MxMIndia

Category: ADVERTISING

  • Plans to launch 300 new stores over next 3 years

    Planet Fashion unveils its new brand identity

    By A Correspondent

     

    To cater to the discerning fashion tastes and preferences of the Indian men, Madura F&L has announced the refreshed look of Planet Fashion. The new look was unveiled by youth icon and Bollywood actor, Tiger Shroff at Taj Land’s End, Mumbai.

     

    Crafted on the principles of formals, fashion, fun and friends, Planet Fashion’s new brand identity is sauvé, fun & youth centric and symbolises infinite and endless possibilities of style and fashion in the life of the progressive Indian man. The new logo – The Infinity symbol, featuring in red & white with a black accent, epitomizes warmth in approach, purity of promise and masculinity.

     

    Planet Fashion in its new look offers a product range comprising of four handpicked collections  – Suitability, Linen Lounge, Classic Must Haves and All-day easy. Each collection has been designed to create easy wardrobe solutions for every occasion.

     

    Commenting on the launch of the new brand identity, Rahul Jhamb, Brand Head, Planet Fashion said, “We, at Planet Fashion have always believed that ‘Men deserve more’ and that philosophy is reflective in our new brand identity. The new look embarks Planet Fashion on a new journey that will add an accent, a new dimension to the infinite and endless possibilities of style and fashion in the life of an Indian man. The ethos of the new logo will also reflect in our new store design, which aims at creating an endless style experience”.

     

    He adds that this style experience will be further accentuated by the appointment of in house Fashion Advisors, that will reinforce the possibility of creating endless style options.

     

  • Vijayant will be responsible for forging new alliances in addition to implementing world partnership programmes of GroupM

    Motivator appoints Vijayant Dhaka

    By A Correspondent

     

    Vijayant Dhaka

    Motivator has appointed Vijayant Dhaka as National Head of Digital Trading. His role will involve streamlining digital channel planning strategies and integrating new trading platforms and practices, besides leading the trading desk for clients.

    Dhaka joins Motivator from Ignitee Digital which is now a part of New Digital, Singapore, where he was involved in driving business growth by tapping into performance media clients. He has also been an early stage team member at Octane, and founding team member at Policybazaar. At Policy Bazaar, he set up a customer facing team while at Octane, he was the business head and drove international expansion into South East Asia, Middle East & South Africa.

    Commenting on his new role, Dhaka said, “With ever growing digital and mobile penetration in India, we are up for challenging yet exciting times ahead, next 3-5 years will revolutionize the media industry. Motivator thinks alike and is well poised to move at a faster pace than the industry, with investments in right technologies and people. I’m looking forward to this journey.”

     

    V.Narayanan

    Dhaka will be based out of Gurgaon and will report into V.Narayanan, Chief Growth Officer.

     

    Speaking on this development, V.Narayanan said, “Motivator has restructured its digital offering to put new media at the centre of the agency’s offering. Vijayant’s appointment is part of Motivator’s plan to accelerate & enhance the value through better trading and partnership practices. He would play a pivotal role in driving digital efficiencies by cloning best in class processes of GroupM and forging new partnerships that transcends our innovative digital offering to our clients.”

     

  • Successful graduates of this program will be employed by Dentsu Aegis Network in India in Milestone Brandcom and Posterscope

    Northpoint & Dentsu launch 6-month PG in OOH

    By A Correspondent

     

    Given the technological metamorphosis that out-of-home (OOH) is currently witnessing, it has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments in the Marketing Communications industry.

     

    This is good news for the industry and also for the young job seeking community, for which, the sector has opened up lucrative career opportunities. Consequently, with much room to maneuver for ambitious youngsters, Dentsu Aegis Network and Northpoint have announced the launch of the ‘Post Graduate Program in Out Of Home Advertising (The PGP-OOHA) program. The PGP-OOHA program is being conducted by Northpoint Centre of Learning, a Management Resource Development Centre, located in Khandala, in collaboration with the leading out-of-home agencies – Posterscope India and Milestone Brandcom.

