MxMIndia

Category: NEWS

  • The wins include PropTiger, Yepme and MySmartPrice in the consumer internet and eCommerce space

    Aim High bags 11 new PR clients

    By a correspondent

     

    PR firm Aim High Consulting (AHC) has announced 11 new client wins as they get into the fiscal 2014-2015. The wins include PropTiger, Yepme and MySmartPrice in the consumer internet and eCommerce space. AHC’s other wins are in sectors like NBFC, realty, IT, education and, wealth management.

     

    N Ravi Shankar, CEO, Aim High Consulting said, “We have some of India’s most exciting companies onboard for the new fiscal – around 50 of them, including the 11 new ones. The start-up ecosystem in India is evolving as much as the media that caters to this ecosystem; and we have managed to keep pace with both. It is with this confidence that these companies have decided to engage with us. PR for start-ups and emerging businesses has been our core strength and we are confident of growing the new clients that have come into our arboretum.”

     

  • The Datsun GO is positioned as the ideal option for the burgeoning middle class who dream of having their own car

    Datsun & TBWA\India create a GO moment

    By a correspondent

     

    Last month, Nissan re-launched the iconic brand, Datsun, delivering its first new car to new owners in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

     

    The Datsun GO is positioned as the ideal option for the burgeoning middle class who dream of having their own car. The launch is supported by print, digital activation, on-the-ground events, and below-the-line activities.

     

    Additionally, the campaign was preceded by a city roadshow that gave Datsun India the opportunity to engage with potential customers and familiarize them with the product more closely.

     

    Datsun GO is an innovative product equipped with the latest technologies, including an advanced powerful 1.2-litre petrol engine that delivers top class fuel economy. Its one-class-above body size is in a much more affordable price range, and this makes the Datsun GO a model that can effectively compete in India’s most competitive and voluminous segment of passenger cars.

     

    The strategy and communication, developed by TBWA\India, was born from the innate need of people who are looking for a superior first car experience. The Datsun experience welcomes first-time car buyers to the ‘Big League’ with more features, more power, and world-class after-sales service. It ensures that the buyer is welcomed into the automotive family and taken care of with as much importance as any other car buyer.

     

    “The original Datsun brand contributed to mass mobility in Japan and other countries where people fulfilled their dreams of becoming car owners,” said Kenichiro Yomura, President at Nissan India Operations. “Our aspiration is to help customers fulfill their dreams with the Datsun brand here in India as well.”

     

    Commenting further on the campaign, Nirmalya Sen, President of Advertising at TBWA\India Group, said, “The first car is special. The Datsun experience is designed to make it a lot more memorable. With a category-redefining car and a car buying and owning experience like never before, it leaves you with the feeling of having entered the ‘Big League’ even if you have just entered the category. The campaign attempts to bring this feeling alive through the eyes of an Indian family.”

     

     

  • Cheil India's latest television commercial for Samsung's Galaxy Grand Neo in partnership with Enormous Brands sets in a refreshing trend on creative collaborations

    Cheil, Enormous Brands co-create TVC for Galaxy Grand Neo

    By a correspondent

     

    The era of creative collaborations may well have made a landfall on the Indian advertising industry. Cheil India’s latest television commercial for Samsung’s Galaxy Grand Neo in partnership with Enormous Brands sets in a refreshing trend on creative collaborations.

     

    The seamless co-creation both at a strategic and creative level is seen in the Galaxy Grand Neo TVC where it takes the thought ‘Make everyday Grand’ to yet another level. This is ably demonstrated through the surreal space that showcases the remarkable features of the phone through special effects, the experiences of a young couple whether at a restaurant or enjoying an almost live music performance, all to tell the story of how one can be ready for a life less ordinary to ‘Make everyday Grand!’

