Tag: Mindshare India

  • WARC announces winners of ‘Effective Use of Brand Purpose’ award

    By A Correspondent

     

    Campaigns for premium vodka Absolut, fast-food restaurant KFC, museum Louvre Abu Dhabi, antiperspirant Rexona and feminine care brand Stayfree are among the winners of the Effective Use of Brand Purpose category of this year’s WARC Awards, a global search for next-generation marketing effectiveness.

     

    Thirteen campaigns from around the world – one Grand Prix, four Golds, three Silvers and five Bronzes – have been selected as winners in the category, which rewards marketing initiatives that have successfully embraced a brand purpose and achieved commercial success as well as a benefit for a wider community. Three special awards, recognising specific areas of excellence, have also been given.

     

    Mindshare India won a Gold and the Evaluation Award with a campaign for Lifebuoy from Hindustan Unilever. ‘The Adaptive Data Lighthouse’ campaign targeted the people most at risk of infections preventable by good hand hygiene to increase sales in rural

     

    A campaign by FP7 McCann Dubai for Babyshop has won the Grand Prix and the Smart Spender Award. In ‘Al Umobuwah – Putting ‘Mum’ into ‘Parenthood’, the children’s retailer used a multichannel approach and created a new Arabic word that embraced the concepts of both motherhood and fatherhood (the Arabic word for parenthood translates only to fatherhood) in order to drive brand meaning – and sales – in the Middle East.

     

    Commenting on the Grand Prix winner, judge Nazia du Bois, Founder, Principal Consultant, rice bowl, said: “Inserting a word into what’s essentially a hermetically sealed language is remarkable, especially given the 50k budget.”

     

     

  • Mindshare and Idea launch AI led video-chat bot ad to educate users

    By A Correspondent

     

    Mindshare has launched an interactive campaign with Mallika Dua – a leading comedian and social media influencer, as part of Idea 4G #IndiaKaLiveNetwork initiative. The campaign is an attempt to bring alive the experience of video calling with a renowned celebrity in real time.

     

    Mindshare and Idea 4G unveiled a distinctive voice-enabled AI-led interactive video chat bot ad campaign that enabled millions of users to interview Dua.  This has never been attempted before in the digital mobile ad-space, and was co-created by mCanvas, the experiential storytelling ad platform for small screens.

     

    Speaking about the launch of the campaign Niraj Ruparel, National Head – Mobile, Mindshare India said: “We at Mindshare always look forward to crafting innovative and effective solutions for brands. Idea, as a brand, does not shy away from taking an unconventional path when it comes to communication. With the video-chat bot ad we have come together to create a first of its kind innovation on an effective platform. By leveraging on Mallika Dua’s popularity, and Idea’s 4G network, we are hopeful of bringing about a change in people’s behaviour, and habits, as well as encourage more people to go Live to highlight societal issues.”

     

    Added Sunita Bangard, President Marketing Vodafone Idea Ltd: “Over the years, brand Idea has built a strong reputation for creating purposeful, conscientious campaigns that encourage change for the betterment of society. The Idea 4G #IndiaKaLiveNetwork campaign highlighted the power of streaming live videos over Idea’s robust 4G network thereby driving a positive change in behaviour among citizens. In its endeavor to engage with the digital natives, Brand Idea has always tried digital first initiatives for our ATL campaigns, many of which have been appreciated and rewarded at various digital forums. Our innovative AI and ML aided campaign has set new benchmarks in digital advertising.”

     

     

  • Mindshare, Madison bag top honours at Smarties

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced winners of its 2018 Smarties India Awards held on Friday, September 28 in conjunction with MMA Forum India

     

    Mindshare India and Madison Communications led the most wins, receiving 14 and 7 awards respectively across 19 categories, ranging from Brand Awareness, Most Engaging Mobile Creative and Social Impact/Not for Profit, amongst others. In the industry awards segment, Flipkart Internet was awarded ‘Publisher of the Year’, Mindshare India was recognised as ‘Agency of the Year in Mobile’ while MTV Roadies clinched both the esteemed ‘Marketer of the Year’ and ‘Best in Show’ with ‘When India Dared to Stare’ by Madison Communications.

