O&M has elevated four of its Group Creative Directors – Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Abhijit Avasthi, Rajiv Rao and Anup Chitnis – as ECDs for its South-Asia operations. The move comes close on the heels of Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar’s exit from the agency.
Honda Siel Cars India today said it was planning to launch two models in India, including its popular hatchback ‘Jazz’, to mark the company’s foray into the small car segment in the country.
After a couple of abortive attempts to put up a full fledged manufacturing facility in the country, Volkswagen (VW), makers of the famous car Beetle and Europe's largest car manufacturer, today launched Passat, its first locally assembled car in India.
Sumeet Bhojwani has joined Tehelka as Vice-President, Ad Sales for all India. He will be responsible for ad sales and sponsorship revenues for Tehelka and other Agni Media media initiatives. Prior to joining Tehelka, Bhojwani was VP, Sales with India TV, where he was instrumental in the channel’s ad sales growth.
Reebok India, in a bid to tap the growing women’s wear market, has launched a women-specific campaign titled ‘I am More’. Launched in September, the campaign advocates that a woman is truly multi-faceted and can perform multi-dimensional roles that highlight the extension of one’s individuality beyond the stated personality.
Probal Ghosal has joined Quipo Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Quipo Infrastructure, as its CEO. He moves from Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd, where he was Director-Finance of The Times of India Group.
Debraj Tripathy, who had quit as CEO of Sieger Solutions, the ad sales arm of Deccan Chronicle, has joined OnMobile as Head of Mobile Marketing. OnMobile is a mobile VAS (Value Added Service) company.
141Sercon, the newly formed activation brand from the BatesAsia family, has launched 1010, the group’s first ever comprehensive digital initiative. 1010 provides its clients and partners a unique approach of thinking beyond the obvious and translating the fundamentals into the strongest possible interactive communication solutions.
The all new Axe relaunch is riding on an innovative marketing campaign involving Silky Kumar, a fictional character chosen as a representative of all the classic male shortcomings that might stop him from getting a woman.
Day 2 of India Retail Forum 2007 presented an opportunity for the Indian retail industry to look and deliberate in detail on this growing market. The panel discussions covered a wide range of topics ranging from emerging retail spaces to political issues, lack of skilled manpower to entry strategies for global retail players.
Effie Awards 2007, the effective advertising awards organised by the Advertising Club Bombay, would be held on October 12, 2007. Round one of the judging would be done on September 21, while the second round of judging would take place on September 28. This year, Yahoo!, Marico and LIC Housing Finance would be sponsoring the event.
Prashant Tandon, General Manager and Business Head - New Initiatives at Indiatimes has put in his papers. He has joined Kotak Mahindra Bank’s credit card division as Vice-President and National Head-Strategic Alliances, Internet and Mobile Banking. Tandon will be reporting to Subrat Pani, Business Head of Kotak Mahindra’s credit card division.
The Petroleum Conservation Reservation Association (PCRA) has called for a creative pitch. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has allocated a budget of Rs 40 crore to PCRA to carry out a special pan-India campaign on petroleum conservation. Nine agencies have been shortlisted after submission of tenders – Euro RSCG, McCann Erickson, O&M, JWT, PerceptH, Grey, Concept, Pressman and Leo Burnett.
Oxygen Communications and Mavcomm Consulting have formed a strategic alliance aimed at bringing a broader spectrum of services to each firm’s clients, giving them an integrated communications approach yet in a specialised manner.
In a global first of sorts, Lastminuteinventory.com, a portal for trading of remnant media inventory, will commence online trading from this month. Lastminuteinventory.com has been ideated, conceptualised and actualised by Dentsu India, with active knowledge inputs from Dentsu Inc, Japan. The portal is owned and run by Last Minute Media.
Day 2 of the Ifra India 2007 conference in Chennai saw media stalwarts deliberate on the problem areas of the newspaper industry. Peter Ong, Consultant, Checkout Australia Pty Ltd, made an interesting presentation on how to successfully redesign a newspaper. “You can’t fool the readers by offering the same old content in the new bottle,” he warned.
Outlook Group would be launching a new fortnightly magazine on the stock market by early 2008. The Group is currently conducting a consumer research to finalise the name of the magazine. The Group has also roped in Business Standard’s N Mahalakshmi as Editor of the forthcoming magazine.
Following the success of the first season of ‘Gali Gali Sim Sim’, the Indianised version of ‘Sesame Street’, producers of the series have decided to go for a second season. The series is co-produced by Sesame Workshop, Turner Entertainment Networks Asia Pacific, with Miditech as production partner.
Discover India, the travel, culture and lifestyle magazine from Media Transasia India, has been declared the ‘Best Travel Magazine in India’ by IATO, the apex body of the tourism industry. The magazine, which was relaunched three years ago, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
BAG Films & Media has christened two of its forthcoming channels. While the Hindi news channel has been named ‘News 24’, the entertainment channel has been named ‘E 24’. This apart, the media group is all set to bring its entire broadcast initiative under the ‘Network24’ brand umbrella.