MxMIndia

Tag: Australia

  • Presenting the Amul topicals that captured the highs (and that big low) of the just-concluded India-Australia cricket series

    Utterly, Butterly, Aussilicious!

    India's series victory in Australia led by the youth brigade!
    India’s series victory in Australia led by the youth brigade! – (Jan 2021)

     

    By Our Staff

     

    We love the Amul topicals. They capture the mood of the nation more than the headlines in the newspapers. So we here are at it again – the Amul Butter topical ads from November 2020 to January 19, 2021 that captured the highs (and that big low) of the just-concluded India-Australia cricket series.

     

    Indian hang on with grit and determination in Sydney Test! – (Jan’ 21)

     

    Racist abuse from Australian spectators! – (Jan’ 21)

     

    Indian team’s issues with quarantine Down Under! – (Jan’ 21)

     

    India wins second test match in Australia! – (Dec’ 20)

     

    India collapses to lowest ever test score! – (Dec’ 20)

     

    Left arm pacer makes brilliant debut for India in both ODI and T20! – (Dec’ 20)

     

    Kohli, fastest to 12,000 ODI runs! – (Dec’ 20)

     

    Spectators are back in the stadiums! – (Nov’ 20)

     

  • Ogilvy & Mather announced that it has acquired a 33.3% position in STW's leading digital communications firm, DTDigital.

    Ogilvy expands in Australia with 33.3% stake in DTDigital

    By A Correspondent

     

    DTDigital, one of Australia’s largest and most successful digital agencies joined STW Group in 2003 and during the next eight years grew revenues from $1 million per annum to forecast revenue for 2012 of $14 million. Clients include Bunnings, Myer and NAB.

     

    For the past four years, DTDigital has been working alongside Ogilvy in Melbourne. Today DTDigital has more than 110 full-time staff in its Melbourne office.

     

    STW Group CEO Mike Connaghan said, “It’s not in our nature to sell parts of our prized assets but the logic in this instance was overwhelming. DTDigital already partners closely with Ogilvy Group Melbourne, and there are intentions to expand this partnership with Ogilvy to other markets. The integrated nature of many of our client campaigns makes it absolutely right for Ogilvy that we have DTDigital even further aligned with that business. It’s a good deal for all stakeholders.”

     

    STW Group owns 66.7 percent of Ogilvy Group Australia, with WPP holding the remaining 33.3 percent. The investment by WPP in DTDigital brings its ownership in line with that of Ogilvy Australia.

     

    “Ogilvy knows brand, social and CRM while DTDigital provides great digital, channel and technology skills making the combination a winning formula. We have worked in partnership for the past four years and acquiring part of DTDigital cements that relationship, allowing us to offer first class integrated digital to clients inside Australia and across Asia,” said Paul Heath, CEO, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific.

     

    DTDigital is an award-winning digital marketing design and technology company that has been a pioneer in the industry for more than 15 years.  Founded by STW Group’s Chief Digital Officer David Trewern in 1996, DTDigital evolved from a multimedia design studio into a business that’s helped transform some of Australia’s leading brands in the digital age.

     

    Success has come through a unique, full-service offering, which includes deep specialization in high-growth areas that are not typically part of an ‘advertising agency’ offer. DTDigital has developed capabilities in specialist areas beyond strategy, creative and production such as user experience, design and consulting, advanced web application engineering, e-commerce, email marketing, data and analytics, social media and social business strategy, mobile marketing and application development, and immersive ‘beyond the browser’ digital experiences.

     

    This breadth of specialist capabilities allow DTDigital to focus on innovation, conceptualizing, developing and connecting the entire digital ‘ecosystem’ for sophisticated clients that increasingly connect and transact with consumers via digital channels.

     

    “This deal accelerates DTDigital’s launch to the Sydney market. Andrew Baxter, David Trewern and Brian Vella were instrumental in bringing the businesses together in Melbourne and the same team will ensure it is an instant success in Sydney,” Mr Connaghan said.

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and in the papers.

    Journalists’ covenants on cricket and more

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Aging batsmen, an arrogant captain making bad choices, indifferent performances, the Indian Premier League and the Board for Control of Cricket in India- all or some of these are to blame for the Indian cricket team’s unfortunate performance in Australia.

     

    Television, which was building itself up, started in a slow frenzy at the start of the weekend but it was all out there – foam, fits – by Sunday evening. Arnab Goswami of Times Now, amply helped by his alter ego Boria Majumdar inAustralia, was extremely saddened as only he can be by Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni in particular. Had Dhoni denigrated Test cricket by suggesting that he might retire from that version of the game? Was this the end of civilisation as we know it and so on? He was supported by Bishen Singh Bedi who was sputtering at the mouth with anger and by the cynical observations of another guest who got Goswami and Bedi even more enraged.

     

    Newspapers are still more circumspect but try ‘Shame Old Story’ and ‘Disgrace’ from The Times of India, ‘Perth Pangs’ and ‘India blunder, Oz plunder’ from Hindustan Times. Sunday Mid-Day tried to put a spin on it with ‘Bright Spark’, referring to bowler Umesh Yadav getting five wickets but the strap line below the headline emphasisedIndia’s batting collapse.

     

    Luckily forIndia’s beleaguered cricketers, a week is a very short time in journalism. Just before the India-Australia series started, I seem to rememberAustraliabeing hammered for losing toNew ZealandandIndiafeeling all pumped up because of its enormous talent and at-home victories. A couple of days atMelbourneand all that moaning and hype was completely reversed.

