Tag: Sakshi Choudhary

  • DDB Mudra Group and ICW collaborate to step up inclusivity

    By Our Staff

     

    In an effort to provide women and non-binary creatives a platform for visibility in the Indian advertising & design industry, DDB Mudra Group in partnership with Indian Creative Women (ICW) is hosting Portfolio Evening 2021 on Friday, July 23.

     

    According to a communique, DDB Mudra Group is committed to filling in five creative positions across its businesses from the initiative. This free, virtual event will provide an exclusive opportunity to meet some of the best names in the industry, and have their portfolios reviewed by a panel of senior creative talent from the industry.

     

    It will provide an exclusive opportunity for applicants to have their portfolios reviewed and be mentored by a panel of senior creative talent from the industry. Jurors include Kainaz Karmakar (CCO, Ogilvy India), Delna Sethna (CCO, WPP Redfuse India), P.G. Aditiya (NCD, Dentsu Webchutney) and Shikha Gupta (Creative Director, Swiggy), among others. The event is open to creatives at an ACD level and below; with an average experience of 0-6 years, including recently graduated students from advertising portfolio schools. Women who have taken a career break are also encouraged to apply.

     

    Said Sakshi Choudhary, Founder – Indian Creative Women said, “The Indian ad industry continues to lose most of its women at the mid-level. While the talk on diversity is slowly gaining momentum, there’s a need for more impactful initiatives at different levels. This portfolio evening will give the industry access to some of the best diverse talent available to hire. In addition, we hope to boost the confidence of women and non-binary creatives through constructive conversation and mentorship.”

     

    Rahul Mathew
    Rahul Mathew

    Added Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer – DDB Mudra Group added, “We’ve been working on many initiatives within the agency to identify and groom more diversity in our creative teams and in our creative leadership. So the Portfolio Evening actually fuels and adds more power to our initiatives.”

     

  • Kyoorius partners with ‘Indian Creative Women’

    By Our Staff

    Kyoorius has announced its partnership with Indian Creative Women, an independent forum working on amplifying the percentage of women creative directors in the Indian Advertising and Design industry. In collaboration with them, Kyoorius has come up with a host of initiatives that will boost gender equality on their stage and in the industry.

    One of these is the Zee Equality Award – The Purple Elephant, which will recognise and reward work that has addressed and impacted gender inequality in India through innovative thinking. The colour ‘purple’ signifies justice, dignity and has been historically associated with efforts to achieve gender equality. The winners will be decided by a special jury to be announced shortly.

    Said Sakshi Choudhary, Founder – Indian Creative Women: “Kyoorius is one of the most credible and influential award bodies in Asia. Every year, it brings powerful brands and agencies of India on one platform. We’re delighted to partner with them to drive real change. This year, they are a shining example and a true benchmark of what this industry can achieve on gender diversity. Our wish is to see each decision-making room in agencies as balanced as the Kyoorius jury room this year.”

    Added Rajesh Kejriwal, Founder and CEO, Kyoorius: “We have, since inception, been cognizant of the role of a platform like Kyoorius in achieving gender balance and equality in everything that we do. We are delighted to partner with Indian Creative Women for the Purple Elephant Award. In addition, we are also delighted that Zee Entertainment has enthusiastically agreed to support the Purple Elephant initiative.”

    Details of the judging criteria for the Purple Elephant are available on the site.

    Meanwhile, in 2022, Kyoorius will also recognise the innovative efforts of agencies and brands to hire, retain and promote women into leadership. This will include introduction of new policies that organizations have introduced to consciously give women within the industry an equal opportunity.

  • MarTech & TV dominate sessions at Zee Melt 2018

     

    The fourth edition of Zee Melt 2018, the two-day conference on advertising, marketing, media and technology, conducted by Kyoorius was held in Mumbai on May 30 and 31. Along with the conference, there was an exhibition area which saw displays and experiential zones set up by Google, Surewaves, WION, National Geographic.

