Visage Media Services has announced the launch of the ‘Visage of India’ contest, targeted at the creative community encompassing art directors, visualisers, designers and graphic artists. The awards have been envisioned as an annual property, and will be given away by region in the three centres of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
`Stamina', claimed by Amul to be India's first-ever instant energy sports drink has been formally launched here. At present, only imported energy drinks are available.
Even as male users of online services increased in absolute numbers over last year, their ratio against women dipped from 72 per cent to 68 per cent this year an is further expected to reduce to 60 per cent by next year as more and more women log onto to the internet across the country, revealed a survey conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
As globalisation brings in the opportunities for marketers, it also simultaneously brings problems for the market research industry. Understanding needs of diverse markets and devising ways and means to approach them is surely no child’s play. ESOMAR, the organisation founded in 1948 for enabling better research saw its Asia Pacific 2006 World Research Conference take off in Mumbai recently.
Yellow Pages and special interest magazine publishing major, Infomedia India Ltd has announced its plans to acquire International Typesetting and Composition (ITC) for $12 million. ITC, a Noida based company, with a front-end in Fort Lauderdale, USA, is in the business of providing publishing services to book publishers around the world.
The year has begun on a good note for Prime Market Reach, formerly called Prime Outdoors. The independent out of home agency formed in 1985 is abuzz with activity after bagging the accounts of Parle Marie biscuits, Siemens, IT People.com and Wipro Santoor soaps.
Telugu dailies Eenadu and Andhra Jyoti have registered impressive gains on circulation in the July to December 2005 period, according to ABC figures. While Eenadu remains the clear leader among Telugu dailies, Andhra Jyoti has grown faster, at 30 per cent over the corresponding period a year ago.
You have heard about the call of the hinterland for consumer goods companies. Marketers have been rushing to rural India looking for growth as big cities are heading towards saturation. Now, a new trend is emerging where some brands in consumer electronics and mobile handsets, which are essentially late entrants or are being relaunched in India, are making small towns their first port of call.
Mahesh V, Senior Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather’s Bangalore office, passed away on March 20, 2006. Mahesh was one half of the Mahesh-Rajeev team that communicated Hutch’s network strength with the now-immortal pug.
Coca-Cola has taken a new approach to refresh the consumers this summer. The cola major has taken the initiative to launch a new brand campaign called ‘Coca-Cola Thande Ka Tadka’ with Aishwariya Rai. The commercial will be aired across all leading television channels from March 26 onwards and will be shown in different variants.
The Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has a new leadership with Anupam Mittal as Chairman and Dr Subho Ray as President. These changes will be effective from April 1, 2006. They take over from Neville Taraporewalla and Preeti Desai, respectively.
LinOpinion, Lintas’ PR division, has expanded its senior management team. An official communiqué quoted that in keeping with the expanding business and client base, LinOpinion had appointed three new Communication Directors (two in Mumbai and one in Delhi) and promoted Kavita Lakhani to Vice-President, India.
Initiative, Delhi has roped in Sumita Das as the head of planning on all Initiative clients with the exception of Maruti Suzuki. Coming in succession of the announcement of V S Mani being appointed as Initiative Mumbai Head, Kartik Iyer, President Initiative said that these appointments were in line with the overall growth plans of the agency.
It is a man’s world or so it seems for the Indian publishing groups. Soon after men’s magazine ‘Maxim’ hit the stands in India, becoming the second men’s magazine after ‘Man’s World’, and the debut of Malayala Manorama Group’s ‘Man’ a fortnight back, India Today is all set to bring the fourth men’s title in India with ‘Men’s Health’.
Giving in to mounting pressure, Verghese Kurien, the father of the country’s “white revolution”, has finally quit as chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which owns the Amul brand.
Media buyers have much on their plate beginning April 2006. Media houses across the board have announced hiked rate cards and the most recent announcement comes from Go 92.5, Mid Day Mutlimedia’s radio division. After a span of two years, Go is inducing a hike of 25 per cent in its ad rates.
Chobbees Ghanta, the dedicated Bengali news channel managed by Zee Akash, an independent company set up by Zee News Pvt Ltd and Akash Bangla, will officially go on air on March 26. This was confirmed by reliable sources from the company. The dry run begins on March 22.
Joseph Gassoub has been appointed as President of the International Advertising Association in Dubai. Gassoub, currently the CEO of The Holding Group, parent company of Team/Young and Rubicam, Intermarkets Advertising, ASDA’A PR, mediaedge:cia and Wundermann in the region. The announcement came on the eve of the IAA 40th World Congress which starts in Dubai on March 21.