MxMIndia

Category: ADVERTISING

  • A quick chat with Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia after Mindshare won the Agency of the Year title at Emvies 2015

    This is something which belongs to us: Prasanth Kumar on Emvies win

    After last year’s loss to Maxus, this must be a huge win, right?

    Last year was just an aberration. It was one of those years when probably a ‘no ball’ situation happened. This is something which belongs to us.

     

    What does an Emvie mean to successful media agency like Mindshare?

    It means a lot to us. Wherever we’ve demonstrated our work, it’s been acknowledged by most of our clients. As you’ve seen, we’ve won awards across different categories and clients. That shows that a lot of team effort goes into every single brand. We’re quite happy with our performance and we’re going to celebrate hard.

     

    And how do you think clients view wins?

    I’m sure clients appreciate great work on their brand, and the fact that we can provide solutions. Clients do get attracted to the best of talent, the best of the tools and the best of products and processes. And this is one display of how great things happen and it’s a no-brainer: Clients see lot more meaning in working with teams like this.

     

    Maxus won last year but couldn’t beat you this year. Madison almost got there. The competition out there is quite stiff. So what’s your mantra going to be for Emvies 2016?

    For us, it’s simple: Every work needs to be the best work. And for us, it’s not the competition. We need to be shaping the market. We are the leader by a large margin and it’s because of a lot more talent focusing on lot more great work. That shows in every single research that we’re doing. We want to ensure that every single brand that we work on, gets more success. For us, that is the bigger [aspect of] pride. And this is just encouraging us to do that.

     

    For you personally, it’s a big night, right?

    This team in Mindshare is one of the best in whatever it does. I feel lucky to have been able to facilitate this entire thing. I’m looking to do this magic more and more, and even better it. It’s just proving to me that I’ve been able to facilitate this, and it’s just the beginning.

     

  • Madison may have been runner-up at the Emvies 2015, but Chairman Sam Balsara was visibly content with his agency network's performance

    We’ve finally understood the awards code: Sam Balsara

    So near, but yet so far?

    On the contrary, it’s more like going from nowhere to somewhere. I’m personally delighted that we made it to the runners-up Emvie of The Year because the way it started, it was a little scary for us. It’s been a fantastic season for us on the whole. I think Madison has finally understood the awards code. We always knew we were very good at our work, but somewhere in our awards entries, something was lacking.

     

    You think sending entries from various Madison arms as one unit may have helped?

    In a way you could say that. We persuaded a lot of our people to give up on their tags. But I think our performance tonight has been better than it has ever been in the past. We’ve always been in the Top Three. But this time in the Emvies, we were at Number Two for the first time.

     

    What does an award like this mean for an agency which is well-known for its work?

    It doesn’t mean too much but also means a lot because it energises us and gladdens our heart to see that we’re being recognised. Unlike some other agencies, Madison won these awards for a large number of clients. What delights me is that we’re producing outstanding work, not for one or two clients, but we won today for Mondelez, Asian Paints, Marico and Godrej. For Cadbury, we had eight in the shortlist, and converted all eight. For Marico, we had 11 in the shortlist and converted eight. So our track record tonight has been rather good.

     

    Now the challenge is to maintain this pace…

    Yes, that indeed is a challenge but I think we’re up to it. We’re doing lots of things at Madison. In fact, as we speak, we’ve launched a massive programme called Madison Next. We flagged off one of the first big initiatives of Madison Next, which is a four-day programme on digital. There are about 75 people going through a four-day programme on adopting digital as a way of life.

     

  • And this is how the various Agencies and Clients stacked up in the Emvies 2015 results

    EMVIES 2015: Points tally for Agencies & Clients

     

  • Clearly, someone from Ad Club ought to have been more responsible, and swung into action. And not just because there were journalists involved, but it could have been anyone

    Journo assaulted outside Emvies venue, Ad Club biggies accused of casual response

    By A Correspondent

     

    On Friday night, soon after the last of the Emvies 2015 awards was presented and dinner was served, three journalists left the venue and move to the cab stand, with one of them – Shibani Gharat of CNBC – being assaulted by a person who was at the venue and who hit one the journalist saying she had slapped him at the Emvies venue.