     

    Before the awards ceremony, the MMA Forum was held where topics around managing the complex marketing landscape, and mobile attribution was discussed. There were also conversations around mobile video and over-the-top (OTT) distribution.

     

    Said Priya Nair, Executive Director of Homecare Hindustan Unilever Limited, and Jury Chair of MMA Smarties India said: “This year’s winners exhibited beyond the brand’s story and connected with the user. Their campaigns showcased creative concepts and innovative technology that lead to real business impact. With so many outstanding and innovative campaigns competing against each other, the jury panel inevitably had a tough time choosing the winners. Congratulations to all, the awards are truly well-deserved.”

     

    Added Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of MMA in Asia Pacific: “As more brands realise the importance of mobile marketing, producing outstanding campaigns becomes a challenge. The Smarties Awards encourages marketers and agencies to push beyond their comfort zone. Year after year, the standards and creativity put forth continue to impress us. I also believe that the Forum serves as a great launch pad for new ideas, which we will see in the upcoming Awards next year.”

     

     

  • Mindshare India solidifies leadership team to drive business

    By A Correspondent

     

    Mindshare has announced further organisational restructuring.

     

    Ruchi Mathur who was responsible for growth with Mindshare – North now has an expanded remit as Senior Vice President, Client Leadership, Mindshare North & East. Mathur will work with Amin Lakhani, President – Client Leadership India in her new role.

     

    Meanwhile, Saket Sinha will work with Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia, and lead m/six India as Senior Vice President, Client Leadership, m/Six India, focusing exclusively on growing and leading the brand.

     

    Speaking on the elevations, Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia, said: “Ruchi and Saket are both dynamic leaders with strong networks in the market, as well as with consumers and clients. We are very excited with the opportunities across the landscape and we are sure that the army of leadership we have in the organisation will produce great results to our clients and therefore a successful journey for us.”

     

     

  • G-Man goes Fast Forward in a global strategy role

    By A Correspondent

     

    Gowthaman Ragothaman

    In all the hullabaloo of the news channels taking on BARC, we didn’t flash this news early enough (note: we’ve resisted playing with the word Fast so far), but it does gladden our hearts to note that our man G-Man is going places. The Mindshare APAC Chief Operating Officer now assumes the role of Global Chief Strategy Officer for FAST. G-Man for those who don’t know is short for Gowthaman Ragothaman, the affable former chief of Mindshare India (until end-2011).

     

    Mindshare, the global media agency that is part of WPP, is placing its FAST (short for Future Adaptive Specialist Team) integrated performance unitat the heart of its business as part of an ongoing transformation programme evolving the agency into an Adaptive Marketing organisation…to help clients do the same.

     

    Norm Johnston

    Norm Johnston, formerly Mindshare Global Chief Strategy and Digital Officer, assumes the dual role of Global Chief Digital Officer Mindshare and Global CEO of FAST as part of the move.

     

    Other appointments to the FAST leadership team include: Gowthaman Ragothaman of course,Barry Lee, currently head of the London-based Mindshare Worldwide FAST Hub, who adds the additional role of Chief Product Officer for FAST; Tom Johnson, currently Performance Marketing Director at Mindshare Worldwide, who takes the role of Chief Client Officer for FAST; Adam Ray, formerly Global Head of Programmatic at Mindshare Worldwide, who assumes the role of Chief Innovation Officer for FAST.

     

    The global FAST team will be supported by the regional FAST Hub leaders: Robin Wong (APAC), Matias Galimberti (LATAM) andBrian Decicco (NA).

     

    Said Nick Emery, Mindshare Global CEO: “Clients need us to marry our abilities in brand building and outcome based performance marketing. FAST has been a key part of our overall integrated offer to clients and with Norm’s leadership team we are looking forward to helping our clients achieve greater success. There is much more to come on our transformation journey.”

