Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., owner of The Times of India Group, is all set to acquire a 6 per cent stake in Sahara One Media & Entertainment Limited by subscribing to 11,00,000 new equity shares at a price of Rs 344 per share aggregating to Rs 37.84 crore.
In yet another high profile appointment, Reliance Industries is set to take Unilever Nigeria chief Gunender Kapur on board as the CEO of its foods and grocery division.
FMCG growth (in value terms) in rural markets has far outpaced the sector’s growth in urban markets during the first nine months of the current financial year.
Leo Burnett's - part of the $5bn Publicis Groupe - Asia Pacific president Michelle Kristula-Green is one of the few women at the very top of the global advertising business. On a visit to India earlier this week to deliver Femina Dialogues keynote address on 'Miss Understood: She's Not Buying Your Ads'- a Leo Burnett proprietary study on how to engage the female consumer.
Multi-brand luxury goods company Yves Saint Laurent has officially entered India with the launch of ‘Cinema’, its new premium perfume for women, which was unveiled in Kolkata on February 12.
This is a gadget that all gizmo loving, car proud people will love to possess. After car stereos and FM radios and deep bass throbbing out of the mean machines on the streets, the latest in car accessories could just be a TV, courtesy Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting.
Delhi based advertising agency Noshe Oceanic is quite bullish about its growth in 2006 and is all set to foray into other cities. The 16-year-old agency is looking at getting into Chandigarh and Mumbai simultaneously within the next one month.
M&C Saatchi India has made new additions to its creative team. Vaybhav Singh and Swami Anand Tirth have come on board as Creative Directors. They will be working on all the brands being handled by the agency, including VLCC account, a new Luminous inverter brand from SAR Silicon Systems and cigarette brand Jaisalmer from GPI.
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is going all out to ensure media presence across sectors even as its non-media verticals – Reliance Infocomm, Reliance Energy and Reliance Capital – are all seeing growth as well. In a bid to restructure the consequent increase in ad spends, ADAG is beefing up its media function with the appointment of Nitasha Narad and Gauresh Pathare.
Media e2e has announced South Asia’s first product placements valuation service in partnership with the New York based iTVX. The service launches on February 15, 2006. Devendra Deshpande, hitherto Director, ADEX Services, has been roped in as Media e2e’s Chief Marketing Officer.
In our ‘Breaking News’ titled ‘Jagran Group sells 37 pc stake in Channel 7 to Global Broadcast News’ dated February 10, 2006, it was erroneously reported that Irish publishing group Independent News and Media holds 26 per cent of the shareholding of Jagran TV Pvt Ltd, which operates Channel 7. This is factually incorrect as Independent News and Media does not own any stake in Jagran TV.
The development that has occupied news space for a while now, in terms of speculative reports and vehement denials from GBN and the Jagran Group, has finally fructified. GBN (a TV18 venture with Rajdeep Sardesai and Sameer Manchanda) has announced its intention to make a strategic investment in Jagran TV Pvt Ltd’s (JTL) Channel 7.
GroupM’s Sunitha Gopalakrishnan and Manjiri Kamat are all set to take on senior positions within the network in Asia. While Goplakrishnan, Mindshare India’s General Manager, will shift base to Jakarta and spearhead the launch of GroupM’s Indonesia operations, Kamat, GM, Maxus Mumbai, is moving to head GroupM’s Mediaedge:cia in Malaysia.
It’s that time of the year when everyone sees pink. Cupid season is here to stay and brands of all hues are out to help lovers woo with panache. Be it TV channels, coffee shops, greeting card companies, cellular operators, websites and apparel brands – everyone has something to offer this Valentine’s Day.
Ad Club’s ‘Creative Review’ by Prasoon Joshi, Regional Creative Director (South Asia & South East Asia), McCann Ericsson, is a mixed bag of achievements by the profession as well as challenges facing it. Joshi has quite a few observations to make on the way advertising is being done and the drivers that have led to this.
O&M emerged as the Agency of the Year at the Advertising Club Calcutta Awards for Creative Excellence from the Eastern Region, which were held in Kolkata on February 10. Bates, too, made its presence felt with four wins, while Response won the Campaign of the Year in the popular FMCG category.
As Tamil Nadu gets ready for elections to the state Assembly due in 2006, more media entities aligned visibly and otherwise to major political parties are cropping up.
The later half of 2005 and the year 2006 so far have seen various publications speaking on the growth in the Indian advertising industry and the year that was. Advertising, marketing and media magazine, Pitch, however, has gone a step ahead and takes a close look at the components that led to this growth – both medium wise and growth in the various sectors of the industry.
