tbr december 1-15-2010-lr

FACEBOOKTrying Out

HERO HONDA A Friendly Ride 10

KOTAK MAHINDRA Silver Side Up 14

COCA-COLA AND NESTLÉ Ice Tea on the Rocks! 20

BLOG KV Sridhar 58

Will its messaging system hurt e-mail services?

What it means for the telecom business and how it might change the nature of advertising in

one of India’s largest spending categories.

3GTAKEOFF

32

L’ORÉALReveal Your TalentsAn unusual e-initiative to hire Generation Y.

28

PROFILEYubaraj BhattacharyaThe new CEO of Mahuaa has to change perceptions.

44

December 1-15, 2010 `50Volume 1, Issue 23

38

EDITORIAL

3afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 0

Volume 1, Issue 23This fortnight...The mobile telephony business is on the threshold of a transformation. ‘Voice on the move’

created a business that, in just 15 years, has grown into a phenomenon with an annual turnover of `150,000 crore. Now with 3G upon us, mobile telephony is entering the next phase. In just a couple of years, we will do far more with our mobile than we can even begin to imagine.

What does this mean to all of us in media and marketing communications? Telecom is one of the biggest advertising spenders in India and as its priorities change, so too will its message and the media channels it employs. All this is the subject of this fortnight’s cover story, ‘3G Takeoff’.

There are three factors that will, together, dramatically alter the Indian mobile telephony landscape.

The first factor, of course, is the coming of 3G which will allow subscribers to use data in all forms – be it web browsing or watching video or downloading applications or games – easily. Better bandwidth means little, however, if there isn’t enough content.

While traditional content is available on the mobile web, market leader Nokia has been slow in developing applications which have driven mobile data consumption in many countries. Now, the rise of the Google-created Android platform has fired up developers to create apps and a number of handset makers have aligned with the platform. So, that’s factor two.

Better bandwidth and the abundance of applications still wouldn’t work unless users have affordable handsets with bigger screens that take advantage of the environment. That brings me to the third factor that will fire up the mobile scene: Micromax and company. Thanks to a bunch of aggressive new brands,

Indians can now aspire to own handsets that are loaded with features and are yet affordable.

Nearly 10 million Indians are already getting on to the mobile web every month. According to Opera Mini, the mobile web browser, the typical Indian downloads about 7MB of data and about 400 pages on his or her mobile each month. We may not have noticed it but the revolution has already begun.

FACEBOOKTrying Out

HERO HONDA A Friendly Ride 10

KOTAK MAHINDRA Silver Side Up 14

COCA-COLA AND NESTLÉ Ice Tea on the Rocks! 20

BLOG KV Sridhar 58

Will its messaging system hurt e-mail services?

What it means for the telecom business and how it might change the nature of advertising in

one of India’s largest spending categories.

3GTAKEOFF

32

L’ORÉALReveal Your TalentsAn unusual e-initiative to hire Generation Y.

28

PROFILEYubaraj BhattacharyaThe new CEO of Mahuaa has to change perceptions.

44

December 1-15, 2010 `50Volume 1, Issue 23

38

EDITOR Sreekant Khandekar

PUBLISHER Prasanna Singh

CONSULTING EDITOR M Venkatesh

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Prajjal Saha

SENIOR LAYOUT ARTISTVinay Dominic

LOGISTICSRajesh Kanwal

ADVERTISING ENQUIRIESHansika Koli, (0120) 4077834 4077837 NoidaVarun Mohan, (022) 40429702-5 Mumbai

Neeraj Ranjan, 09886846842 Bangalore

[email protected]

Marketing OfficeB-3, First Floor, Sector-4, Noida-201301.

Tel: (0120) 4077800.

Mumbai501-502, Makani Center, 5th Floor,

Off Linking Road, Bandra (W), Mumbai - 400050

Tel: +91-22-40429 709 - 712

BengaluruS-1, New Bridge Corporate Centre, 777 D, 100 ft Road, Indira Nagar,

Bengaluru - 560038, India

Subscription EnquiriesGarima Agnihotri, (0120) 4077837

[email protected]

Printed, published, and owned by Prasanna Singh, Publisher,

at 7-A/13, Ch. Ratan Singh Complex, Jawala Heri Market, Paschim Vihar,

New Delhi-110 063.

Printed at Paras Offset Pvt. Ltd., C-176, Naraina Industrial Area, Phase I,

New Delhi 110 028.