     

    The matter has been widely posted, commented on and reported at least in one newspaper – Mumbai Mirror. Ad Club President Pratap Bose has been quoted in the report.

     

    Deplorable. Sad. Scary.

     

    One of the journalists who accompanied the journalist – Pritha Mitra Dasgupta – assaulted has now spewed on Bose.

     

    We think things are going out of hand now, and it requires intervention of a senior industryperson. Former Ad Club president Shashi Sinha, who is out of the country, has promised action on his Facebook posts. Perhaps Dentsu Aegis chief Ashish Bhasin, who is among the agency biggies, who has expressed his support for the journalists, should step in.

     

    Clearly, someone from Ad Club ought to have been more responsible, and swung into action. And not just because there were journalists involved, but it could have been anyone. I am told that one of the top officebearers was attending to four women who had passed out.  What about the others?

     

    Fountainhead, the agency, which gave out the pass to the assailant, deserves a sack for this. Just a reprimand or the sacking of the employee who gave out the pass won’t do. Yes, Brian Tellis is a permanent fixture at all Ad Club awards and is good at his job, but they can keep him for the emceeing. His company needs to go.

     

    Meanwhile, media entities sending out journalists for late-night assignments need to be alert on the safety of their employees. What’s happened to the threesome on Friday evening could happen to anyone.

     

    For, as Prasad Sangameshwaran, the other journalist who was with Shibani and Pritha, commented to a post, “The most shocking part of this entire incident is the attitude of senior ad men and a large media agency, that was chasing us for good media coverage just a couple of hours before the incident. We always suspected that they are fair weather friends. Last night confirmed our suspicion. They chickened out and how!” Fair weather indeed. Am sure some of them will rush to Pritha Mitra Dasgupta for that exclusive in ET soon!

     

    Read:

    Shibani Gharat’s post on Facebook:

    I was walking out of Ad Club’s Emvies event with two fellow journalists Pritha Mitra Dasgupta and Prasad Sangameshwaran when at the exit gate of Phoenix Mills a random guy came from behind and started stabbing and hitting me on my left shoulder with his arm. He claimed that I slapped him-which is untrue as I spent my entire evening with Prasad and Pritha at the event and hadn’t seen this person ever in my life. We called the Phoenix security officials to first take charge of the guy-who showed no sign of being sorry. Then we informed the police and the police arrived. The most shocking part about this whole incident was that the guy was present at the event. He had an official event pass. He is a peon at some garment company in bandra. What business does he have attending an ad industry event. So, when the police probed it was found out that the guy had been given a pass by a member of the event management company Fountainhead as the culprit insisted that he wanted to visit such an event. ‘MAJOR SECURITY LAPSE’. Why can’t the organisers have every member scanned who enters the event, just like any other event.

     

    Now, if this is not enough when this incident happened two people present with me Pritha and Prasad tried reaching out to a few senior ad club committee members neither of them came forward to even come and see what has happened. No one accompanied us to the police station to lodge an FIR. They sent a few students who stay around lower parel to the police station. I am amazed by this gesture.

     

    Now, I have finally filed an FIR against the person whom I absolutely don’t know from anywhere who just randomly came a hit me. Hope to get justice.

     

    Pritha Mitra Dasgupta’s post on Brand Equity website: http://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/media/shock-and-horror-at-the-emvies-journalist-assaulted-by-drunken-goon-after-security-lapse/48934863

     

    Part of Pritha Mitra Dasgupta’s post on Facebook:

    @pratapbose: I did not call you to provide medical aid for Shibani. I called you because we were alone and helpless and didnt know what to do. I trusted you more and therefore I called you before calling the cops. I think 11.30 pm to 3 am was a really long time to turn around your car and come and stand by us. I want to know what would you have done if your daughter were in a similar situation? In the last couple of months me and Economic Times provided you relentless support to fight your cause. The least you could have done is show up. I am shocked and hurt beyond repair. This enquiry has actually opened a can of worms which we publish soon.

