With the Indo-Pak series round the corner, ‘Junoon,’ RED FM’s cricket special, is gearing up to delight cricket enthusiasts with “<I>asli masti</I>”. The radio station has planned a combination of on-air and on-ground initiatives to delight cricket enthusiasts.
OMD has finally decided to go independent in India. And it has chosen Sandeep Tarkas to steer it in right direction. Tarkas, South Asia MPG President, is putting in his papers and is all set to head Optimum Media Direction (OMD). When contacted, Tarkas refused to comment on the issue. As per the reliable sources, however, he is definitely moving on.
Sundaram Home Finance, a Sundaram Finance Group Company, today launched a portal christened ‘sundaramhomefind’ [www.sundaramhomefind.com].
Royal Challenge is once again gearing up to organise the game that CEOs play: golf. The star-studded $ 300,000 golf tourney, Royal Challenge Indian Open 2004, is slated for March 25 to 28, 2004. Taking a keen interest in the "gentleman's game", Shaw Wallace has chalked Rs. 10 crore for golf promotion this year.
Hindustan Lever (HLL) is hopeful that reduction in prices of its premium brand Surf will drive up the sales. A little earlier, Procter & Gamble (P&G) had also slashed the prices of its detergent brands, Ariel and Tide, to make them more affordable and to encourage higher usage or upgradation. At the same time, leading distributors differ from what retailers feel about the possible increase in volumes.
With two acquisitions already under its belt, the global agri business and food major Bunge Ltd is hungry for more. Announcing the relaunch of vanaspati brand Dalda, which it acquired from Hindustan Lever (HLL) last year, Bunge’s Asia Pacific head Christopher S White on Thursday said that Bunge will grow through a combination of acquisitions and alliances in the country and will more than double its initial investment of $14 million in next five years.
Hutch tied up with Nokia and Kodak to launch the “click and print” MMS service. The alliance would enable Hutch users to send clicked photos and have them delivered at home. The service would be available to all Hutch GPRS users for a fee of Rs 12 per print, for five prints. The cost would however be more if number of prints were less than five.
Reid & Taylor claims a 50 percent growth in its summer booking in comparison to last year. And substantial credit, according to the brand, goes to its Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. In an attempt to take the figures forward, it has launched a new campaign, which revolves around the product story. The campaign’s is scheduled to break on March 15, 2004.
India’s entertainment sector is on the upswing with a 15 per cent annual growth rate, touching Rs 19,200 crore in 2003, according to a FICCI-Ernst & Young report to be tabled at the three-day Frames 2004 global convention in Mumbai on Monday.
Aaj Tak and Headlines Today to provide exclusive live coverage of India Today Conclave. Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi and Gen Musharraf to be on the tube as they share their views on future India. With the objective to make the coverage more attractive, TV Today will conduct interviews of some of the key speakers on how India is now positioned to become a global leader.
BenQ launches an all-India brand campaign, ropes in Cyrus Broacha to promote its latest range of IT and telecom products. Surprise mobile offer to begin on Day 1 of Indo-Pak test.
Mantra for a successful business has ever been the USP. But, in an oversupplied economy, only customers' feelings drive purchase decisions. 'In an economy plagued with abundance in everything, business no further runs on the selling proposition, rather customers' feelings,' says Suresh Dinakaran, President, Communicate, Dubai.
Godrej Industries has shifted its advertising account for its fruit juice and nectar brand, Xs, from Madison to Grandale Advertising & Marketing in Mumbai. Having re-launched the Xs brand, Godrej is now looking at a relatively smaller agency to deliver value for its brand.
A day after the government threatened to come out with an Ordinance making it mandatory for Ten Sports to grant terrestrial rights of the India-Pakistan cricket series to Prasar Bharati, the two parties came to the negotiating table to find a solution to the dispute. Though disagreements and concerns remain, Ten Sports and Prasar Bharati today discussed the commercial and technical terms of sharing the telecast feed for the series.
MB Kapadia, part of the top management, Mid Day Multimedia Ltd. has put in his papers. Kapadia, a veteran in the organisation, has spent 15 years in the company. During his tenure, he headed various departments — among them Finance & Administration. For the last one year he has been taking care of HR as well. He was recently given charge of the IT department.
BioSpectrum, Cyber Media’s business magazine for the biotech industry, celebrates its first anniversary this month. Alongside it plans to further establish its presence as the voice of the industry, the magazine is evaluating the option of adding international and student editions.
Hype and hoopla continues and so does the tussle between the network and cable operators. And this time, the Government would not be a silent watcher — it is indeed an important series as far as the two countries are concerned. And it is not only the residents of this country that would be watching the series but the South Asians living in other parts as well — for instance North America.
With the elections round the corner, news channels are bound to see an increase in their mass viewership. This is true of the news channels in the South as well, however other than such seasonal highs subject to the critical nature of news elements in current affairs, do News channels carve a niche of their own?
“I think brand-related PR is something that a very few companies can do and this is where we come from. Whether it’s brand consulting, PR or advertising, we come in from the brand’s perspective. That’s our USP.”