     

    Nima DT Namchu

    Nima DT Namchu, Chief Creative Officer, Cheil Worldwide SW Asia said of the collaborative creative campaign, “While the news of this collaboration might raise some eyebrows, collaborating with the best talent available at a given point in time is one of the ways to deliver the best possible product for our clients. And as agencies, we have all been doing it for decades – with directors, painters, musicians, sculptors… Of course, working with another creative agency is relatively a new thing.”

     

    Ashish Khazanchi

    Ashish Khazanchi, Managing Partner, Enormous Brands shared, “Advertising is always co-created. Be it client – agency, agency – filmmaker or even a creative and media agency collaboration. However, today, with the surge in numbers of non-network pedigreed creative agencies, alliances like this have not just become possible but also desirable. They simply bring a larger talent pool to the table.”

     

    Kundan Joshee

    According to Kundan Joshee, Sr. Vice President, Cheil Worldwide SW Asia, “Samsung’s Galaxy Grand is all about making the everyday grand. With the Galaxy Grand Neo we decided to take on a new way to look at this opportunity; we do believe we’ve succeeded.”

     

  • The prestigious prize was awarded for significantly reducing the average time it takes to handle complaints

    ASCI awarded Gold award by EASA

    By a correspondent

     

    The European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) Global Best Practice Gold Award was presented to The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) at the EASA’s bi-annual meeting in Amsterdam. The prestigious prize was awarded “for significantly reducing the average time it takes to handle complaints”.

     

    EASA mentioned that “The ASCI put in place actions to substantially reduce the journey time of complaints – from their first point of contact with the Secretariat, through the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) and on to the transmission of the final decision to the advertiser and complainant.”

     

    The prompt and efficient processing of complaints meant that ASCI reduced the lead time of Complaints Processing from on an average from 45 days in 2011 to 28 days in 2012 to now 12 days. Other Key measures included introduction of Suspension Pending Investigation (SPI) by which ASCI can order an extremely objectionable ad to be removed immediately pending investigation, expansion from one to two Consumer Complaints Councils (CCC’s) which enabled weekly instead of bimonthly in 2013 and monthly in 2012 meetings, a faster response time to complaints and tracking of upheld complaint ads.

     

    Partha Rakshit

    ASCI’s Chairman, Partha Rakshit said, “ASCI is thrilled to learn that it has won the prestigious Gold Award for 2013. Last year we won the EASA Silver Awards for the National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS) initiative which started tracking most of the print and TV ads in India. That award spurred us to focus on improving ASCI’s effectiveness and credibility as a SRO delivering speedier redressal of complaints and higher compliance of its decisions, which has got the Gold this year. Various Government departments now recognize and support our self- regulation work by including ASCI’s code and representation in the rules and committees established to regulate advertising content respectively. We are very grateful to EASA for recognizing our work and for advice & encouragement they, along with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), provide to ASCI.”

     

  • Fabindia has awarded its creative business to Publicis after a multi-agency pitch. The business will be handled out of Publicis Delhi office

    Fabindia awards creative mandate to Publicis

    By a correspondent

     

    Fabindia has awarded its creative business to Publicis after a multi-agency pitch. The business will be handled out of Publicis Delhi office.

     

    Speaking on the development, Subrata Dutta, CEO Fab India commented, “Fabindia is an iconic lifestyle brand that celebrates India and we want to leverage its inherent strengths. In Publicis, we have found the right partners to do this. We are looking forward to their contribution on our brand.”

     

    Partha Sinha and Bobby Pawar, Directors at Publicis South Asia, in their joint statement said, “Fabindia is the definitive Indian brand. To reinterpret a brand’s strength is once in a life time opportunity and we are looking forward to working on it. Our objective will be to engage the audience in a fresh, surprising and rewarding manner.”

     

    Nakul Chopra, CEO-South Asia, Publicis added, “Fabindia have indeed been a definitive benchmark in their market. At Publicis, we have a history of setting standards in the lifestyle and retail space. We are very proud to be associated with Fabindia and together we hope to create path breaking work.”