     

    Prasad Sangameshwaran’s Facebook comment:

    The most shocking part of this entire incident is the attitude of senior ad men and a large media agency, that was chasing us for good media coverage just a couple of hours before the incident. We always suspected that they are fair weather friends. Last night confirmed our suspicion. They chickened out and how!

     

    Mumbai Mirror report:

    http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/crime/Man-arrested-for-attacking-woman-scribe-at-ad-event/articleshow/48951630.cms

     

    Kalyan Kar comment on the incident on BestMediaInfo:

    http://www.bestmediainfo.com/2015/09/commentary-ad-clubs-emvies-night-of-shame-as-shibani-gharat-is-assaulted/

     

  • Guerrilla Art and Design’s entry involving India’s best-known prison and TBWA/India's conservation message grabbed the top awards at the 10th edition of Kyoorius Designyatra

    Tihar Jail & Save Aarey creatives win big at KDY15

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    If you thought a conference in Goa would just be an excuse to celebrate, then Kyoorius Designyatra (KDY) was the wrong place to be. For, it’s certainly not an event where people go to spend time in the lobby, drink away at the bar or head to the beach. Designers, creatives and a mix of marketers and brand practitioners, flock here for their annual dose of gyaan and stand-out creative thinking.

     

     

    In-book: Work that stands out above the rest and meets the three judging criteria, ie 1) An original and inspiring idea, 2) Well-executed, and 3) Relevant to its context. Among the best pieces of work in the year, In-book winners are the nominees for Blue Elephants.

     

    Blue Elephant: Checks off all three criteria and reaches the Kyoorius Awards benchmark of creative excellence. Recognised as a symbol of the very highest creative achievement.

     

    Black Elephant: Best of Show. The ultimate prize. Work that is truly ground-breaking among all the judged work.

     

    For ad industry honchos Ravi Deshpande (Whyness) and Anil Nair (L&K Saatchi & Saatchi), a visit to Designyatra is like an annual pilgrimage. Well, almost. Both underscore the great attention paid to the content of the conference. And what they may not say in so many words is that the stuff dished out elsewhere doesn’t raise the bar and that perhaps a comparison of KDY with Goafest is incorrect given that that their target groups are different, even though both celebrated their 10th anniversary this year.

     

    The interesting news for Indian adland is that its constituents have done rather well at the third D&AD-governed Kyoorius Design Awards. Of the 29 Blue Elephants and two Black Elephants awarded, eight were won by Ogilvy, and three each by JWT and Alok Nanda Company. But the biggest awards of the night – the Black Elephants, and there were two of them awarded – were bagged by TBWA\India and the Delhi-based Guerilla Art & Design.

     

    A total of 488 entries were submitted across 10 categories: Branding & Identity, Design for Packaging, Design for Communication, Design for Space, Design for Books, Design for Editorial, Design Craft, Writing for Design, Product Design and Design for Good. The 29 Blue Elephant winners included Thought Blurb, Out of the Box, Sisterconcern, Open Strategy and Design, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Landor, MuseLab, Studio Lotus, TBWA/India, TenArt Private Limited, Star India Pvt. Ltd, Godrej Properties, Open Strategy and Design, Guerilla Art and Design and Ek Type.

     

    Guerilla Art and Design’s Black Elephant-winning work ‘Tihar Jail’ had the design firm working with local sign painters to illustrate an emotional poem written by one of the inmates, on the four walls of the prison.

     

    TBWA/India was awarded a Black Elephant for ‘Rakhis from Aarey’, where the agency created letters on behalf of the trees and rakhis made from discarded material of the same trees, which were sent out to 2,000 influencers.

     

    Said Rajesh Kejriwal, Founder CEO of Kyoorius, on the awards: “Our winners can confidently stand up against some of the best international work, thanks to the rigorous standards and judging criteria laid down by D&AD and Kyoorius. We are committed to nurturing and stimulating Indian creative talent through the awards, which help to fund our educational initiatives.”