     

    Designed to develop future managers, the Out of Home Advertising course is a 6-month fast-track post graduate career program. It is designed to give a thorough working knowledge of Out of Home Advertising & Communications including retail, rural and experiential and how they are all inter-related.  The course comprises modules, research projects and workshops followed by an internship with Posterscope and Milestone Brandcom. A strong emphasis will be laid on student performance evaluation through projects and practical assignments and research done by the students. While the entire semester will provide a comprehensive perspective of Out Of Home Advertising and communications, the latter part will be project-based with hands-on production and execution experiences.

     

    As part of the program, professionals from the industry will join senior executives from Posterscope and Milestone Brandcom to deliver the course to the students. This certificate program will run over six months and will include 90 days of campus study and 90 days of field and in-company internships.

     

    Prem Mehta

    Prem Mehta, Chairman, Northpoint Centre of Learning said, “The launch of this program is another step in keeping with Northpoint’s mission to prepare young graduates for careers in specialized areas of business.  Once again, Northpoint has tied up with the leaders in the OOH industry to ensure relevance of training content, training by industry professionals and substantial field and on-job internships to prepare job-ready managers.”

     

    Ashish Bhasin

    Talking about the career prospects, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, Chairman Posterscope and psLive – Asia Pacific said, “Today, Dentsu Aegis Network is amongst the fastest growing communications groups in India and understand the need of trained talent that the industry currently needs. Therefore, we are committed to developing professional talent for the industry as a partner on this program.” Dentsu Aegis Network will consider all successful candidates for final placement.

     

  • Maxus has elevated some of its key people strengthened the top management team

    Maxus strengthens ​top deck with elevations

    By A Correspondent​

     

    ​​Maxus has ​announced elevations of some of its key people and strengthened the top management team.

     

    Anand Chakravarthy who joined last year as Head of Maxus West has been promoted to Managing Partner. Anand will continue to be based at Mumbai, leading the West team and expansion plans.

     

    ​​Unny Radhakrishnan who heads the digital practice for Maxus South Asia has been promoted as Chief Digital Officer. In his new role, he will be additionally responsible for developing new practices & investments and new offerings from Maxus Metalworks (the creative R&D lab of Maxus).

     

    Vishal Jacob who was leading Digital Strategy earlier has been promoted as National Director – Digital. In his new role, Vishal will take over from Unny and be responsible for the digital services of Maxus across offices.

     

    ​Sairam Ranganathan has been promoted as General Manager. Sai currently heads Digital for Maxus West. Additionally, he will be also responsible for the Digital Media Product and digital training needs.

     

    ​And lastly, ​Mimi Deb who joined Maxus Delhi 3 years ago as client leader has been elevated to General Manager. She will lead several large new businesses like Shopclues and several other blue chip clients which the agency won recently.

  • With prices starting as low as Rs. 30,490/-, Lenovo Yoga is an ideal choice for the youth of today

    Lenovo redefines ‘cool quotient’ for the youth with Yoga laptops

    By A Correspondent

     

    Lenovo has announced the launch of next generation Yoga laptops. With a screen that offers a 360 degree swivel that goes from laptop to tablet mode in one smooth movement, HD screen, Dolby sound and intel core i7 processor, these laptops offer an ideal combination of innovative design and powerhouse performance. With prices starting as low as Rs. 30,490/-, Lenovo Yoga is an ideal choice for the youth of today.

     

    The TVC introducing the next generation of Yoga laptops shows a young girl in a café calmly working on her Yoga laptop, observes a few bikers enter and misbehave with the staff. She decides to teach them a lesson without having to let go off her Yoga. To our surprise she turns out to be a martial art pro and leaves the goons feeling pretty stupid. Her Yoga laptop twists and turns to her moves, helping her carry her cool all the way.

     

    Rajiv Rao, NCD Ogilvy added, “Geeks represent the new cool. Their technology is their style. The usual and mundane doesn’t appeal to them. They need something new, something flaunt worthy… they need to ‘carry their cool’. The Lenovo Yoga laptops offer them just that!”

