will be on smartly dividing challenge and opportunity to create magic around brands.”

     

    In his entire career span, Parag has been instrumental in providing creative throughput and strategy to more than 50 brands across the sectors of FMCG, Automobiles, Media, Hotels & hospitality, Banking & Insurance, Fashion, Entertainment, Pharmaceutical etc.

     

    Parag’s immense talent has resulted in him bagging a host of creative & effectiveness awards, both in India and overseas.

     

  • Vijay was the National Sales head with Future Group’s media venture before joining BIG RBNL as vice president

    Vijay Koshy Joins ONE Network as Chief Business Officer

    By A Correspondent

     

    Vijay Koshy, former vice-president of BIG RTL, has joined ONE Network Entertainment Pvt Ltd as Chief Business Officer. In his new​ role, Vijay will be driving the over-all ​business at ONE including multi-platform distribution, content syndication and branded content business. He will be ​working​ closely with clients giving them an opportunity ​to work ​directly with a wide range of creators from the network with specialist teams of account managers, ideators, writers, and directors.

     

    Vijay began his career with Interact Vision in 1991 and went on to work with some firms like Enterprise Advertising, Trikaya Grey, Lowe Lintas and JWT Fulcrum before moving to the broadcast industry. Beginning with Star TV in 2000, he has worked with leading broadcasters like ESPN Star Sports and Sony Entertainment over the next nine years and was part of some of the milestone including the first reality show on TV, Coke [v] Popstars, Close Up Harsha ki Khoj on ESPN, Thumbs Up Action Awards on AXN amongst many others before moving into the retail space around four years ago. Vijay was the National Sales head with Future Group’s media venture before joining BIG RBNL as vice president.

     

    Suresh Menon Co-Founder of ONE said,​“Vijay has a stellar track record and a wealth of media experience across media from agencies to TV to Retail. Then Vijay died and came​ to another world when he joined ONE. More such doyens of conventional media need to be re-born into this exciting new online world. We are very excited to have him on board,” said the entrepreneur.

     

    Vijay Koshy, Chief Business Officer of ONE said,​ “This truly has been a ‘born again’ experience. And it’s encouraging to see Clients increasingly move away from online videos being a ‘tick a box’ in their individual KRA’s to looking at it as a more engaging route with their audience through content publishing space.”

     

  • These promotions are part of Madison Next, an all-encompassing programme launched by Madison three months ago to get the agency future-ready, among other things

    Madison Media promotes Vanita Keswani to CEO, Madison Media Sigma & Shekhar Banerjee to COO, Madison Media Infinity

    By A Correspondent

     

    Madison Media has announced that Vanita Keswani, currently COO of Madison Media Sigma, has been promoted to CEO, Madison Media Sigma and Shekhar Bannerjee, current Senior VP Pinnacle has been promoted to COO, Madison Media Infinity.

     

    Keswani has about 24 years of experience, and has been with Madison Media for the last 18 years. She heads a large portfolio of clients including Raymond, Piramal, McDonald’s, Shaadi.com, Pidilite, Indian Oil, Lodha, DHFL, Omkar and many others.

     

    Bannerjee joined Madison Media as a Management Trainee in 2004 and has risen to the top over the last 11 years. He will be responsible for Godrej, Asian Paints and Marico business of the Bombay office.

     

    Vikram Sakhuja

    Sayid Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, Madison Media & OOH on the elevations: “This is a great recognition for Vanita and Shekhar. Vanita has brought solidity to a diverse portfolio and has driven consistent Client value. Shekhar in his most recent avatar had driven Mondelez to a World Class Account. Both these promotions are truly deserving and I wish them the best in their new challenges.”

     

    These promotions are part of Madison Next, an all-encompassing programme launched by Madison three months ago to get the agency future-ready, focus on digital, empower youngsters, promoting internal talent to senior level management roles across units and focus on research, insights and big data.

     

  • … followed by Cadbury, Google, Britannia, LIC, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Parle and Samsung in Havas Media study

    Amul is India’s Most Meaningful Brand

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Amul has emerged as India’s Most Meaningful Brand as per the Havas Media ‘Meaningful Brands’ study announced today. This is the study’s sixth edition globally and for the third year in India.

     

    In India, ‘food’ is one of the most meaningful sectors, according to the study, attaining strong attachment and trust. Food brands are especially meaningful for making our daily lives better with their rational benefits of savings, convenience, health and better nutritional habits. Local brands like Amul take the lead with multinational corporations like Cadbury who introduce local brands to resonate with consumer context and tastes, locally, according to a communique.

     

    The Top 10 Meaningful Brands 2015 are as follows:

    India: Amul, Cadbury, Google, Britannia, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), Microsoft, Intel, HP, Parle, Samsung

     

    Global: Samsung, Google, Nestlé, Bimbo, Sony, Microsoft, Nivea, Visa, IKEA, Intel.

