MxMIndia

Tag: Navin Shenoy

  • The aim was to normalise the existence of a peeking bra strap

    MTV India, Dentsu Webchutney launch ‘Baar Bra Dekho’

    By A Correspondent

     

    A visible bra strap has been long used as a patriarchal tool to shame women into falling in-line with the stigma attached to bra straps. Consequently, MTV India with Dentsu Webchutney decided to launch – ‘Baar Bra Dekho’ – to address this issue. The aim was to normalise the existence of a peeking bra strap.

     

    Speaking on the initiative, Navin Shenoy, Marketing Head, Youth, Music, and English Entertainment, Viacom18 said: “Women are leaping ahead in every field. But instead of talking about their laurels, they are still being judged and questioned about what they wear. Criticising their peeking bra straps in 2020 is shameful and not even worth a consideration. Taking this issue head on, we are proud to present MTV Baar Bra Dekho, a thought-provoking initiative that distinctively questions the regressive stereotypes women are subjected to. It’s imperative to change the narrative. Starting this Women’s Day, we urge the youth of this country to celebrate the spirit of freedom and womanhood, the MTV way.”

     

    Added Aalap Desai, Executive Creative Director, Dentsu Webchutney: “Creativity comes in all shapes and forms. When we found this powerful insight in our culture, we wanted to have a strong point-of-view on it. We wanted to go all out and attack this mindset at its very roots. So, we decided to make the bra strap itself our media vehicle to convey our message in the most noticeable way ever. By becoming the voice of the bra strap, we became the voice of millions of Indian women who were refusing to be silent anymore.”

     

     

  • The study draws insights from over 25,000 + youngsters across 400+ towns, continuing to dish out the latest youth trends for over a decade

    MTV Insights Studio unveils youth insights study

    By A Correspondent

     

    MTV Insights Studio has released its youth insights study titled ‘MTV Mera Bharat Amazeballs’. The study focuses on the changing mindsets of Indian youth who are resolute to make India great again.

     

    Speaking about the need of an in-depth study on youth behaviour, Ferzad Palia, Head – Voot Select, Youth, Music & English Entertainment Viacom18 said: “For over two decades, MTV has led the way in understanding the pulse of its young audience and has been a pop culture icon. Deep consumer insights and continuous engagement with our audience is at the heart of how we‘ve managed to lead trends over decades. We’re proud to share our learnings with the world.”

     

    The study reflects unique choices and preferences that define young India. Going by its title, the study explores the multi-dimensional and conscientious facets of the youth – highlighting their belief in a new India, that is replete with opportunities and progress and in alignment with their world view. Going local and thinking global is now the emergent code of new-age cool. The study covers insights from 25,000 + youngsters across 400+ cities between the age of 15 – 25 years. The five key themes of the study are – ‘Make India Great Again’, ‘Bharat = India’, ‘Girl on Top’, ‘Thank God Its Family’ and ‘I am Who I am’.

     

    Navin Shenoy

    Commenting on the change in youth’s mindsets, Navin Shenoy, Head of Marketing -Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18 added: “Mera Bharat Amazeballs is an inward look into the changing demographic of young India and brings to light what makes them tick and what ticks them off. Despite being a generation high on social media, the youth today is passionate, positive and action oriented committed to create a society, where everyone matters. These insights are relevant to the entire ecosystem that caters to the ever-evolving consumption cycle of youth.”

  • Well, that’s what Navin Shenoy, Marketing Head of Youth, Music & English Entertainment at Viacom18 seems to say after bagging the Creative Company of the Year at Goafest

    Big creative agencies, beware. MTV can do your job, cheaper

     

    At the Creative Abby awards at Goafest 2019, Viacom18 bagged the coveted Creative Company of the Year pipping legacy agency brands in the rankings roster. MxMIndia caught up with Navin Shenoy, Head Marketing of Youth, Music and English Entertainment at Viacom18 to get his views on the win….

     

    MxMIndia: You should be celebrating, instead you are looking very serious?

     

    Navin Shenoy: Me? I am always a serious kind of a guy.

     

    Congratulations on being the Creative Company of the Year at the Abby at Goafest.

    Thank you so much. We are very thrilled at this. We got a fantastic team back at MTV and I think we have been in a period of transition for a while now. And finally, all of this is coming together. It’s working out for us. So, we are really thrilled. The whole team is over the moon.

     

    We have always known MTV to be a frontrunner in terms of creative output. You do think out of the box etc. But to be the creative company of the year at the Abby is dramatic. You have many creative biggies participating – okay, not all of them, and there are digital agencies. As a marketer, can you assess this and put in reference to the rest of the industry?