     

    Talking about the campaign, Bhaskar Choudhuri, Director Marketing – Lenovo India said, “Lenovo’s philosophy of bringing accessible products with innovative technology and ground-breaking features gets further magnified with the next generation of Yoga laptops. These ultra-thin and light convertibles are packed with top of the line features … making it an ideal choice for the youth.”

     

  • Creative captains Prathap Suthan, Bobby Pawar and Abhijit Avasthi on whether the dismal performance by India at Cannes Lions is a need for worry

    Are we making too much of our dismal showing at Cannes?

     

    India’s performance at the Cannes Lions this year left much to be desired. Being dubbed the worst ever – with just 13 metals in our kitty – the dismal showing has sparked debates about whether the advertising industry really has quality talent, or should we not make too much of deal of events like the Lions? Three creative gurus weigh in what might have gone wrong and whether we should care at all.

     

    Bobby Pawar

    Director and Chief Creative Officer – South Asia, Publicis Worldwide

     

    Frankly Cannes doesn’t matter. Not to our creativity. Certainly not to our business. Why? Our clients don’t care much about it. Our consumers, not at all. So the question is why we should we give a rat’s derriere? Why are we acting like our momma died and beating our chests in loud mourning? Cannes is a pissing contest and we pissed shorter. Today’s India doesn’t like that. And we shouldn’t. Many have argued that our limp performance was because our work isn’t creative enough. Maybe. But I venture we stepped onto the field pads, gloves and carrying a bat, when the world was playing soccer. The game has changed. If you take a look at our entries, I’ll smack my face with a cold pomfret if most of them weren’t in print, outdoor, design and craft. Old world categories, where the old world still plays a stronger game. (Don’t think so? How many Grand Prix’s has India won in them? There.)

     

    Now, should we change because we want to win awards? That’d be stupid. But the reality is we must, before clients and consumers force us to. If that means we win big at Cannes, great. If not, so be it.

     

    Prathap Suthan

    Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Bang In The Middle

     

    There are a couple of reasons why I think we fell short. And I don’t think it an upsetting issue. There are things that we need to consider. The winning countries and the entries operate in spaces that are perhaps very difficult for us to match. The markets require a whole new wedge to drive noticeability, and at least for regular mainstream work, we operate below par. Those are media media-saturated markets, and more importantly creative saturated audiences. It’s a norm for them to do work and expect work that breaks a whole lot of glass ceilings. Our markets and audiences are still tottering around the mofussil of average communication. We don’t need to be creative for the sake of creative. No one has the extra moolah to ply and try to see if completely lateral ideas deliver market efficiency. We are still dealing with entertaining narratives and well crafted advertising pieces. Besides, the tech quotient at play is very far ahead in those competitive markets. There are specialised shops that drive tech ideas and integrate them backwards into communication and creative ideas. It’s a whole new dynamic and our industry infrastructure is not equipped to think or even deliver those solutions or ideas. This gulch is only going to widen. I would rather we focus on what we know best, and work in areas that we can hone to surpass existing levels. And thankfully, there are a lot of categories where we can truly dominate. We need to look our strengths and desist from getting into waters that we can’t cross. It is also important to calibrate the calibre of creative buyers. Truly how of our clients at the senior senior-most levels will push agencies to break every mould. And honestly how many them really know how to evaluate ideas and open up budgets for the greater glory of creative at global festivals?

     

    Abhijit Avasthi

    Founder, Sideways (ex-NCD, Ogilvy)

     

    I believe India’s showing at Cannes this year is a temporary blip in a long good run. It is also a reflection and a consequence of a few issues, which can be debated. In certain categories like print/design/promo/digital etc our work is not as cutting edge as the rest of the world. On the one hand, we can try and push that, but then it cannot be at the expense of compromising on its relevance to our markets. That’s a double-edged sword. When it comes to categories like film and radio, where I believe our best work is done, we do have an unfortunate handicap – a lack of awareness and appreciation of our culture, language, social structures and such. No matter how well somebody translates these, the magic of the nuances is lost on the international jurors. As a parallel example, imagine somebody trying to explain the impact of ‘Kitney aadmi they?’ to a film jury? On paper it sounds like the most pedestrian dialogue ever written. There is no way on earth any jury will consider that dialogue a masterpiece. C’est la vie. Our celebrities are not known, our relationships are different…just too many such gaps.