Cover Illustration Tiffin Box

NAIDUNIA DISHATargeting YoungThe daily is being published for students across Indore.

POINTS OF VIEWProfitable Niche PapersCould special interest newspapers work in India?

12

30LOOP MOBILEAll That’s PurpleThe service provider has launched a brand campaign.

60

PHOTO FEATUREWho’s whoSpotted were the biggies of the fraternity.

PLUSBRITANNIA CAKESYummy Nursery Rhymes 16

DEFINING MOMENTSI Venkat 40

GOOGLE Going Local 42

AFAQS! & RADIO ONEGetting Together 46

SONYSwapping Wives 46

HORLICKS NUTRIBAREndless Reasons 50

GOOD KNIGHTNaturally Bite Free! 52

22

RELIGARESimplifying SolutionsCommunicating through an endearing message.

Sreekant [email protected]

42

CONTENTS

Buoyed by phenomenal growth in the smartphone segment and facing stiff competition

from domestic players in the low cost feature phone segment, the South Korean electronics giant LG has decided to exit the low end seg-ment.

At the launch of LG’s latest smart-phone Optimus One, Moon B Shin, managing director, LG India, said, “Smartphones are poised to drive growth in the Indian mobile market in the coming years and LG will focus only on the smartphone seg-ment in the short term. 2011 will be acceleration phase for LG Mobiles. In future we will re-enter the feature phone business with better products at the right time.”

LG has announced that it intends to cap-ture 12 to 15 per cent of market share in the smartphone category in India. To achieve the target it will launch 12 new phones in the next six months. The company has allotted `350 crore as market-ing investment for 2011.

Shin adds, “Our focus on Smartphones will deliver the ultimate consum-er experience. We are therefore pre- embedding loads of applications, making phones ready to use with exposure to the world of applications.”

Further, he added, that the com-pany has identified mobile phones as a strategic growth engine catego-ry. Therefore, the company is also increasing the production capacity of its Pune plant from 8 million to pro-duce 15 million phones by next year.

It is also expanding its retail net-work by 25,000 outlets and

500 exclusive LG mobile galleries. “We also have an ambitious target of 80 per cent revenue growth in mobile business by 2011,” Shin adds.

Next year the company plans to launch 55 new models, out of which 40 per cent will be Smartphones. Marketing investments by the company would also be aligned accordingly.

With respect to the operating sys-tem (OS), LG announced that it will focus mainly on Android, however, two of 12 products in the offing will run on the Windows Phone 7 OS.

In line with its new strategy, LG has also launched one of its most innovative smart devices from the

Optimus series - LG Optimus One, which is an Android 2.2 Froyo based phone with a 3.1 inch capacitive touch screen, 3 meg-apixel camera, WiFi and A-GPS. Apart from regular Android phone features, LG has included 40 bundled apps and an application that recognises voice commands.

LG has also said it will launch several devices in the coming months, including a tablet PC called LG Optimus 7 running Windows Phone 7 OS. The company will also launch other Optimus series devices.

Optimus One is priced at a market operating price of `13,500. Optimus Seven is expected to be priced at a lit-tle more than `25,000. The Optimus One with Google offers unfiltered and genuine smart phone experi-ence. Convenient user interface and diverse multimedia options ensure a mobile environment that makes this device one of the easiest to use in the market.

‘‘If consumers are not talking about us in the same space as the young and trendy Fastrack, or a Coke or Pepsi, for example, we have a problem.’’

SRINANDAN SUNDARAM, HUL, CATEGORY HEAD (DEODORANTS AND ORAL CARE) ON POSITIONING OF AXE, IN BUSINESS STANDARD.

LG INDIA

QUOTE OF THE FORTNIGHT

Hyundai Motor> The second larg-est car manufacturer in India, Hyundai Motor, has renewed its corporate identity standards to ensure uniform brand identity and competitiveness across showrooms and workshops for its customers. Based on its increased brand value, HMIL has designed a new 3D chrome signature to reflect a refined confident brand. The implemen-tation will happen across Hyundai Motor company globally.

Porsche> The luxury carmaker, Porsche, recently opened its third showroom in the upmarket Jubilee Hill, Hyderabad, follow-ing New Delhi and Mumbai. The facility offers 5,000 square feet of showroom space. The Porsche Centre Hyderabad is home to the entire Porsche product range, including the latest arrival - the new Porsche Cayenne. Porsche also plans to expand its pres-ence across India with operations to be opened in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi.

