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Tag: Vatsal Asher

  • CxO’s from HotStar, Nazara, Isobar, Zirca, Hyper Collective, Select Direct on the Jury

    Vivek Bhargava is Grand Jury chair for 2018 DMA Asia Echo

    By A Correspondent

     

    Vivek Bharagava, CEO of Denstu Aegis Network Performance Group, has been appointed as Chair of the Grand Jury of the upcoming DMA International Echo Awards’ Asia edition.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Vivek Bhargava, CEO – DAN Performance Group said: “There are many awards out there. The Echo since 1929 exceptionally stands out. Previously Indian entrants were devoid of showcasing great work at global arena due to prohibitive fees. The program will see the best of the best shine as we have stalwarts from the industry who will preside the jury groups. I am looking forward to great work being showcased and the best rewarded for fame in India & globally.”

     

    Speaking about the appointment of the jury chair, Vatsal Asher – Governor for the International Echo & CEO, DMAi said: “It is indeed my privilege to be supported by an eminent and experienced jury chairperson. The local Echo with its benefits enable the great work done by brands and agencies compete with global campaigns.”

  • The Times Internet- DMAasia report throws up some interesting data from the CMO perspective

    Customer engagement key focus for 45% marketers

     

    By A Correspondent

    Times Internet, in association with DMAasia, today released a report titled “The State of Indian Digital Marketing- a CMO Perspective 2017-18.” The second edition of the comprehensive online study was conducted by surveying a group of over 150 marketers from leading brands across verticals including real estate, pharma, FMCG, auto and retail. The report underscores their learnings for the year gone by and highlights their priorities and predictions for the year to come.

     

    Key Highlights:

    • Content marketing displaced social media marketing and emerged as the top strategy for marketers in 2017, as per 57% respondents
    • Social media marketing saw a 30% decline over the previous year as only 36% of surveyed marketers cited it as a strategy that worked well for them in 2017
    • Over 42% of the surveyed marketers allocated more than 25% of their total marketing spends on digital marketing in 2017
    • Securing enough budgets for digital marketing and measuring ROI remained the two of the greatest challenges faced by marketers in 2017 at 32% and 27% respectively
    • With regard to the frequency of measuring ROI on digital marketing, weekly and monthly measurement remained the most chosen options at 38% each
    • Almost 30% of the marketers said consolidating their content marketing strategy would be their key focus for 2018, closely followed by measuring ROI at 27%

     

    Commenting on the findings of the report, Gautam Sinha, CEO, Times Internet Limited said: “As we move forward at full throttle toward a more digitally inclined audience, marketers need to have a keen ear to the ground, to identify the trends and evolved mediums that their customers prefer. Our report goes on to capture the finer nuances that have been shaping how this environment is changing. We hope that our intensive research, in collaboration with DMAasia, culminated in this report, helps marketers in India stay ahead of the game and align their strategies and budgets accordingly”

     

    Added Vatsal Asher, CEO, DMAasia: “We are delighted to launch the second edition of the “The State of Indian Digital Marketing- a CMO Perspective 2017-18”, an exhaustive and in-depth study unveiling insights from over 150 CMOs across 15 verticals. The report, which has been curated in partnership with Times Internet, serves as a guide for marketers to prioritize efficiently to ensure growth and enhance customer experience. As revealed in the report, content marketing has taken centre stage, promising exciting times ahead.”

     

  • Although the focus of the Echo Awards is on the talent of the award winners, there is also a great deal of talent behind the scenes

    Vatsal Asher joins Echo Board of Governors

    By A Correspondent

     

    Vatsal Asher, Founder & CEO of the DMA Asia, is the first Indian to inducted to the DMA International Echo Board of Governors.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Vatsal Asher said: “We have come this far is thanks to the unflinching support from progressive CMOs, agency leaders and every entrant over the years. Our representation at the international board reflects the growing importance and success of outstanding marketing from India & other progressive Asian nations. I am honored to represent the interests of all Asian brand marketers & agencies at the board and will work for our region getting increased opportunity & deserving global spotlight.”

     

    Said Matt Sullivan, Managing Director, International ECHO Awards, of the DMA/ANA: “We are delighted to have ASIA play a bigger role with the DMA ECHO Awards. Vatsal’s presence at the board will ensure that the voice of brands & agencies from the region is actively represented at the board meetings. The enhanced alliance aims to helps improve participation from the region at the International show. We welcome him to the board & look forward to all the great work from ASIA having the chance to truly shine.”

