S Yesudas who launched Triggerbridge a few years back, announced the launch of his second venture, Y&A Transformation Pvt Ltd. Y&A, notes a communique, is a pureplay business transformation company and works with the vision of helping enterprises erase the legacy #BestPractices mindset to build the #NextPractices in the areas of Digital, Tech, Data, Content, Customer Centricity, Marketing RoI, Organization culture and CSR/Sustainability.
Talking about the road ahead, Yesudas, Co-founder and Managing Director, Y&A said: “We are very fortunate to have support of clients who believe in our philosophy, from Day One. As a result, the operation kickstarted with some revenue; unheard of, otherwise. We are building very agile, collaborative, innovative and adaptive framework, tools and processes, which are detailed on our website www.ynatransformation.com We will help forward looking clients with all the necessary support to get the very best out of the ever dynamic digital ecosystem where speed is the necessity. We don’t believe data in its current avatar allows clients to take bold and beautiful decisions on customer centricity. And we believe, most attributions being tracked to paid efforts are contrary to the reality of the testimonial economy. We find it funny when “targeted†and “exposure†are used in the same breath. We are here to make a big difference to clients and compel the agencies to re-thinkâ€
Godrej & Boyce (G&B) has announced the appointment of Starcom Worldwide and Isobar India as its traditional and digital media agencies. The business moves from incumbent Mindshare after a comprehensive process that saw participation from eight other agencies. According to industry sources, the G&B media spends are estimated to be Rs 100 crore annually and the digital spends would be in the region of Rs 20-25 crore.
Speaking of the appointment, Animesh Bhartiya, Chief Communications Officer, Godrej & Boyce said, “G&B is going through an exciting phase. We are a diversified group with interests across 14 varied sectors. While on the one hand we collectively have to ensure each of our businesses are independently responding effectively to the needs of its customers and all other stakeholders, it is also imperative on the other, to understand how resources can be best optimised at a group level by leveraging combined effort and spends. In a rapidly evolving media landscape, we also need new and innovative practices and approaches to connect meaningfully with a new generation of consumers. We believe Starcom and Isobar have the necessary skillsets and attitude to bring fresh thinking to an organisation as varied as ours. Our teams are enthusiastic about the new partnerships. We are thankful to each of the agencies for their participation.â€
Added Suruchi Trivedi, GM Corporate Marketing & Communications, Godrej & Boyce: “Our objective was to drive efficiencies by moving from a fragmented approach across the organisation to a more consolidated one. We developed a robust scientific process for the pitch ensuring that all the key parameters of evaluation are dovetailed into the same. After a rigorous analysis along with the key stakeholders from within the company, we unanimously decided that the pitch response from Starcom and Isobar best aligned with the organisation’s objectives. We now look forward to seeing this synergy come to life and deliver amazing results. We thank Triggerbridge who managed the pitch process for us.”
Said Mallikarjun Das, Group CEO, Starcom India: “It’s a privilege to partner with Godrej & Boyce, one of India’s leading corporate groups with their diversified business interests. Starcom will put in the best of ideas, talent and resources for Godrej & Boyce and help them forge new and greater connections with consumers.â€
Commenting on the win, Shamsuddin Jasani, Managing Director, Isobar India, said:“Godrej is one of the most prestigious brands in India. We are honored and thrilled, that they have chosen us as their digital partners to help them in their digital transformation. We look forward to doing some great work togetherâ€.
Commenting on the appointment of media partners, S Yesudas, Managing Director and Co-founder, Triggerbridge, the marketing services consulting firm or unagency set up in late 2015, said: “Our objective was to ensure we help G&B bring the best agency partner on board. We congratulate Starcom Worldwide and Isobar for being chosen as the G&B media partners and we wish them the very best.â€
Triggerbridge, the marketing service consulting firm co-founded by S Yesudas has announced its  appointment as marketing and customer connect transformation consultants to Vikatan Group.