     

    So the way I look at it…if a piece of work wins at Cannes it is surely world class but if it doesn’t…that does not mean it is not. So we should not get overly dejected by this year’s show.

     

    Let’s all just focus on doing exceptional, original work for the man on the street in India.

     

  • The evening will also witness a presentation on AdAsia 2015, Taipei to be held from Sunday, 22nd November, 2015 to Wednesday, 25th November, 2015

    The Advertising Club to host Media Review 2015 in Mumbai

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Advertising Club will be organizing its popular annual event, Media Review on Tuesday, 21stJuly, 2015 at 6pm at the Imperial Hall, 8th Floor, Palladium Hotel, Lower Parel, Mumbai.

     

    The speakers who have agreed to make a presentation and later be a part of the panel discussion are Shashi Sinha, Meenakshi Menon, Punitha Arumugam and Pradeep Dwivedi. The title of the talk is “Is anyone listening? : How did the Ad and Media industry combat the challenge of continuous partial attention of audiences.”

     

    The evening will also witness a presentation on AdAsia 2015, Taipei to be held from Sunday, 22ndNovember, 2015 to Wednesday, 25th November, 2015 at the Marriott Hotel, Taipei by a delegation that will be flown in from Taipei.

     

    The Presenting Sponsor for the event is Colors and is powered by Dainik Bhaskar.

     

  • Mobile Marketing Association has strengthened its India presence with the former IAMAI President as incharge

    MMA strengthens India presence, Preeti Desai is Country Manager

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading non-profit trade mobile marketing association, has announced the appointment of Preeti Desai as Country Manager in India. The MMA serves the growing mobile marketing ecosystem in India with support from GroupM, in a collaboration that was recently extended for the third year running.

     

    “The MMA currently leads the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies in Singapore, India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC. “Preeti’s appointment marks MMA’s continued commitment toward building and implementing mobile marketing best practices in India. Her solid industry experience, and vision will be crucial in helping us pave the way forward for the mobile industry in the country.”

     

    Some of the MMA’s priorities will include increasing the adoption of existing MMA Best Practices and Guidelines; recommending adaptations for local market conditions where appropriate; promoting education and skills development for practitioners; and developing suitable measurement metrics and tools for the industry. Preeti Desai’s appointment as country manager for India is a step toward ensuring that all players in the mobile marketing ecosystem get adequate support.

     

    Desai joins the MMA after a stint at Rediff.com India where she was Vice President Strategic Alliances, evangelising the spliced TV advertising opportunity to the leading SME’s across sectors and geographies. Between 2004 and 2006, Desai was the Founding President of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, working with industry and government stakeholders and end users to address key industry challenges, raise awareness of Internet and mobile effectiveness, and set up industry standards and benchmarks.

     

    The MMA has also announced the return of its two flagship events, MMA Forum India and the Smarties India Awards taking place on September 16, 2015.

     

  • The new TVC has been developed to communicate the product concept of Camel Oil Pastel

    RK Swamy unveils new campaign for Camlin

    By A Correspondent

     

    RK Swamy BBDO has unveiled its new TVC for Camlin. Camlin is the leader in colouring products and one such product is the Camel Oil Pastel. This can be used in the same way as crayons but offer a unique product benefit not available with crayons –the ability to mix two colours to get a completely new colour and shades that enables more lifelike drawing. The objective of the commercial is to bring home these benefits.

     

    The TVC shows a group of students in an art class who are amazed to discover that the painting made by one of their classmates is rich and very life like. On enquiring how this was done, their classmate makes use of this opportunity to get them do his project as the price for the answer. Once the deal is struck, he reveals that he has the ‘Mixing ka Magic’ using Camel Oil Pastels that offer the advantage of mixing two colours and creating a third one to make lifelike paintings. In the end, we see that the kids have using the oil pastel to create a drawing, which looked so real that it almost jumps off the page, startling the teacher who had come down to check on the commotion.

