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Tag: Damodar Mall

  • The account was won following a multi-agency pitch

    Reliance Fresh appoints Leo Burnett India and Indigo Consulting to manage creative mandate

    By A Correspondent

     

    Reliance Fresh has awarded its creative and digital mandate to Leo Burnett India and Indigo Consulting – both part of the Publicis Groupe. The business win comes after a multi-agency pitch and Leo Burnett India’s Mumbai office will be leading the account along with the Indigo Consulting team. The appointment will see the agencies responsible for integrated communications work, spanning brand strategy, creative, social and digital services. On its part, Indigo Consulting will help Reliance Fresh with its brand affinity, with the aim of bringing it to consumers’ consideration by leveraging select digital and social platforms.

     

    Speaking post the announcement, Damodar Mall, Chief Executive Officer – Grocery Retail said: “We are happy to have Leo Burnett join us in the journey of Reliance Fresh –  our retail format with the highest mindshare. In its current phase of confident growth and expansion, it was important for us to have the right partner to craft the brand’s creative language and identity. Going forward, with the renowned Leo Burnett team, we are sure Reliance Fresh’s expression will scale new heights.”

     

    Added Dheeraj Sinha, MD – India & Chief Strategy Officer, South Asia, Leo Burnett: “Reliance Fresh is one of the fastest growing brands in their category and is well on its way to modernise and transform the way India does its grocery shopping. We are excited to be a part of this journey with the brand and are committed to build a strong narrative that will help embed the brand deeper into the local markets.”

     

    Said Rajesh Ghatge, CEO, Indigo Consulting: “It is safe to say that a vast majority of consumers discover, engage and transact with a retail brand on digital. Digital not only will help in driving the brand narrative but will also empower the consumer by making this narrative hyper contextual and hyper relevant to their need states. The category of fresh, frequent and regular shopping provides us opportunities to leverage data and serve the relevant and targeted communication to the brand’s consumers. We are excited to work on creating a seamless and channel agnostic solutions for Reliance Fresh at scale.”

     

     

  • The IPG Agency will lead 360-degree communication for the brand

    FCB Ulka bags creative mandate of Reliance Smart

    By A Correspondent

     

    Reliance Smart has awarded its creative mandate to FCB Ulka, following a multi-agency pitch. FCB Ulka will lead the creative mandate for Reliance Smart powered with 360-degree communication strategies across platforms as the brand charts its course for the next phase of growth.

     

    Kulvinder Ahluwalia

    Speaking on the win, Kulvinder Ahluwalia, President – Mumbai, FCB Ulka said: “We are delighted to partner Reliance Smart in their journey towards leadership in the Indian retail market. It was a challenging brief and we believe the FCB philosophy of Never Finished helped us unearth fresh insights into the category and create a differentiated platform for the brand that will serve as a launchpad for a slew of cross media initiatives.”

     

    Damodar Mall

    Added Damodar Mall, CEO Reliance Grocery Retail: “Reliance Smart is growing and expanding fast across the country. Our supermarkets deliver unmatched value and experience to middle -man India. Getting the right creative partner who intuitively understands the Indian family consumer was vital for Reliance SMART. FCB Ulka Team’s understanding of the consumer and the tonality of the brand was an important factor. With this partnership we look forward to building a strong mindshare for Reliance Smart.  Look forward to lots of ‘Smart Giri, together.”

     

     

  • Unilever was Client of the Year at while OgilvyOne Worldwide was Agency of the Year at the DMA Asia Echo Awards held last week

    Big Nite for the Datawallahs!

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    What’s one awards nite where many of the Big Pros of the A&M-land assembled and, no, it wasn’t the Abby, the Effies, the Emvies or Kyoorius? We’re talking of names like Piyush Pandey, D Shivakumar, Madhukar Kamath, Nagesh Alai, KV Sridhar, Bobby Pawar, Manish Bhatt, Damodar Mall, Tarun Katial and many, many others?  It was the DMA Asia Echo Awards, held last Friday (Aug 6) in Mumbai.

     

    Fast Facts:

    Entries from 542 participants, 75 agencies, 175 Brands

     

    Entries from 8 countries – India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Phillipines, China, Japan, Thailand.

     

    Awards presented:

    4 Overall

    1 Best of Show

    1 Diamond

    142 Metals

    29 Golds

    26 Leaders

     

    Unilever was adjudged Client of the Year, while OgilvyOne Worldwide was Agency of the Year. Ogilvy & Mather was Network of the Year and WPP the Holding Company of the Year. The Best of Show for Creativity was awarded to Visa India for Visa Sarees and the Diamond for Effectiveness was taken away by OgilvyOne Worldwide Philipines.