Speaking of the appointment, B Srinivasan, Managing Director, Vikatan Group said: “With the magazines having 90 years of heritage, our foray into the digital space, our TV and film production and the events and activation space, we are a diverse media group that has a unique capacity to deliver audiences across platforms at scale. Since most of these are best kept secrets from the marketing community at large, we realised we needed to embark on certain internal and external initiatives to ensure our teams are better equipped and our clients see us in the right light. In triggerbridge, we found the right partners to embark on this journey of change with.â€
Commenting on the assignment, S Yesudas, Managing Director and Co-founder, of triggerbridge (the “unagencyâ€, as he calls it):  “We are thankful to Srini(B Srinivasan) and his team for this partnership. The work has already begun and as one team, people at both ends are extremely excited about the potential ahead. Our ambition is to have the Vikatan group known as “The gateway to TNâ€. Let our work speak the rest.â€
As triggerbridge, the unagency, launched by Yesudas, in partnership with Ajit Nair and Amit Tripathi is all set to make its mark barely within four months of its launch with many different client engagements, pending official announcements, he believes his purpose in life is far more than only running a successful business. He embarked on a mission #AGoodDeedADay, sometime back, which allows him to put a smile on the faces of people. His marathon runs were also always dedicated to the needy. On 14th Feb,2016, he and six of his friends became valentines to the Mumbai Police and Traffic Police to simply thank them for their contributions to the city. They walked into Police Stations and booths from Borivali to Chembur, pleasantly surprising and touching 400 men and women in uniform. Times of India had spoken about this initiative. He is also in a current discussion to enable rainwater harvesting by residence societies across Mumbai.
Elaborating further on the Un-News Hour initiative, he asked “Did you ever wonder where the sustainable conversations and trending topics are on the idea-based start-ups making good, positive noise in our country, based on a very conducive ecosystem provided by the Govt, A progressive and growth oriented budget which also considered every aspect of our economy, FDI opening up in many sectors, Our robust and growing economy being a matter of jealously for many other countries, Initiatives like Make In India which can make our country an integral part of the global supply chain, Digital India, Skill India, 100 Smart Cities and Swatch Bharat? In addition to all these, I also believe many people across the country have embarked on so many wonderful initiatives to touch the lives of others.â€
Explaining the concept, Yesudas said “Considering the current knowledge economy’s prospect of machines taking over human beings, there’s an impending wave of humanity coming our way that will make the heart more important that head. With this in mind, I thought about the Un-News Hour, initiative.  It is a one-hour prime time news capsule across English, Hindi and all other vernacular languages, which will air only happy news of human achievements, however small or big it might be. With every other noise that’s being made everywhere else, this in my opinion, will be an equalizer of sorts and will be huge opportunity for those unsung heroes to be recognized, day after day and a big ground of motivation for many more to embark on such initiatives.
Until recently managing director – India of Vizeum, S Yesudas has announced the launch of his entrepreneurial venture, triggerbridge, the unagency, in partnership with Ajit Nair, MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi of IdeateLabs. In the adveritising and media business for over two decades this is Yesudas’s first independent enterprise.