     

  • The principal concept of the campaign captures how there are many walls around us and not all of them are made of cement and concrete

    Ambuja Cement takes the social awareness route

    By a correspondent

     

    The brand’s been away from media limelight for a while but Ambuja Cement is back with a new TV campaign after four years that focuses on social awareness. The principal concept of the campaign captures how there are many walls around us and not all of them are made of cement and concrete. There are walls of the metaphysical kind, the kind that infuse disrespect and disharmony among people.

     

    This is the first time that Ambuja Cement has brought an exciting campaign on social awareness. The commercial subtly focuses on strength to break the walls of disparity and disharmony. Strength is one of the key elements of the Ambuja brand.

     

    Speaking about the campaign, Ajay Kapur, Dy MD & CEO of Ambuja Cement said, “Strength is the key aspect of Ambuja Cement and hence the TVC gels very well with our tag line ‘Giant Compressive Strength’. It is the responsibility of the good people to break the barrier of all such social stigma,” he reiterated.

     

    The 60 second campaign is already doing the rounds on television channels to coincide with the run-up to the general elections due later this month and next month and the recently concluded T20 Cricket World Cup. The approximate total spends of the campaign is pegged in the region of Rs 60 crores.

     

     

  • The FL is a digital league that debuted last year and created an immediate impact, with over 5 lakhs players across the globe participating during IPL 2013

    Second edition of IPL’s Fantasy League announced

    By a correspondent

     

    With the stage set for the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League, the event would also mark the unveiling of the second edition of IPL Fantasy League. The IPL FL is a digital league that debuted last year and created an immediate impact, with over 5 lakhs players across the globe participating during IPL 2013.

     

    “We are extremely excited about the league this year. When we approached IPL last year, we were confident about the appeal of a Fantasy league, as well as how it will help grow the craze of IPL beyond the traditional boundaries. However, what caught us by surprise was the momentum it gained in its debut year itself. With half a million participants, the league became the largest fantasy cricket league ever. This year, we have packed in lots of new stuff to fuel the awareness and engagement for IPL further. We expect a million players to play the league this time, taking the IPL fever to the next level globally,” said Ramesh Srivats, Digital Marketing Guru and founder of TenTenTen Digital Products, the company that created and manages the IPL Fantasy League.

     

    The Fantasy league is quite popular with cricket lovers across the globe. The site saw nearly 15 million visits and over 100 million page views in a space of two months last year. It also created tremendous involvement and social buzz with lakhs of tweets and Facebook updates. Users were given the ability to create private leagues and play IPL Fantasy with their friends and colleagues, for bragging rights. Several ‘office leagues’ came into being as a result of this! Encouraged by the success, the Fantasy League was extended to the Champions League T20 2013 with TenTenTen handling all responsibilities for the same.

     

    The League allows a player to own and create a team with name, emblem and motto. Each player is then given 10 million Fantasy Dollars using which he or she can pick a virtual squad of 11 players. Players then earn points based on their squad’s actual performance in IPL matches. The Fantasy team with the most points wins the league.

     

    Many new features have been added to the IPL Fantasy League this year like ‘Stealth mode,’ which lets players hide one’s squad changes from opponents; ‘Scheduled Substitutions’ that let players schedule changes one match in advance; ‘All Star’, where fantasy cricket meets blockbuster entertainment and lets users create their own star-studded fantasy squad. Apart from this, ‘Facebook Leagues’ will allow players to check their rank among their Facebook friends and ‘Dishooms’ will allow players to send fun messages to members within their league.

     

    The league is also better optimized for mobile this year. The winners of the IPL Fantasy League 2014 stand a chance of winning tickets to the matches and exciting IPL merchandise.