     

    About the three-day conference, Kejriwal was ecstatic. “We were blown away by the creativity, passion and dedication on display,” he said. In a session entitled ‘10 Years of Designyatra, 10 years of Design’, that followed, Designyatra regular Harsh Purohit of Cognito, did a survey of 10 years touching on the things that have changed and those that have stayed the same.

     

    There were several speakers who were standout on the three days. Nick Law of R/GA, Lydia Winters (Mojang/Minecraft), Satya Raghavan (YouTube) and John McHale (SapientNitro) on Day 1; Jon Wilkins (Karmarama and, earlier, Naked), Morihiro Harano (Mori), Dave Trott (Author), Armin Vit (Underconsideration) and Max Weisel (innovator) on Day 2, and Jessica Walsh (Sagmeister & Walsh, who has done the new Frooti identity) and Neville Brody (Brody Associates) on the last day.

     

    Meanwhile, work has already begun on the 11th edition of KDY. Planning ahead and with uncompromising rigour with regard to curating content, are the key to Kejriwal’s success with Designyatra. Indeed.

     

    A shorter version of this report first appeared in dna of brands dated September 14, 2015

     

  • The campaign is aimed at leveraging the popular Navratri festival to strengthen its connect with customers and promote sales

    Dentsu Creative Impact creates exclusive campaign for Maruti Suzuki Celerio for Gujarat

     

     

    Maruti Suzuki has geared up for the festive season with the roll out of ‘CelerioDilThi Gujarat Maate’, a special campaign designed by Dentsu Creative Impact exclusively for the Gujarat market.  The campaign is aimed at leveraging the popular Navratri festival to strengthen its connect with customers and promote sales.

     

    This is for the first time that Maruti Suzuki is organizing such a customized market-specific campaign to connect with the customers at a local level in Gujarat. The campaign includes a host of interesting activities including TV commercials, print advertisements, radio spots, digital, cinema and outdoor, which are designed in Gujarati language and reflect the unique culture of the state. All these activities will reach out only to the audience of Gujarat.

     

    Elaborating on the campaign, Vinay Pant, Head of Marketing, Maruti Suzuki India said, “This is for the first time Maruti Suzuki is doing such an innovative campaign at a local level. The flavors of Gujrat and Navratri as an occasion were specially used to create a bond at a local level and bring out various aspects of the brand and the product. With this step we hope to further strengthen the success of brand Celerio that already has been doing exceptionally well since launch.”

     

    According to Amit Wadhwa, Branch Head, Dentsu Creative Impact, “To unlock the full value of the customer in a local campaign like this, it was imperative that we talk to the customer in his language and create empathy for the brand. Navratri, the biggest festival in Gujrat, gave us the opportunity to create a connect between the people of Gujrat and the brand. The campaign aims to reflect on the different aspects of their life and how the brand and the product compliments them.”

     

    The campaign will run from 11th Sept to 22nd Oct’15. Other activities during the period include display at malls, bowling alleys and a digital engagement contest ‘Style Icon’ of Gujarat.

     

    Celerio was launched by Maruti Suzuki in 2014 and has already crossed the 1 lakh sales milestone. It was the first car to introduce the Auto Gear Shift transmission in India. Celerio is available in Petrol, CNG and Diesel fuel options. Celerio diesel with a fuel efficiency of 27.62 km/l ranks among the top three most fuel efficient vehicles in India.

     

  • The campaign launched on The Logical Indian on August 30, 2015

    Ogilvy & Make Love Not Scars seek participation to #ENDACIDSALE

     

     

    Ogilvy Mumbai, along with Make Love Not Scars has launched a campaign called Beauty Tips with Reshma. This is a series of three videos where a real acid attack survivor shares some beauty tips. Each vlog ended with a plea to crowd-source signatures on a petition addressed to the Prime Minister for enforcing the ban on open sale of acid.

     

    The campaign launched on The Logical Indian on August 30, 2015.

     

    The Supreme Court of India has banned over-the-counter sale of acid since 2013. Yet acid is easily available to the common man and the number of acid attacks are on the rise.