INOX> INOX Leisure recently launched its fourth mul-tiplex at the Bangalore Central Mall, JP Nagar with four screens and 1,118 seats. Thus INOX now has a total of 18 screens in Bengaluru in Jayanagar, Garuda Mall, Malleswaram including JP Nagar.

Nationally, INOX has 38 multi-plexes and 144 screens in 25 cit-ies across India.

Sharp> The electronic company, Sharp, recently unveild four mobile handsets priced between `6,500 and `18,000. With this launch, the company expects to garner a market share of three per cent within a year. Sharp is aiming at a `1,200-crore business by the end of the financial year 2012. The company registered a topline of `400 crore in 2009-10 and hopes to increase the figure by `100 crore more in the current fiscal.

Dabur> The fourth largest Indian FMCG firm with an annu-al turnover of around `3,400 crore recently acquired the US based Namaste Laboratories. The acquisition will help Dabur boost its presence in Africa. With this acquisition, nearly 25 per cent of Dabur’s consolidated revenue would be generated overseas. The current management team, led by Namaste founder and CEO Gary Gardner would continue.

HMIL plans to implement the corporate iden-tity at its 320 outlets by end of December.

Kiehl’s> The 160-year-old premium skin care brand of the US, Kiehl’s, recently opened its first flagship store in Delhi. The brand sits in the luxury division of L’Oréal Group and hap-pens to be the fastest selling brand in its portfolio. The luxury division of L’Oréal has brands such as Lancome, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren and Diesel under its umbrella.

Kingfisher Airlines> Kingfisher Airlines has announced the launch of Little Wings - a new frequent flyer programme created for young flyers between the age of 3 and 12 years. With the introduction of this new programme, Kingfisher Airlines becomes the first airline from India to let young fly-ers earn King Miles when they fly, which will be added to the miles tally of the parent. The only qualification for a young flyer to become a member of Little Wings is that a parent has to be a member of King Club.

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The company has introduced about 126 products in the price range of `499 to `3,800.

4 afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 0

MARK

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LG intends to capture 12 to 15 per cent

market share in the smartphone category, and to achieve that tar-get it will launch 12 new phones in the next six

months.


In an attempt to augment its youth viewership, Channel [V] plans to further increase its non-

music original programming lineup, wherein the thrust will be to push up the fraction of fiction content in the programming mix. Additionally, the channel is also looking at increasing its ad rates while providing clients with its expertise across all platforms.

Prem Kamath, general manager, Channel [V], says, “While we will be looking at increasing the proportion of our original content in the line-up, we will also look at upping the fiction genre because our current fic-tion property, Roomies, has helped us garner good youth viewer-ship. Fiction also has a certain measure of storytelling it can talk about a specific aspect of the youth and the final product can be controlled. If it is suc-cessful in its appeal to viewers, revenues will automatically flow in.”

Kevin Vaz, presi-dent, sales, STAR India, remarks, “While the ad rates will vary from client to cli-ent, we are looking at increasing our ad rates by 30-40 per cent. This is because Channel [V]’s performance since its launch has increased consistently. We have grown from a 0.2-0.3 per cent market share during the re-launch period to a 0.81 per cent market share today. This has helped in creating a demand for the channel amongst advertisers.”

The channel’s plans seem ambi-tious as it still has to catch up with its competitors on the viewership front. According to the TAM data for Week 45 (C&S, 15+, HSM), the recently launched music channel, Mastiii, leads the genre with 15.3 per cent market share, followed by 9XM,

with 14.5 per cent.

MTV is at 13.1 per cent, while Bindass is at 11.7 per cent. B4U Music has a market share of 11.4 per cent. Lower in the list is Channel [V] at 8.7 per cent, E24 at 8 per cent and Zoom at 6.4 per cent. Amongst others, Music India is at 4.7 per cent, Imagine Showbiz is at 2.2 per cent, Zing is at 1.8 per cent, while VH1 and ETC stand at 1.1 per cent each.

In the past 14 months, the channel has launched 24 shows, an average of two shows a month, which has helped to keep up its programming lineup extremely fresh. And now, the channel will add two fiction shows to

its original program-ming in January. The channel also intends to come up with new seasons of its flagship programmes. The new season of Truth Love Cash was rolled out last month, while the new seasons of Axe Ur Ex and Love Net will be launched after March 2011. Dare 2 Date is also being relaunched.