     

     

  • Is content marketing the new frontier? Are digital marketing agencies up to it with client goals? A study by DMAasia & Times Internet throws up some interesting findings

    The CMO view on Digital Marketing

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leading brands are refocussing on digital assets as the atomic unit of marketing. Digital Asset Management – Digital Assets, that are traditionally under the IT budget, today account for 30-40 per cent of the digital marketing budget. As digital continues to transform, it is forcing marketers to re-think their omnichannel approaches, personalisation led by analytics or disruption like chatbots and virtual reality – a key priority for marketers in 2017.

     

    Meanwhile, Content Marketing and Distribution is the centrepiece of the Digital Marketing strategy, with the budgets on content marketing and distribution estimated to double in the next two years. Also, Social Media Marketing along with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) accounted for a lion’s share of the CMO’s ‘Always on Budget’.

     

    These and many more insights were unveiled by DMAasia and Times Internet on Thursday in Mumbai in a study titled ‘Digital Marketing in India: A CMO Perspective 2016-2017’.

     

    The study also yielded that 40 per cent CMOs are not satisfied with the contribution of agencies as they do not manage to deliver in conformity with their marketing goals and growth prospects. Consequently, in house marketing asset creation movement is gaining momentum and will see surge over the next few years unless agencies reinvent their models.

     

    At the launch, Gulshan Verma, CRO Times Internet Limited and President of the DMAasia Insights Council said: “With this study our goal was to understand what the marketers were thinking and help them learn from their community. By speaking to over a hundred CMOs in the country, we realised that ultimately the core goals of marketing haven’t changed – reaching the consumer, engaging with them, and making them a loyal customer are still essential to all marketers. Digital will continue to be very important in the years to come to achieve these goals and what is interesting is the way marketers are approaching it. We hope this report will be useful to the marketing community.”

     

    Commenting on the release of the report, Vatsal Asher, Founder and CEO DMAasia said: “The report reveals the contribution of digital platform in the overall marketing mix and shares an insightful road map for the coming years. Basis current trends & sentiments, this report aims to help businesses understand, analyse and make decisions by being an indispensable guidebook to sail through the abundant choppy marketing waters.“

     

    We reproduce here the Executive Summary of the report:

    Through the years what has remained consistent has been the marketer’s concern. With the evolution of technology and the tools and the increasing clutter, prioritisation and choosing the correct strategy is of paramount importance.

     

    When we undertook this survey, our goal was to understand what were the digital priorities of those who make brands – the Marketing Officers. We spoke to 115 marketers, only to realise that for each of them the only priority was building their Brand and Product Portfolio.

     

    Today, digital plays a critical role in every aspect of marketing – whetherit is about awareness, customer engagement, acquisition, and product development.

     

    As the mobile screen became the first screen of India in 2016, it is rapidly changing the way we consume media, interact with others (including brands)and how we live our lives today.

     

    Companies today, work hard to create brand awareness and an experience,seamlessly in the offline as well as the online world. Thus, the marketers’ today have two critical roles to play:

     

    1. Strategic Role – Impacting the consumers in the digital medium by creating the same brand association and customer engagement in the offline andonline world. Facilitating a consumer’s journey through the life-cycle of discovery to consumption and most importantly recommendation.

     

    2. Execution role – Supporting marketing initiatives done by the Brand Managers using traditional marketing and supporting business goals of generating leads/ sales.The strategic as well as executionary level roles that CMOs play today, put them under a lot of pressure. Many marketers have started allocating a large share of their budgets to spends on Digital. This is primarily due to a better measurability and the “higher Return on Investment” (ROI) vis-à-vis traditional media options. This is a double-edged sword as this is skewing spends towards performance marketing, directly compromising on brand awareness and top of the funnel initiatives.

     

    As per a recent IMRB International study, the share of digital in the total marketing spend is at 12% in India. However, our discussions with the 115 top marketers in the country suggests a much higher digital share, averaging 50 –55% of the entire marketing budget. We also found that for some of the new age online retail firms, digital marketing spends were as high as 75-80%.It is critical for marketers to set their marketing and media buying goals in line with their business objectives. Each marketing dollar must be back-calculated to derive top, middle and bottom funnel objectives,factoring drop-outs at every stage. This is the first step towards measuring ROI.