     

    The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC World, Mail Online, ABC News, TIME, Mashable, Mirror, People, The Independent, The Huffington Post and global personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Ashton Kutcher have already joined the conversation for #ENDACIDSALE.

     

    Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia said: “An acid attack is a heinous crime and every attempt should be made to prevent such attacks. Make Love Not Scars is an organisation committed to persuading the government to pass legislation which prevents open sales of acids. Ogilvy is proud to participate in this cause and has created this commercial with a victim who agreed to participate in generating awareness and support. Ogilvy will continue to contribute to this cause to impact results that lead to safety of people and women in particular.”

     

    Rajiv Rao, National Creative Director, Ogilvy India said, “It’s a shame that even after a ban on the sale of acid, it seems to be selling openly and easily and helping the mindless young men of India to destroy a girl’s life forever. We wanted to create an awareness campaign in a powerful way to put an end to this ridiculous behaviour once and for all.”

     

    Two weeks later over 200,000 petitions addressed to the PM Narendra Modi have been signed.

     

  • A digital player, over the last 15 years, Swamy has embraced the organic nature of interactive creativity

    Razorfish India appoints Dinesh Swamy as Senior CD

    By A Correspondent

     

    Razorfish announced the appointment of Dinesh Swamy as Senior Creative Director, based out of Mumbai. Razorfish is bringing on board the top digital and creative talents in the country to join its already formidable team across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and strengthening its core capabilities in Digital Media & Marketing, Technology and Creative.

     

    A digital player, over the last 15 years, Swamy has embraced the organic nature of interactive creativity. He truly enjoys blending ideas, art and technology. His ever-growing portfolio spans strong strategic innovations and integrated solutions across CRM, Social Media & Online Integrated campaigns for clients like Idea Cellular, MTV, Reliance Mobile, LIC, Volkswagen, Parle, Renault, Hero MotoCorp & Visa amongst others. He brings with him a strong digital orientation with experience across agencies such as Flip Media Corp, Tribal DDB India, Digital Law & Kenneth and BBDO Proximity.

     

    Gaurav Pathak, COO Razorfish India says, “Dinesh is not only an excellent creative talent but also brings with him the strategic bent of mind that makes his work stand out with an innovative relevance that aligns perfectly with our philosophy at Razorfish.”

     

    Charulata Ravi Kumar

    Says Charulata Ravi Kumar, CEO Razorfish, “With his credentials already preceding him, what struck me most about Dinesh was his childlike curiosity and energy that evidently add interesting dimensions to his creative ideas. His passion for photography & dancing tell me that he sees beyond the obvious and uses the insight for a story worth swinging to”.

     

  • IndIAA Awards Night to be held on 13th October 2015 at the Palladium Hotel, Mumbai

    Nominations for IndIAA Awards announced

    By A Correspondent

     

    The India Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) announced the campaigns which were shortlisted and placed before the elite jury for the first ever IndIAA awards. The shortlist can be viewed on www.indiaa-awards.org.

     

    Pradeep Guha

    Pradeep Guha, Chairman, IndIAA Awards Committee said, “Based on nominations received from agencies and brand teams, and a larger scan of all the key campaigns in a category in the evaluation period, the team created a shortlist based on pre-set criteria. Around 500 campaigns were posted on the awards website, which kept getting populated as the process continued. These were then placed before our jury. Jury Chairman Harish Manwani, COO Unilever and Non-Executive Chairman, Hindustan Unilever and members of the jury, Bhaskar Bhat (Titan), Sangeeta Pendurkar (Kellogg’s India), B Sriram (State Bank of India), Sanjeeb Chaudhuri (Standard Chartered Bank) and Mayank Pareek (Tata Motors) spent considerable time examining the process before viewing the shortlist, and were very satisfied with the way things were turning out.”

