MxMIndia

Tag: Sriharsh Grandhe

  • Ameer Ismail has been named Chief Growth Officer, Sumanta Ganguly takes on the role of National Director – Digital Marketing & Transformation and Sriharsh Grandhe would be National Director – Consumer Engagement

    PointNine Lintas announces leadership team

    By A Correspondent

     

    Left to right: Sumanta Ganguly Ameer Ismail Vikas Mehta Sriharsh Grandhe

    PointNine Lintas, the recently announced independent agency from the MullenLowe Lintas Group, announced the first set of names in its leadership team. Ameer Ismail has been named Chief Growth Officer, Sumanta Ganguly takes on the role of National Director – Digital Marketing & Transformation and Sriharsh Grandhe would be National Director – Consumer Engagement. Along with Vikas; Ameer, Sumanta and Sriharsh will work with clients to build bespoke agency solutions geared to maximize return-on-marketing-investments. They will work with CEO Vikas Mehta. All teams of PointNine Lintas will be co-located in offices in Mumbai, New Delhi (NCR) and Bengaluru respectively.

     

    Ismail, Grandhe and Ganguly will retain their divisional responsibilities for GolinOpinion, LinEngage and LinTeractive respectively.

     

    Speaking of the lineup, said: “The biggest challenge in getting an omni-channel model right is the ability to bring multi-disciplinary expertise together upfront. This leadership team is made up of seasoned practitioners. It allows us to bring multiple disciplines to the table right at the start and offer clients, a customised agency team that’s built around their brand opportunities. This is in sharp contrast to the administrative structure most agencies follow for their verticals. We are lucky to have experts like Ameer, Sumanta and Sriharsh within the organisation, to be my co-founders at PointNine Lintas.”

     

    Explaining the rationale behind this choice, Mehta added: “One of the big reasons why full-service is preached more often than practiced, is because every skill-set comes with its own administrative layers. For example, when you need a PR expert, you also inherit the administrative layer of a PR agency. In a day-to-day working scenario, this becomes a major barrier to collaboration. We’ve made a conscious choice to cast our best minds as both, ‘practitioners’ and ‘managers’ making it easier to collaborate seamlessly.”

     

    The agency, notes a communique, is planning more additions to the leadership team, which would be announced in the coming days.

     

  • This percentage is growing as more and more children are developing myopia at early age

    LinEngage initiates an education-led program for Acuvue

    By A Correspondent

     

    Refractive error, defined as optical imperfections that prevent the eye from properly focusing light, causing blurred vision affects an estimated 30% of the population globally. This percentage is growing as more and more children are developing myopia at early age.

     

    Acuvue® Brand Contact Lenses along with LinEngage – the experiential marketing & activation agency of MullenLowe Lintas Group, have initiated a program to create awareness on the importance of eye health and promote early detection of refractive errors among young students in India. The diagnosis is conducted by trained optometrists and wherever appropriate, the students are encouraged to try contact lens, one of the effective vision correction options available today. This method of eyesight correction allows students to not only see better, but also feel more confident about their looks. It also enables them to continue with all their activities that could have otherwise been hampered due to use of spectacles.

     

    Acuvue® &LinEngage orchestrated this unique engagement initiative. It’s an initiative that needs a deep understanding of the campus dynamics, youth mindset and the sensitive nature of the product. The first such trial was conducted recently across 3 colleges in Mumbai and plans are afoot to organize it across more colleges as well. About 2000 students have already participated and benefitted from the positive outcome of the program.

     

    Commenting on the initiative undertaken by the company, Vivek Bhatnagar, Director – Vision Care, said: “Anchored by a vision to bring healthy vision to people in India, Acuvue® believes that this initiative will help the younger generation to become more aware and learn about the importance of eye-health at an early age itself. The initial feedback from students in Mumbai has been positive and we are looking to expand this initiative to other parts of the country.”