     

    The findings note that Indians have the highest attachment towards Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the state-owned insurance group. Interestingly, 86% of people would care if LIC disappeared tomorrow (globally most people do not care if 74% of brands disappeared the next day).

     

    Meaningful Brands, Havas’ metric of brand strength, tracks 1000 brands and 300,000 people over 34 countries, across 12 industries. The India leg, its most extensive yet, covered 100 brands, 13000 people, 11 sectors, across the country. The research covers all aspects of people’s lives, including the impact on collective wellbeing (the role brands play in our communities and the communities one care about), in personal wellbeing (self-esteem, healthy lifestyles, connectivity with friends and family, making lives easier, fitness and happiness) and marketplace factors, which relate to product performance such as quality and price.

     

    Further, Asia Pacific stands out as one of the best relationships between consumers and brands from across the globe. According to the study, in India, brands have a high level of meaningfulness and are seen as providers of personal and collective wellbeing. They are viewed as much more than functional products. Brands here are also seen to be meeting consumers’ expectations more than in any other region. Sample this: 75% of Indians believe brands should play a role in improving our quality of life and wellbeing; the Asia Pacific the average being 69% and the globally average 67%. More than half i.e. 67% of Indian’s feel that brands are working hard at improving our quality of life and wellbeing, compared to an Asia Pacific average of 55% and Global average of 38%.

     

    The study found that for every 10% increase in meaningfulness, a brand can increase its purchase intent by 6.6%, repurchase by 3.2% and price premiums by 10.4%, statistically demonstrating that a brand’s

     

    Speaking about the study, Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media India & South Asia, explained:  “This is our largest India study to date in size and scope. Marketers will be encouraged to know that India once again stands out as the No.1 country, globally, where consumers have the closest relationship with brands. India is also the most ‘grateful’ country, rewarding meaningful brands, in business terms. We are seeing that in a developing economy like India, unlike the West and more developed economies, people are more trusting of brands. People here believe brands can play a meaningful role in their lives and that brands are working hard towards improving our quality of life and wellbeing. This creates tremendous opportunities for brands in India to communicate and connect with their customers, in our organic world – which is at the core of the Meaningful Brands Project.”

     

    Added Mohit Joshi, Managing Director, Havas Media Group India: “People in India are happy to have brands as partners and as enablers to help them improve their quality of life and wellbeing. While in the West there is a high commoditisation of brands, people in India,have ‘high expectations’ and ‘reward’ those brands that contribute to their wellbeing – this is the second time in a row that LIC has scored as the brand with the highest attachment. The study throws open exciting possibilities for marketers and brands to interact with their customers.”

     

  • The agency will be driving the brand’s ATL, OOH and Experiential marketing activities

    DDB MudraMax wins the media mandate for PNB Housing Limited

    By A Correspondent

     

    Following a multi-agency pitch, DDB MudraMax has been appointed as the media AOR by PNB Housing Limited. The agency will be driving the brand’s ATL, OOH and Experiential marketing activities.

     

    PNB Housing is the 5th largest housing finance company in terms of loan asset size and also 2nd largest in terms of deposit book. PNB Housing Finance Limited (PNBHFL) is a registered housing finance company with National Housing Bank (NHB).

     

    Quoting on the appointing DDB MudraMax, Shaji Varghese-General Manager and Business Head, PNBHFL said, “We were impressed with the agency’s thinking, integrated team offering and the passion that they demonstrated. We are looking for innovative marketing solutions from this partnership.  With their expertise and pedigree in media planning, we hope to get good mileage and returns on media investments.”

     

    AmitaKarwal, Executive Vice President, DDB MudraMax said, “We are extremely delighted with this win and we are looking forward to working with the PNBHFL team. Their clarity, dynamism and professional approach to business makes them a very prestigious partner. This is a win for the entire DDB MudraMax team.”

     

  • Prior to his role as CEO of Leo Burnett India, Varma was the Chief Strategy Officer for Asia-Pacific where he oversaw all heads of strategy and planning directors in the region

    Leo Burnett promotes Saurabh Varma to CEO South Asia

    By A Correspondent

     

    Jarek Ziebinski, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Leo Burnett Asia Pacific announced the promotion of Saurabh Varma, currently CEO of Leo Burnett India, to CEO for the agency’s operations in South Asia. The appointment, effective as of November 17th 2015, sees Varma charged with responsibilities for Leo Burnett agencies across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

     

    “South Asia is an important region for Leo Burnett from our global strategy perspective. With Saurabh’s appointment, we want to further enhance connectivity of our operations across these dynamic markets to drive business growth for our clients and the agency” said Ziebinski. Continued Ziebinski,” Having been at Leo Burnett for close to a decade, Saurabh has consistently proven himself in his roles as the regional chief strategy officer and recently as CEO of Leo Burnett India. He is without a doubt, the best candidate to lead our South Asia operations to the next level.”