Fourteen months since its relaunch, the channel has increased its format-show pro-gramming lineup to about 76 per cent

of which 24 per cent content still comprises music. Meanwhile the channel claims that the increase in the non-music content has helped in increasing its market share from 0.25 per cent (during relaunch) to 0.81 per cent (Week 45), its advertis-ing revenues have also witnessed a threefold growth.

Kamath says, the other factor that helped in attracting advertisers on board, is the strategy of providing complete and holistic brand solutions to clients, which include online, TV and on-ground activities.

Two wheelers, cosmetics, soft drinks and deodorants contributed the most to the ad sales revenue.

‘‘Two-three years back, satellite rights were not a big source of revenue. But now there are many revenue streams opening up.’’ASHOK RAJGOPAL, PARTNER - BUSINESS ADVISORY SERVICES, ERNST & YOUNG, ON THE SATELLITE RIGHTS OF BOLLYWOOD FILMS, IN THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS.


Mangalam Group plans to foray into the electronic media with an initial investment of `50 crore.

Sony> In an attempt to expand its weekend program-ming and to help add more youth and male audience to its viewership, Sony has decided to advance its Saturday weekend prime time to 8 PM. The slot houses its big ticket property, Adaalat, an absolute courtroom drama, which was launched last month. The show will revolve around KD Pathak (Ronit Roy), an unconventional lawyer who uses every trick in the book to deliver justice. His methods are as bizarre as using magical gimmicks.

TV Today Network> The TV Today Network has joined hands with Rogers Communications to launch Aaj Tak and Headlines Today in Canada. Both the channels will be available free of cost to Rogers Digital Cable customers in Ontario as an introductory offer for the first two months, after which they will be available on an a-la-carte basis.

Big CBS> Big CBS Networks has closed another deal with Hathway Cable and Datacom. The association is formed to distribute the premium English GECs - Big CBS Prime, Big CBS Spark and Big CBS Love. The company is targeting viewers in the big metros and tier II cities through this deal. The deal covers both Hathway’s own as well as its JV networks across all relevant markets, cov-ering both analog and digital cable TV platforms.

Zee Network> Zee Network has re-engineered Zee Cafe and Zee Studio. Both the channels will broadcast its logo as an all-white logo. The new Zee Cafe logo aims to connect to the contemporary outlook of today’s viewers while Zee Studio’s endeavour is to make TV movie watching an experience.

Mangalam Group> The Mangalam Group of Publications plans to foray into the electronic media. It plan to launch a news and an entertainment channel by mid-2011. The first channel by the group will be called Mangalam and will be in Malayalam. The publishing division, which has an annual turnover of `60 crore, will start the channel with an investment of `50 crore.

Prasar Bharti> The information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni informed the Rajya Sabha that Prasar Bharti has spent about `305 crore in the broad-cast of the Commonwealth Games. The spends include outsourcing of production and coverage facilities and hosting of website for the broadcaster. In addition to this, about `75.77 crore was spent towards rentals and upgrading of infrastructure and facilities.

Ambika Soni has informed that Prasar Bharti has spent `305 crore in the broadcast of CWG .

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Radio Misty> Radio Misty 94.3 FM has turned three. The radio station started its journey from Siliguri in West Bengal on November 14, three years back. With its motto of local people, local station, local choice, local voice, Radio Misty airs music and shows in five differ-ent languages namely Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, English and Bhojpuri.

TV Today joins hand with Roger Communications to get a launch pad in Canada.

The channel’s plans seem to be ambitious as it

still has to catch up with its com-petitors on the

viewership front.

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CHANNEL [V]

FOTO

CORP

> Scarecrow Communications has been given the mandate to handle BPCL’s retail initiatives. The account will be handled out of the agency’s New Delhi branch. The other agencies empanelled by the compamy are Euro RSCG, Saatchi & Saatchi and Lowe Lintas. Scarecrow was awarded the mandate on the basis of a campaign it had done in February this year for Shriram Transport Finance Company. The agency will be looking at a mix of below-the-line and above-the-line communication. The upcoming campaign is expected to utilise extensive outdoor and print.

> Maruti Suzuki is gearing up to launch its sports sedan, Maruti Kizashi in India. The automobile major has awarded the brand’s creative mandate to Dentsu Creative Impact. The agency won the business after a multi-agency pitch, in which Maruti’s other roster agencies, Publicis Capital and Lowe Lintas participated as well. The media duties will be handled by Lintas Media Group, which is Maruti Suzuki’s AOR. Suzuki, the Japanese auto major and parent company of Maruti India, currently sells Suzuki Kizashi in the US and Japan. With the Kizashi, Maruti Suzuki is making its foray into the luxury sedan segment, one that is different from that of the compact car. This signifies a shift in domain for the brand.

