Date-wise News

Raymond Ltd has appointed Deepak Khetrapal as COO. Khetrapal will be based in Mumbai and take over from Pradeep Kumar Bhandari, Group President. He had joined Raymond in April 2007 as President – Corporate & Strategic Initiatives. With over 31 years of experience, Khetrapal started his career with State Bank of India. He subsequently joined the Turner Morrison Group as Director-Finance & Commercial, and became CEO of Steelage. He joined Raymond from Gunnebo AB where he was President, Asia Pacific, in Singapore.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 8:16 AM

Raj Bowen will head the Indian operations of Personnel Decisions International (PDI), a global consulting firm specializing in talent management and leadership development. He moves from Dale Carnegie Training India where he was CEO working across seven locations in India. Prior to Dale Carnegie Training India, Bowen headed the Corporate Solutions Group for the Western entity of NIS Sparta, a division of NIIT Ltd. Bowen has worked with brands such as Mahindra, Bajaj, Bharti Airtel, Indian Railways, Parke Davis, Kodak and Siemens.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 8:16 AM

Purvi Shah has joined Pyramid Saimira, the multinational entertainment company, as Head of Corporate Communications. Prior to Pyramid Saimira, she was with a leading financial PR firm as Senior VP. She has had exposure in handling clients across various categories that include entertainment, finance, travel & tourism and infrastructure. Pyramid Saimira Group operates in over four countries in the fields of film exhibition, distribution and production, TV content production, advertisement, media, and food & beverages.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 8:15 AM

Amit Sutha, after a stint of two years at JWT as Regional Planning Director, has moved to BBDO’s Malaysia office. Sutha will head the planning division at BBDO Malaysia. In Malaysia, the BDDO Group consists of two companies, Proximity Asia and BBDO Advertising. Sutha will head the planning divisions of both. At JWT, he handled a host of brands such as Lux, Godrej Appliances, Adlabs, Big FM, STAR One, STAR Plus, STAR World, UTI, HPCL and Monsanto. This was his second stint at JWT; he had worked there (then known as HTA) in 1998. He started his ten-year-old career with SSC&B Lintas in client servicing in 1996 and then moved to JWT for two years. In 2001, he joined FCB Group, where he spent four years, and then moved to Cogito Consulting, before finally shifting to Lodestar Media.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 8:13 AM

Buoyed by the 40 per cent growth in its India operations, L’Oréal has identified the country as one of its top-five growing businesses globally. The French cosmetics major’s sales in India grew 40.3 per cent last year.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:51 AM

Vineet Singh Hukmani, CEO, Radio One, argues that consumer ‘interface’ choices seem to get demarcated between media like print and TV which are largely one-way communication media; and interactive ‘alternate avenues’ that are closer to community. The problem that arises is that often the sheer number of people you can influence seems to drop drastically. But it is possible to have your cake it and eat it too when one uses radio at the core of a brand community building programme.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:50 AM

NDTV Lumière, an initiative to bring contemporary world cinema to India, presents Retour de Flamme for Indian viewers. A cine-concert, Retour de Flamme has been conceived and initiated by Anna Doshi and Serge Bromberg, and would be held in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi on February 9, 12 and 14, respectively.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:49 AM

Tanla Mobile, a player in wireless application development, mobile billing and messaging solutions, has been selected by Outcast TV to build ‘Buzz’, their unique media personalisation platform. The first application of the technology is BuzzMyGoat.com, a service allowing people and brands to communicate with personalised video.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:48 AM

OOH Media has tied up with Aditya Birla Group, The Times of India Corporate Olympics (an initiative of Fountainhead Events and Promotions) as the out-of-home TV partner, an inter-corporate sporting challenge, will be held between February 13 and February 23.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:47 AM

AOL has acquired personalised portal company and widget maker Goowy Media with plans to deploy widgets that feature programming, content, applications, and ads. Special widget-based ads will permeate AOL’s ad network and allow users to take the message to other sites.

exchange4media Chennai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:46 AM

Web18 has launched TV-style programming on the Internet through Biztech2TV. The portal will allow people to buy, select, implement and leverage business technology that will power their business to greater profits and growth.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:45 AM

Nick is launching an innovative contest, ‘Nick Bhoot Bhagao’, from February 11 to March 7, 2008. The channel’s latest initiative is supported by a five-city school contact programme and a mass media campaign. ‘Nick Bhoot Bhagao’ contest will see Nick-toon heroes flexing their comic muscle as they battle ghostly intruders.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:44 AM

The MCorp Global Group has chalked out ambitious expansion plans for its multi-brand technology retail chain, Hot Spot Retail. Under the one-store-a-day expansion plan, the Group aims to increase the number of its Hot Spot stores from the current 245 to around 6,000 stores by the end of 2009.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:43 AM

Tennis season is on full swing on Neo Sports Plus, the all sports channel from Neo Sports Broadcast Pvt Ltd. The channel has bagged the broadcast rights for three major tennis tournaments – Davis Cup, Federation Cup and the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:43 AM

Red FM has announced the third edition of its Bajaate Raho Awards. This year, the Awards would be given in categories such as Bollywood, Music, Cricket, Television, City Special Awards for Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The FM station has also planned a 360-degree media campaign spanning over three weeks to promote these Awards.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Feb 8, 2008 6:42 AM

In a bid to increase its share of eyeballs, IBN7 is all set to unfurl its new looks shortly. The channel plans to have more virtual sets, new programmes and a techno savvy look that is expected to attract especially the youth who do not show much interest in news programmes.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:41 AM

Global financier and philanthropist George Soros has picked up 3 per cent stake in Reliance Entertainment for $100 million (about Rs 400 crore). With this stake sale, the value of Reliance Entertainment has now gone up to around $3 billion (approximately Rs 12,000 crore).

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:40 AM

Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) is planning to launch a Hindi edition of its financial newspaper The Economic Times. The news was confirmed by Ravi Dhariwal, CEO (Publishing), BCCL. This would be the second vernacular edition of ET after the launch of the Gujarati edition in Ahmedabad and Mumbai in 2007.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:39 AM

Sunder Raman, former Managing Director at Mindshare, has been appointed as CEO of BCCI’s Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket initiative. He will be taking charge from next week.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 6:38 AM

OMD, the media brand from the Omnicom Group, has completed a year in India, and its Managing Director, Jasmin Sohrabji, states that while the first year has been a good year, the birthday wish is to be present “across many more cities” by next year.

Noor Fathima Warsia Feb 8, 2008 6:38 AM

There is a lot more know-how here, a lot more creativity. So, I think what India is doing here is quite exciting. Some of the organised retail markets are picking up tips from traditional retail. For instance, one can now get rice flour made in a food bazaar. So, it's an interesting and fascinating thing about the India as opposed to some other markets. The US has completely lost this connection between the old and the new.

e4m Desk Feb 8, 2008 12:00 AM