     

    Gautam Pandit, Sr. Partner & Executive Creative Director said, “With Camel Oil Pastels, the challenge was to create a compelling film based on very strong differentiator – that of the ability to a create a new colour with two or more different coloured oil pastels thereby making drawings more  lifelike. To communicate this effectively to kids, we coined the phrase ‘mixing ka magic’ and wove it into an engaging storyline which stayed true to the insight that children are overjoyed with the ability to create new things.”

     

    Saumitra Prasad, CMO-Kokuyo Camlin said, “The new TVC  has been developed to communicate the product concept of Camel Oil Pastel that this is a superior crayon which gives children the power to create new Colours by intermixing Colours, and hence create rich and true to life painting. This communication is in synergy with the brand positioning of making learning fun for children.”

     

     

    RK Swamy BBDO

  • The venture plans to go live with Arré later this calendar year

    Arré wah! Ronnie Screwvala, B Saikumar & Ajay Chacko enterprise gears up for launch

    By A Correspondent

     

    UDigital, the recently announced digital media venture founded by Ronnie Screwvala, B.Saikumar and Ajay Chacko, announced its brand name РArr̩. The venture plans to go live with Arr̩ later this calendar year.

    Arré is an original content destination that will be a unique storytelling platform across genres and formats.

     

    Arré, according to a communique, will express itself across mediums, from text to graphic art to podcasts and video in multiple genres such as reality and fiction, factual and opinionated as well as pure entertainment. Arré is working with collaborators across the spectrum in developing original content; from writers, artists, journalists and storytellers to independent filmmakers, established production houses as well as upcoming talent in fiction, reality and non-fiction genres.

    Said B.Saikumar, Founder and Managing Director, UDigital: “Arré was born out of the need to create a truly disruptive digital product. Our philosophy is to continuously challenge the ‘moulds’ of format, media and structure to create content that is reflective of good storytelling in a digital environment. Much like the name, we hope to make Arré, the brand, a part of daily conversation in India and globally!”

    The logo and visual identity of Arré is being designed and developed by Area 17, an interactive agency that has worked with Vice, Quartz, The Atlantic, Style.com, Facebook, Pinterest and more.

     

  • Rentrak hopes its association with ITV, which buys space for ads in theatre screens on behalf of companies, will help it overcome the hurdle of PVR and Inox not sharing data

    Research firm Rentrak ties up with WPP’s Interactive Television to collect box-office data

    By Pritha Mitra Dasgupta

     

    Media research company Rentrak has entered into an alliance with WPP’s cinema advertising unit, Interactive Television (ITV), to try and overcome a roadblock it has hit in India over collecting box-office data.

     

    The company is unable to collect data from PVR and Inox, two of the biggest local cinema chains. PVR, which has a nearly 70% market share, wants Rentrak to pay a fee to get access to its theatres, while Inox will sign up only if PVR does so too, said top sources at GroupM, WPP’s media-buying group.

     

    Rentrak has a tie-up with GroupM and its agencies in the US. The box-office data will be useful for advertisers while considering displaying ads in movie halls. So far only two cinema chains, Carnival and Cinepolis, have inked deals to share box-office data with Rentrak in India.

     

    Rentrak hopes its association with ITV, which buys space for ads in theatre screens on behalf of companies, will help it overcome the hurdle. It believes with the pact, which is in exchange of exclusive data, it will get access to movie producers and advertisers, who can, in turn, help it in convincing PVR and Inox to come onboard.

     

    “ITV is supporting Rentrak in getting access to cinema owners across the country. For cinema advertising to become bigger and take its rightful place in the media mix, it needs to become more accountable and measurable,” said Ajay Mehta, chief executive of ITV. “Box-office data will give advertisers clear measures and ways to calculate the RoI (return on investment).”

     

    Rentrak tracks box-office information from more than 1.25 lakh cinemas in 40 countries. The company directly collects and compiles box-office data on real-time at the theatre and gives it to stakeholders after further processing. “Through us distributors not only will get access to box-office data, it will help in better release planning, programming, determining release windows, and also understand audience preferences,” said Rajkumar Akella, managing director of Rentrak India, while confirming the alliance with ITV.