The self regulatory voluntary organisation of the advertising industry,

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), recently introduced guidelines for the education sector, because advertising for the sector has galloped and consumer complaints have grown as well. ASCI has received the maximum number of complaints against the education sector since the guidelines went up on the website for public viewing in August this year.

Of the 12 complaints received by ASCI, six were against the ads of education institutes and the rest from FMCG, travel, realty and appliances companies.

ASCI’s Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) upheld three complaints against the ads of Career Launcher as the claims could not be substantiated. The complaints pertained to claims of the highest success rate, number of students taking tests and being the most successful trainer in Mumbai. Career Launcher could not substantiate any of the claims with data and hence, under ASCI code’s Chapter I, Clause1, the CCC asked for the ads to be withdrawn.

Similarly, another coaching institute, T.I.M.E, was asked to withdraw ads as the institute could not substantiate its claim of being the No.1 institute for GMAT at the time. A claim by Education Matters on its website about its association with the British Deputy High Commission was unsubstantiated and it was directed to withdraw the claim from its website.

Alan Collaco, secretary

general, ASCI, says, “More than 50 per cent of the complaints this time were against educational institutes.”

Other than educational institutes, a TVC of Colgate Sensitive toothpaste was found to be misleading from the aspect of its visual showing ‘other’ toothpastes having only one out of four dentists recommending them, when the figure was actually more. However, Colgate was able to substantiate its claims of ‘relief from pain for sensitive teeth’ and ‘three out of every four dentists recommend Colgate Sensitive’ with supporting data.

CCC also upheld the complaints

against the Dabur Pudin Hara’s ad which claimed that the product does not contain any chemicals. However, the company was able to substantiate the claim of ‘relief from pain and acidity’ with supporting data.

In a case of comparative advertising, an ice-cream brand of Kochi based Supreme Food Industries - MeriiBoy Ice Cream, was found to be misleading the consumers by claiming that the contents of competitors’ products were artificial. Following the CCC decision, the leaflets were withdrawn from the market and the website content was modified by the advertiser.

The complaint against Nirali Appliances of claiming savings on electricity and several power related claims was found to be unsubstantiated: it had to not been substantiated.

8

‘‘A piece of advice for the Indian creative brigade: if your campaign is worn out, find a way to refresh it. Open it up to the public. It could be so-and-so agency versus the people of India.’’

ROBIN WIGHT, PRESIDENT, THE ENGINE GROUP AND CO-FOUNDER, WIGHT COLLINS RUTHERFORD SCOTT, ON HOW ADVERTISING OUGHT TO BE IN TODAY’S BRAVE NEW WORLD, IN BRAND EQUITY.


ASCI/EDUCATION SECTOR

Sorento and McCann Healthcare> At the second edition of the Clio Healthcare Awards 2010, two Indian agencies, Sorento Healthcare and McCann Healthcare India made it to the winners’ list. Sorento Healthcare picked up three bronzes, while McCann managed to get one. Sorento won two bronzes in the Poster - Direct to Consumer Category. The third bronze came in the Direct Mail - Direct to Consumer Category. McCann Healthcare India earned its bronze in the Poster, Direct to Consumer - Over the Counter (OTC) category.

ADVE

RTIS

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Talwalkars Better Value Fitness> Health club chain, Talwalkars Better Value Fitness (TBVFL), is looking for a creative and a media agency; its media spends are pegged at `4-5 crore. An equal number of mid-sized and large agencies are participating in the pitch process. The brand’s TG falls in the 20-35 years age group, from smaller towns as well. For future communication, focus will be on digital, TVCs, on-ground activation and creation of brand partnerships.

> Uninor has moved its pan-India OOH account from Navia Asia to Mudra Max. As per industry sources, Uninor is likely to spend ` 60-75 crore on out-of-home. Uninor had signed a one-year contract with Navia Asia in November 2009. A multi-agency

pitch was called for at the end of the contract period. Uninor’s creative duties lie with Leo Burnett while its media agency is Zenith Optimedia. OOH has been a crucial pillar for the company since its launch wherein Uninor has established itself as a non-celebrity brand that is built around people.