     

    Srinivasan K Swamy

    Srinivasan Swamy, President, IAA India Chapter said, “These awards for creative excellence are aimed at saluting great campaigns that have gone through the rigor of client evaluation and have had adequate budgets backing them. We wanted to ensure that work created only for awards does not reach the jury at all. However in the interest of transparency and fair play, the long list, or the complete list of work that were nominated and put up in our website www.indiaa-awards.org, was kept ready for the jury to see. They did in fact refer to this list on a few occasions. The Jury meeting took place on 2nd September in Mumbai when the members picked the winners across 17 major advertising categories”.

     

    IndIAA Awards will be received by the Advertiser along with all the co-creators of the campaign, particularly from the Creative and Media Agencies and may include other agency partners from Digital, Events, PR, Activation etc. “This is the first such award when all the co-creators of an ad campaign will be honored and celebrated on a single stage” said Guha.

     

    On the response to the new awards introduced, Swamy said, “We are very pleased to have the initial positive feedback from the industry, both from advertisers and agencies alike. I look forward to welcoming the fraternity at the IndIAA Awards Night on 13th October 2015 at the Palladium Hotel, Mumbai”.

     

  • CCS has a global sample size of over 400,000, making it the world’s largest research of this nature

    Carat launches CCS 2015

    By A Correspondent

     

    Continuing its investment in delivering the best consumer understanding, Carat India has launched CCS (Consumer Connection System) 2015. This proprietary and in-depth research has been conducted across 23 cities, covering a sample of over 12,000 respondents across All adults SEC A – C, 15 – 65 years and is also programed to work with the NCCS classification in India. Overall, CCS has a global sample size of over 400,000, making it the world’s largest research of this nature.

     

    Through this large scale research based system, Carat and Dentsu Aegis Network will continue to provide the most advanced understanding of the consumers’ behavior in terms of buying across several categories, with a deep understanding of the capabilities of over 60 media touch points, thereby enabling the most efficient selection of media focused on delivering to marketing KPIs.

     

    Ashish Bhasin

    Speaking on the launch of CCS 2015, Ashish Bhasin, ‎Chairman & CEO South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, said “CCS is a global system which we brought to India in 2012. Through the active use of this research, carried out on an ongoing basis every year, we are able to focus our clients’ investments on the most effective media generated by a deep insight into the consumers’ behavior. It is a huge investment of over Rs. 1 crore annually and it demonstrates our commitment to get the best understanding of the complex Indian consumer for our clients. The next steps in the pipeline include the fusion of the consumer data to digital and TV viewing data thus making it the only single source system in India. It is investments like these which have been pivotal in making Dentsu Aegis Network the powerhouse that it is in such a short time. This will only be exclusively available to Dentsu Aegis Network clients.”

     

    The survey threw up numbers which are more reflective of the current Indian scenario especially when compared with other large scale industry surveys. Car penetration has doubled in the last 3 years from 8% to 16% with markets like Chandigarh (at 34%), Gurgaon (at 43%), Noida (at 55%) and Pune (at 30%) topping the surveyed markets.

     

    All the buzz about how the Indian consumer is now digitally connected more than ever is clear from the 53% penetration up from 8% in 2012. Amongst the various segments surveyed, students stood out with 68% ownership of smartphones.

     

    Multiscreen consumption varies across markets but the difference is not as stark as one would assume. While in Metros 42% of the population uses smartphones / tablets while watching TV, the number in Non Metro markets drops only to 36%. Chennai, NOIDA, Mumbai & Pune populations take the lead in this behavior.

     

    Access to Internet is at 48% with 90% of this audience also accessing it through their mobile phones.

     

    Rajni Menon

    Rajni Menon, Exec VP Carat, who leads Insights and Strategy for Carat and the Media Agencies of the group has been spearheading this project since its inception. Speaking on the research, she said “CCS is the most comprehensive single source study available in our market. Apart from having an extremely granular level of touch-point data, it studies the interaction consumers have with media in detail. With increasing ad-avoidance, media engagement, incidence of cross-screen consumption etc. are far more important metrics than reach & time spent.”

     

    “It also answers the most important question that any marketer looks to the media agency for, which touch-points impact the different stages of a consumer’s purchase journey, be it awareness, consideration or advocacy. And this is just scratching the surface of what the study offers.