     

    Added Norm Johnston, Mindshare Worldwide Chief Digital Officer and CEO of FAST: “We believe that modern Adaptive Marketers need to be experts in both brand and performance marketing and that only by offering an integrated approach will we truly achieve success for our clients, making their messaging relevant, timely and targeted whether it is brand or demand in nature. That is why FAST sits at the heart of an integrated Mindshare offering, not as an external agency.”

     

  • What is the real size of Indian Ad Industry?

     

    By Indrani Sen

    Last week was exciting for the advertising and media industry as the two major reports on industry Adex were released on two consecutive days. GroupM released its ‘This Year Next Year’(TYNY) 2017 report on February 14 followed by the release of ‘Pitch Madison Advertising Report’(PMAR) 2017 by Madison on February 15. In the last few days, both the reports have been published and analysed in the business newspapers and websites, leaving hardly any scope for adding any comment on the same.

    As usual there is a difference between the two projections, this time it is of around Rs 5000 crore. The biannual report on advertising expenditure TYNY 2017 has forecast India’s advertising investment to reach an estimated Rs 61,204 crore in 2017 based on a growth rate of 10% over 2016. On the other hand, PMAR 2017 has projected a growth of 13.5% in 2017 over 2016 and has estimated the size of the industry to reach Rs 56,152 crore.

    According to Sam Balsara, AdEx dropped by Rs 1650 crore in the last two months of 2016 after demonetisation and as a result, the industry adspends narrowly missed the mark of crossing Rs 50,000 crore. On the other hand, the GroupM report, Indian advertising industry clocked Rs 49,758 crore in 2015 and crossed the Rs 50,000 crore mark comfortably in 2016 by scoring Rs 55,671 crores. Madison estimated Indian adspends as Rs 43,991 crores in 2015, Rs 49,480 in 2016 and has projected Rs 56,152 crore in 2017. The difference, between the two sets of estimates, has been hovering between Rs 5000 to Rs 6000 crore, which is not a small amount.

    If we compare the two sets of estimates by medium, we find that the major difference lies in the estimates of TV advertising expenditure, which is bit surprising as TV AdEx is very well-documented. Is there a difference in the way the two estimates are drawn up which leads to a gap of almost Rs 6000 crores between the estimated TV advertising expenditures?

     

    PMAR has shown more favourable estimates for Print and Outdoor than TYNY, while TYNY estimates for Radio and Cinema are higher than the estimates of PMAO. It is interesting to note that for Digital medium, the two estimates ran neck-and-neck for 2016 and are quite close for 2017.

    GroupM Report mentions that Media Adex reported do not include:

    • TV – special inventory like astons, L-bands, tickers, etc
    • Print – tender notices, appointments, classifieds/ matrimonial
    • Radio – activation spends
    • Digital – ad spends by SME segment
    • Outdoor – wall painting

    The above leads us to conclude that the numbers shown in the TYNY for the above five media would be actually higher than their estimations, particularly for Radio, where activation/ events tied up with digital has become a major source of earning for the FM radio stations.

    The Pitch Madison Advertising Report does not mention about the ad expenditures which are not covered in the report, but we can assume that Madison also has not covered the above expenditures which are not included in Media AdEx in their report.

    So, what is the real size of the Indian Ad Industry? Are we yet to cross the Rs 50,000 crore mark or did we cross it last year?

     

    Indrani Sen is a media services veteran, having worked with JWT, later Mindshare and then with Emami. In recent years, she is an independent consultant and academic. She is Adjunct Professor incharge of the Media Management programme at the Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Pune. The views expressed here are her own.

     

  • Shortlists announced for APAC edition of MMA Smarties Awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has announced the final awards shortlist for the 2016 APAC edition of the MMA Smarties Awards, the mobile awards that honours innovation, creativity and success in the field of mobile marketing both regionally and globally. Mindshare India leads with 23 nominations in total, while Mindshare Indonesia and PHD India follow closely behind with 7 and 5 nominations on the list respectively.

