K. Krishnan has been promoted as Senior Manager - Marketing at The Times of India, Bangalore. Krishnan has been with TOI in Bangalore for the last 13 years, joining as an Executive through campus placement from TAPMI. He continues to be a part of the Results and Market Development team, but assumes higher responsibilities with the promotion.
Sanjay Sakarkar and Romeen Yarkhan have quit Percept to join iB&W as Creative Directors in Mumbai. Sakarakar began his career in 1992 as a visualiser with Sphere Communications. He has also worked with Lintas as Senior Art Director and O&M as Creative Group Head. Subsequently, he has worked with agencies like JWT and Law & Kenneth. On his part, Yarkhan began as a trainee copywriter with Lowe (then Lintas) in Kolkata in 1995, from where he moved to Everest Delhi. He then joined JWT as a Creative Supervisor in Mumbai. Yarkhan has also worked for McCann Erickson.
Alok Saxena has joined Magna Publishing as General Manager-North. He will look after brands like Stardust, Society, Savvy, Showtime, Society Interiors, and Citadel. Saxena brings with him 15 years’ experience in the corporate world and 12 years in the media. He started his career as marketing executive with database management firm Reed Elsevier of UK. Saxena has also worked with Indian Express as Senior Executive- Space Marketing. He was with Hindustan Times for five years, and also headed the Delhi office of Rajasthan Patrika as State Marketing Head for a year. Prior to his Magna assignment, Saxena was heading Hindi India Today as Deputy Chief Manager.
Abhay Palkar has taken over as CFO of Connecturf India Pvt. Ltd. He is a Chartered Accountant by profession with an extensive experience of over 20 years, out of which eight years have been in the media industry. He has worked with the WPP Group in various capacities. Prior to joining Connecturf, he was Finance Director at Mediaedge:cia India. Besides being good with figures and finances, he is passionate about Indian classical music, photography and reading.
Adidas has handed its entire $280 million global media planning and buying business to Aegis Group’s Carat, after a winner-takes-all pitch against Omnicom Group’s OMD.
Good days are back at TVS Motor. After a lacklustre run for three years, the motorcycle maker seems set to win back the market share it lost to Hero Honda and Bajaj during its lean phase.
Web major Yahoo! Inc has launched a technology website, Yahoo! Tech (http://tech.yahoo.com), which gives consumers plain, jargon free advice and information on choosing and using technology, be it digital cameras, computers or iPods.
Motorola has launched its portfolio of Bluetooth wireless devices in India, which are set to enhance the mobile experience for consumers in India. Motorola also established a separate business unit in India to focus on accessory products.
The Asmi brand of diamond jewellery was formally handed over to the Gitanjali Group by DTC recently. To mark this beginning, a new TVC featuring brand ambassador Kajol has been unveiled. The new campaign has been created by Fortune and is about women who discover more about their potential and reward themselves with Asmi.
Nine months after introducing the Windows XP Media Center Edition, Microsoft India on Friday unveiled and Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) through which TV viewers through Media Center PCs can search live and scheduled TV programmes on various channels up to 15 days.
Gujarati daily Sandesh has appointed Ad Space Mart as their media representative for various markets spread over 13 states of India.
Women’s ethnic wear store, Signoraa, has entrusted its creative duties to Chennai-based creative shop be positive 24. The agency will also handle the creative duties for the soon-to-be-launched women’s fashion label from the promoters of Signoraa, christened ‘Ska’.
In a bid to offer a unique content property on Indian television, Cellcast India will be launching a new TV show called ‘Bid2Win’ from May 7, 2006. The show will be telecast simultaneously across four TV channels – Sony TV, Sahara TV, Zoom TV and Zee Punjab – in the late prime time band of 11.30 pm to 12.30 am on all days of the week.
Business Standard on Friday launched a new monthly magazine, ‘Open Sky’, which focuses on the aviation sector, thus adding to its already existing two special interest publications. The magazine will be available free of cost to the daily subscribers of the newspaper.
Rajat Sharma promoted India TV is taking new initiatives to beef up its content and talent pool. The channel has recently inducted Alok Tomar as Senior Editor, while Girish Juneja and Shibani Kapur have been taken as Senior Producers for two new programmes beginning May 8.
Ten Sports, which has exclusive rights to telecast the upcoming India-West Indies cricket series, today moved the Supreme Court seeking to restrain Prasar Bharati from downlinking the live feed of the matches.
<p aligh=justify>"Hyundai Motors decided to set up an in-house agency that can take good care of the brand. In India, Hyundai wants to take its image to the next level so that it can sell its high-end products with a lot more ease than at present. The idea is also to consolidate the gains made by Hyundai so that we can strengthen, leverage, and add value to the brand’s presence in a very definitive manner."