Madison Media has announced the appointment of Amol Dighe as Chief Executive Officer, Madison Media Ultra and Head Investments based in Mumbai. Dighe will look after the agency’s Madison Media Ultra unit which handles the prestigious Godrej and Marico accounts. In addition, he will be Head of Investments for Madison Media Group.
Dighe’s last stint was in the area of content development and celebrity management with CA Media.
Vikram Sakhuja
Said Vikram Sakhuja, Partner & Group CEO Madison Media & OOH on the appointment: “We are delighted to have an experienced professional like Amol join our Madison Media Leadership team and am confident that with his width of experience, Amol is going to contribute significantly to our key clients and to Madison.”
And this is what Dighe had to say: “I am delighted to be a part of this Iconic Media Company, ably led by Industry stalwarts. Its highly motivating to work on clients with such amazing pedigree. Looking forward to doing great work which helps our clients in growing their Brands.”
Madison Media has won as many as 21 new accounts across its offices in 2015. These accounts are Snapdeal, Freecharge, PepperTap, Shaadi.com, Viber, Metro Cash & Carry India, Amul Hosiery, Milton, Bandhan Bank, Oyo Rooms, Piramal Reality, Policy Boss, DHFL, I Love Diamonds, Zigy, Cricbuzz.com, Gaana.com, Lenskart.com, NACO (National Aids Control Organization), USPL and Aerobok Shoes. The estimated size of these accounts put together is above Rs 1,000 crores.
Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, Madison Media & OOH said, “I am delighted to add such a large, diverse and prestigious set of clients to an already enviable client list of Madison Media. I am looking forward to working and partnering with all these brands to make them market leaders in their respective categories.â€
Madison Media has just announced a slew of key business wins over the past two months. They include Hamilton, glassware and Thermoware Company that owns Milton and Treo brands; Piramal Realty and celebrity lifestyle company USPL with brands WROGN and Imara in Mumbai. In Bangalore, the agency has won the accounts of ilovediamonds.com and Phaneesh Murthy’s healthcare portal zigy.com. The agency has also won Delhi-based shoe company Aerobok with the brand Aqualite.
Sam Balsara
Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison World said, “I am delighted that we have won so many new accounts and it is heartening to know that many of these have been won without a pitch based on our agency credentials.â€
Madison Media Group has been on an account winning spree, having won a host of new businesses in 2015 including Snapdeal, Shaadi.com, Oyo Rooms, Viber, Lenskart.com, Zivame.com, Metro Cash & Carry, Gaana.com, Cricbuzz.com, Amul Hosiery, Bandhan Bank, amongst others.
Your position would be like that of Serena and Venus Williams’ father – to have one daughter win and the other lose, isn’t it?
For me, I think, we are all winners. All [the agencies have] done extremely well and at the end of the day, one agency has to come out as a winner, and it happened to be Mindshare. Maxus, I thought, put up a tough fight and ended up in the Top Three. What’s heartening to know is that we did well across agencies and across clients. Overall, it’s been a fabulous night and we’re going to party hard.
What do you think led to Mindshare gaining the No 1 spot?
Mindshare had a fabulous body of work, not just across clients, but also across all the different categories. They’ve really managed to institutionalise excellence across the entire agency. Mindshare is India’s No 1 standalone agency. But when you become No 1 and keep winning, it’s also challenging to keep the team motivated and continue to do well, year after year. That’s something that’s there in the DNA of Mindshare. They have a new leader in Prashant Kumar who took over the reins at Mindshare a few months ago, and I think that has brought in a lot more energy and passion. They’re growing from strength to strength.
Madison gave a pretty good fight at the end?
The Emvies night is really the big night for all of us in the media industry and it’s the most looked-forward-to event in the year for all the boys and girls who toil very hard in the office every day. There’s been a lot of build up and anticipation in the last few weeks. Of course, Mindshare had a lot of shortlists, so they were expecting to do well. But as we’ve seen in the past, it’s not necessary that the agency with a lot of shortlists will win the Agency of the Year title. But I think they managed to pull through in the end by quite a healthy margin. Madison also did pretty well. In fact, there was great work, not just from Madison, but some of the other agencies as well. So we need to ensure that we don’t get complacent. We have to come back next year and try to do even better.