     

    The awards feature new categories: Social Impact/Not for Profit; Cross Screen Advertising; Programmatic; Mobile Native; Tablet Campaign; Mobile Social; Mobile Video; Mobile Audio. Aimed at honoring excellent work on mobile by both brands and agencies, the categories are born out of a recognition of the ever-increasing prominence of mobile in the region, and the new, creative operational technologies powering the medium. The 2016 Awards are presented in partnership with Kantar Millward Brown.

     

    Commenting on the shortlist, Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of Mobile Marketing Association in Asia Pacific said, “There was a fantastic range of entries this year that demonstrate creative thinking and strategic execution, and as always, the decision-making process was challenging. The jury panel, including myself, was impressed by the way each of the shortlisted campaigns leveraged mobile’s interactive capabilities to deliver real business results. We hope this year’s winning campaigns continue to serve as an inspiration, and push the industry beyond the predictable in mobile.”

     

    From among brands, Unilever stood out by landing 32 nominations across Indonesia, India, China and Thailand. PepsiCo is the next in line, with 11 nominations for its work in Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Winners will be celebrated at an awards dinner at the 2016 MMA Forum Singapore on Friday, 28 October 2016.

     

  • Mindshare & HUL bag top Emvies honours

     

    While the city was getting set for the dhol tasha brigade for Ganesh Chaturthi, at Lower Parel’s St Regis Hotel, there was another kind of drumbeating and hooting. It was the evening of Emvies 2016, the biggest and most coveted awards for media agencies in India.

     

    Ad Club President Raj Nayak initiated the event (emceed yet again by Brian Tellis) by stating that the 16th edition of Emvies is special not only because it is his first time as the President but this time all records have been broken with close to 1000 entries coming in. He set the tone of the evening by finishing his speech with the chants of ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya!’

     

    Mindshare maintained the top spot in the 2016 Emvies, with eight Gold, 18 Silvers and 15 Bronze metals. The agency has always had anexciting run at the Emvies, winning the media agency of the year award for six straight years till 2013. In Emvies 2014, Maxus broke Mindshare’s winning streak and won the top agency title. “One is you are habituated to doing something different. You get habituated to doing something that is working for your brands. There is a sense of responsibility that comes from leadership and being a leader in the market. Our job is to challenge the status quo and get the work done for the brands. The end result is that we are winning awards,” said Prasanth Kumar, Mindshare, CEO South Asia, about the reason behind their success.

     

    The agency’s golden run included Best Media Strategy–Consumer Products- for Hindustan Unilever Limited’s (HUL) ‘6 Pack Band’ for Brooke Bond Red Label. In the Best Media Innovation –Branded Content, Mindshare swept up two silvers. The first came for the award winning Brooke Bond Red Label campaign, while the second was for PepsiCo India’s ‘Pepsi- When consumers became co-marketers’. They also won gold for HUL’s ‘Before Iftar time, its Lifebuoy time’ for Lifebuoy in the Best Media Innovation: Digital-Mobile. The Grand Emvie was bagged by Mindshare and Pepsi for  ‘Pepsi- When consumers became co-marketers’.

     

    Lodestar UM and Maxus were tied at the second place in the media agency tally with 135 points. The former won six gold, three silver and three bronze metals while the later won four gold, five silver and five bronze metals. Lodestar UM gave a tough fight to both Maxus and Madison Media. Half-way through the results there was tug of war going between these three for the second, third and fourth position. But at the end, Madison Media had to settle for the fourth position with 75 points. Speaking about their win, Dhruv Jha, GM, IPG Media Brands said, “We always love winning and we always have been winners. IPG Media and Lodestar UM plus Initiative Media, we have done really well today. We had a shortlist of about 14 and we have converted 12 of them. I was confident we are going to win but winning so big was a little surprise, but when we came close we knew we were there.”