> After an association of more than five years with Euro RSCG, the creative mandate of Dainik Bhaskar and Divya Bhaskar has shifted to Meridian. The company awarded the mandate to Meridian after evaluating a few other agencies. Most of its earlier communication has primarily been print-led, with selective TV campaigns. Strategies ahead are slated to witness much innovation.

afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 0

>> ACCOUNT MOVEMENT

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ASCI has received the

maximum number of complaints against the

education sector since August.

In addition to redoing its logo, Airtel has launched two TVCs to mark the change. The brand is handled by JWT. The first TVC, titled Endless Goodbye, shows

a couple bumping into each other repeatedly after having said goodbye.

The TVC begins with a couple who looks very sad as the young man is leav-ing. However, the very next moment, he finds the girl in a nearby café and is very excited to see her. Later, both walk down a street.

They say goodbye to each other and the girl turns away, only to meet the man again, this time in a cab. The girl hops into the taxi and both of them leave together. Then, the man asks the cabbie to stop the taxi and gets out, bidding adieu to the girl inside.

The next instant, the girl comes running towards the man and hugs him. The television commercial then shows the couple happily walk-ing across the city. They enter a metro station and once again are very sad, as the young man boards the train.

As the train leaves, the girl once again meets the man on the platform and happily hugs him. The TVC ends with a VO: In Airtel’s world, you’ll never be away from your close ones, Dil jo chahe paas laye.

The second TVC, titled Street Performer,

opens with a man dancing to the tune of Airtel’s official ringtone. Next, a girl walks down the street, she stops as she sees the young man per-forming interesting dance moves. The girl stays for a while to watch him but leaves when she real-ises that she is getting late.

The man, who is still dancing, stops and finds that the girl has left. So, he fol-lows and catches up with her. He continues dancing while the girl is walking.

The television commercial ends with a voice over stating that in Airtel’s world, entertain-ment will never stop.

Mohit Beotra, head, brand and media, Bharti Airtel, says, “The TVCs showcase our new services and the new brand value of Airtel. The TVCs will be on-air for four to six weeks and will

be followed by other campaigns, wherein we shall talk about more exciting new services we have for our consumers.”

For Maneesh Rangra, executive business direc-tor, JWT Delhi, the idea was to talk to consumers directly, by creating a different experience in the telecom space. The motive was to say that Airtel is one of the biggest brands, which caters to anyone, anywhere and at anytime.

Speaking on the TVCs, Adrian Miller, chief creative officer, JWT Delhi, says, “It was very clear

Shedding the PastBHARTI AIRTEL

India’s No. 1 mobile operator, Bharti Airtel’s latest campaign unveils the new logo and highlights the new positioning and new offerings, such as live experiences on the go. By Anushree Bhattacharyya

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1 0 afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 0

Hero Honda, a brand that already has a lot of emo-tional equity with its

consumers, has recently launched an ad campaign to re-position the Splendor NXG. A teaser campaign that rolled out in the first week of October gave way to a full-fledged campaign a week later.

The campaign positions the motor-bike as Yaari ki Gaadi. Aiming to move beyond the transactional aspects of owning a bike, the com-munication highlights functionality with emotionality.

Anil Dua, senior-VP, marketing

and sales, Hero Honda Motors says that, Splendor NXG plays the role of a flanker by arresting any leakages from the mother brand, Splendor. He says, “We have integrated the

message of mileage with the words Jitni door yaari jaye, Utni door yeh gaadi jaye.”

The creative duties lie with JWT Delhi, while, Maxus handles the media duties.

The ad uses life stage positioning and targets young adults between 21-24 years, who’re on the thresh-

old of their quest to create their own identity. “The TG comprises youngsters who’re living away from their homes or working in their first jobs and are closer to their friends

than their parents,” elaborates Jitender Dabas, executive planning director and vice-president, JWT Delhi.

He adds that the USP of mileage has been downplayed deliberately as the purpose is to sell the brand, not the product.

Dabas says, “Agreed that friend-ship has been used as a context in bike ads in the past but this is the first time that it is being owned as the positioning.”

The TVC for the Splendor NXG spells out the story of three close friends, who part ways as children to pursue their ambitions but re-unite as adults. The film unfolds via parallel scenes of these friends playing in the rain as children and riding their Hero Honda Splendor bikes as adults, on the same street. A sentimental feel to this story is provided by both, a male VO and a

A Friendly RideThe campaign uses life stage positioning and targets the 21-24 year olds. By Ashwini Gangal

HERO HONDA

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��>>(Left) Rangra and Miller: endless performance

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GSM service provider Loop Mobile has launched a brand campaign, which introduces its new logo and brand thought. From a multi-colour palette,

Loop will now sport the colour purple with the brand thought: Going for Great. Through extensive outdoor and print promotion, communication along the philoso-phy can be seen across Mumbai city.