    Well, I think all the old structures are changing massively in terms of how a marketer should look at the options in terms of partners. I think for us everybody is competition. Advertising agencies are competition, media agencies are competition. We are currently in a place where we are able to provide a full 360-degree solution. We are able to provide creative, we are able to provide inventory and media, we are able to provide customised solutions, we have an insights studio which gives great insights into youth. So, I think there is a lot of hard work that has gone behind pulling this together and I think it’s come at a great time for us. It gives us more impetus to take this forward.

     

    ¥ou have worked across the spectrum in terms of organisations, FMCGs, telcos etc. Since you have got an award like this do you see other organisations also doing the same… get into creative mode?

    Yeah. Sure. I think innovation is now a given. Earlier, it used to be 20% of what possibly organisations used to do. I think unless you’re innovative and creative an organisation is more likely to be built to crash. The earlier paradigms that were built to last are far gone. Most organisation are built to crash if they are not built for innovation or creativity. And I think this is an important lesson for everybody saying that you need to keep re-inventing yourself. It’s unlikely that the same framework will be used for evaluation. What’s going to happen is that media, digital, creative, marketing, all of those technology, all of those are likely to collapse into a single sort of structure. And whichever organisations are best placed to take advantage of that are the ones who are likely to win, and we are hoping to be one of those. Hopefully this award sets us on the path forward.

     

    You have also worked with agencies in the past. Do you think that there is a message here for the traditional agencies? Today, you have won the Creative Abby. Tomorrow, you could be winning the Effies?

    Right. Definitely there is a message for everyone, including us. You would have heard of Accenture buying Droga5. Now, Drog5 is a creative hotshop and Accenture is known for its consulting jobs. Now what’s happening is an Accenture is actually looking at the other end of the spectrum and they have acquired a Droga5 to try and play the whole spectrum. Similarly, we seem to be in a great position now, to be able to play the whole creative to media spectrum. So, the message – rather a lesson – for every other company is that if you end up being unidimensional, you are not innovating, you are not able to provide across the spectrum, it’s likely to be a sign that you are going to struggle in the times to come.

     

    But does this also put pressure on you? Because till now, you were concerned about television and other platforms. Does this now put a new kind of pressure on you – of achieving the impossible on the creative front

    Yeah. It does, but we love this pressure. We think we are doing some great work and hopefully there will be other people who will believe so as well. And we love this pressure and we are going to take this to a whole new level. And I believe in the next 12-24 months MTV is poised to take this up quite a few notches.

     

    Winners at Goafest Abby also go on to enter other awards. Are you looking at trying elsewhere too?

    Of course, we are. Our ambitions are sky high. Recognition is a byproduct. We intend to do world class work that cuts it across the board on all platforms and Cannes would be an important platform. So, like I said in the next 12-24 months we are expecting to do work that is global, that is hitting global standards, that is setting the standards for other brands and in that sense hopefully Cannes will be one of the byproducts.

     

    For the benefit of people who are not aware of things, how large is your creative team?

    Well, we have got an interesting bunch of people there. I think the diversity and the width is what makes us unique. We have got a set of people who are craft-driven, people who are production- and creative- and video- driven. So, that’s one unique perspective that we bring to the table. We have got a set of people who are brand solutions-driven… who are creative but can think, like say, what a classical traditional agency might think? We have got a set of marketers who think for the business and finally, we have got a set of research people who are part-anthropologists, part-media experts, part-youth experts and these are people who bring pure life insights to the table. I think the potent mix is when we bring all four of these together and we put a solution on the table, or we put any output on the table. Whether it’s for brand MTV or whether it’s for a brand who has come to us for a customised solution. I think that is really the X factor that is giving us the edge.

     

    So how large is your team?

    This is a totally a team of around 30 people. We prefer to keep it lean. We are very picky about the people we chose to be in this crack team. But yeah, it’s working for us well. As the business expands, hopefully, we will add more people to the team.

     

    Lean? Thirty people makes to be the size of a smallish agency. Are you open to doing to work for others as well?

    Of course, we are. You know, as I met other people at the Goafest this time, I have been telling them that as I have been hearing them go to production houses with ideas where they have struggled to manage costs. I think one of the things, that is happening is on an average a marketer is getting an ad film for, let’s say, Rs 50-70 lakhs in the ballpark. And I think we can do a very good job of this because we are in an ecosystem. We do it for our own brand and for other brand as brand solutions. So, I have been telling a lot of my friends in creative agencies, all my friends in marketing organisations that they should look at us as an option.

     

    So could well be providing some competition to the existing biggies?

    Absolutely. Why not?

