Rajneesh Chaturvedi has joined MEC Access India as National Director. He will continue to develop the creation and delivery of strategic partnerships and sponsorships across nine different platforms. Chaturvedi moves from Motivator, a GroupM agency, after two years as its General Manager.
Social networking has caught on in a big way the world over and in India too. A report commissioned by online advertising network Tyroo has found that social networking sites account for 44 per cent of India’s Internet traffic. Contrary to global trends, in India Orkut and Facebook are the single largest audience aggregators.
Consumer Electronics major and a big spender on the game of cricket, LG India has decided to renew its contract with the International Cricket Council (ICC) for a period of eight years.
Valuable Group has acquired MovieBeam, including all of its assets, trademarks, IPR, and alliances that Disney, Intel, Cisco and other private equity investors spent over $200 million in creating. MovieBeam is a push video-on-demand service launched by Disney in 2005, wherein movies are beamed wirelessly into customers’ homes to a set-top box.
Graphisads has acquired the sole marketing rights from MCD/NDMC for 40 sites in Delhi’s prime locations, including Greater Kailash I market, PVR Saket, RK Puram – Sangam Cinema, IP Depot, Ring Road, Mathura Road, Pragati Maidan, Defence Colony flyover, and LSR crossing area, among others.
Zee Business is conducting a B-School survey in association with international research firm Synovate. The survey, claimed to be the first such B-School survey in India by a TV channel, would be a ready reckoner for both aspiring B-School students and recruiters. The survey results are expected to be out by the end of this month.
Publicis Ambience has appointed Kaustav Das as Executive Vice President for South. He will be responsible for launching the Publicis Ambience Bangalore office. Das moves from Orchard India, where he had a short stint as Managing Director.
Sunil Rajshekhar, who had moved to Bangalore as Director-South, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), in early April this year, is back in Delhi. He took over as President, Times Internet Ltd (TIL), last week. TIL is the BCCL subsidiary that runs all the web and online initiatives of The Times of India Group, including the highly popular Indiatimes portal.
Hakuhodo Percept has been assigned the creative duties for Maruti Suzuki India’s new car, A-Star, following a multi-agency pitch. The car is expected to be launched in the last quarter of 2008. The account size has been pegged at Rs 35-40 crore.
Siddhartha Dasgupta has joined PVR Cinemas as Chief of Corporate Affairs. Dasgupta brings with him extensive knowledge and experience in his domain, having worked with chambers of commerce and industry, such as CII and FICCI. He has confirmed the development.
Quadrant, a part of the Interpublic Group, has recently acquired the advertising accounts of Knight Frank India Pvt Ltd and Car X Space. The cumulative size of both the accounts is around Rs 10 crore. While Knight Frank is an international property consultant, Car X Space is the sister concern of First Choice, a company that deals with used cars.
JWT has appointed CEO Jagdip Bakshi as Global Business Director on Unilever. He will be based in London and take charge from September 2008. Announcement of a CEO to replace Bakshi would be made soon. Meanwhile, Ravi Deshpande has been elevated as Chairman and Chief Creative Officer. He has been CCO at Contract.
Rediffusion DYR has appointed Kishore Karumbaiah as Creative Head for their Chennai operations. Karumbaiah will be handling the entire Rediffusion DYR Chennai client portfolio that includes Airtel, MRF, Arihant, ITC, etc. He comes on board from O&M, Bangalore, where he was part of the team that handled the Lenovo worldwide business.
Saurabh Dasgupta has been elevated to Executive Creative Director at Innocean Worldwide. Dasgupta has been a part of the agency’s team since its inception in December 2005 and has been the person behind ideas like Santrowale, the Getz Prime launch, and more recently, the re-launch of Hyundai Accent.