     

  • Contract Advertising replaces FCB Ulka after a successful 5-year stint while Mediacom comes in place of Lodestar UM

    Tata Docomo awards creative biz to Contract, media AOR to Mediacom

    By a correspondent

     

    Tata Docomo, the unified telecom brand of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTL) has awarded the creative responsibility of Tata Docomo and Tata Photon brands to Contract advertising while media responsibilities for the brand will now be handled by Mediacom. The new partnerships come into effect starting 1st May 2014.

     

    Contract Advertising replaces FCB Ulka after a successful 5-year stint while Mediacom comes in place of Lodestar UM. The estimated value of business is pegged in excess of Rs.175 crores.

     

    Gurinder Singh Sandhu, Head – Marketing, Tata Teleservices said, “We are really excited with Contract and Mediacom coming on board with a promising set of new ideas especially in the area of brand strategy and communication planning which we are confident will further accelerate the momentum behind the Tata Docomo and Photon brands. We have had a very successful association with our outgoing agency partners for the past five years and would like to thank them for their unstinting contribution towards building this brand.”

     

    Rana Barua

    Commenting on the win, Rana Barua – CEO, Contract Advertising said: ‘We are elated with this win and truly appreciate that Tata Docomo has seen the true potential that Contract can bring on board as a communication partner. We stand committed as a company to create outstanding work and partner them to deliver effective solutions which are path-breaking in the category.”

     

    Commenting on the new business acquisition, Debraj Tripathy, Managing Director, MediaCom said, “We are delighted with the opportunity to work with Tata DoCoMo. My team and I are excited with the win and look forward to adding value to their business.”

     

    Both agency changes are a result of a two-month long multi-agency pitch process including the incumbent partners.

     

  • Political party representatives Ram Naik (BJP), Sanjay Jha (Congress) and Prem Shukla (Shiv Sen) along with political analyst Kumar Ketkar will deliberate on issue at a panel discussion moderated by Anand Rathi between 4 and 6pm on Thursday, April 10 at the Nehru Centre, Mumbai.

    ‘IAA Conversations’ to discuss role of opinion polls and media reports in influencing voters

    By A Correspondent

     

    The International Advertising Association (IAA) India Chapter will discuss the role of opinion polls and media reports in influencing voters as part of the IAA Conversations series.

     

    Former petroleum minister and senior BJP leader Ram Naik, Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha, Shiv Sena spokesperson Prem Shukla and leading political analyst and veteran journalist Kumar Ketkar will participate in the panel discussion which will be moderated by Anand Rathi, Chairman, Anand Rathi Securities. The topic of the discussion is: Do Opinion Polls and Media Reports Influence Voters?

     

    The panel discussion will take place between 4 and 6pm on Thursday, April 10, 2014 at the Nehru Centre, Worli, Mumbai

     

    Said Srinivasan Swamy, President IAA India Chapter & Vice President, Development Asia Pacific region of IAA, “Our objective at the IAA India Chapter is to bring about discussions on key issues concerning the advertising, media and allied sectors. This edition of IAA Conversations is an attempt to deliberate on an issue that has generated much discussion in the run-up to the general elections.”

     

    Added Dr Bhaskar Das, Group CEO, Zee Media Corp Limited and Chair of the event: “The role of the media in influencing public opinion cannot be denied and hence this discussion with key stakeholders will bring to the fore issues and concerns on how opinion polls and media reports can influence the masses at election time.”

     

  • Contract Advertising's Delhi office has bagged the creative duties for Paytm over a strongly contested multi-agency pitch.

    Contract also wins creative mandate for Paytm

    By A Correspondent

     

    Contract Advertising has also won the creative duties for Paytm over a strongly contested multi-agency pitch.

     

    Confirming the development, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder of Paytm, said: “We are very happy to announce appointment of Contract Advertising, as our new creative agency. Post a competitive evaluation process, in Contract, we have found an able creative partner who understands our target market opportunity very well. We are confident that with their strong creative capabilities, planning strength and a team with vast and varied experiences, Contract will help Paytm become India’s most loved mobile commerce brand.”