     

     

  • Senior advertising professionals from across the globe reiterated the fact that creativity still ruled the roost despite the advent of high technology in the making of advertising commercials, notes Rahul Chandawarkar

    Day2@Goafest2019: Creativity takes centrestage

    By Rahul Chandawarkar

     

    BAMBOLIM (Goa): Creativity took centrestage on Day 2 of Goafest 2019. Senior advertising professionals from across the globe reiterated the fact that creativity still ruled the roost despite the advent of high technology in the making of advertising commercials.

     

    Gordon Bowen, founder and global chairman of McGarryBowen was of the opinion that creativity would always outlast data. Bowen who was speaking in the morning session of the Knowledge Seminar sponsored by Colors Marathi said that contemporary advertising was creativity led, data supported and technology driven. Driving home his point, Bowen said: “Even the Bible says that God is the creator. Creativity will always remain relevant.”

     

    Day2@Goafest2019: Key Takeaways

    :: Creativity would always outlast data

    :: Majority of the Fortune 500 companies were stagnating and losing the battle to smarter, swifter, digitally savvy companies.

    :: Speed was of essence in the transformation process.

    :: The three key stages of transformation were business transformation, experiential transformation and marketing transformation.

    :: The #Women Not Objects campaign initiated by Badger and Winters agency had made a positive impact in the USA.

    :: The youth in metro and non-metro India no longer thought differently.

     

    Rahul Chandawarkar, a former newspaper editor, is a communications strategist and active triathlete based in Goa. He has been covering the Goafest for mxmindia.com since 2017.

     

     

    Bowen shared several video clips of award winning advertising campaigns designed by his company for United Airlines, Chrysler, Hallmark cards and Chevron where the common thread clearly was the high level of creativity.

     

    Bowen, an unabashed fan of the Indian advertising world, complimented it for its ‘three-pronged’ strengths of being collaborative, humane and passionate.

     

    The same thread was carried forward by Barry Wacksman, vice chairman and global chief strategy officer at R/GA in the afternoon session of the Knowledge Seminar sponsored by MX Player. Pointing out how majority of the Fortune 500 companies had stagnated as they had lost the marketing battle to smaller, more digitally savvy companies, Wacksman said that transformation was the need of the hour for all of them.

     

    Wacksman, who stressed the need for speed in the transformation process, said that it constituted three stages, namely, business transformation, experiential transformation and marketing transformation. He further explained each stage with an advertising intervention created by his company which had helped the client manifold.

     

    For business transformation, Wacksman gave the example of how a banking app (Next Bank) was created in Brazil to encourage the younger generation to use banking services. In the example on experiential transformation, Wacksman explained how his company had used a video of basketball ace Michael Jordan taking a dunk shot wearing a particular model of Nike shoes. This resulted in record sales within two hours of the video being uploaded on the Android platform. Similarly, by introducing a gaming character called ‘Galaxy Skin’ on the Samsung Galaxy Note Pad 9 mobile phone, sales of over 240% was achieved for consumers in the 18-24 age group.

     

    Earlier in the day, Madonna Badger, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Badger and Winters grabbed everybody’s attention when she spoke of her company’s highly visible, #Women Not Objects campaign across the USA. Badger who showed the audience multiple, contemporary product advertisements in which women have been portrayed as mere objects said, “This is an unacceptable situation. Women cannot be portrayed as mere objects.”

     

    Badger also shared a video survey undertaken by her company across the USA which showed how this advertising was having a negative impact on school-going children. Badger has even taken her campaign to the Cannes Lions International festival of creativity to reach out to the advertising fraternity at large.

     

    In the afternoon session, Navin Shenoy, marketing head, youth, music and English entertainment at Viacom 18 made a presentation on the topic of ‘MTV Youth Insights’ giving the audience a peep into MTV’s research wing.

     

    Quoting research figures, Shenoy pointed out the youth in metro and non-metro India no longer thought differently. A significant takeaway of Shenoy’s presentation was that youth from non-metro India was increasingly comfortable living and working in his/her hometowns.

     

    According to Shenoy much of this transformation was because of the reach of television, the internet and social media across the length and breadth of India.

     

    Day 2 at Goafest 2019 was also highly entertaining owing to some very interesting sessions like the one featuring Bollywood actress, Kalki Koechlin and emerging actor, Siddhant Chaturvedi of ‘Gully Boy’ fame and cricketer Virender Sehwag, who had the audience in splits with his easy-going humour.

     

    Child prodigy Harshwardhansinh Zala, all of 16 years old and founder of the Aerobotics 7 technology company had the audience awestruck, while Lt Gen DS Hooda ( retd), the Northern Army commander during the 2016 surgical strikes into Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) stirred patriotic emotions and Bollywoood singer Jonita Gandhi had everybody tapping their feet and clapping their hands with her peppy music.