     

    Focusing on wrong measures can often be a challenge as marketing objectives are constantly revised alongside the business objectives. Leading brands are refocussing on digital assets as the atomic unit of marketing.Digital Asset Management – Digital Assets,that are traditionally under the IT budget,today account for 30-40% of the digital marketing budget. As digital continues to transform, it is forcing marketers tore-think their omni channel approaches,personalisation led by analytics or disruption like chat bots and virtual reality – a key priority for marketers in 2017.

     

    Building on digital assets is the content that engages with the customer.Content Marketing & Distribution is the centerpiece of the Digital Marketing strategy,with the budgets on content marketing and distribution estimated to double in the next two years. The marketing mavericks we spoke to believe that content distribution will be50% of the content marketing budget.

     

    Social Media Marketing along with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) accounted for a lion’s share of the CMO’s ‘Always on Budget’.

     

    What was interesting to note was that Influencer Marketing and Video Virality did not live up to the expected hype in 2016. This was predominantly due to limited execution.

     

    What we overwhelmingly heard was that Influencer Marketing was hijacked by Social media, while they attributed the failure of video virality to limited investment in distribution.

     

  • Predictions presented by DMAi's Content Marketing Council and curated by LinkedIn (Text + Video interviews)

    Top Trends in Content Marketing 2017

     

    By Santosh Jangid

     

    In India, digital buyer penetration is projected to jump from 43.8% in 2016 to 70.7% by 2020. Indian content marketers equally use social, blogs and newsletters and getting audiences to share brand content means appealing to their interests especially and B2B.  These are some of the highlights of the 2017 Content Marketing Predictions and trends report for India unveiled by DMAi’s Content Marketing Council that were curated by LinkedIn.

     

    The report hands out 10 trends that we may see in the content marketing world in the next year. Speaking about the report launch, Vatsal Asher, Co-founder and CEO, DMA Asia said: “It is a super exciting day for us and I am so pleased to announced on behalf of the International Content Marketing federation where DMAi is a member we are unveiling the first piece of detailed research around the state of content marketing and content marketing trends and predictions. We feel this is a big step to help our fellow marketers and the industry at large to know what is going to happen in 2017 in the world of content marketing on how marketers can leverage it and what is in store for brands and what are the consumers expectations from content marketing of brands.”

     

    On how the report will be beneficial for content marketers, Asher said: “Content marketing has evolved to have many definitions and marketers are struggling to find the right answer to content marketing. How do they do relevant content, how do they curate content, how do they disseminate content and in the fragmented media engaging relevant storytelling is still the norm. The methods of distributing content has changed. Businesses are fast adapting to this new methods, how consumers consume content, be it long form text, pictures and videos and the content beyond the conventional text, pictures and videos. So, be it experiential, be it on ground, digital or offline, there are variety of ways in which content is being consumed by consumers and to make the connection with consumers at the micro moment of truth is the test. Our report gives insight to how marketers can look at some of these challenges, what are their peers doing in India and across the world, what are the trends that are predicted by some of the content marketing professionals in India and abroad.”

     

    Said Virginia Sharma, Director Marketing Solutions, LinkedIn India on the report: “As chairperson of the Council, I am particularly proud of this piece of work as Content Marketing Council we should really represent the best of content marketing in the industry and the fact that we have been able to come out with a very compelling content piece in partnership with many different folks in the industry makes me very proud.”

     

    Further speaking on what trends we might see next year basis on the report, Virginia Sharma added : “The report has some great trends. I am particularly excited about argumented reality as well as videos but the one that captures my imagination is around user generated content and the growth of user generated content. There was a time when brands felt very strongly that they need to control the narrative and control the content that is generated about their brand. Highly professional produced videos, professionally written blogs was a very controlled mechanism. The fact that brands are getting more comfortable that maybe the brand is not in their control but it’s actually in the control of their advocates and users and will talk about it in the way they see it fit means that content marketing really has an opportunity leveraged user generated content which is really gonna be one of the trends.”