     

    According to ITV, India needs a scientific methodology to measure box-office data as cinema advertising — ads played inside cineplexes and multiplexes — accounts for more than Rs 400 crore in annual revenue and has grown at about 15% annually in the past three years.

     

    “We expect it to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 20% over the next three years,” said ITV’s Mehta.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

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

    Licensed to republish

     

  • The little-known desi brand emerges as a leader in the world of shaving creams in India

    Vi-John lathers up on shaving shares

     

    By Rajiv Singh

     

    Dapper, with not a hair out of place, Vimal Pande is perhaps an ideal brand ambassador for a company of which he is also the CEO. For the past decade, he’s been a loyal user of ‘Cobra’ deodorant, ‘Splash’ after-shave, ’22 degree’ talcum powder, even ‘BoroShield’ antiseptic cream, all brands of the little known Delhi-based personal care firm, Vi-John. He’s also one of thousands of consumers who annually consume almost 45 lakh kg of Vi-John’s shaving cream, in the process making it the largest label in this category. It’a also a category that’s conspicuous by the presence of a clutch of multinational brands from Axe (Hindustan Unilever) and Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser) to Old Spice and Gillette (Procter & Gamble).

     

    “In shaving cream, we are much bigger than Gillette in India, both in volume and value,” asserts 52-year-old Pande. And if being ahead of a global leader isn’t enough, he goes on to make another claim. “In fact, we are the largest selling shaving cream brand in the world.”

     

    According to the latest Nielsen MAT data sourced from industry officials, Vi-John’s volume market share in India stood at 29.2 per cent in May, over three times that of Dettol, almost four times that of Axe and over seven times that of Gillette.

     

    “Even if you put the next four brands together, they won’t be able to match our volume and value share in India,” affirms Pande, adding that the biggest plus for the brand has been its ‘affordability’ tag. Vi-John is available across 2.5 lakh retail outlets and at over 1 million other trading channels across the country. The brand makes over 15 lakh shaving cream packs every month, says Pande.

     

    An email sent to HUL and Reckitt Benckiser did not elicit any response.

     

    What the MNCs lose in volume, though, is being partially made up in value. Consider: Gillette’s 3.9 per cent volume gives it a close to double value share of 7 per cent; Axe 7.4 per cent volume converts into 12.9 per cent value share. It’s only in Vi-John’s case that its value share is less than the volume share. Pande grudgingly acknowledges the problem. “We are quite visible on TV. But our profitability is not as high as others.”

     

    Even as Vi-John continues with its aggressive intent to further widen its volume lead over its rivals, the price warrior has started working on a strategy to match its volume growth with value. “While the strategy till now was to scale first and reach a sound scale, now the plan is to convert volume into value. So now we will go in for the kill,” asserts Pande.

     

    The company is making improvements in packaging, quality and more importantly pricing, which would be crucial to push it ahead in the value trajectory. While in 2011, its 125 gram shaving cream pack was available for Rs 20, it now costs Rs 35.

     

    What has worked brilliantly for Vi-John has been the endorsement by Shah Rukh Khan. Celebrity endorsements has played a significant role in brand awareness, helping it make a rapid transition from a business to business brand to a business to consumer brand, explains Abraham Koshy, professor of marketing at IIM Ahmedabad. “Had it not been for the celebrity endorsement, the brand could not have pulled it through.”

     

    However, the most discerning element of the strategy that has worked in the favour of the brand is the choice of target segment. While brands like Gillette are targeted at the higher end of the market, Vi-John has chosen to target the mass segment. “This is an intelligent choice as this market has been waiting for a brand relevant to it,” adds Koshy.

     

    However, converting volume into value at a faster clip won’t be easy. It’s a brand game, which has to be played with finesse, says brand strategist Harish Bijoor. “One celebrity will not turn the tide for it. There are a lot more brand parameters that need to be addressed and tweaked.”

     

    The biggest problem for Vi-John, according to Bijoor, is that it has not invested in branding. “The product has worked, the brand has not. Not yet. What’s missing is brand imagery. And it needs to earn it fast.” Oui, John?

     

    Source:The Economic Times

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

    Licensed to republish