     

    Varma added, “We have incredible operations across Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I look forward to working with some incredibly talented leaders to build new age specialist functions across all markets and create larger futures for our clients.”

     

    Prior to his role as CEO of Leo Burnett India, Varma was the Chief Strategy Officer for Asia-Pacific where he oversaw all heads of strategy and planning directors in the region. Since he took over the helm as CEO of Leo Burnett India two years ago, the agency has consistently delivered double-digit business growth. Under his leadership, Leo Burnett also doubled the size of Indigo Digital Consulting’s business and successfully expanded its operations, launching Indigo consulting in New Delhi. He also launched Leo Experience across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, and more recently shopper practice in Mumbai. As a result of his work, Leo Burnett now has a strong leadership team across all specialisations in India and solid plan for growth in the next three years. Varma was also instrumental in establishing the new affiliate partnership in Pakistan with AdCom, one of the largest independent advertising agencies in the market.

     

  • Wins the mandate despite competition from global and Indian brand agencies

    DY Works bags branding mandate for Aurangabad Industrial Township

    By A Correspondent

     

    DY Works has been awarded branding mandate for Aurangabad Industrial Township, also known as Shendra-Bidkin industrial belt, being developed as a part of Government of India’s prestigious Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project. DY Works bagged the mandate by towering over five peers including JWT.

     

    Alpana Parida

    Alpana Parida, President, DY Works, said, “This can be termed as an orbital shift for the company. We have always believed that true design always fosters positive transformation. Associating as a brand consultant with smart city is not only a prestigious moment for the team but will enable us to take the narrative of DY Works into newer arenas that demand design thinking.”

     

    The awarded mandate for Aurangabad Industrial Township is aimed at development of strategic brand identity, in order to improve awareness and visibility within potential local and global investor community as well as the general public.

     

    Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is India’s most ambitious Infrastructure programme aiming to develop new industrial cities as “Smart Cities” and converging next generation technologies across infrastructure sectors. The objective is to expand India’s manufacturing and services base and develop DMIC as a “Global Manufacturing and Trading Hub”. In the first phase seven new industrial cities are being developed. The programme has been conceptualized in partnership and collaboration with Government of Japan.

     

  • Vu-on-street is a complex site selection and plan evaluation tool in an easy-to-use software

    Madison OOH unveils suite of planning tools

    By A Correspondent

     

    Madison OOH has announced its indigenously developed suite of planning tools to offer a more robust outdoor planning service to its clients. Given the complexities in planning for an Outdoor campaign, the suite provides tools ranging from site-selection, plan-evaluation to budgetary allocation amongst different cities.

     

    Vu-on-street is a complex site selection and plan evaluation tool in an easy-to-use software, that covers 18,000 large format sites in top 18 cities of the country. As of now, it covers 65 per cent of the OOH inventory in the country. It grades the sites on 38 sub parameters on the basis of site attributes such as site illumination, size, horizontal/vertical angle, clutter, site placement, viewing distance and site environment attributes such as road type, viewing opportunity, vehicular traffic volumes, speed of traffic, pedestrian traffic volume, etc. Over the next 6 months, the tool will cover 30 cities and over 21,000 sites.

     

    Vu-on-street offers another dimension called Vicinity which enables creating multi touch point centric plans at a macro level and even provides an opportunity to do micro level hyper localization. The feature gives the flexibility to select OOH formats in and around 27 touch points in 18 cities. These touch points range from key ambiences encompassing the consumer in their work, live & play arenas like residential areas, corporate hubs, gyms, malls,  spas, pubs, etc.

     

    Allocation of budgets across cities is a task that every planner faces day in day out. Maxemiser facilitates the distribution of media investment budgets in the targeted cities using a database, enabling a more scientific basis for budget allocation.

     

    All these tools will make the media planner’s life more scientific and facilitate objective site selection, by allowing planners to make a data based decision and benchmarking the weight & impact of various OOH Campaigns. Every plan will deliver a Plan Average, which can be benchmarked against City Average, Competitor/ Category Average, Past campaign average; thereby enabling evaluation of campaign ROI.

     

    Speaking about these tools, Soumitra Bhattacharyya, CEO Madison OOH, says “We have invested a lot of time and effort in developing these tools in-house and have tested them across various markets and various sizes of client budget. The tools will be a good aid to all planners and will allow them take pan India strategic decisions at a click of a button.”

     

    Madison OOH recently announced restructuring at its senior level by promoting Dipankar Sanyal to CEO, Platinum Outdoor and Jayesh Yagnik to COO, MOMS. The Madison OOH team is further going to be empowered with Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, Madison Media & OOH who took charge last month (October 19, onwards).