     

    Jyoti Kumar Bansal, Managing Director, PHD shared her views on the report from a marketer’s point of view by saying: “Content has really become the buzzword with marketers for sometime now and the predictor obviously becomes like a support for us to how things are going. the big challenge that we face as marketers and advertisers is to get enough understanding of how to actually utilise it to really put our brand messages to our consumers while still keeping it interesting, relevant and entertaining for them because otherwise it becomes too much of a plug-in and that’s where reports like this come in helpful because once we know where the consumers are, it’s easier for us to create stories that engage consumers and still gets our brand message across in a subtle and relevant manner to them.”

     

    LinkedIn – The Top Indian Content Marketing Predictions for 2017

     

     

  • The awards were held in Mumbai on Tuesday, and saw 441 entries from over 70 agencies & 150 brands

    Ogilvy tops @ DMA CreatEffect Awards 2016

     

    By Anuka Roy and Santosh Jangid

     

    Winners of ECHO affiliated DMA India CREATEFFECT Awards 2016 were revealed at the Awards Gala at Blue Frog, Mumbai, celebrating India’s most creative and effective data driven marketing campaigns. OgilvyOne Worldwide was named DMA CREATEFFECT Awards 2016 ‘Agency of the year’, bagging 21 metals including three golds and a diamond, while Ogilvy & Mather was honoured with the Network of the Year 2016 title. Two new special categories were added this year ­‘Small Agency of the Year’ and ‘Brand of the Year’ to recognize the joint efforts and close collaboration between clients and small agencies to produce successful work. The awards were presented to pi communication and Britannia Good Day respectively. Hindustan Unilever bagged the ‘Client of the Year’ Award for the second year in a row with three Metals.

     

    “I feel really good that my colleagues at OgilvyOne have won this big distinction and also at the network level we have won. It always feels good to win,” said SumantoChattopadhyay, Executive Creative Director, South Asia at Ogilvy & Mather about winning the top honours. The Social Street made its debut this year and was among the top agencies in the race for ‘Agency of the Year’ award. “It is the first time we have entered the DMAECHO awards and it is a great result for us. With 3 golds we feel extremely ecstatic.”

     

    Said Dhunji S. Wadia, President at Rediffusion Y&R, who was one of the jury presidents: “Some of the best minds from both marketing and communications came together together for the judging and it has been the most robust process anywhere in the world.” Speaking about the entries received this year, he said, “The highs are getting higher and the lows are getting lower. So in the balance, some things work some things don’t. Some entries are equal to the best in the world. The emphasis was more on data driven management. So that is where the jury spent more time deliberating and trying to see that it is true to the cause.”

     

    Sapient Nitro won the Grand Prix in the Media Effectiveness category for Nestle India’s ‘100 and Running’ campaign, while Mindshare India bagged it for Pepsico’s ‘Google Maps went beyond giving directions’ in Creative Effectiveness ­ Interactive category. The Diamond Award went to Ogilvy One Worldwide in the Business Effectiveness category for Amazon Fashion­ Kya Pehnu campaign.

     

    The Awards Gala, was attended by over 200 industry leaders, presented a total of 144 citations, including 25 Golds, 45 Silvers, 46 Bronze and 23 Leaders to the shortlisted winners out of 441 registered entries from over 70 agencies and 150 brands. The celebrity chief guest for the evening was Boman Irani who kept the audience entertained and engaged with his short speech.

     

    This year, notable winners were campaigns from IBS with 40 points, The Social Street with 25 points, PHD with 24 points and Sapient Nitro with 16 points.

     

    Talking about future plans for the awards, Vatsal Asher, Global Envoy of International ECHO and CEO and Co­-Founder,Association of Data­-driven Marketing and Advertising in Asia (DMAAsia) said, “We continue to grow and we are now responsible for finding entries from not only countries and agencies in Asia but from the Middle East and North Africa region also. So we are taking the DMA international ECHO to more markets, more agencies, more brands and more geography. So this year we have the Asian addition happening in Singapore in October and the Middle East and North Africa edition is happening in December at Dubai. Next year we will be having many more enhancements to the DMA international ECHO program.”

     

    “This is the biggest show for the direct and digital data driven industry. It recognizes people who have produced scintillating work that is also effective. So, for them it is their stage, their recognition. I am happy to be a part of that,” said Rakhshin Patel, Jury Chairperson and MD, Pi Communication. “We have run this for about four or five years and the India chapter just gets bigger. So, last year we added Asia, this year we are going to add Middle East too,” she said about the journey so far.

