Media agency major topped the metals tally at the Media Abby awards held on Day 1 of Goafest 2016. Mindshare was awarded two Golds, six Silvers and nine Bronze metals. The first runner-up was sibling Maxus with seven metals (one Gold, two Silvers and four Bronzes).
The parameters we were looking for was work that is fresh and unique, said Pratap Bose, Jury Chair of the Media Awards, adding that the jury did not find any of the shortlisted entries making the cut for a Grand Prix, the highest level of the awards.
Lodestar UM and Madison Media secured six metals each with four Silvers and two Bronze awards. New entrant The Social Street won two golds and two silvers.
There were a total of 76 agencies which participated in the Media Abby, sending in 1015 entries this year. The number of jury members was 86 and a total of 77 metals were awarded (11 Golds, 36 Silvers and 30 Bronzes).
For Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia, it is a continuation of the agency’s winning ways after the agency coming out tops at last year’s Emvies Awards of the Advertising Club. “Yes, we ended 2015 with 176 awards and this year has also been equally spectacular,†he said, adding that the emphasis is on providing innovative solution to clients to break the clutter and fragmentation.
Along with the Media Abby, the Publisher Abby awards were also presented. Dainik Jagran newspaper was presented 10 of the 17 awards.
Mindshare has been named the Agency Network of the Year at the Festival of Media Asia Pacific Awards 2016.
The agency won 12 awards across multiple categories, markets and clients in the regional competition, and took home the most Gold trophies on the night:
:: Best Targeted Campaign (Gold) for KFC – How KFC Won with China’s Gamers, China
:: Best Use of Mobile (Gold) for Heineken – Where Next? Let Heineken Lead You, Malaysia
:: Best Use of Mobile (Bronze) for Unilever, Sunlight – Sunlight Mobile Campaign, Sri Lanka
:: Best Content Creation (Bronze) for Brooke Bond Red Label – Stories of Togetherness, India
:: Best Social Media Strategy (Silver) for Showcase – Foxtel Game of Thrones -Home of Thrones, Australia
:: Best Use of Digital Media (Silver) for KFC – How KFC Won with China’s Gamers, China
:: The Creative Use of Media Award (Silver) for Walt Disney, Marvel – Marvel’s Ant-Man: Heroes Don’t Get Any Bigger, Singapore
:: Best Experiential Campaign (Silver) for Hindustan Unilever, Surf Excel – Eco Ganesha, India
:: The Effectiveness Award (Silver) for Hindustan Unilever, Kissan Tomato Ketchup – Kissanpur – Where Experiences Happen, India
:: The Utility/Public Service Award (Silver) for Hindustan Unilever, Surf Excel – Eco Ganesha, India
:: Twitter Live Marketing (Gold) for PepsiCo, Lay’s – When Google Maps went beyond giving directions to people. It unlocked a treasure. Thanks to Lay’s, India
:: Twitter Live Marketing (Silver) for PepsiCo, Pepsi – Pepsi’s Preemptive Strike on Social Media, India
In addition to the APAC title, Mindshare India was also awarded Agency of the Year.
Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman & CEO of AMEA & Russia/CIS at Mindshare said: “I’m delighted to see work being recognized from such a large number of our offices in the region. It underlines the fact that our network continues to be streets ahead of others on quality and depth of talent in this part of the world and lead the market. The India team was outstanding again. It was also great to see the caliber of the winning and shortlisted work from China, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, the small yet highly talented Sri Lanka team. Big congratulations to our teams and equally to our clients who back their ideas, and encourage their creativity. â€
Prasanth Kumar
Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia commented “It is a great honor and encouragement to have competed and won against some incredible work across the APAC media industry. The effort of each and every team member has contributed to our success at the Festival of Media Awards 2016. It is our constant endeavor to raise standards, challenge staus quo and innovate marketing frameworks to create landmark campaigns for clients. We have had a fantastic 2015 and the agenda for 2016 is to keep the momentum going.â€
Mindshare, along with GroupM, announced that they will bring their global alliance with Crayon Data, among the most innovative global big data start-ups, to Indian enterprises.
