The next time you are on the beaches of Bali, don’t be surprised if you run into good ol’ media boss from India, Satyajit Sen. Havas Group Indonesia has announced his appointment as CEO of Havas Media CEO. Sen takes charge of a position left vacant after the exit of Anwesh Bose in November last year. His mandate is to accelerate Havas Media Indonesia’s journey of transformation and exponential growth with a focus on collaboration, new business and building and leading a team. He will report to Vishnu Mohan, Chairman & CEO Havas Group, SEA, India and North Asia. Sen’s appointment is effective immediately and he is based in Jakarta.
Sen joins Havas Indonesia from Samsung India where he led the media management function from 2014. Prior to the South Korean giant, Sen was CEO of Zenith Optimedia in India.
Commenting on the appointment, Mohan said: “Satyajit’s proven expertise in delivering value across the spectrum of media services encompassing digital, content and data coupled with extremely strong leadership skills will build on what we have already achieved in Indonesia, which has a strong portfolio of media clients like Indofood, Grab, and Godrej and take Havas Indonesia forward in its next phase of growth and expansion. His experience encompassing both brand and agency will be huge advantage in a critical market like Indonesia. I am delighted to welcome Satyajit to the Havas family and I am confident that he will propel Havas Indonesia in its next phase of evolution.”
Added Sen: “This is an interesting opportunity in changing and challenging times. Havas has been a pioneer in integration with its Village model of organisational structure and this multi-dimensional approach to marketing and advertising is exactly what clients are looking for. I am extremely excited to be a part of Havas Group’s futuristic agency model and looking forward to working with the team to start a new chapter for Havas Media in Indonesia.”
Bali, by the way, isn’t exactly close to Jakarta. It’s around 17 hours away by road given the 1154 km distance. That’s a little less than a couple of hours by air.
It’s now official. Satyajit Sen has joined Samsung India as Head of Media. He assumed office yesterday (Monday, June 2). Confirming his exit from ZOG, Group CEO Anupriya Acharya said: “After putting in eight years with ZenithOptimedia, Satya has decided to embrace a new challenge. We thank him for all his contributions to ZO and wish him all the very best.” Acharya also announced the appointment of Dnyanada Chaudhari as Managing Partner, ZenithOptimedia. Dnyanada will be incharge of trading and media management nationally and joins from Madison World where she was COO incharge of Mumbai operations.
Meanwhile, Acharya also informed that Navin Khemka, who has also been with the group for eight plus years, has put in his papers as Managing Partner.
According to Acharya, Prasanna Kulkarni has joined the ZO group as Chief Creative Officer and will oversee creative and content marketing solutions across ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix and Newcast.
It’s been doing the rounds for a while, That Satyajit Sen and Navin Khemka are qutting ZenithOptimedia India and now the news has been confirmed by Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO ZenithOptimedia Group. “After putting in eight years with ZenithOptimedia, Satya has decided to embrace a new challenge. We thank him for all his contributions to ZO and wish him all the very best”. She also informed that Khemka, who has also been with the group for eight plus years, has put in his papers. “ZOG thanks him also for his contributions and wishes him well in his next assignment”
Anupriya Acharya
Meanwhile, Ms Acharya also announced the appointment of Dnyanada Chaudhari as Managing Partner, ZenithOptimedia India. Dnyanada will be incharge of trading and media management nationally and in this role, she will partner marketing teams to not just look at efficiencies but also leverage strategic alliances across media partners, in line with our Live ROI philosophy.
Says Ms Acharya: “Dnyanada brings with her the exact expertise needed for this role. Her diverse background across strategy, buying and media management as well as experience with large scale businesses, is especially suited to create and refresh our trading architecture and execution across all media including TV, Print, Radio, Digital, OOH, Experiential and other specialist services.”
Dnyanada Chaudhari
Ms Chaudhari joins from today (June 2) and will be based out of ZO’s Gurgaon Office. In her 18 years of work experience, she has gained expertise across diverse functions – strategic planning, buying, media management and has worked both on the agency as well as the client side. In her last role at Madison, she led its Mumbai office as COO and was responsible for driving excellence across units. She has also been at Lodestar and ZO in the past. Her client experience includes three of the most admired companies – ICICI Prudential, Marico and HUL. At HUL, as Head – Media services in India, she was amongst the top 40 media people in the Unilever world and was responsible for maximizing ROI and driving competitive advantage for India’s largest advertiser. Over the next few days and weeks, she will come across to meet you at your convenience.