     

    The other big award of the evening, Best Media Client of the Year went to HUL. “The biggest award that we get is the kind of love consumers have for our brands and that is what we work for. But it is always nice to have peer appreciation for the work that we do and it is inspiring and pushes us to do more. You get appreciation for something consumers responded to positively and loved it. That is the reason why we feel awards are important,” said Gaurav Jeet Singh, Head, Media Services, HUL, after the win.

     

    Another highlight of this year’s Emvies was the entry of the newbies like The Social Street and ibs in the Top 15 of the point’s tally, with The Social Street finishing seventh with 35 points.

     

     

     

  • It’s a Grand Prix for Mindshare!

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    It’s been happy days for the Indian contingent at Cannes.

     

    Some rich pickings in the awards that were presented on Monday evening, the second day of the International Festival of Creativity, better known as the Cannes Lions.

     

    After Medulla being crowned the ‘Healthcare Agency of the Year’ on Day 1, Day 3 saw really rich pickings for India, even though there may have been some disappointments for a few favourites.

     

    Mindshare India bagged the Grand Prix for Glass Lions for ‘The 6-Pack Band’, a branded content campaign for Hindustan Unilever’s Brooke Bond Red Label tea.

     

    This is the second consecutive year where an Indian agency has won a Grand Prix in the Glass Lions. Last year, it was BBDO India for Touch the Pickle. The award was picked up by Ashutosh Srivastava and Gowthaman Ragothaman as Mindshare South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar was in Mumbai.

     

    Meanwhile, BBDO India and Ogilvy bagged Gold at Glass Lions for their works ‘Ariel Matic – Dad, SharetheLoad’ and ‘Make Love Not Scars – Beauty Tips by Reshma’ respectively.

     

    Earlier in the evening, in Radio Lions, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi was awarded two Silvers for Thomas Cook and Contract Advertising won a Bronze for Nokia in the same category. In Print & Publishing, JWT won a Bronze for its Sleep Apnoea campaign. In Promo & Activation, Leo Burnett India brought home a Bronze Lion for Bajaj V.

     

  • Lodestar UM wins Media AoR of Century Ply

    By A Correspondent

     

    Century Ply, one of India’s leading and most trusted name in branded plywood, laminates and veneer category has moved its entire media AoR to Lodestar UM. The account moves out from Mindshare who have been handling it for more than a decade.

     

    The current mandate for Lodestar UM spans across all products of Century Ply.

     

    Talking about this shift Amit Kumar Gope – Group Marketing Head, Century Ply said, “It was not an easy decision to part ways with our existing agency. However Lodestar UM opened a whole new chapter in front of us through their understanding of the plywood market. Their media solution was focused on an alloy of strategy, basis sound consumer insight and portfolio management. We are confident with this partnership looking at our massive expansion in the near future.”

     

    Nandini Dias

    Nandini Dias – CEO, Lodestar UM added, “We went ahead with a simple yet compelling strategy rooted in consumer insight. Lodestar UM always believes that strategy lies at the heart of understanding the consumer and that solutions should connect with the audience being media agnostic.”

     

    Century Plyboards in a very short span has created a niche for itself and is the market leader in this sector. CPIL today manufactures the entire range of commercial, marine, shuttering and decorative plywood. It has also started manufacturing and marketing laminates under the brand name ‘Century Laminates’ and pre-lam particle boards named as ‘Century Prelam’.

     

  • John Thangaraj is Mindshare’s strategy head for North

    By A Correspondent

     

    John Thangaraj

    Mindshare has announced the appointment of John Thangaraj as Head of Strategy for the Northern region. Mr Thangaraj will assume responsibility for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients.

     

    In his last role, he was Vice President – Strategic Planning at Lowe, where he was responsible for the product planning on a cluster of brands including Wills Lifestyle, Nestle Confectionary, Hindustan Times, Dabur Real, Shine.com, Woodland, Expedia.co.in and OLX.in.

