Madison Media has launched two sub brands, Madison Media Plus and Madison Media Infinity. The agency has also made some key changes in its present structure. These include Punitha Arumugam elevated to Group CEO, and Ajit Varghese and Basabdatta Chowdhuri appointed COOs of the sub brands, Infinity and Plus respectively.
Welspun India has finally taken a decision on its media and creative agencies. Following a multi-agency pitch called in January 2005, the company has awarded the media duties to Carat and the creative business to rmg david. The company has planned a retail advertising budget of Rs 5 crore for this financial year.
For ‘Cosmopolitan’ (Cosmo), branded merchandise might just be the flavour for the next three months. Starting April, Cosmo readers will find branded coasters in the magazine jackets, featuring some of the past Cosmo covers.
The curtains have come down on the biggest annual global convention in Asia spanning across all aspects of the media and entertainment industry (M&E), Frames 2005 (April 4-6), organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
Finally, there is some action in Chennai’s advertising space. The Nutrine Confectionery Company has invited agencies to pitch for its Rs10-crore creative and media duties. The pitch is on currently, and the agencies in the fray are incumbent Mudra, Saatchi & Saatchi, RK Swamy/BBDO, Ambience Publicis, G3 Communications, TBWA India and Rediffusion DYR.
Maruti Udyog has upgraded the existing version of Omni. To give a boost to this launch, a new television commercial has been prepared by Lowe.
Fanta is back this summer in an innovative fun-filled shape, Fanta Spin. The lively spirit has been effectively captured through a TVC with Rani Mukherjee. Vikas Gupta, Vice-President Marketing, Coca-Cola India, said, "We are very excited about the innovative Fanta Spin bottle which reflects the brand values of being a fun catalyst."
Outdoor has always provided more scope in terms of application of new technology, innovation and other factors. Today it is laser shows; tomorrow it will be something else. In the last four to five years, there has been a steady growth in outdoor spends by clients across categories, observes Abhijit Sen Gupta, CEO, OAP India.
Zee Cine Awards, which was a simulcast on three channels this year, has kept with the trend that awards have shown. Like the awards so far, the numbers, which cumulatively are at 4.42, are marginally lower than the 4.93 last year. However, for the channel, the objective of the event is beyond numbers.
Tamizh-th-thirai, the Tamil entertainment channel which has been waiting to see the rays of daylight for a long time now, will finally go on air from April 22, 2005, according to the promoters of the channel. They added that the channel would be the first of three to come from the group and an IPO is in the offing in early 2006.
Perhaps keeping in view the climatic variations across regions, Delhi publications got maximum advertising from the Top 5 spenders in the air-conditioners category who accounted for 70 per cent of the ad spends. The peak advertising was witnessed in April 2004.
The Times of India is adding muscle to its office in Chennai. TOI has roped in Manikantan Nair, Business Group Head Buying (South India), Fulcrum, as Deputy Chief Manager for its Chennai office. Industry sources indicate that the publication is on the lookout for editorial staff too.
The first report card of Sony's 'Kaisa Ye Pyar Hai' is here. The opening episode on March 29 delivered a 2.04, which dropped to 1.19 and picked again to a 1.22 in the final episode of the week. Industry reaction on the performance so far is mixed.
STAR India is making some changes in its Ad Sales division. The corporate has moved Kaushal Dalal, EVP, Business Development to Ad Sales. While Dalal's role encompasses strategising Ad Sales, there are consequently changes in EVP, Ad Sales, Kevin Vaz's role as well.
Vijay Times, the English daily from the publishers of the Vijay Karnataka and Usha Kirana, is currently being circulated in a tabloid format in Bangalore as a late-city edition, reaching the markets at 1 pm.
Group M gave an emotional sendoff and farewell to Nitin Jain on Saturday as Nitin prepared to join MTV from today onwards.
Media Turf has added a matrimonial client to its portfolio. The account has been with the agency for some time now and is getting in the implementation stage now. Officials share that with Rs 4 crore routed towards the bigger portals and Rs 2 crore towards the smaller ones, the total account size is in the region of Rs 6 crore.