     

    Sharing the communication objective behind this initiative, Sriharsh Grandhe, EVP, LinEngage said: “Contact Lenses in India has been a stubborn category with very little momentum. Primarily, there is a big lacking in consumer familiarity and misinformation. LinEngage’s specialized approach using technology for engaging with audiences interestingly has shown promise. We are excited about partnering with Acuvue® in the consumer education initiative.”

     

    In India, Contact Lens as a category has not yet taken off and is used by a very small percentage of the population. Few reasons for its poor adoptions are:

    :: Potential wearers have very little knowledge about CL and they carry many myths about them in their mind

    :: The Optometrists are comfortable to offer specs instead of CL as the patient does not ask for CL; and also wearing CL is a more skillful job which many Optometrists do not possess or have low confidence in

    :: The owners of optical outlets prefer to sell spectacles for two reasons: they are perceived to have high margins and also the owner has freedom to decide the price as there is usually no MRP on the product

     

    With this initiative, Acuvue® and LinEngage seek to create awareness on the importance of eye health and promote early detection of refractive errors among young students in India.

     

  • Harsh began his career with Tata Infomedia about two decades ago

    Mullen Lowe Lintas Group hires Sriharsh Grandhe to head LinEngage

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sriharsh Grandhe

    LinEngage, the experiential marketing & activation arm of Mullen Lowe Lintas Group has announced the appointment of Sriharsh Grandhe (Harsh) as Executive Vice President based in Mumbai. He would be reporting to Vikas Mehta, CMO | President – Group Marketing Services, Mullen Lowe Lintas Group.

     

    Prior to joining LinEngage, Harsh was with the WPP firm, POSSIBLE Worldwide Singapore as the Engagement Director. At POSSIBLE, Harsh was managing the global rollout of Standard Chartered’s Responsive Website, a first in the Banking domain across 55 countries in APAC, EMEA & Americas. Prior to POSSIBLE, Harsh was an AVP & Practice Head at Wipro where he was responsible for rolling out Marketing as a Process for several global businesses from Europe, US & Australia.

     

    Harsh began his career with Tata Infomedia about two decades ago and has navigated an illustrious journey spanning Advertising, Consumer Engagement, Publishing& Retail. Harsh is an experienced professional across the marketing continuum with a pronounced focus on digital and activation. Throughout his professional journey, he has driven various marketing programs for Standard Chartered, P&G, J&J, a global major in Big Data & Cloud Computing, Large Australian Telco, a Financial Services Major in US and more such global businesses across the markets of US, APAC and Europe.

     

    Speaking of his appointment, Vikas Mehta said, “Our ambition for LinEngage is to make consumer engagement an essential part of a brand’s narrative. A lot more innovation is possible in the area of creating meaningful consumer experiences. Under Harsh’s leadership, we are keen to make strides in strengthening this practice in an industry that’s largely driven by tactical activations.”

     

    LinEngage offers specialist brand engagement expertise to a host of clients in India. Apart from its focus on the urban pockets, LinEngage boasts of a bespoke rural offering – LinTerland. The motive is to help clients capitalize on the consumer-engagement opportunities in heartland India. Both the urban and rural offerings of LinEngage have been growing steadily over the past few months with host of new business wins. Notable clients include Johnson & Johnson, Franke Faber, Bayer, UltraTech, Castrol, ICICI Prudential and Byju’s  to name a few. Harsh’s remit will be to evangelise the experiential marketing practice for the group and further expand the portfolio.

     

    Commenting on his role at LinEngage, Harsh said, “The strong lineage of Mullen Lowe Lintas Group is no secret. India is at an exciting phase of development and the agency is experiencing both momentum and growth. LinEngage is in a sweet spot right now with only one direction to go – upwards”

     

    Harsh has been the recipient of awards at DMA for world-class marketing & activation programs for brands like Visa, Madura Garments etc. A familiar face in advertising he has also worked in agencies such as iContract, Rediffusion Y&R and JWT.