Maruti Suzuki’s WagonR, dubbed as the ‘Smart Car’, now has a mascot – Mr WizeR. The name is derived from brand ‘WagonR’ and some of the inherent attributes of the WagonR owner – wise, smart and witty.
BSNL Broadband has announced the national launch of BSNL.Hungama.com, an on-demand digital entertainment store with Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt Ltd. It is said to be the country’s first-of-its-kind on-demand digital entertainment service, conceptualised and created by Hungama Digital Media. One of the attractions of this initiative includes dedicated pages to the hottest and most happening celebrities in the country.
ESPN-Star Sports has appointed Jon Lefebvre as Vice President - Sales Operations and Strategy. He will be based in Singapore and will be reporting to Charles Less, Senior Vice President, Advertising and Multimedia Sales. In this role, Lefebvre is responsible for ESPN-Star Sports’ advertising sales and sponsorship strategies across seven sales regions covering South-east Asia, Japan and Hong Kong. He will work closely with Less to oversee sales operations, improve operational efficiencies, manage budget processes and offer strategic support to achieve Advertising Sales and Digital Media targets. Prior to his move to Singapore, Lefebvre was based in Australia, where he ran J&M International, a boutique sponsorship consulting firm representing corporations to source, develop and negotiate sports and arts sponsorship.
Shivanand Mohanty, popularly known as Doc, has been elevated to Creative Head of Dentsu Communications. Prior to the promotion, he was ECD. Mohanty will spearhead the agency’s creative function across its offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. He has been with Dentsu Communications since its inception six years ago. Prior to that, he had a year-long stint at Impact BBDO, Dubai, where he was instrumental in the creative work for brands such as Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge. Additionally, he was also in the team that had worked on launching Smirnoff Black and relaunching 7Up with its mascot, Fido Dido.
“We don’t want to be a magazine of record, we don’t want to give the re-run of stuff that the reader already knows. Days of the traditional weekly newsmagazine are over. For that, there’s Google News. We will not put the week’s news on the cover unless it is a very significant event… then also, we will try to look at it from a fresh and interesting perspective,” says Sandipan Deb, Editor-in-Chief, Open.
Sanjeev Chowdhury has joined Pudhari as General Manager for their Mumbai unit. He will be reporting to Naval Toshniwal, VP - Marketing. Chowdhury’s role will include P&L responsibility for the Mumbai unit as well as the advertisement business generated out of Mumbai.
Collage Sports Management has announced the extension of its contract with Ishant Sharma for another three years, followed by the renewal of deals with Reebok and Exide. Virender Sehwag and Ravindra Jadeja are also said to have bagged one and three deals, respectively.
US-based mobile advertising platform AdMob, which began its India operations from Mumbai, is now looking to expanding its footprint here. The company is setting up an office in Delhi soon. Bangalore is next on the agenda. AdMob will also be hiring new team members for its Mumbai office very soon.
In a recent development, Navia Asia has partnered Michelin Tyres to handle their current outdoor campaign. The campaign is already up in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, Chennai and Bangalore.
Raj Nayak, Chief Executive, NDTV Media, and currently President of IAA’s India chapter, has been unanimously chosen to be head of the Indian delegation to the forthcoming AdAsia in Kuala Lumpur in October 2009.
“As an industry, we would thrive a lot more if we had one voice when it came to important issues like agency remuneration, pitch fees, even awards. And I am not talking about the ‘fly-by-night’ operators here, but the big guns of advertising. I’m sure everyone has issues. But I’d rather work with the system and address these issues than become a rebel,” says Dhunji Wadia, Managing Partner, JWT Mumbai.
Prior to the leaders from the media services industry speaking on the various mediums and the issues faced by the Indian media industry at the ‘Media Review 2009’, held in Mumbai on July 17, Ernst & Young’s Farokh Balsara spoke on the year that was and the most impactful forces that reshaped India’s media and entertainment industry.
The Bombay Ad Club conducted its annual event, ‘Media Review 2009’, in Mumbai on July 17. Ad Club President Bhaskar Das and Lodestar Universal’s Shashi Sinha brought together industry leaders like Mindshare’s R Gowthaman, Mudra’s Pratap Bose, OMD’s Jasmin Sohrabji, Lodestar Universal’s Nandini Dias and Madison Media’s Punitha Arumugam to review various mediums in the year gone by as well as the overall issues that the media industry in India is facing.