     

    The business, won on Contract’s strategic and creative skills, will be handled out of the agency’s Delhi office and will include campaign development across TV, print, radio, and digital media.

     

    “Contract is very excited to partner a brand like Paytm that operates in a very dynamic and competitive category.  Our integrated approach has yet again demonstrated our strength and expertise which clients are clearly seeing as our differentiated and visible edge over other agencies,” said Shivaji Dasgupta, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Contract Delhi

     

    Said Mayur Hola, Executive Creative Director, Contract Delhi: “Paytm interested us from the moment we were introduced to the product. It is meticulously designed yet extremely simple to use. Moreover the team there led by Vijay, the self-confessed ‘funaholic’ sweeps you off your feet with their passion and exuberance. The category is exciting, the product limitless in its ambition. We can’t wait to get cracking.”

     

  • Five thousand trees have been planted after an audit measured the carbon footprint of the event by identifying all sources of event-related greenhouse gas emissions

    Kyoorius Awards turns 100% Carbon Neutral

    By A Correspondent

     

    Even as the Call for Entries has been issued in right earnest with a creative campaign crafted by Bengaluru-based Happy, the D&AD backed Kyoorius Advertising Awards has pledged to be a 100 percent carbon-neutral event. As many as 5000 trees have already been planted, with more on the way. And participants can contribute Rs 500 towards planting five trees, thereby making their entry carbon-neutral as well.

     

    According to a communiqué, the audit measured carbon footprint of the event by identifying all sources of event-related greenhouse gas emissions. Major emission sources included travel to the host city, local road transportation, energy consumed by the event venue and energy used through stays at local hotels or homes. Smaller emission sources include transportation of goods the event needs, event organizer travel during planning and preparation, energy consumed by the event office, paper use and waste generation.

     

    Said Rajesh Kejriwal, Founder CEO, Kyoorius: “We are in the process of conducting an carbon emission audit of Designyatra and our other events and by August 2014 we will ensure that all Kyoorius events and awards will be carbon-neutral – a first in India and amongst the very few globally”.

     

  • Cadbury 5Star Chomp's new campaign emphasises on the 'eat state' as its core message

    Cadbury emphasizes on ‘eat state’ with new 5Star variant

    By a correspondent

     

    Cadbury India, part of Mondelez International, has unveiled a new TVC to announce the launch of Cadbury 5Star Chomp. A new entrant under the Cadbury 5Star umbrella, Cadbury 5Star Chomp will offer consumers an irresistible combination of chocolate, caramel and nougat of Cadbury 5Star, along with the crunchiness of peanuts.

     

    Targeted at chocolate-loving enthusiasts across the country, Cadbury 5Star Chomp’s new campaign emphasises on the ‘eat state’ as its core message. The campaign is designed to encourage consumers to enjoy the caramel, chocolate, nougat and peanut bar with inhibited gusto. The TVC seeks to celebrate the manner of consumption of the product and give the consumer a very engrossing eat experience.

     

    Speaking on the launch of Cadbury 5Star Chomp, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Director – Chocolate Category & Media, Cadbury India, said, “As category leaders we see a market making opportunity with Cadbury 5Star Chomp. The product has been developed keeping in mind the evolving consumer palette. Cadbury 5Star Chomp will introduce consumers to a completely new eat experience. Moreover, this launch is an important milestone in the journey of Cadbury 5Star and is expected to widen the brand’s play in the category. We therefore see the launch of Cadbury 5Star Chomp expanding the repertoire of Cadbury 5Star.”

     

    Conceptualized by Ogilvy & Mather, the 42 second commercial is a conversation between a human and a ghost to highlight the heavy engrossing eat. The high-voltage launch rolls out across the country, through a combination of commercials across TV, digital and social media platforms to drive awareness and encourage consumers to bite into the goodness of Cadbury 5Star Chomp.