What were the trends that you could see from the results of this year?
Winning an award has become important not just for agencies, but also clients. Today, we find a lot of our clients telling us to work hard and to actually get them fame as well. All the hype that goes into awards in our industry, is actually helping the fraternity raise the bar in terms of quality of work. And today, we’re getting a lot more support from our clients and partners. A good thing that was done this year was that there was a recognition for media partners too at the Emvies. So it’s good if all stakeholders are celebrated equally because all of us come together to create great work.
What would be your message to the team at Maxus?
Maxus has won many titles in the past and continues to do well in many other awards. I’m sure they’ll be a tad disappointed for having come close and still not winning the Agency of the Year title. But knowing Maxus, I’m sure they’re going to go back and put shoulder to the wheel and try and come out Number One next year.
Madison Media Plus, a part of Madison Media Group has just announced the win of OYO Rooms. The account was won in a multi-agency pitch. The account will be handled out of the agency’s Delhi office.
OYO Rooms is India’s largest branded network of hotels founded by young entrepreneur, 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal. OYO Rooms currently operates in more than 100 Indian cities including Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Goa, Chennai, Kolkata and others. OYO is present in major metros, regional hubs, leisure destinations and pilgrimage towns. According to a research carried out by CB Insights for The New York Times, OYO Rooms is among the companies that may be the next start-up unicorns.The company is backed by investors like the Softbank Group, Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital.
Says Abhinav Sinha, Chief Operating Officer, OYO Rooms, on selecting Madison Media, “Madison is the biggest name in marketing communications and we are very proud to be associated with them. I am sure that under the able leadership of Mr. Sam Balsara, the Madison team will take OYO to new heights and we will soon be a household name. At OYO, we believe that everybody deserves an amazing experience when staying out of home, and, it is great that Madison will be taking OYO’s message to the people.â€
Sam Balsara
Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison World, “I am delighted that we have won this young but extremely promising business and are looking forward to help OYO Rooms become a household name in the country. It is really exciting to see such a young entrepreneur making a mark so early in life.â€
Said Srinivas Murthy, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Snapdeal.com on selecting Madison Media, “We are very happy to have Madison partner with us on media going forward. They bring tremendous experience across categories, with learnings across multiple growth industries that can be leveraged for us. Madison is known for the high quality of media professionals and we look forward to them helping us drive our business to new heights.â€
Sam Balsara
Added Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison World, “I am delighted that Snapdeal after an exhaustive competitive review has found Madison Media to be worthy of handling this large and demanding account. Today Madison Media offers an unparalleled depth of leadership, with unmatched experience and expertise and this will be further strengthened with the joining of VikramSakhuja in a few months as Group CEO of Madison Media and OOH.â€
It’s a question which everyone in the industry has been asking him and each other since October 2014 when the name of a new Global CEO of Maxus was announced.
When we asked him then with the lyrics of a classic Bollywood song: Yeh kya hua, kaise hua, kyun huaaa, he replied in an equally filmi style: Main toh chala jidhar challe rasta – only in this case I have an idea of what the manzil is.
The ‘manzil’ clearly is the global headquarters of Madison World in North Mumbai.
We’re referring to the man you see in the picture: Vikram Sakhuja, inarguably one of the most powerful and well-known media agency professionals in the country today.
He joins Madison Media as an equity partner. A short statement we received from the office Madison World Chairman and Managing Director Sam Balsara announced: “Madison World is delighted to announce that Vikram Sakhuja is set to join the Madison Media Group including OOH as Partner and Group CEO. Vikram will be responsible for the Media and OOH business of Madison World and will work closely with Sam Balsara.â€
This has indeed been a coup of sorts. As a senior industryperson who has known both Balsara and Sakhuja from close quarters said: “Sam is one of the smartest and shrewdest mediaperson in the country. And he has proven that yet again by getting Vikram on board.â€
The move also silences naysayers that Sam Balsara would do well to sell his stake in Madison World to a worthy international conglomerate. Perhaps he still will, the senior industryperson we spoke to earlier told us. “This may well be a way of saying that, yes, we are privately held company, but are professionally run.â€
An alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Calcutta, Mr Sakhuja has over 28 years of experience across the media and marketing landscape. He has worked with Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Star India and of course GroupM where he headed South Asia operations as CEO and later Global CEO of Maxus.