Comments Ms Chaudhari: “Am excited to be back and strongly believe in ZenithOptimedia’s Live ROI principle and am very keen on partnering marketing teams to not just look at efficiencies but to also strategically leverage alliances to drive thought leadership and brand ROI”
Prasanna Kulkarni
Ms Acharya also confirmed the appointment of Prasanna Kulkarni, as Chief Creative Officer, ZenithOptimedia Group. He will be based out of Mumbai and in-charge of Creative and Content marketing solutions across ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix and Newcast. Said Ms Anupriya: “We are increasingly finding our clients requiring creative content solutions across not only online but even on integrated campaigns. Prasanna’s role is towards driving competitive edge in our product through superior integration of creative and content solutions. In fact as we move ahead, we will be looking at getting more and more diversified talent on board.
With over 16 years of experience in advertising, brand strategy, and digital media, Mr Kulkarni’s previous assignment saw him leading a creative team as Executive Creative Director at JWT – digital. Prior to that he was at OgilvyOne Worldwide India as Senior Creative Director – Digital; his experience also includes Rediff.com, Ogilvy Interactive and the E-learning domain. He has worked for clients like IBM, Diageo, Ceat, Cadbury, Vodafone, Vespa, Lenovo, HSBC, Tata Motors, Castrol, Star India, Perfetti Van Melle, Hindustan Unilever Ltd., British Airways, Starbucks, Godrej and won several accolades and awards.
Says Mr Kulkarni: “Great opportunity to work across the focus groups like performance based marketing, content led communication solutions, and integrated campaigns with ZenithOptimedia and its divisions, extremely glad to be part of such multidisciplinary team at ZOG. I look forward to taking the organization’s creative capabilities to the next level by elevating the bar for innovative content. I am confident we are on our way to making ZenithOptimedia, Performics, Resultrix and Newcast a stimulating place for creatives and patrons alike.”
ZenithOptimedia India has been appointed as the media planning and buying partner for Viber, the popular mobile and messaging service. Â The business was won after a competitive pitch amongst five media agencies in New Delhi.
Confirming ZenithOptimedia’s appointment, AnubhavNayyar, Country Manager India, Viber Ltd said, “We partnered with Zenithoptimedia Group as we really liked their thinking and strategic approach to our marketing challenges as well as their excellent track record of helping create new age brands like Micromax and OLX.”
We are really excited to partner with a brand like Viber for their India ambition.The brand and the category gives us an even better opportunity to demonstrate our Live ROI proposition.”said SatyajitSen, CEO, ZenithOptimedia India.
This is the season for annual adspend forecasts and global media agency network ZenithOptimedia unveiled its Advertising Expenditure Forecasts predicting a year-on-year growth in ad spends in India of 11.5 per cent in 2014. The growth number for 2013 (over 2012) is 8 percent. The global ad expenditure growth from 3.6% in 2013 to 5.3% in 2014.
Anupriya Acharya
Said Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO, India, ZenithOptimedia group: “Our outlook for 2014 is cautious, though we expect the growth to happen mid-year onwards.” According to Ms Acharya, there appears to be an upswing in the mood since the Assembly election results on Sunday. Added Satyajit Sen, CEO, India, ZenithOptimedia: “All policy-making has been in a limbo, but we expect a spurt in the second half with digitization happening in full-swing.”
According to the agency’s research team, 2013 has “overall been a turbulent year for the media industry”. “In March/April we saw changes to the TAM panel following the second stage of the digitization process (of which more underneath), followed by changes in the TAM data reporting period from a weekly to a monthly format and finally the flip-flopping over the new 10+2 advertising regulations (a cap on advertising minutage set at 10 minutes of advertising and 2 minutes of programme promotion per hour), which was supposed to take effect from Oct 2013 onwards. However, some channels have been slow to comply.”
“Growth will be driven by inflation measures and pricing actions due to the 10+2 advertising regulations, as the restriction of supply will lead to rising prices,” it notes. “All of which means that advertisers are looking seriously at redistributing budgets to other media. On the whole, quality of content will improve on TV and we expect a consequent ratings boost thanks to 10+2 regulation. The change comes at a cost, however. There was a two-week stand-off between TAM, broadcasters and advertisers when data reporting formats were in flux. During this period, the top seven advertisers pulled their ad spots from all TV channels.”