The campaign, designed by TBWA India, focuses on network quality. It also highlights the findings of a recent survey commissioned by Loop, which, the service pro-vider claims, puts it ahead of three other leading players in the city.

With Pyro BKP Telecom Consultants, the survey was conducted across Mumbai, dividing the city into six zones, namely West, South, Central, East 1 and 2 and North. The survey covered four leading GSM operators in the city, including Loop, and tested calls across param-eters such as call drop, successful handover, call quality, call setup and road coverage.

It is also learnt that the company has spent around `450 crore on network infrastructure and upgrades in the current fiscal year.

“The campaign focuses on our network strength. We are talking to our own trusted customers and telling them that they are on the best GSM network in the city,” says Arif Ali, head, brand and communications, Loop Mobile.

Regarding the new logo, Ali says that the colour pur-ple was chosen to sharpen and chisel the brand further. “It is an identification of a colour we wanted to own and to signify our ‘journey to great’. Purple stands for royalty and all things great,” he explains.

“The move to purple was triggered by the fact that the brand, has had a multi-colour palette and out of purple, red, yellow and green, it identified more solidly with one colour, which is purple. It is a premium colour in many categories and resonated well with the philosophy,” adds Shiv Sethuraman, CEO, TBWA India.

The brand thought, Going for Great, is a reflection of the brand’s journey so far and beyond. According to Ali, it is an expression to the consumer and summa-rises what Loop’s intent is.

Sethuraman says, “One of the first things that struck us was the desire of Loop Mobile to set higher standards. Here is a company that is doing well but is not merely satisfied with the status quo and is ambitious. That simple thinking led to the baseline. It captures the idea that the company wants to get better.”

“We launched the philosophy with the survey findings, because something like this merely remains a slogan without hard evidence. The result and Loop’s invest-ments in the field demonstrate that the company is going for great,” he adds.

Sethuraman says that one of the tasks ahead would be to rebalance the brand and have a wider appeal.

“The brand has got associated with

youth to an extent. It has a huge customer base in the city that is not necessarily young. We are looking at rebalancing the brand across prepaid and postpaid sub-scribers to appeal to a wider base,” he says.

The media mix includes outdoor, print and radio, where the campaign has already kicked off.

On the cards are promotions on buses, trains, local media and digital. The media mandate for the brand is handled by Maxus.

Loop has deliberately stayed away from TV, as it has in the past as well, because it is a local player and it makes little sense to choose the medium.

“There are not many Mumbai-centric TV channels for us to look at the medium. Moreover, Mumbai is a very ‘outdoor’ city. People are more often out and on the move. Hence, it makes more sense to communicate that way. We want to com-municate and reach people in their own language,” says Ali.

However, having acquired a pan-India licence in 2007, Loop is looking to move beyond Mumbai very soon and a gradual rollout can be expected. �

[email protected]

LOOP MOBILE

from the beginning that we wanted to talk about new offers and the new Airtel. The TVCs reflect all that the new Airtel is about, as well as the brand’s new proposition. We went through a lot of internal work and achieved what we all love.”

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

With a new look and a new bag-ful of goodies, has Airtel been

able to connect to its consumers?For Ashish Khazanchi, vice-chair-

person, Publicis Ambience, it’s a bold step from the advertiser and the agency to generate buzz about an ad, before it is actually on-air.

He adds, “I personally prefer Endless Goodbye, as a film, more than Street Performer. I always believe that more complex the tech-nology the more you stay away from ads that make it look hi-tech. This is a neat emotional angle to a very big technological advance. This country is a sucker for such romance, never mind the foreign setting. The Street Performer ad is very well directed too.”

However, Khazanchi believes it’s an idea that one might have seen before.

“Both the commercials are going to generate more talk in the days to come. There are going to be Facebook fan pages and brand new caller tunes. But am I still missing a trick here? Is this the brand Airtel I have known all this while, or is it the shape of things to come?” says Khazanchi.

According to Shweta Khosla, planning director, Grey, the TVCs have taken the brand promise of warmth and connection and given it a refreshing, desirable, premium new voice.

