MxMIndia

Tag: Rohit Samarth

  • While Rohit Samarth will report to Mandeep Malhotra, President, DDB MudraMax, Alvin D'souza, Subhashish Sarkar and Amit Singh, who have been elevated to Head, Experiential – West, North and East, respectively, will be reporting to him

    Rohit Samarth to head experential at DDB MudraMax

    By A Correspondent

     

    Rohit Samarth

    Rohit Samarth has been elevated to Head – DDB MudraMax, Experiential with effect from January 1. He will report to Mandeep Malhotra, President, DDB MudraMax.

     

    Mr Samarth had joined DDB MudraMax in April 2012 as Senior Vice President, Terra, its rural marketing agency, in April 2012. In his new role, he will be incharge of the agency’s experiential campaigns, nationally.

     

    Meanwhile, Alvin D’souza, Subhashish Sarkar and Amit Singh, who have been elevated to Head, Experiential – West, North and East, respectively, will be working under the guidance of Rohit.

     

    Mandeep Malhotra

    Commenting on this new appointment, Mr Malhotra said, “Rohit has shown passion, hunger and discipline in his current role. Will be looking forward for him making all three infectious in his extended team.”

     

    Commenting on his elevation, Mr Samarth said: “It is my sincere belief that DDB Mudra Max’s experiential division, which is already a great force to reckon with in the experiential business, will grow to be one of the most competent and respected experiential communication solutions agencies over the next two years.”

     

  • He will head the operations of Terra, its rural marketing agency

    Rohit Samarth joins DDB MudraMax as Senior VP, Terra

    By A Correspondent

     

    Rohit Samarth has joined DDB MudraMax as Senior Vice President. He will head the operations of Terra, its rural marketing agency.

     

    Mr Samarth comes from Percept Out of Home, where he was the business head of its rural vertical responsible for all its communication and marketing strategies. With more than 25 years of experience in the industry, Mr Samarth has had the opportunity to work with some of the largest and the most recognized brands in the country.

     

    He started his career with Nestle India, and later worked with various other companies like Media Workshop India, Amar Ujala Prakashan, India Infrastructure Publishing, UCP Integrated Marketing Solutions, and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Linterland.

     

    Commenting on this new appointment, Mandeep Malhotra, President, DDB MudraMax said, “I am excited for the positive change brought into the BOP offerings at DDB MudraMax. Apart from great knowledge and experience, Rohit brings with him passion and energy to take the existing momentum of the team and the work to a whole new level.”

     

    Commenting on joining DDB MudraMax, Mr Samarth said: “I have some very exciting plans in mind and the focus this year will be to make DDB MudraMax a serious contender for the top spot in the BoP space. Development of strong teams in all disciplines is another of my initial focus areas. I have no doubt that Terra will grow to be one of the most preferred and specialized rural communication solutions provider within the next two years.”

     

    The DDB Mudra Group, a part of the Omnicom Group, is India’s largest integrated marketing communications and services network. The group comprises eight agencies – DDB Mudra, DDB MudraMax, Mudra, DDB Health &Lifestyle, RAPP, Tribal DDB, Water and Maatra.

     

    The DDB Mudra Group utilizes its deep understanding of Indian consumers, brands and media and a customized and collaborative approach to deliver inventive business solutions that help clients build valuable and enduring brands in India.

     

    DDB Mudra Group operates out of its offices in 15 leading cities and is represented in more than twenty other locations, giving it a comprehensive presence across the length and breadth of the country. It has more than 1,100 employees and a reach across 1,75,000 villages, 4000 towns, 3500 schools and nearly 7 million students.

    In 2011, DDB Mudra Group was India’s most awarded agency network at Cannes, Spikes and Abbys among others.

     

  • Though rural markets have seen a drastic increase in the standard of living and purchasing power, it is very fragmented with little or no transparency

    Rural market is the new siren call for OOH

    By Robin Thomas

     

    According to industry estimates, ruralIndiais growing at a faster pace than its urban counterparts, atleast in certain product categories. The overall Indian rural market size is believed to be Rs800 crore, with a total advertising pie of Rs12,000 Crore in rural markets. FMCG products, consumer durables, agro manufacturers, banking and insurance, telecom companies are some of the big spenders in rural markets.

     

    A survey reveals that FMCG products account for nearly 53 per cent of the market share in ruralIndiawhereas consumer durables account for the rest.

     

    The last few years have seen a drastic increase in the standard of living and purchasing power in ruralIndiaand many marketers heading for the lucrative rural markets. Also people in rural areas tend to spend a lot of time outdoors, which makes the rural market an ideal target for OOH media. As a result, almost every OOH industry player believes that the next phase of growth for the out-of-home media will come from rural markets.

     

    In interactions with MxMIndia, Mr Nabendu Bhattacharyya, Managing Director, Milestone Brandcom – who had shared his plans to launch Milestone Rural – and Mr Rohit Samarth, Business Head – Rural, Percept- Out of Home, were of the opinion that out-of-home media is seeing a tremendous growth in rural markets as consumption power in smaller towns and villages is increasing.

     

    Mr Anirban Ghosh, Senior Vice President, Adz Edge opined that an increase in purchasing power of rural masses in recent past has fuelled lot of interest amongst clients across all categories in ruralIndia. “Once considered a market only for low end products, today companies are seeing rural market as the new growth avenue. Comprising more than 70 per cent of the total consumers in India and annual market potential in excess of Rs12,30,00 crore, rural India is being charmed in novel ways. Naturally, out-of-home has also taken an upswing in rural market. More and more clients have shown interest in tapping this market which has got tremendous potential and increasing buying power” he said.

     

    The main revenue stream in rural market will come through a media integration and activation approach such as van activations, road shows, wall paintings, melas or village fairs.

     

    Mr. Ashish Pherwani, Associate Director, Advisory Services, Ernst & Young is very optimistic about rural out-of-home media. He believes that it can reach 25-30 per cent of the OOH advertising share in 5 years and that as consumptions shifts from metros to the 35 to 100 of the largest towns, OOH spends will also follow.

     

    Although OOH in rural areas is on the growth curve, it still has a long way to go and in order to continue growing in the long run; industry players believe that there are certain challenges and concerns that need to be overcome.

     

    One of the biggest concerns is the fact that the rural market is very fragmented and there is neither a credible measurement system nor a clear census data that can provide a clear definition of ruralIndiaand the socio-economic classification, among other relevant details.

     

    Mr Samarth observed: “While advertising in ruralIndiais growing, fragmentation of the market is a big challenge; there is no distribution network and there is no credible measurement system either. Another set of challenge is about living up to the promise of delivery in the rural markets. However, on the positive side, the biggest change in the rural is the fact that there is much less central control because today a lot of large companies are decentralizing their budgets.”

     

    Mr Pherwani said: “The rural market is extremely fragmented and there is little or no transparency to provide confidence to advertisers. Therefore, transparency needs to improve with better demonstration of proof of delivery. There are also few national players who can support large campaigns.”

     

    But Mr Ghosh believes that the biggest challenge for OOH is the lack of quality properties in rural market and also the fact that it is even more unorganized as compared to its urban counterpart. As a result, execution and proper monitoring is another core challenge. “To overcome these problems, we need to understand the rural market in a better way. Major players from OOH media owning houses should take initiative to open up their operations close to these locations for better control. They should collaborate with the local authorities to implement uniform regulations and open up more quality properties in rural market” he suggested.

     

    Innovations are the need of the hour to attract the rural masses and the OOH approach needs to be more interactive and integrated with brand activation for high recall value. As product consumptions increase, OOH media spends will also increase.