     

    Added Shelly Singh, also Global Envoy of International ECHO and COO and Co­-Founder, DMAAsia, “The winners epitomise the very best of creative effectiveness, that is, creativity that has driven exceptional results and profit growth. Marketers in India are extremely excited about the ECHO Awards to get global recognition for their work.”

     

    ECHO affiliated DMA CreatEffect Awards 2016, India Edition is organised by DMAAsia with an objective to celebrate India’s best and most creative and effective data driven marketing and advertising campaigns. The Asia and Mena editions of ECHO affiliated Awards are scheduled to happen on October 5 in Singapore and subsequently at Dubai respectively. The calls for entries to both are open till August 31.

     

  • Unilever was Client of the Year at while OgilvyOne Worldwide was Agency of the Year at the DMA Asia Echo Awards held last week

    Big Nite for the Datawallahs!

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    What’s one awards nite where many of the Big Pros of the A&M-land assembled and, no, it wasn’t the Abby, the Effies, the Emvies or Kyoorius? We’re talking of names like Piyush Pandey, D Shivakumar, Madhukar Kamath, Nagesh Alai, KV Sridhar, Bobby Pawar, Manish Bhatt, Damodar Mall, Tarun Katial and many, many others?  It was the DMA Asia Echo Awards, held last Friday (Aug 6) in Mumbai.

     

    Fast Facts:

    Entries from 542 participants, 75 agencies, 175 Brands

     

    Entries from 8 countries – India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Phillipines, China, Japan, Thailand.

     

    Awards presented:

    4 Overall

    1 Best of Show

    1 Diamond

    142 Metals

    29 Golds

    26 Leaders

     

    Unilever was adjudged Client of the Year, while OgilvyOne Worldwide was Agency of the Year. Ogilvy & Mather was Network of the Year and WPP the Holding Company of the Year. The Best of Show for Creativity was awarded to Visa India for Visa Sarees and the Diamond for Effectiveness was taken away by OgilvyOne Worldwide Philipines.

     

    The International Echo Awards are the most prestigious awards in the data-driven marketing and advertising world. This year, DMAi, the Indian association which has been in existence since 1992, was accepted entries from across 17 countries in Asia for both the awards – the 2015 DMA Asia Echo Awards and The DMA International Echo Awards 2015.

     

    Underscoring the importance of the Echo awards, Rakhshin Patel, Managing Director, Pi Communications & Grand Jury Chairperson, said:  “For an athlete, the Olympics are the ultimate stage. Data-driven marketers share the same feeling about the Echo programme. There is indeed no bigger stage to showcase ideas and work that have yielded measurable, tangible, real results.”

     

    There were 15 Effectiveness categories and 3 Creative Effectiveness categories each headed by a biggie – Piyush Pandey, D Shivakumar, Madhukar Kamath, Geetu Verma, Nagesh Alai, Jasmin Sohrabji, Anupriya Acharya, Agnello Dias, Pratap Bose, Bobby Pawar, KV Sridhar, Tarun Katial, Manish Bhatt, Nishi Vasudeva, Damodar Mall, Susana Tsui, Anant Rangaswami  and Rajesh Kumar.

     

    Said Vatsal Asher, CEO & Shelly Singh, COO, DMAi: “We are honoured to be hosting and managing the Asia Echo Awards. Campaigns got judged with the best in the Region. We had a fantastic panel of Jury Presidents and 194 online judges this year. We hope to see an increase the list of Asian winners at the International Echo 2015 awards in the US where all Asian winners will fasttrack to Round 2.”

     

    As an apex, not for profit DMAi, since 1992, brings about collective action for advancing & protecting responsible Data Driven Marketing and Advertising. The DMAi is run on a day-to-day basis by Vatsal Asher (CEO) and Shelly Singh (COO) and the awards have been championed by Rakshin Patel (Grand Jury Chairperson) and Ajay Chandwani, (Chairman Emeritus).