This comes hot on the heels of the announcement last week, of Ratan Tata’s investment in Crayon Data. Together, GroupM, Mindshare and Crayon Data aim to map the taste of millions of Indian consumers, which will allow enterprises to target consumers more precisely.
“GroupM is changing the way marketers approach the business of media. Together with the WPP data alliance, bringing the Crayon Data proposition to India reflects our ambition to know more deeply than anyone else the tastes of Indian consumers and use that to help our clients target them better,†says CVL Srinivas, India CEO of GroupM.
Commenting on this, Prasanth Kumar, CEO of Mindshare South Asia said, “Through this alliance, Mindshare’s proprietary data and research are further enriched with Crayon Data’s analytics. This will help us bring in both agility and adaptive solutions for our clients. Understanding the tastes and mind-set of consumers is extremely important and will be a great advantage for us especially since there is a strong focus on digital. In our journey to understand our consumers even better, this will be a great advantage.â€
Suresh Shankar, founder of Crayon Data, said, “As life goes digital, and choices proliferate in every aspect of our life, we will move to a world centred around personalisation, where companies understand tastes and preferences at an individual level, and use that to make choices simple and relevant for their consumersâ€.
In India, the GroupM and Mindshare partnership with Crayon Data, will create a unique data coalition across media agencies and media owners, to deliver the vision of offering personalised choices to millions of Indian consumers.
Mindshare has been appointed the media partner for Byju’s – The Learning App. This account will be handled out of the Mumbai office.
Byju’s – is India’s largest education technology company and a subsidiary brand of Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd. It was founded by Byju Raveendran and is backed by Sequoia Capital and Dr. Ranjan Pai and T.V. Mohandas Pai of Manipal Group. Byju’s – The Learning app is disrupting the way millions of students learn across School Education and Test Prep. Within two months of launch, the app has already gathered over 2 million users and continues to grow rapidly.
Prasanth Kumar
Commenting on the win, Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia said, “We are extremely glad to associate with Byju’s Classes. With the growth seen in the digital industry, we are channelizing our services and talent towards frameworks and tools that include adaptive and real- time marketing, giving our clients the edge in an ever-evolving media market.â€
Byju Raveendran, Founder CEO said, “Mindshare demonstrated their ability to transform consumer understanding in to a strategic vision for the brand and bringing it alive through their original thinking framework. This partnership with Mindshare will definitely be a positive one and we look forward to building Think and Learn as the largest online education institutionâ€.
Media agency Mindshare has bagged the media duties for HCL TalentCare, part of HCL Corportion, and will hence be looking into the media planningand buying services for the brand.
Commenting on the win, Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia said, “ We are absolutely thrilled to be working with HCL Talent Care. Mindshare has always been a forerunner in innovating media solutions for our clients and look forward to adding value to this iconic brand and delivering notable solutions.â€
Commenting on launch of the first campaign with Mindshare, Vijay Iyer, Chief Business Officer, HCL TalentCare said, ‘’Mindshare has provided us the right platform to reach out to our audiences and provide good visibility to our campaign ‘Life Badlo Boss’. Life Badlo Boss is all about this transformational journey that a student undergoes with us at HCL TalentCare and sums up our efforts to be a career launch pad for students and offer Talent on Demand to enterprise clients.’’
This account will be handled out of the Mindshare Chennai office under the leadership of Sriram Sharma, Leader – South, Mindshare.
Eros International Media Limited (Eros International) announced its one of a kind content partnership with United Spirits’ Bagpiper Soda, for the upcoming Marathi film ‘Guru’.
Starring multi-talented actor Ankush Chaudhary and Urmila Kanetkar, ‘Guru’ will be directed by Sanjay Jadhav, based on a script by Ashish Parte. A film that dares to break the mould and take certain issues head on, ‘Guru’, is expected to go on floors by November 2015.
The film along with its entertainment quotient aims to project a message of inspiring positive change in the society – the very purpose that Bagpiper Soda stands for. Through a unique association with Eros International, Bagpiper Soda will be an integrated partner across the film’s content, promotions and performance. Mindshare handles the media mandate for United Spirits Limited and has conceptualized this association for Bagpiper Soda.