Said Mr Balsara in a statement: “I am delighted to have Vikram come on board and partner us in Madison. I know Vikram as a true blue professional, over the last 20 years, first as a client, then a media partner and finally as a formidable competitor. I am confident that he will be able to contribute significantly to our clients’ business growth and success, by providing the right strategic direction, given his vast and rich experienceâ€.
Added Mr Sakhuja in the same statement:  “I am truly excited at the prospect of returning home to India and in an entrepreneurial capacity. It is also a privilege to now partner a person who initiated me into media in my Client days. Media has never been more exciting, and I look forward to further strengthening an already iconic Agency brand.â€
Gautam Kiyawat
Meanwhile, Gautam Kiyawat, current Madison Media Group CEO has decided to relocate to Singapore for personal reasons. Balsara said the following on his movement: “I would like to place on record Gautam’s substantial contribution to Madison Media in the three years that he has been with us, especially in the area of growing our people and working as a team. I thank Gautam for his contribution and wish him all the best in his future endeavoursâ€.
It’ll be interesting to see how Sakhuja as head of Madison Media takes on former employer GroupM and friend Shash Sinha IPG Mediabrands, both of who are formidable competitors. As followers of the space, we couldn’t have asked for any better.
Tobacco-to-consumer goods conglomerate ITC is likely to put its media account up for pitch soon as its contract with Madison World ends in December. ITC’s media spend is estimated at Rs 450 crore a year. Heads of media buying firms expect the pitch process to start in August.
The Kolkata-based company’s three-year contract with Madison World had expired in 2014 and the deal was extended for a year to December 2015.
“The incumbent agency always gets the first chance to defend the account and is usually given three months’ time to make a presentation,†said a top official at Madison Media. “We will start the work in August or September and eventually make the presentation. Following which the official pitch process will start towards the end of the year,†the person said.
Industry sources say ITC’s foods division spends Rs 200-250 crore in media, while the personal care division spends around Rs 100 crore. Other divisions such as stationery, Mangaldeep agarbatti and Wills Lifestyle spend about Rs 3-5 crore in media planning and buying.
“In its media mix, ITC has always been a television heavy company,†said the head of a leading media agency that plans to pitch for the account. “Only the stationary business is led by print ads. Except Bingo they don’t do much on the digital medium as well,†the person said. Last year, ITC had called for a multi-agency creative pitch for its personal care division that has brands such as Fiama Di Wills, Vivel, Engage and Superia.
According to company sources, Contract India won the account. “They will primarily handle the skincare products from the portfolio,†said a top official in ITC. Sandeep Kaul, CEO of ITC’s personal care products business, said it had recently selected Contract “for creative development for one of the new development projects in the personal care products space†“There are no plans for a media pitch at this point of time,†he said.
Madison Mediahas won a Goldat the Festival of Media Asia-Pacific Awards held in Singapore last week. The agency won the award for its innovation for Saffolalife World Heart Day under the category Public Service Award. The agency also won a bronze for the same campaign under the category of Best Launch Campaign. Madison Media is the only agency from India to win a Gold at the award show held in Singapore.
World Heart Day (WHD) which falls on September 29 every year is a time when Saffola life makes Indians wake up and take note of their heart health using disruptive media campaigns.In 2014, the plan was to get women to take care of their heart because 3 out of every 5 women in India over the age of 35 develop a cholesterol disorder which goes undetected and Heart disease is the No. 1 Killer amongst Women. With WHD falling on a weekday, the strategy was to influence the decision-makers of the organizations, to influence the decision-makers of the households into action and to get men to take a break from their busy life for their wives and take them for a free cholesterol test.
Commenting on this award, Shekhar Banerjee, Sr. Vice President, Madison Media said, “The media strategy not only delivered strong uplift in mind measures but we are proud to say that we saved lives. Over 24 corporate houses encouraged their employees to go for the test and over 1.35 lac individuals finally took cholesterol test.â€
Madison Media Group is the country’s foremost Media agency and has been on an account winning spree, having won a host of new businesses including Amul Hosiery, Viber, Lenskart, Metro Cash and Carry, DHFL and a host of other businesses. The agency was also in the news recently for handling the media mandate for BJP for the national elections and for Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi election.