Commenting on the triggerbridge proposition, Yesu, as Yesudas is known in the industry, said: “Disruption is the name of the game, not just in theory. But in everything we do, philosophy, product, process, people et al. We are also building many aggregation and collaboration models. We believe the advertising agency model as it is practised today will cease to exist in the foreseeable future. Global alignments, exclusive agency status will all fall by the way side. Clients will look for smarter brand solutions for making enduring and meaningful connections with their consumers and not super specialized silo solutions.  Media owners will be engaged with, directly by clients and the focus on computer algorithm-driven efficiency parameters will also disappear.  At triggerbridge, our endeavor is to futureproof a disruptive model, True Vertexing, that will be the need of the hour, now and then by clients and hence, the unagency. And interestingly this would be a virgin territory for us as agencies of today will only stay focused on the transactional mode of advertising as change for most them will be difficult considering their models and complicated structuresâ€
Commenting on the triggerbridge model, Nair said: “We have built our model around appropriate solutions for clients/brands at various life stages, be it a well-established brand or a brand which has already traversed some distance or a brand that needs to go digital from a business diversification perspective or even a client with a ready product and market but no marketing resources. While funds are the solution for one, an e-commerce ecosystem will be for the other and incredible story telling, optimal content development and deployment, usage of data and technology will be the solutions for some othersâ€
Expanding on the proposition, Tripathi added: “True Vertexing is hand holding the brands in the journey to the highest peaks through true contributions by triggerbridge and through true expressions by the brands. In addition to the fundamental change in definition, our disruption also includes a series of products for the very first time, moving the business away from a pure service,one such is a digital platformthat aggregates story tellers and tech producers. Many more are in the pipeline. Our vision will be brought to life by brilliant minds. The overseeing creative board will include true storytellers like authors who have not been corrupted by 30 seconds TVCs and our business board will include members of other company boards as well as venture capitalistsâ€
The two are a study in contrasts. One, flamboyant, aggressive, very media-friendly, and the other a hardnosed planner, huge believer in research and statistics and understated.
S Yesudas, the marathon-runner and stylish outgoing CEO of Vizeum, is known to be among the most press-friendly media agency captains. The joke is that news on his account wins hit the media even before people in his organisation get to know about it. So even though it will never be known on how the news leaked to e4m, Bhasin, who was leaving for New Delhi on Wednesday evening, was reportedly livid.
Vizeum may have been winning accounts at steady intervals, but Bhasin and the Vizeum worldwide bosses wanted the agency to take a different course. And being an old Carat Chief Operating Officer (Carat is Dentsu Aegis’s flagship media arm), Shripad Kulkarni, who was looking to exit Percept Allied Media, was a natural choice for the India office of the London-headquartered agency. While Yesudas was offered special projects to look at content and analytics, it was clear that he was evaluating options outside the group, including investors if he doesn’t find the right suitor.
Kulkarni requested that he doesn’t want to be drawn into any conversation on the transition. “The sheer dynamism of Vizeum as a brand excites me,” said Kulkarni.
Both Kulkarni and Yesudas will report to Bhasin. Yesudas spoke to MxMIndia and indicated that he is considering options outside the group too. His Facebook post though said it all: “Friends, It has been an incredible 6 years with Vizeum India, starting the company from scratch with a laptop and 100 business cards, without any global clients or automatic alignments, we managed to carve out a niche for ourselves. ”
And it added: “After two decades of media planning and buying which included setting up successful/ profitable businesses both in India and overseas, all those organisations going on to winning many awards and accolades, helping move many brands up the ladder and touching the lives of many a talents, I thought it was time for me to jump and develop my wings on the way, on two areas which I feel will hold immense potential for the future of brand-consumer connect, CONTENT and ANALYTICS. For those closer to the media business, SoV in my definition is Share of Vision and SoE is Share of Empathy, the former being brand to consumer and later the other way. Wish me all the best and watch this space for more action.”
Kulkarni meanwhile has his work cut out for him. Vizeum may be doing well international as per RECMA ratings, but in India the qualitative assessement is in the negative. Â With more than 30 years of experience across various media specialisations, Kulkarni was until last week, CEO of Percept Allied Media which he founded in 2006. An MBA from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute, Mumbai, Kulkarni has worked in agencies like Contract, Clarion, Ogilvy and his own entrepreneurial venture called M:ideas. He serves on the Board of media research body MRUC.
Commenting on the appointment, Bhasin said: “With the wealth of experience that Shripad brings in and the thorough knowledge of the business that he has, I am sure Vizeum India will touch new heights under his leadership.”  Some of the clients that Vizeum handles in India include BMW, Lotus Herbals, TI Cycles, MTV, Hindware, Jet Airways, Allied Blenders and Distillers, Luxor and the recently won HDFC Bank  amongst others.