The ZenithOptimedia research notes that digitization will help the broadcast sector: “Following the second phase of digitization of distribution in Q1 2013 in 38 cities, the TV broadcast industry has achieved approximately 77% digitization and expects to reach 100% within the next two years.” The report adds that even though viewership ratings have been impacted, in the long term, digitization is expected to improve broadcast economics significantly.
Internationally, the research has been bullish on adspends in the mobile sector. Mobile is going to take off big time and has already crossed television in terms of number of units, said Ms Acharya. “The internet consumption is going to increasing on the mobile and even though the smartphone number is not very high, it’s rising rapidly.”
“The increase in mobile phone connections continues to drive growth of mobile internet penetration in India,” notes the study. “Cheaper mobile handsets and affordable mobile data packages are helping increase content downloads, and millions of users are engaged with wireless internet on a daily basis. FM Radio listenership is rising and it is a key feature used by mobile phone brands to sell handsets,” the report adds.
On activation and BTL, the report says: “Along with changing lifestyles and the emergence of modern trade and malls in India, there has been an increase in consumption of outdoor advertising. Brands are keen to connect with consumers via experience zones and activations to ensure greater recall and amplification of brand values.
Activation/Events are becoming more and more of a key offering in the radio and print channels. Live Music Events/Festivals have been successful in attracting widespread audience and engaging youth across key cities. Hand in hand with proliferation has come the challenge of fragmentation among audiences. Hence, advertisers are increasing the number of touchpoints to cater to addressable audiences and are selecting media beyond TV, print and radio.”
Government advertising spend has begun ramping up as a precursor to the 2014 general elections, the report adds even as the final quarter of 2013 has “seen lower levels of investment than usual because of the soft economic environment”
Why would an imaging brand like Canon advertise its products on cartoon show Doraemon? Canon’s executive vice-president Alok Bharadwaj said the current generation of children aren’t as aware of Japanese electronic brands as previous ones and, hence, the use of the popular cartoon characters for a rub-off effect.
Doraemon, Hello Kitty and Ninja Warriors are popular among Indian children (and their long-suffering parents) and better known than Japanese staples such as Sony and Panasonic or even Toyota and Honda. “In a certain sense, these equities have become large when compared to age-old brands,” said Satyajit Sen, CEO of media buying company ZenithOptimedia. “However, both (sets of brands) operate in different spaces and that should also be taken into account.”
The development reflects the importance of ‘soft’ power, as exemplified by the spread of pop culture icons, such as the Doraemon anime series. “Japanese cartoons have broken the monopoly of western world characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” said Mr Bharadwaj. “That same message that Japan stands for high quality will only grow in the kids and boost other businesses.”
Recognising this, the Japanese government has announced the launch of a new project to aid global promotion of the country’s culture, including its anime, video games and cuisine. The Cool Japan funds will start with Â¥50 billion (about $500 million) in backing from the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry combined with 10 billion Yen from a range of companies. For PlayStation maker Sony Computer Entertainment, the popularity of cartoon characters such as Doraemon and Hello Kitty has led to a jump in sales of both gaming consoles and software, said Atindriya Bose, country manager. “The rate of adoption increases when a cartoon character becomes popular,” he said.
The popularity of Japanese anime in India has persuaded an increasing number of companies such as Maruti Suzuki, Honda, GlaxoSmithKline, Hindustan Unilever, and Samsung to use the blue robotic cat Doraemon to promote their products.
That’s where those long-suffering mums and dads come in. Parents tend to watch cartoons since the children are glued to them, said Chitranjan Dar, chief executive, foods, ITC. Which is why Hindustan Unilever promotes Surf Excel detergent and Tresemme hair care on cartoon programmes.
A 2012 study by Cartoon Network showed a majority of parents watch television with their kids. After serials, cartoons are the most preferred genre for parents, ranking higher than news channels. About 75% of parents spend time watching TV at least five-six times a week with their children. This number is even higher, close to 80%, for parents of younger children. Channels say that in spite of substantial growth, the genre is under-monetised, with 7% viewership and just 3% of revenue share.
According to the industry that buys advertising time and space on television and in print, more than 8% of national viewing time – more than that of news channels on most days – brings a horde of advertisers to children’s channels. According to TAM data, Ninja Warrior, Shin-chan and Doraemon have the highest ratings among shows meant for children across channels that cater to them.
Some children’s channels earn close to 50% of their revenue from advertisers targeting adults.