The association will see Bagpiper Soda promoting the film through a specially created TVC ad campaign with the lead actors and aligned with the basic plot of the film. The TVC will be on-air on regional Marathi channels through the production and promotion phase of the film. The movie will also include a song that resonates the film’s theme and Bagpiper Soda’s iconic message.
Commenting on Bagpiper Soda’s new venture, Debashish Shyam, Sr. VP – Marketing, United Spirits said, “Bagpiper Soda has its soul entrenched in culture and there is no bigger medium that reflects popular ethos than Indian cinema. By becoming an integral part of a film like ‘Guru’ we will be able to spread Bagpiper Soda’s message of positive change to a much wider audience and also take our long-standing relationship with cinema to the next level. We are very happy to have excellent partners in Eros and Sanjay Jadhav for this venture.â€
Commenting on the association, Sameer Gogate, Chief Development Officer, Eros International Media Ltd said, “We are keen on partnering and promoting the best talent from the Marathi film industry. The association with Bagpiper Soda for ‘Guru’ will help drive the underlying message of the film which is to bring a radical change in society. ‘Guru’ promises to be an interesting journey and we are looking forward to supporting and nurturing such strong content driven filmsâ€.
Prasanth Kumar, CEO Mindshare South Asia added, “We are very excited to have conceptualized and executed this ambitious and never done before initiative of co-creating a film with an iconic marque. Our strategic partnership with Bagpiper Soda and Eros International will change the game from content revolution to a new era of content evolution.â€
A jubilant Mindshare team. Picture by Abhinav Kocharekar, Courtesy DNA
When Ravi Rao, Leader, Mindshare South Asia spoke to MxMIndia on the eve of his departure to Dubai as Chief Client Officer – MENA in April, we asked him if he considered the agency’s loss at the Emvies last year, as a low during his stint. He said it was just a “momentary despair in the longest winning streak of Mindshare; we will continue to haunt others, year after yearâ€. At the Emvies 2015 on Friday, Mindshare grabbed the title of Agency of the Year with five Gold, eight Silver and 17 Bronze metals. The now nine-time winner had its entire team in attendance, including COO Mindshare Asia Pacific Gowthaman Ragothaman and Prasanth (‘PK’) Kumar, who took over from Rao in March this year and had earlier said he was confident of winning the Agency of the Year crown this time. “There’s been lots of great work in the last year that Mindshare has done across clients, and a lot of effort into bringing in diversified and other business categories,†he had said. Friday’s win, however, left him cheering out loud for his team. “The voice is gone, but the action is full on,† he said. (See Emvies points tally table here)
Even though Maxus lost its last year’s glory to older sibling Mindshare, MD, Kartik Sharma was unfazed. “Whenever we’ve won or lost, our focus has always been our clients,†he said. “We’re very happy with the quality of work we’ve done. We’ve got quite a lot of clients in last two or three years and we continue to do some interesting work with them. He added: “Our focus has been more digital and analytics for the last couple of years. And today, if you saw the kind of awards that we’ve won, they had a layer of either of the two. But there’s always scope for improvement, and we’ll work on that.†Maxus was third in the pecking order of agencies, while Lodestar UM was at No. 4.
Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World, whose agency was the first runner-up for the title of Agency of the Year, also said he was happy with his agency’s performance which was their best so far at the Emvies. Madison took home six Gold, four Silver and nine Bronze metals.
Meanwhile, Tata Sky was conferred with the Client of the Year award, with Procter & Gamble India the first runners-up and Marico, a close third.
Emvies 2015 launched a new category too, Media Partner of the Year, which was conferred on partners across various media. While the award for TV was won by Pogo, The Times of India walked away with the award in the print category. In the cinema category, it was won by Rohit Shetty’s Film Production house, in radio it was Big FM, while Torrent Sites and Google Ecosystem received the award in the digital segment.