     

    Here are highlights of the two-day event:

    :: A live televised chat with Sir Martin Sorrell. The chat with senior journalist Anant Rangaswamion CNBC-TV18 assumed importance given that Sorrell had unveiled plans for his new venture

    :: Speaker sessions by Tom Fishburne, AnindyaGhose, Mark Shayler, Fernando Machado, Global CMO, Burger King; Tom Goodwin, EVP, Head of Innovation, Zenith Media; Ana Milicevic, Principal, Sparrow Digital Holdings; Babita Baruah, Managing Partner, GTB India and others

    :: “How Return Path Data Will Turbo-Boost Television Audience Measurement Globally” –Keynote by Ricardo Gomez-Insausti, Vice-President (Research), Numeris

    :: &Prive – A panel discussion featuring SonalDabral and Ashwini IyerTewari and a screening of “The Post”

    :: A panel discussion by Zee and Indian Market Research Bureau on TV: The Business Propeller

    :: A session by Jasper Donat, CEO, Branded & Producer, YouTube Fanfest was followed by a meet-and-greet with Bhuvan Bam, YouTuber, Singer & Songwriter

    :: Day 2 concluded with a Keynote session by James Southern, Managing Partner at Front Row Advisory. He addressed the audience on the topic, “The Next Seismic Shifts In Television”.The session was followed by a panel discussion hosted by SureWaves moderated by Paritosh Joshi (Principal, Provocateur Advisory) featuring Punit Misra (CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd), Shashi Sinha (CEO, IPG Mediabrands), Partho Dasgupta (CEO, BARC).

     

    And these are highlights of what some of the speakers said (for details on the Martin Sorrell session, please visit http://www.mxmindia.com/2018/05/return-of-the-sorrell/):

     

    Fernando Machado, Global CMO, Burger King:Creativity helps you thrive the business and grow your brand. You should start one campaign at a time. Understand the business and see what ticks people. There are certain brands that strike a chord with the consumers and Burger King is one of them. People ask, what if it didn’t work? They always have this fear. These 5 things helps coping with the fear:

    :: Need to understand the brand- it is about not doing random stuff. You need to understand the positioning. The positioning and personality of the brand should match

    :: Create a great brief– Challenge your client with a one line brief

    :: Let the idea grow- Trust on certainty

    :: The biggest risk is not taking any risk- We are afraid all the time. But the thing is if I am not afraid, probably I won’t do it

    :: One Team- Marketing, agency and everyone else together should be one team.  Fight with everyone, together

     

    Tom Goodwin, EVP, Head of Innovation, Zenith Media: Speaking about the power of digital transformation, he mentioned three key aspects to be taken care of:

    :: Understand people- People go to the internet consciously and get off it only to be reminded to go again. Brands still think of it as a pattern. But the consumer is obsessed with the idea like it is a behaviour. It is not helpful. It is a hybrid world that transcends it. People are disappointed if they don’t get the same experience as any other brand.

    :: Apply technology at the core- Consumers are inclined towards everything that has a quick turnaround. Brands are realising this pattern and providing quick, cheap and hassle free service without understanding that this remains as the outer most layer without deeper existential question. Younger brands are utilising contemporary technology and it is incredible to see how much value they have created.

    :: Rethink everything- The key is to think without expectations. The greatest threat to incumbent business is to not know too little or being naive, it is about having too much knowledge.

     

    Ana Milicevic, Principal, Sparrow Digital Holdings: “The advertising industry is stuck in between the technology change. As an industry and as professionals it is important that we are constantly changing and are not being outdated. There has to be a balance between speaking to the audiences and amplifying annoyance. Future without advertising is far-fetched. Hence, we need to focus on today’s advertising trends and that is story-telling. Every interaction the brand has with consumers, it becomes advertising. It is imperative to stay relevant or risk getting skipped.”

     

    Nelson Rodriguez, Global Director of Industry Strategy, Akamai:“Digital advertising still has a lot of noise. India has the highest ad-block user across the world, although ironically, India is an ad driven market. There are three innovations happening today in transforming relationship with audiences in this market.

    :: Relevance- Every industry that goes through change has an opportunity to build on that change by being relevant

    :: Value- Customer should have the power of consuming content. That is where optimisation can enter

    :: Choice- With micro-transactions in boom, customers can be charged according to the amount of content they want to consume

     

    Babita Baruah, Managing Partner, GTB India:“This topic means a lot to my heart. I thought a lot about how to have more women. Not in terms of number, but in terms of decision making roles and how we can keep this journey going. Melt and of course any forum where you have the industry coming together is good to start off this kind of conversations to get points of views. I think it is important for women to share their personal journey. Because there is a lot of learning from what someone has gone through. And a narrative or story telling is always a good way to connect.”

     

    Patrick De Pauw, CEO, Social Seeder:“There is so much clutter when it comes to brands today where all are shouting for attention in some way or the other. But to get visible I believe there are 2 things a brand should swear to follow and that is – stay relevant and do something so unique that it helps you gain recognition between this mainstream clutter. There is paid media and owned media today but earned media is the word of mouth which works in favour of your brand creating a high decibel impact. An ambassador (on a voluntary basis) is an internal or an external person that is more than integral to spread a word about your organisation. But being an ambassador starts with you.”