     

  • The DMA International ECHO competition began in 1929 as the first direct mail awards show

    DMAi brings ECHO to Asia

    By A Correspondent

     

    DMAi, from 2015, will be the exclusive association to enjoy an expanded affiliation with the DMA International ECHOâ„¢ Competition to funnel entries from across Asia. ECHOâ„¢ Awards honors exceptional creative work that has delivered results. The DMA International ECHO competition began in 1929 as the first direct mail awards show and is currently the oldest direct response awards program in the world.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Thomas Benton, CEO, Direct Marketing Association (DMA), US said “Marketers around the world and the ecosystem that supports them benefit when their trade associations collaborate and put a spotlight on innovation and success.  In that spirit, the Direct Marketing Association is very pleased to be partnering with the DMAi to increase participation in the ECHOâ„¢ awards from DMAi’s breadth of creative and innovative members.  We celebrate this partnership and look forward to seeing DMAi and its members at our annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts in October.

     

    The DMA International ECHO Awards celebrate the best and the brightest data-driven, direct response marketing campaigns from around the world. Those that are honored by receiving an ECHO Award have demonstrated superlative marketing strategy, exceptional insight into audience behavior, a responsible use of data and the ability to conceive and execute inspired creative that delivers an overwhelming return on marketing investment.

     

    DMA India has brought this credible awards program to India since 2012. The DMA India ECHOâ„¢ Awards in 2014 had over 383 entrants from over 150 brands and 70 top agencies in fray locally. Globally India has had an unrivaled run for last two years beating all international participating countries and having won the highest tally of metals at the International Edition.

     

    In an added development, both Vatsal Asher, CEO DMAi & Shelly Singh COO, DMAi, have been appointed as an official International ECHO™ Envoy, for all the hard work they have put into the ECHO’s over the past five years. As an Envoy, they will join the DMA International Ambassador Committee, which is responsible for unifying all of the local international DMA’s as well as being a liaison to the DMA in New York. Vatsal and Shelly join a dignified group which includes ECHO™ Board of Governors, Mark Allen (also a member of the DMA Board of Directors), Debbie Roth, Henry Hoke and Tedd Aurelius.

     

    All entries can now enter simultaneously for both awards, 2015 DMA Asia ECHOâ„¢ Awards and The DMA International ECHOâ„¢ Awards 2015 at a single subsidized entry fee. All qualifying DMA Asia award-winning campaigns will enter into the prestigious International ECHOâ„¢ Awards 2015 bypassing the first round of judging and fast track to the semi-finals of the competition.

     

    The entries are judged on the basis of the regular 15 Business Categories viz, Automotive, Business & Consumer Services, Communications/Utilities, Consumer Products, Education, Financial Products & Services, IT, Insurance, Not-for-Profit and so on. Starting 2014 the expanded DMA ASIA Awards has introduced a new sub-category “Creative Effectiveness” under a new program called “CREATEFFECT” which covers the Direct Response, Craft and Interactive elements of the campaign too.

     

    Grand Jury Chairperson for 2015, Rakhshin Patel, Managing Director, Pi Communications said “For an athlete, the Olympics are the ultimate stage. Data driven marketers share the same feeling about the ECHO™ program. There is indeed no bigger stage to showcase ideas and work that have yielded measurable, tangible, real results. There are many reasons why creative and marketing professionals should be excited about this year’s ECHO™ awards. The most compelling of them is: They deserve to! Their hard work and smart thinking has resulted in many memorable experiences for audiences far and wide. It’s now time to send in those entries, and then wait for the applause to echo in their ears.”

     

  • Over 70 brands and their agencies from India competed to get to the coveted International Echo. Eight of 90 Indian entries won awards: OgilvyOne with five wins, M&C Saatchi with two and Netcore with one win

    Big news for Datawallahs as India wins 8 Echo awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    Eight Indian entries came back with honours at the 2013 International Echo Awards organised by the Direct Marketing Association in Chicago on Wednesday (Oct 16). There were 90 entries from India competing for the awards.

     

    The DMA International Echo Awards Competition honours the world’s best response marketing campaigns – campaigns that have raised the bar in terms of strategy, creativity and results. No other awards competition looks at the response marketing discipline in such totality.

     

    Speaking on the occasion from the awards gala night, Vatsal Asher, CEO, DMAi, the Indian affiliate of the DMA, said, “We at DMAi are proud to have provided an international recognition platform and extremely excited to host our winning teams from India. Industry experts from across the world are sharing their thoughts and acknowledging the skills and the expertise being brought forward by the Indian Teams. Today’s wins should motivate more Indian agencies to step forward.”