This year’s edition was the 15th of the Emvies. And Punitha Arumugam, Chairperson of the Emvies’ Committee and a senior media specialist herself, said it was the best she had seen so far. “The highlight this year was the fact that we started the process of online entries,†she said. “Secondly, we started including media owners in the Emvies because earlier we had only media agencies; then moved to media agencies plus client, and now from client to media owners. It’s been very exciting for us.†Since she’s not a part of a media agency any more, we asked Arumugam to trend-spot and tell us what she thinks of the way the media business is going, given the Emvies showing this year. “What we see is that digital probably gets the highest number of entries, and also the highest growth in terms of the number of entries year-to-year,†she said. “You’re seeing a genuine shift to digital. Even in offline media entries, for example, you get to see a lot more digital as a part of the whole product.â€
Another change that has taken place over the years, according to her, is in the field of data analytics and research, as evidenced from the number of entries going up and the amount of focus that agencies are putting on this.
Arumugam was bullish about the spends on digital increasing with time since all agencies are now incorporating digital in various ways and moving towards it, even if at a slow pace. “While clients may be spending 10-15 per cent [of their budget] on digital, when you walk into any office, 80 per cent of the conversation is about online. Hopefully, the budgets will follow the conversations very soon,†she said, as celebratory cheers, accompanied by the beating of dholaks, took over the venue to get the party going.
A part of this report first appeared in dna of brands
After last year’s loss to Maxus, this must be a huge win, right?
Last year was just an aberration. It was one of those years when probably a ‘no ball’ situation happened. This is something which belongs to us.
What does an Emvie mean to successful media agency like Mindshare?
It means a lot to us. Wherever we’ve demonstrated our work, it’s been acknowledged by most of our clients. As you’ve seen, we’ve won awards across different categories and clients. That shows that a lot of team effort goes into every single brand. We’re quite happy with our performance and we’re going to celebrate hard.
And how do you think clients view wins?
I’m sure clients appreciate great work on their brand, and the fact that we can provide solutions. Clients do get attracted to the best of talent, the best of the tools and the best of products and processes. And this is one display of how great things happen and it’s a no-brainer: Clients see lot more meaning in working with teams like this.
Maxus won last year but couldn’t beat you this year. Madison almost got there. The competition out there is quite stiff. So what’s your mantra going to be for Emvies 2016?
For us, it’s simple: Every work needs to be the best work. And for us, it’s not the competition. We need to be shaping the market. We are the leader by a large margin and it’s because of a lot more talent focusing on lot more great work. That shows in every single research that we’re doing. We want to ensure that every single brand that we work on, gets more success. For us, that is the bigger [aspect of] pride. And this is just encouraging us to do that.
For you personally, it’s a big night, right?
This team in Mindshare is one of the best in whatever it does. I feel lucky to have been able to facilitate this entire thing. I’m looking to do this magic more and more, and even better it. It’s just proving to me that I’ve been able to facilitate this, and it’s just the beginning.
Mindshare has bagged the media mandate for the “Make in India†initiative, along with WPP’s Kinetic Worldwide. Both Mindshare and Kinetic Worldwide have been signed on for a period of three years. The “Make in India†campaign is a government initiative, which aims to encourage manufacturing within the country and promote India as an investment destination.
The agencies will look into the media planning, strategies and media audits for this campaign while the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) will buy media in India and overseas directly through the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity.
Prasanth Kumar, CEO of Mindshare South Asia, said, “It’s a privilege to be working with the government of India and we will be pulling in our collective experiences from all counterparts to deliver value on this campaign.”
The DIPP campaign is likely to tap into other regions like South Africa, Middle Europe, the US and Africa in the near future.
Meanwhile, Mindshare has also media duties for Grofers, a local e-commerce platform. Commenting on the win, Prasanth Kumar said, “We are extremely glad to partner with Grofers and look forward to collectively building the brand. With the rapid growth in the ecommerce and digital industry, we are channelizing our services and talent towards frameworks and tools that include adaptive and real- time marketing, giving our clients the edge in an ever-evolving media market.â€
Mindshare has announced the appointment of Sriram Sharma as Leader – South, Mindshare.
In his new role, Sriram will be responsible for all the media and digital mandates for the Mindshare clients in the Southern region. He will be operating out of the Bangalore office and will be directly reporting in to Prasanth Kumar, CEO South Asia, Mindshare.
Sriram brings to Mindshare a rich experience of over 18 years, having worked across multiple industries like advertising, mobile marketing and branding. He has also worked on several blue chip clients like Britannia, TITAN, Samsung, Dell, Sab Miller, Himalaya Drug Co. Currently with MediaCom, Sriram looks after the business in the Bangalore and Chennai office.