     

    Tom Fishburne, Founder, Marketoonist:Technology can’t save boring marketing. We need to stay focused on our marketing strategies and not get excited when you see new things. We need to know who we are creating our marketing for and what is our marketing campaign. I have never been this excited in my life, it was amazing to be here. I have never seen such an entrepreneurial environment. It is great to see what people can do to sell your small enterprises. On my first trip to India I loved to discover the campaign by Amul. In 52 years they have campaigned amazingly and their idea of serial story-telling is something worth taking note of. They have campaigned everywhere from Bollywood to hoardings to newspaper ads. I am always excited to know what incidence their next campaign will be based on.”

     

    Anindya Ghose, NYU Stern School of Business: “Crowdedness is one thing which works best in the case of AI, as when people are alone in a crowd, phone is their best escape. Over a period of time, we have witnessed brands identifying known as well as unknown needs of consumer’s basis which they are ready to invest heavily in mobile data metrics. Addressing to the unknown needs is what will give the brand an upper hand to serve better. This metric eventually helps in measuring the ROI on the capital spent.”

     

    Guneet Singh, Head – Marketing Solutions, Google India & SEA: “The big piece of work we do is on video and the reason is 80% of consumers are on mobile. The phone is a very intimate space, as it is 12 inches away, but your TV screen is 6-7 feet away which is not an intimate space. The average attention span in Mobile is 7-9 seconds; if you don’t change the arc in this time span, one skips the video. That’s how you look at the story arc in digital. In digital you know the exact persona of the person watching something. It is important for you to build content for the right audience. We’ve recently made 2300 videos all running in the same date to distinctive audience.”

     

    Mark Shayler, Director Ape:“Every single action has a reaction and every single movement has an angle. We are all millennial. People like tactility; if you are making a digital campaign make it real, make it human. We can’t lie anymore because the internet is everywhere and the truth will eventually come out. It’s high time that you innovate the new way. Define a purpose, as purpose makes you stronger, being good is new cool and Kindness is competitive.”

     

    Sakshi Choudhary, Creative Controller, Ogilvy India: “Women spend twice the time as men, they are playing more games, and they are also on social media. 74% purchasing decisions are made by women and in cities it goes up to 90%. 70% women are buying houses in top 8 cities of India and 40% overnight solo trips are made by women…. Honda has realised that the scooter market is overtaking the motorcycle market in rural India and therefore they launched Honda Cliq targeted only at rural Indian women. Alcohol consumption among women has been increasing; Bacardi has been making the best of it as their sessions are more focused at women. Hotstar has realised that their video consumption is 3 times more by women compared to men.”

     

    Erica Ng – Senior Editor Asia Pacific Insight – WGSN: “The world is getting future ready and so are our brands. The brands of tomorrow are using the 4 E’s – Engagement, Exclusivity, Experience and Emotion. While today’s traditional spaces are extremely crowded, it becomes a larger deal for the brands of tomorrow to get more creative in their thinking. The brands of tomorrow are engineering vitality, as they aren’t using space to advertise but instead growing their presence on digital. They are using psychographics to understand the consumer needs. Today people don’t buy products, they buy people!”

     

  • Ogilvy’s Sakshi Choudhary only Indian to make it to Cannes 2017 ‘See It Be It’

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sakshi Choudhary

    In 2014, Cannes Lions launched ‘See It Be It’. A programme that responded to the gender imbalance in the advertising industry – only 25 per cent of agency creatives are women, and just 11 per cent reach creative director level. The stats for India, being woefully lower.

     

    Every year, 15 future leaders from all over the world are chosen to be part of this programme. And this year, Sakshi Choudhary from OgilvyOne, Mumbai has made it as India’s sole representative.

     

    Following a series of written submissions and a rigorous interview, Choudhary secured her place from among hundreds of entrants across the globe. Said Vikram Menon, President OgilvyOne Worldwide: “This is truly wonderful news. It is a proud moment for all of us at Ogilvy. Sakshi has been a stand-out performer ever since she became part of the Ogilvy family and this is just reward for years of commitment to her craft. Hopefully, this inspires many more women to push for leadership positions in the coming years.”

     

    Choudhary is currently Creative Supervisor at OgilvyOne Mumbai where she manages some of the agency’s brands including Dove and Coca-Cola. Outside her day job, Sakshi is the founder of The Seesaw Project – an initiative that seeks to simplify the complex issues of gender bias, using art.