Vizeum India has roped in Shripad Kulkarni as the Managing Director. Shripad will report to Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO Dentsu Aegis Network, South Asia and will join the Dentsu Aegis Network India Executive Council.
Meanwhile, S.Yesudas will now focus on content and analytics, something that he is extremely passionate about, while continuing to report to Ashish Bhasin.
S Yesudas
With more than 25 years of experience across various media specializations, Shripad has worked in agencies such as Carat, Contract, Clarion and O&M. Prior to joining Vizeum, Shripad was CEO – Allied Media, a Percept Group company. Shripad, who serves on the Board of MRUC, was the founding CEO of Allied Media. An MBA from JBIMS, Shripad also holds a Master’s Degree in Statistics and a Diploma in Operations Research. He is also a well-known trainer and ran a media school prior to joining Allied Media.
Ashish Bhasin
Commenting on the appointment, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO Dentsu Aegis Network said, “I am very pleased to welcome Shripad as the MD of Vizeum India. With the wealth of experience that he brings in and the thorough knowledge of the business that he has, I am sure Vizeum India will touch new heights under his leadership.â€
“I also want to thank Yesudas for the great job that he has done in helping start Vizeum operations in India from the scratch and bringing the agency to the level, at which it is today. I have no doubts that he will equally excel in the new opportunities. Shripad now has a great platform to take Vizeum India to the next orbit because our ambitions for Vizeum India are tremendous,†he added.
Vizeum has conceptulized and executed the new TVC for Hindware.
Quite like a movie-promo-plan, Vizeum helped Hindware launch a teaser campaign two days prior to the final TVC roll-out. The teaser was launched across a range of television channels wherein it carried snippets from the final TVC.
The final campaign featuring Shahrukh Khan was launched on the channel’s dance reality show ‘NachBalliye’ with the teaser embedded into the show-content. Before taking the commercial break, the host thoroughly discussed SRK’s new obsession and asked the viewers to stay-on to find out the whole story.Then the full TVC which was 75 seconds long was played out. Once the break retunred to the show, the host continued discussing with the judges about bathroom inspirations and in conclusion he said said, “Not only SRK, but the whole country could keep admiring bathrooms so stylish.â€
Speaking about the innovation, said V Krishnamurthy, VP, Marketing, HSIL Ltd, “This was our first campaign after signing on SRK and we wanted to ensure the launch of the TVC is conceptualized differently. Working closely with our media agency, Vizeum, we managed to pull off something very different. Congratulations to both the Hindware and Vizeum teams for making this happen.â€
Commenting on the execution, S Yesudas, Managing Director – Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said, “It took a lot of coordination and efforts to pull this through. Without an ever supportive client this would not have been possible. I’m also thankful to the Star TV management for making this happen. Congratulations to the entire Vizeum Team, led by Harsha Joshi for making this project a reality.â€
After adding various businesses like Hindware, Jet Privilege, VGP Universal Kingdom in quick succession over the last 2 months, Vizeum, the media agency from the Dentsu Aegis Network stable, has announced their appointment as the media AoR for HDFC Bank.
HDFC Bank has a comprehensive nationwide distribution network covering 2,464 towns and cities with 4,014 Branches and 11,633 ATMs. With its customer centric focus, HDFC Bank has been constantly innovating in many areas and is looking at many new offerings and future growth. The appointment of Vizeum is seen to be in line with this.
S Yesudas
Commenting on the win, S Yesudas, Managing Director Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said, “We are delighted with this win.  In a market cluttered with many “big†names, we launched Vizeum 5 years ago. We work with our undying spirit, passion and commitment on each of our clients who trust us with their precious resources. This I believe attracts others to us. There cant be a better proof of our pudding.  Our clients are truly our ambassadors. We are delighted with our partnership with HDFC Bank and will strive to add them to that list within a very short span. This business will be handled out of our Mumbai office by Samarjit Rajkumar, EVP, Vizeum and his able teamâ€
Vizeum India has been named the media AOR for VGP Universal Kingdom, a Chennai-based family amusement park, after a thorough assessment.