Prasanth Kumar, CEO South Asia said, “We are glad to welcome Sriram into the Mindshare family. His motivation and wealth of experience across industries and markets makes him the right person to assist in driving the growth of the agency. For us, South is a very important market and I am confident he will be able to lead the south division to even greater heights.â€
Leading marketing services agency Mindshare emerged as the No 1 media agency in India as per RECMA’s latest qualitative assessment for all leading media agencies in India. Mindshare has scored high on the parameters of Client Profile, Momentum, Competitive Pitches and Resources to emerge as the leading agency in India.
Said Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman, Emerging Markets at Mindshare: “I’m pleased to see this endorsement from RECMA for the agency’s position in India. Mindshare continues to be at the leading edge there – in harnessing data to power more creativity and innovative use of media platforms for marketers, and bringing to life its proposition of Adaptive Marketingâ€.
Gowthaman Ragothaman, Chief Operating Officer, Mindshare Asia Pacific added, “I am particularly satisfied with the recognition on structure and vitality. We continuously re-engineer our teams in line with the changing demands from our clients as well as the media and marketing landscape. Our suite of services now reflect a full-fledged marketing communications companyâ€
Speaking on the new ratings by RECMA, Prasanth Kumar, CEO, Mindshare South Asia said, “This is a win for each and every member of the Mindshare team. Mindshare has always been the leader in innovation, and we believe it is extremely vital for us to prepare ourselves and our clients for a relevant tomorrow. With our adaptive marketing philosophy, we have ensured our clients have the competitive advantage, and their communication is superlative. We are grateful for their belief in us, to deliver on our common goals of brand building. We are proud of the fact that our clients continue to work with us on initiatives that are continuously pushing the boundaries of media investment and communication, as we successfully redefine the media industry in India.â€
The RECMA country Qualitative Evaluations offer an extensive and up-to-date assessment of the media agencies based on a set of performances indicators.
Mindshare APAC, the global media agency network part of WPP has realigned senior leadership in South Asia, as part of the ongoing commitment to delivering adaptive planning and thinking, for clients and dynamic markets.
M A Parthasarathy
M A Parthasarathy, popularly known as Maps, currently Chief Client Officer, has been named Chief Product Officer – South Asia. In his new role, Maps will lead a community of Communications Strategy & Analytics experts across 10 Mindshare offices in South Asia.
He will drive usage of Mindshare’s proprietary “Original Thinking†framework, and evolves the bespoke set of tools, strategic product partnerships and crafts analytics solutions to address diverse marketing issues. Having been with Mindshare for over six years, Maps has been an integral part of the agency’s success story, maneuvering brand strategy for some of the largest and most challenging domestic and international brands in India.
Ruchi Mathur
Ruchi Mathur has been appointed as Leader, Client Leadership – North. In her previous role as Principal Partner on the Pepsico business, Ruchi spearheaded a range of ground breaking activity. With over ten years at Mindshare, her acute knowledge of brands coupled with her infectious energy has resulted in making Pepsico one of the most coveted brands in the country.
Saket Sinha returns to the Mindshare family as Principal Partner leading Rodeos and the East Zone. In his previous role, Saket was championing business in new geographies for GroupM, creating expansions for the network in several new markets.
Saket Sinha
Saket will be reporting in to Ruchi Mathur for Rodeos and Prasanth Kumar, CEO Mindshare – South Asia, for the East Zone. Maps and Ruchi in turn will report into Prasanth Kumar directly.
Commenting on this re-alignment, Prasanth Kumar, CEO Mindshare – South Asia said: “As pioneers in adaptive marketing, we are focused on creating a team that continues to open up more possibilities and set ourselves apart, with the capability to merge strategy with market intelligence. As we advise our clients to change mindsets that reflect in the communication they partake in, so does our commitment strengthen to ensure our best talent to service the brands we work with. Maps, Ruchi and Saket have always been an integral part of the Mindshare family. Each one of them brings their expertise to the table and I am confident that they will continue to take Mindshare to greater heights.â€
