JWT India and Youth Dynamix Pvt Ltd, a specialist WPP youth agency, have joined forces to offer clients a specialist youth consultancy offering. It aims to launch an in-depth Trax Study focused on the youth in India via a joint venture with Youth Dynamix.
Sheel Saket has joined Euro RSCG Delhi as Vice-President on a clutch of businesses. He moves from O&M, where he was Client Servicing Director on the Dabur and Maruti businesses. He was with O&M for three years. At Euro RSCG Delhi, Saket will be overseeing the communication requirements on a wide range of businesses, including Max New York Life Insurance, MakeMyTrip, NewsX, and Volvo, among others.
Grey Group has announced the appointment of George Koshy as Creative Director for Grey Delhi. He moves from Equus Red Cell Bangalore, where he was instrumental in setting up and running the Bangalore branch.
Havas Group has reported an organic growth of +5.8 per cent for the first nine months of 2008, indicating a strong level of revenue over the period. Revenue for the first nine months of 2008 stood at €1,118 million, an increase of +1.8 per cnt over the same period in 2007, at current exchange rates. A stronger Euro had a negative exchange rate impact of €65 million on the Group over the first nine months of the year in comparison with the same period in 2007. At constant exchange rates, revenue was up by +8.2 pr cent.
The ADEX 2008, conducted by Advertising Club of Hyderabad on November 7, saw RK Swamy BBDO Hyderabad reinforcing its position as the leading creative agency in the city with a haul of 17 awards, including seven Golds and 10 Silvers. ADEX is an annual event that celebrates creativity and honours agencies for creative excellence.
Zenith Optimedia, a unit of Publicis Groupe, has bagged the media duties of MicroMax,
After a well-received round in Delhi, the Pitch CMO Summit 2008 was held in Mumbai on November 17. The Summit continued with its focus on gauging the ‘Impact of slowdown on Marketing’. This Summit was an initiative of Pitch, the marketing magazine from the exchange4media Group. Colors was the main sponsor for the event.
The Indian print industry is vehemently divided between those who support total readership (TR) and those who are for average issue readership (AIR). The Malayala Manorama team of <b>Varghese Chandy,</b> Senior General Manager, Marketing Operations, and <b>Tomson J Thundathil,</b> Manager, Marketing Research, speak their minds on why TR is a 'fallacy' for them.
Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network, has been unanimously been elected as President of Editors’ Guild of India. Sardesai is the first ever TV editor to be elected to this post. The Week’s Sachidananda Murthy has been re-elected General Secretary, while India TV’s Rohit Bansal is the treasurer.
PIX, the English movie channel from Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd, has appointed Hanmer MS&L Communications Pvt Ltd as its public relations and creative consultants following a multi-agency pitch. The agency has been given the mandate to manage the communications of the slew of new initiatives and plans of PIX over the coming months.
Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) has restructured its operations in Asia. A few markets have been identified as the emerging areas that are expected to add to the overall SMG growth in the time to come. Amongst the other changes, the Asia restructuring would see Ravi Kiran, CEO, SMG South Asia focus and build India further. In this new structure, he would also lead the specialist solutions practices for all of the emerging markets.
Amba Preetham Parigi, Managing Director, Entertainment Network India Ltd, and Managing Director & CEO of Times Infotainment Media Ltd, is the 2009 William F Glaser ’53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year. The award will be conferred on Parigi at a special ceremony in New York in April 2009.
Dentsu Creative Impact, the creative agency from Dentsu Group, has been assigned the creative mandate for two brands of ICICI Securities’ retail division – ICICIdirect.com and ICICIdirect. The account moves from Pickle and is estimated to be around Rs 20 crore.
The various producers’ bodies met on November 17, 2008, over the standoff between the producers and the Federation of Western India Cine Workers (FWICE). The producers are looking at various measures that would bring the Federation to see their point, and some of the ongoing initiatives include the formation of a uniform rate card. On the downside, it appears that matters relating to the standoff don’t seem to have progressed much, adding further uncertainty to what the duration of this strike would be.
In a bid to cut down on its projected losses, UTV has steeply cut down on its investments in its broadcasting arm. After taking a sharp view over the last 60 days, UTV is “rationalising costs”. It has decided to cut down investments by over Rs 200 crore and would be saving on Capex, carriage fees and overhead costs. The media major has also decided to phase out its Delhi operations of broadcasting and operate all four channels from Mumbai.