     

    We already work with our clients on replicating their consumer segments through bespoke research overlays to enable more effective solutions. We are also in the coming months fusing the CCS data with social consumption data & TV viewership data to enable a comprehensive planning stack”.

     

    The research design is based on CCS globally, while the field was managed through IPSOS using the CAPI methodology with the questionnaire available across 10 languages and rendered on tablets. Extensive use of technology with aspects like GPS tracking of field teams, daily quality checks, audio recording of field interviews ensured that the data quality & authenticity was maintained. Since the questionnaire is intensive, global best practices and techniques were used to ensure that the data doesn’t get compromised by respondent fatigue.

     

    Kartik Iyer

    Kartik Iyer, MD Carat India adds “CCS has been a true revolution in media planning. Starting not from a demographic but from an attitude, the tool enables us to target behaviors across demographics which enables a much sharper result oriented planning process. The progression of CCS to CCS planner also enables us to plan to client KPIs which therefore means that our planning has become that much more result oriented. We are delighted with the value that CCS has been able to add to our planning process and look forward to creating business solutions for our clients that are in line with the current consumer behavior of consumers.”

     

  • The second leg of the workshops will happen in Bangalore on 18th of September and Delhi in the beginning of the next week

    Times Network creates opportunity for SMEs

    By A Correspondent

     

    Times Network kick-started Ascend Now 2015 in Mumbai. The week long workshops over three markets – Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi are being held to educate, create awareness, and provide cost-effective advertising opportunities on national television for SMEs and start-ups.

     

    In India, today, there is a huge amount of potential hidden in the SME (Small & Medium enterprises) sector which needs to be brought forth. The country is a home to over 5 crore SME units. Having said that, when it comes to communicating their respective brands, these SMEs and start-ups don’t know how to go about it. They don’t get expert advice that their bigger counterparts receive from brand consultants and media agencies. As a result, they fail to optimise their brand communication and get that critical benefit. The research has shown that the biggest perception bearers amongst the SME and start-ups are of the opinion that the national television is expensive and beyond their reach.

     

    Having identified this need gap, Times Network has created an opportunity through Ascend Now 2015, whereby the SMEs and the star-ups can avail expert advices on brand communications and can broadcast their brand through the television channels of Times Network. Through this framework, the SMEs and the start-ups can do their brand promotions on India’s largest television platform in a cost-effective manner.

     

    As the workshops end on September 23, Times Network is expecting to reach out to over 1000 SMEs and start-ups which are prospective advertisers. The trend shows that the conversion of the prospects to the real advertisers will be about 150 companies. This initiative will possibly give a 10 per cent increase in the number of advertisers on Times Network, annually.

     

    M K Anand

    MK Anand, CEO and MD, Times Network said, “I’m extremely thrilled with the kind of response we have received from the SMEs in the first two days of seminars in Mumbai. It is this success that gives us confidence about doing well even in Delhi and Bangalore in the next few days.”

     

    The packages that were offered were specially created for SMEs ranging from Rs 22 lakhs to Rs 66 lakhs. The offers are valid for a 12-month period and are only available on the day of the seminar.

     

    In the inaugural two-day workshop in Mumbai, the senior executives who participated were from companies that have presence in – Construction, Education, Food and Agro Products, Jewellery Manufacturing, Internet start-ups and Beauty and Lifestyle.

     

    The second leg of the workshops will happen in Bangalore on 18th of September and Delhi in the beginning of the next week.

     

  • Colors CEO Raj Nayak is the new President of the Advertising Club

    Raj Nayak is new Ad Club President

    By A Correspondent

     

    Raj Nayak

    Colors CEO Raj Nayak is the new President of the Advertising Club. At a thinly attended Annual General Meeting of the premier club of advertising, media and marketing professionals, Raj Nayak was elected President, with Pratap Bose’s term drawing to a close.

     

    While Bose and earlier Shashi Sinha are credited with having brought the credibility back to the Creative Abby, Nayak can be expected to make the Ad Club more active in terms of events through the year.

     

    At the time of writing, Nayak was out of the country.