The Capital’s ad scene has a new entrant – Latitude23. Floated by former Rediffusion hands, Nitin Adake and Naresh Kumar Sharma, the new advertising agency came into being on January 14, 2006. Latitude23, which has an office in Mumbai as well, already has five clients in its kitty.
Everest Brand Solutions is making key changes on its people front. The agency has decided to replace its former National Creative Director, Milind Dhaimade, with Cajetan Vaz. In addition to that, Prateek Bharadwaj is moving from the agency’s Delhi office to become Creative Director, Mumbai. Kapil Dhawan and his art partner Arnab Chatterjee will replace Bhardwaj in Delhi.
Starcom Mediavest Group has finally decided upon a name for it’s small town and rural specialist: ‘Xpanse’. It will be headed by Sandip Bansal as Country Head.
The Delhi Metro has come as godsend opportunity for marketers bereft of big out-of-home (OOH) advertising options ever since the Supreme Court acting on a public interest litigation banned hoardings in the national capital seven years ago.
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care has launched 1-Day Acuvue contact lenses in India. For its brand communication, J&J has signed on McCann Healthcare for the creatives and MediaCom for the media buying function for the campaign.
The Internet today is no longer just about emails and surfing as it has developed into a tool for empowering the media and entertainment industry, and industry leaders should explore the emerging markets and growth drivers for digital media in India. This factor was brought to the fore at the Akamai Technologies-CIOL.com seminar on ‘The Dynamics of Digital Delivery – Going Online with Your Content’.
KamaSutra, the condom brand from JK Ansell, has tied-up with writer Mintty Tejpal and animator Anand Singh Naorem (Andy) and will be using the cartoons created by them to drive growth further.
Ad Space Mart has been given the responsibility of being the sole media representative for all the print publications of Sahara. An agreement to this effect was signed between Sahara India Mass Communication Ltd and Ad Space Mart recently.
Specialty media house CyberMedia, in partnership with CMP Media, has announced the launch of the inaugural issue of its ‘Global Services’ magazine. CMP and CyberMedia had announced a joint venture in September last year to build this global media portfolio.
Janmat, the news and current affairs channel from Shree Adhikari Brothers Television Network, has filled the slot left vacant following the exit of Kanta Advani from the company’s sales function. The channel has appointed Subramanian Iyer as Senior Vice President. Iyer takes charge from February 15.
Nokia has decided to sign on MediaCom as its media agency for the Asia Pacific region. However, in India, Maxus is being assigned Nokia’s media duties.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry is evolving content monitoring mechanism for television and radio. As part of this mechanism, the Ministry is finalising an action plan to make private TV channels accountable to viewer forums.
The Ministry is of the view that the funds from the corporate social responsibility kitty should not be used for sponsoring large tournaments like one-day international cricket matches or football leagues.
Star Vijay has decided to change the name of its programme Sa Re Ga Ma on its Tamil channel, Star Vijay, following a legal notice alleging copyright violation by Subhash Chandra’s Zee Telefilms.
Sanjoy Chakrabarty has joined Dentsu for its media venture, which will be announced soon. He is joining as Chief Operating Officer and will oversee the setting up of this forthcoming media entity for Dentsu in India. He moves from GroupM, where he was National Director (Sports and Entertainment).
Everest Brand Solutions has been assigned the creative duties of Kinetic Motor Company’s scooterette brand Kine. The move was not preceded by any pitch for the brand. The incumbent on the business was Contract Advertising. The business is pegged in the region of Rs 5 crore.
Saatchi & Saatchi Delhi has won the creative duties of Pentair Water Systems. The incumbent agency was JWT Delhi. There were three agencies in the fray which saw two rounds of presentations.
Sony Entertainment Television has injected key changes in its programming line-up. The channel has changed the timing of ‘Indian Idol 2’, which in turn changes the timings for the other shows as well.
NDTV 24x7 finally has competition, interestingly led by ex-NDTV hands, Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami. Has the second generation of English news indeed arrived with new kids on the block – CNN-IBN and Times Now? Maybe, maybe not – but it definitely implies a milestone in the genre, which comes with the promise of expansion.