     

    On this recognition, Ajay Chandwani, Director Percept Ltd and Chair of the DMAi India Echo Awards said, “Echo is a fitting recognition to the cause of  result-oriented creativity in direct marketing. With the world increasingly measuring ROI and effectiveness in every campaign, Echo rewards those direct marketing campaigns that delivered maximum impact in one to one communication in creativity and results. DMAi Awards with Echo are proud to have laid the platform for result driven marketing campaigns to be celebrated at the domestic level. We are grateful to all those who participated and congratulations to the winning agencies. Creativity in direct marketing has truly come of age in India”, said Mr Chandwani.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Rakhshin Patel, Partner M&C Saatchi whose agency brought two International Echos home said, “Over the years, I have judged some stunningly creative, yet effective, work in India and I have always believed that India has the talent to not just match up to the world’s best direct marketing standards, but in certain cases actually set the benchmark. This year, with India winning eight metals at the DMA Echos, it validates my belief that our industry has the talent to produce world beating creative work in the data driven marketing field. This recognition is a huge step forward for Direct Marketing in India and I congratulate the winning creative teams and their marketing partners for helping to propel India forward on the global direct marketing stage.”

     

    Commenting on this remarkable achievement, said Vikram Menon, President and Country Head (India) of OgilvyOne Worldwide that bagged five wins, said “Eight metals at one of the toughest effectiveness shows in the world is terrific for India and the entire direct marketing community should be immensely proud. What makes this tally so much more rewarding is that it puts us right on top with the very best in the world. Considering the parameters for judging, these wins belong as much to marketing teams as they do to the communication teams and my heartiest congratulations to everyone involved. This is just the sort of impetus we need to further the cause of creatively driven data inspired marketing and DMA India.”

     

    Winners have been selected from 12 business categories: automotive; business and consumer services; communications and utilities; financial products and services; information technologies; insurance; nonprofits; pharmaceutical and healthcare; product manufacturing and distribution; publishing and entertainment; retail and direct sales; and travel and hospitality/transportation.

     

  • Direct Marketing Association: India has appointed Mr Vatsal Asher as its Chief Executive Officer.

    Vatsal Asher is DMA chief

    By A Correspondent

    Direct Marketing Association: India has appointed Mr Vatsal Asher as its Chief Executive Officer. In his new role at DMA: India, Mr Asher will be responsible for strengthening DMA: India’s presence as an apex body for advocacy of direct marketing practices.

    On his new role, Mr Asher said, “With multitude of choices, Indian consumers are becoming more discerning about their brand preferences and where they spend money. Considering this consumer behavior and the increasing media clutter, it is imperative for marketers to create data driven customer centric campaigns. From traditionally being defined as ‘response generating’ domain, direct marketing is now used for ongoing customer engagement. By emphasizing on global best practices for marketing services providers and marketers, I aim to carry forward DMA: India’s vision of establishing industry standards and promote the direct marketing community.”

    Mr Sanjiv Swarup, Member of DMA: India Board of Directors, said, “In 2010 spends on direct marketing accounted for more than 50 percent of overall ad spends in the United States. Similar trend is also witnessed in India where marketers using data, backed with analytics are focusing on creating campaigns that generate interest, measure customer response and continuously engage with their customers. Considering this trend, onus is on us at DMA: India to increase member interaction and provide them with access to the latest information in domain of direct marketing. Vatsal’s depth of experience will help drive our agenda to advocate direct marketing and provide networking opportunities that will help the marketing industry to reach the customers more effectively.”

    Direct marketing has gained immense popularity in past few years with emphasis not just being laid on measuring the returns on marketing spends but also campaigns being created to initiate a dialogue with the customer. With advent of new media and innovative usage of technology to engage with customers, spends on direct marketing have also increased significantly.

    Mr Asher was associated with Deepak Fertilisers’ consumer facing VARE division as Vice President before joining DMA: India. Prior to Deepak Fertilisers, Vatsal has worked with Reliance Retail, Tata Teleservices and RPG group.

    He brings with him more than 15 years of rich and varied experience in domain of marketing communications across brand management, sales and promotions, loyalty and customer experience.

    Direct Marketing Association: India (DMA: India) is registered as a public limited company and has been adjudged as a non-profit organization. DMA: India is an active member of the International Federation of Direct Marketing Association (IFDMA). DMA: India’s members include national and international firms engaged in various activities of Direct Marketing. DMA: India connects businesses using and supporting all forms of direct marketing.