     

    My journalist friends and colleagues tell me that I should not be so hard on my fellow journalists and that it is the job of journalists to get hysterical and to have no memories at all, especially when it comes to sport. There is apparently some mysterious covenant signed by sports journalists (us general purpose journos are not privy to this procedure) by which they have to swear that they will make every effort not to remember what they had said or written the week before. Also that every loss by a sports team or person has to be portrayed as the end of the world and every victory had to be the best ever. I know this to be true from my experiences as a tennis fan (empirical evidence!).

     

    We already know that TV people have their own covenant which makes them swear to try and “save” Indiaat every opportunity and know as little as possible about any subject which gets them all excited.

     

    The cocktail of these two covenants makes for some very dramatic viewing and for those with longer attention spans, there are newspaper articles. Some sober commentators in print will try to look at the larger picture and to extrapolate future courses of action from past experiences. They may be chucked out of the Lodge for breaking the covenant unless they are long term offenders. But in these times, the hysteria will win. Except of course tillIndiawins something!

     

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the content on news television and the morning papers

    Kejriwal’s TOI article: same old same old

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Arvind Kejriwal has reached out to fellow Indians in a plea in The Times of India today. The front page of The Times of India says ‘Team Anna confused, does not know the way forward’. It quotes from an article which Kejriwal has written for the paper. But while the front page report talks about the “apparent” confusion in Team Anna, especially after it has been attacked for going after the Congress while being soft on other parties, Kejriwal’s article is, in fact, the same old same old. He does not talk about the Mumbai debacle; he adds a throwaway line about the BJP and corruption but concentrates the article on the perfidy of the Congress.

     

    Anna Hazare’s ill-health, he conjectures, had more to do with the bad Lokpal bill presented by the government than anything else. If one can venture an opinion, it is this single-minded insistence on attacking only the Congress which has worked against Team Anna. If it loses media sponsorship, it might find the way forward a tad tough. Kejriwal has asked concerned citizens for ideas on how the movement should proceed. It will be interesting to see those suggestions.

     

    Meanwhile, Hazare’s health remains a matter of concern, with most newspapers and channels focusing on it. TV continues to target members of the anti-corruption movement. The BJP is not the flavour of the week at the moment and if you do not come out strongly against it, then TV will not forgive you – this week at least. This leaves the leaders of the anti-corruption movement floundering a bit since they have not had their core committee meeting to decide on what to do yet! Till the triumvirate speaks, all are lost!

     

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    The Indian traders who were detained/ tortured/ attacked in China got so much play on TV that newspapers have started giving the incident more attention. Of course, newspapers have the advantage of setting aside nationalistic outrage and looking at the larger picture. Which includes: other traders not wanting to stop going to that part of China since stuff there is cheap and China requesting Indian traders to follow their laws! This makes for a much larger and more complicated story.

     

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    Inflation is down the newspapers tell us and interest rates may be cut as well. Presumably, this is good news.

     

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    Will Friday night and Saturday morning be all about slamming the Indian cricket team for its dismal performance so far in Australia? I’m not a fortune teller but my crystal ball says that heavy weather is approaching for MS Dhoni and company!

     

  • ESPN Star Sports has announced a five-year contract for the exclusive rights to broadcast Cricket Australia's (CA) domestic and home international matches across various platforms including television, internet, mobile and radio, covering the entire Asian region.

    ESPN acquires Cricket Australia rights

    By A Correspondent

     

    ESPN Star Sports has announced a five-year contract for the exclusive rights to broadcast Cricket Australia’s (CA) domestic and home international matches across various platforms including television, internet, mobile and radio, covering the entire Asian region.

     

    As a part of this deal, the current Future Tours Program (FTP) sees ESPN Star Sports broadcasting more than 191 days of live International cricket action from Australia, which includes 27 test matches, 44 one day internationals and 12 twenty-twenty games.

     

    This is the first time ever that a broadcast deal with Cricket Australia will give ESPN Star Sports rights to showcase two India series. India is slated to play four Test matches and a tri-series with England as the third team in the 2014-2015 season. This tri-series, featuring India, Australia and England and scheduled right before the ICC World Cup in 2015, is positioned as the ‘Clash of the Titans’. India will visit Australia again for seven one-day internationals and two twenty-twenty matches in the year 2015-2016.

     

    Over the next five years, all of the leading teams will be visiting Australia. In addition to the Ashes between arch rivals England and Australia in the year 2013-2014 which, based on the current FTP, will see 5 test matches, five ODIs and three twenty-twenty matches; other top cricket nations including South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand will tour Australia to test their mettle in the fiercely competitive environment of cricket down under.

     

    James Sutherland, Chief Executive Officer of Cricket Australia, said, “We are delighted that a telecaster of ESPN Star Sports’ standing and class will be putting Australian cricket in front of many cricket fans.”

     

    Manu Sawhney, Managing Director, ESPN Star Sports, said, “We are very pleased to announce this partnership with Cricket Australia with whom we share a very strong relationship. Australian Cricket has always been exciting and is played with utmost competitiveness in a super charged atmosphere which makes for every fan’s delight. It is therefore not surprising that it is called the ultimate test for any cricket player”. “This partnership with Cricket Australia is a testament to our commitment to serve our fans with more action packed cricket for years to come, he added.

     

    In addition to the cricket action, ESS also plans to broadcast Cricket Australia’s domestic cricket over 280 days. This includes popular tournaments such as the KFC Big Bash T20, the four-day Bupa Sheffield Shield tournament and the Ryobi One Day Cup.