Madison Media Omega, the Bangalore office of Madison Media Group has been on an account winning spree, having won key accounts including J G Hosiery, the makers of Amul innerwear, Metro Cash and Carry, Zivame, Ashirwad Pipes and Total Environment. All the accounts put together are estimated to spend about 100 crores.
Dinesh Rathore
Commenting on this development, Dinesh Rathore, Chief Operating Officer, said, “Over the last one year our endeavor has been to increase our client portfolio by providing sound strategic advice to our clients and being their trusted communication partners in building their brands and business in the country.â€
Madison Media Group has been on an account winning spree, having won a host of new businesses in 2014 including Lafarge Cement, EPIC channel, Nirav Modi, Senco Gold, Wockhardt Hospitals, Cordlife, Lenskart, DHFL, Viber and the mother of all media accounts of 2014, the media mandate for BJP for the national elections and for Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and the current Delhi election.
Madison Media Sigma, a part of Madison Media Group has won the media mandate of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL). The account was won in a multi-agency pitch that saw participation from Maxus, Lodestar and Zenith Optimedia. The account size is estimated to be Rs 50 crores and the account will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai office.
Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited is India’s second largest housing finance company in the private sector offering a vast array of Home Loan products, including Home Loans, Plot Loans, Construction Loans, Loans against Property, Mortgage Loans and Project Loans. The Company also offers a range of Fixed Deposit products that ensure high yield, safety and liquidity. Further, DHFL offers customized insurance solutions that are designed in association with leading insurance providers.
DHFL has recently signed up Shah Rukh Khan as its Brand Ambassador and has launched an integrated marketing campaign ‘Ghar Jaisa Loan’ featuring Shah Rukh Khan. This is DHFL’s largest ad campaign, since inception in 1984, and is aimed to reinforce the Founder’s Vision of the Company of enabling every Indian to own a home of his own.
The ‘Ghar Jaisa Loan’ campaign centers around how DHFL has been encouraging the lower and middle income segment in India to dream of owning a home. It further describes how the company has been helping customers realise their dream of home ownership through product innovation and deferential service.
Vanita Keswani
Commenting on the campaign, Vijay Sinha, President Housing Finance, DHFL said, “We, at DHFL, have remained committed to our founders vision of “A home for every Indian”. Our mission of enabling this noble vision is truly reflected in our new ad campaign ‘Ghar Jaisa Loan’ in association with Mr. Shah Rukh Khan. The campaign will provide further impetus to our cherished mission of reaching out to a wider audience and support their dreams of having a home of their own, specially amongst the low & middle income segment across the country.” Vanita Keswani, COO, Madison Media Sigma said, “We are delighted with this new win and are confident that we can add strategic value in making the DHFL brand a household name across the country.â€
Madison Media Group has been on an account winning spree, having won a host of new businesses in 2014 including Lafarge Cement, EPIC channel, Nirav Modi, Senco Gold, Total Environment, Wockhardt Hospitals, Zivame, Cordlife,Lenskart and the mother of all media accounts of 2014, the media mandate for BJP for the national elections and for Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and the current Delhi election.
Lenskart.com, India’s largest online retailer of fashionable and stylish eyewear has appointed Platinum Media, a part of Madison Media Group as its media agency.
Commenting on this development, Peyush Bansal, CEO and Founder, Lenskart.com, said “Lenskart has firmly established its brand identity in the mindscape of Indian consumers. As we go along we keep introducing newer conveniences for our patrons such as the home eye check-up programme, try-before-you-buy, virtual studio etc. Through our association with the Madison Media Group, we wish to create a consistent and effective engagement with our new and existing customers and attain new heights of brand loyalty and salience.”
Said Basabdatta Chowdhuri, CEO, Platinum Media: “We are delighted with our partnership with Lenskart and are confident that we can add strategic value to this online brand and make it a household name across the country.”
Your position would be like that of Serena and Venus Williams’ father – to have one daughter win and the other lose, isn’t it?