     

    The International Echo Awards are the most prestigious awards in the data-driven marketing and advertising world. This year, DMAi, the Indian association which has been in existence since 1992, was accepted entries from across 17 countries in Asia for both the awards – the 2015 DMA Asia Echo Awards and The DMA International Echo Awards 2015.

     

    Underscoring the importance of the Echo awards, Rakhshin Patel, Managing Director, Pi Communications & Grand Jury Chairperson, said:  “For an athlete, the Olympics are the ultimate stage. Data-driven marketers share the same feeling about the Echo programme. There is indeed no bigger stage to showcase ideas and work that have yielded measurable, tangible, real results.”

     

    There were 15 Effectiveness categories and 3 Creative Effectiveness categories each headed by a biggie – Piyush Pandey, D Shivakumar, Madhukar Kamath, Geetu Verma, Nagesh Alai, Jasmin Sohrabji, Anupriya Acharya, Agnello Dias, Pratap Bose, Bobby Pawar, KV Sridhar, Tarun Katial, Manish Bhatt, Nishi Vasudeva, Damodar Mall, Susana Tsui, Anant Rangaswami  and Rajesh Kumar.

     

    Said Vatsal Asher, CEO & Shelly Singh, COO, DMAi: “We are honoured to be hosting and managing the Asia Echo Awards. Campaigns got judged with the best in the Region. We had a fantastic panel of Jury Presidents and 194 online judges this year. We hope to see an increase the list of Asian winners at the International Echo 2015 awards in the US where all Asian winners will fasttrack to Round 2.”

     

    As an apex, not for profit DMAi, since 1992, brings about collective action for advancing & protecting responsible Data Driven Marketing and Advertising. The DMAi is run on a day-to-day basis by Vatsal Asher (CEO) and Shelly Singh (COO) and the awards have been championed by Rakshin Patel (Grand Jury Chairperson) and Ajay Chandwani, (Chairman Emeritus).

     

  • The retail business veteran will take over from Rob Cissell as CEO of the Mukesh Ambani group's supermarket and hypermarket division

    Damodar Mall to helm Reliance’s supermarket biz

    By Rasul Bailay & Chaitali Chakravarty

     

    Damodar Mall

    Damodar Mall will take over from Rob Cissell as chief executive of Reliance Retail’s supermarket and hypermarket division as the former chief operating officer of Walmart China is leaving after three years running the business.

     

    Value retail, which includes supermarkets and hypermarkets, grocery and cash-and-carry, accounted for 53% or Rs`5,700 crore of the Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries’ retail venture in the first nine months of the current fiscal year. Randall Guttery will continue to be in charge of the cash-and-carry business.

     

    “After a stint of three years leading our consumer grocery business, Rob has decided to relocate outside India to pursue other opportunities,” said an internal communication announcing the management change. “Rob will continue to work with us till March 31, 2014.”

     

    The latest announcement is part of other organisational changes at Reliance Retail. Mr Guttery, another Walmart executive who joined with Mr Cissell and who has been spearheading the cash-and-carry business Reliance Market, will now double up as a mentor for the grocery unit that includes the Reliance Fresh convenience chain, besides the Reliance Super and Reliance Mart supermarkets. “To be in line with our stated objective of simplification, we would be creating a common executive management structure for grocery business. This will allow us to leverage the complementary skill sets available within the business,” said the internal communiqué to staff.

     

    “However, to continue the focus on consumer and wholesale nature of the formats we will continue to operate with two separate executive councils providing leadership to these formats respectively.” A Reliance Retail spokesperson declined to comment on the developments.

     

    During Mr Cissell’s tenure, Reliance Retail has focused on larger supermarkets rather than the smaller convenience store format that competed directly with India’s formidable neighbourhood shops.

     

    Rob Cissell

    Mr Cissell took over in 2011 from Gwyn Sundhagul, another expatriate with global experience who’d worked at Tesco Lotus in Thailand. Apart from Mr Cissell and Mr Guttery, it hired another former Walmart executive Shawn Grey as chief operating officer of the value retailing business as part of a round of top management changes since starting up in 2006. Both Mr Cissell and Mr Gray were part of the top team at Walmart’s China arm that had around 333 outlets, generating $7.5 billion in revenue, or 1.8% of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company’s total sales of $420 billion in 2010.

     

    Mr Mall, currently chief customer strategy officer for the value retail business is an industry veteran having previously worked at Future Group.

     

    Reliance Retail, which operates more than 1,500 stores in 141 cities, posted sales of .`10,857 crore in the nine months ended December 2013.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

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