The concept of amusement parks and beach resorts, which were only popular in foreign countries until a while back, was brought into India by the visionary VG Paneerdas in the year 1975. He created VGP Golden Beach, located on the East Coast Road in Chennai. Currently with more than 40 rides, including the first of its kind in India – the family roller coaster ride, the mixer ride, the Top Gun from all over Europe and the United States and a themed water park – the latest addition, VGP is clearly a top rung tourist attraction to watch out for.
VGP Ravidas
Speaking of the appointment, VGP Ravidas, Managing Director, VGP Universal Kingdom said, “Fun is a serious business and we have been looking for a media partner who understands this balance. We found Vizeum perfectly fitting the bill. I feel they have the right wherewithal to work with us in fulfilling our future ambitions. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Vizeum.â€
S Yesudas
Commenting on the win, S Yesudas, Managing Director Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said, “We are grateful to the VGP Universal Kingdom management for finding a partner in Vizeum. We will have fun together in working on this assignment while we seriously help the park move forward in consumer engagement and growth. This business will be handled out of our Chennai office, under the leadership of Subhas Warrier, VP, Vizeum, South.â€
Vizeum has been appointed as the media AoR for Jet Privilege Pvt. Ltd (JPPL), a specialized loyalty and rewards management company. This comes close on the heels of their announcing last week that they had bagged the media mandate for Hindware.
JetPrivilege is one of the most robust and well managed loyalty and rewards programme in the country. With over 100+ engaged programme partners across 10 categories, the JetPrivilege programme is constantly looking at opportunities as to how it can enrich the lives of its members and add value to all its programme partners. As JPPL is looking at growing its business innovatively, Vizeum has been brought on board as strategic consultants in the area of tangible consumer connections.
Speaking of the appointment, Manish Dureja, Managing Director, JPPL, said “JetPrivilege is pleased to be associated with Vizeum, a leading global media agency and we are confident that they will add value to our business.â€
S Yesudas
Commenting on the win, S Yesudas, Managing Director Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said “It is an absolute honor for us to be working with a fast growing company like JetPrivilege. Vizeum is an experience-to-believe-it agency. Our DNA is to delight our clients. JPPL-Vizeum relationship is not limited to the core deliverables of a media agency. We are eager to add a lot more value to the overall business of the client. This business will be handled out of our Mumbai Office under the leadership of Samarjit Rajkumar, Executive Vice President, Vizeum.â€
Vizeum India has been appointed the media AoR for Hindustan Sanitaryware & Industries Limited (HSIL).
Hindware is a household name today and HSIL is the first company in the Building Materials Industry to be awarded the prestigious ISO 9001, 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certificate, awarding effective quality management and environment systems.
Speaking of the appointment, Krishnamurthy, VP, Marketing, Hindware said, “We decided to review our media agency relationship considering the very challenging journey we are embarking on. Vizeum was evaluated alongwith others on our key parameters. Their hunger, passion, knowledge and commitment got them our business. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Vizeum.â€
Commenting on the win, S Yesudas, Managing Director Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said “We are truly delighted with this assignment. It is a fantastic brand. We are well aware of the challenges at hand as we help HSIL move to the next orbit. We will stay fully committed to overcoming all those challenges. This business will be handled out of our Delhi office.â€
Until recently managing director – India of Vizeum, S Yesudas has announced the launch of his entrepreneurial venture, triggerbridge, the unagency, in partnership with Ajit Nair, MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi of IdeateLabs. In the adveritising and media business for over two decades this is Yesudas’s first independent enterprise.
Vizeum India has been named the media AOR for VGP Universal Kingdom, a Chennai-based family amusement park, after a thorough assessment.