     

    Announcing the appointment, Alok Sinha, Leader – Strategy (South Asia) said, “We are glad to welcome John to Mindshare and the extended GroupM family. He’s got category and industry experience, and is a great team leader. I am confident he will be able to lead the strategy division to even greater heights.”

     

    Ravi Rao

    Ravi Rao, Leader South Asia, Mindshare said, “I am pleased to welcome John. He has the combination between being imaginative, strategic and entrepreneurial that our strategy community and clients need.

     

    Commenting on what he hopes to achieve at Mindshare, Mr Thangaraj said, First and foremost, I hope to future proof myself. I have a strong belief in the fact that ‘advertising’ as is currently practiced in India does not have a shelf life of more than a decade (at the very most).

     

  • Mindshare India flag flies high at FOMA

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Ever since he took charge in late 2011, Mindshare India boss Ravi Rao has been living out of his suitcase and smartphones. The back-to-back meeting with clients and pitches leaves him little time for much else. While we don’t think these cruel hours at work are healthy, the hard work is paying off. Mr Rao is delighted by the “good, all-round show – right from the effectiveness award for Slice, Pepsico to HUL winning on the back of strong entries”.

     

    The competition was indeed tough, including that coming from within the Group M stable. At the Festival of Media Asia, the premier destination for media agencies and professionals, Mindshare was the Network of the Year.

     

    Other than Mindshare, the top honours went to Million Reasons to Believe in Thailand (Campaign of the Year) submitted by Initiative Thailand for Coca-Cola, OMD Hong Kong (Agency of the Year). The winners in these categories were determined by a points system based on entries appearing in the shortlist and the list of highly commended and winning entries.

     

    Winners were selected from a shortlist of 117 campaigns, presented to an expert panel of 27 industry judges, led by Leonardo O’Grady, ASEAN Integrated Marketing and Communications Director, Coca-Cola. The gruelling two-day judging process saw much deliberation and debate, resulting in the final list of winners.

     

    The 2013 Festival of Media Asia Awards were presented at a gala event at the Sentosa Cove in Singapore last night (March 5). Awards were presented to winners vying across 15 open categories, with an additional three grand prix awards. There were over 400 submissions from over 10 markets across the region.

     

    “We held every entry to the highest standard,” said Leonardo O’Grady, ASEAN Integrated Marketing and Communications Director, Coca-Cola. “We had to make some difficult decisions. Many of the entries were of such a high quality that we struggled to find a clear winner, and one of the things that emerged was that the lines between content and communication have become blurred.”

     

    Mr O’Grady continued, “The Best Communications and Mobile categories were hotly contested and we have also seen some great wins from Thailand, Australia and India.”

     

    “Each and every one of these winners deserves the recognition they have received from the jury.” said Charlie Crowe, Founder of the Festival and CEO of C-Squared, the organizers of the event. “We have seen some exemplary campaigns that have been able to change minds and move people. They represent the best work coming out of Asia, and demonstrate the sheer creative energy and calibre of the industry in this region.”

     

    The Awards ceremony was the grand finale for the three-day Festival of Media Asia 2013, held in Singapore for the second time. This year’s event brought together over 600 influential delegates and over 40 speakers from across Asia and the globe.

     

    The Festival included case studies, panel discussions, and presentations focused around the theme of Mobility. The Festival’s day programme ended with M.A.P, a speed round of presentations from innovative companies looking to be named Hot Company of the Year (according to audience votes) which saw Future Ad Labs emerging on top, as well as the Rising Star Award for promising young talent which went to Stella Su (Yen-Wen Su) from Starcom Taiwan.

     

    Ravi Rao

    As for Ravi Rao, he’s sitting back, delighted. At the shortlists revealed for the Media Abby at Goafest, his agency leads with 20 shortlists. Back to the FOMA wins, he told MxMIndia: “I am extremely proud of the teams including those that made it and got shortlisted.” And what’s next: “Another year and now Goafest beckons.” Well said.

     

    The full list of Festival of Media Asia Award winners is available online at www.festivalofmedia.com/asia/awards.