Khosla says, “Not only are the stories a delight to see, they tell you what 3G does for you.” For a nation that is unfamiliar with what 3G is, these films make it clear and will, for sure, create desire for it.

The ‘Goodbye’ film is rich-er in story and emotion than the ‘Performer’ film, but the latter adds the fun dimension. However, the new logo doesn’t live up to the films; it looks like Vodafone’s brother.” �

[email protected]

Shedding...

Riding on its network prowess, Loop Mobile has launched a brand campaign, complete with a new brand look and philosophy. By Biprorshee Das

All That’s Purple

Ali: hues of purple

Sethuraman: wider appeal

<< �� !��"

The ads high-light offerings like mobile commerce and 3G services.


FOTO

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��

What did you do when you were 25 years old? Kotak Mahindra Bank is asking just that, as it hits its 25th anniversary. The

bank, which operated as a non-banking financial services company until 2003, when it was awarded a banking licence, turned 25 on November 21. And Kotak Mahindra made a big splash about it.

With communication partners Cartwheel Creatives, Starcom MediaVest Group and Interactive Avenues, the bank has designed a stra-tegic campaign to mark the occasion.

The campaign began with a series of 10-second commercials created by Cartwheel Creatives that went on-air across television channels.

The TVCs feature little snippets, where people from different walks of life talk about anything significant that they associate with 25 years of age. For instance, in one com-mercial, a balding senior citizen reveals that he sported a ponytail when he was 25.

Another TVC fea-tures an office executive eating a vada-pav, saying

that when he was 25, he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Around 10 such short commercials are on-air.

Talking to afaqs! Reporter Karthi Marshan, executive vice-president and group head - marketing, Kotak Mahindra says, “The celebrations began inter-nally as we entered our 25th year earlier this

year. Now, this campaign shall mark this occasion in as engaging a fashion as possible.”

The communication attempts to position the bank as a youthful and exuberant brand. While Marshan acknowledges that other banks have been around for much longer, from a marketing perspective, he is of the view that the number 25 is actually the USP, with no other bank making such a claim this year.

“From a marketing standpoint, none of my peers will say this. We saw it as an opportunity to pass the message, ensuring that the brand used

Silver Side UpKOTAK MAHINDRA

The bank rolled out its five-day, high-impact campaign, complete with blocking primetime slots on television with its various commercials, together with print, outdoor and digital initiatives. By Biprorshee Das

��#�>>

After undergoing a major re-branding exercise in 2008, the tyre manufacturing

company CEAT is out with a televi-sion campaign to promote its range of bike tyres. To support the cam-paign, whose baseline is: Be Idiot Safe, the company has launched an on-ground activity with India’s largest café chain, Café Coffee Day. The coffee chain was chosen for the activity because the company has a similar audience.

The creative idea behind the campaign is that the roads are full of idiots, who do not follow road dis-cipline and prove fatal for everyone else. Since these idiots cannot be

taken off the road and must be dealt with everyday, your tyres should have a superior grip to enable you to stop at will and save yourself. Based on this insight, the campaign pro-motes the better road grip feature of CEAT bike tyres. The company,

which has added new products to the bike tyres category, claims that its tyres have better wet grip, excel-lent steering control and excellent handling at high speed.

The company launched a teaser campaign last month, where cof-fee mugs at Café Coffee Day were branded with traffic pictures and the baseline. The teaser campaign ran for about 45 days, which was followed by a revealer campaign.

CEAT used various props, such as grips for mobile phones and mugs to highlight the superior grip of the tyres. Additionally, branded arches were used to create visibility.

In the revealer campaign, the company branded about 1-2 lakh mugs. Tyre-like directional cuts were used on the handles and at the bottom of the mugs to highlight the superior grip feature.

This campaign was conducted in 152 outlets across the country. It began on November 12 and will continue for about a month.

Handle Your Coffee FirmlyThe on-ground campaign with Café Coffee Day aims to promote the superior grip of CEAT tyres and address road discipline issues. By Poojya Trivedi

CEAT

��"�>>

Banerjee: spotting idiots on road

(Left) Ramakrishna and Marshan: 25 till I die


��

Mary had a little lamb and she even took it to school, but it did not really make her healthy. Varun’s pets, however, serve

that purpose. The latest commercial for Britannia Cakes turns to the much-recited nursery rhyme to communicate the goodness of the product.

The TVC by Grey, Bengaluru, shows a school boy, Varun, who has a cow and a hen that give him fresh milk and eggs everyday. Funnily enough, the cow is forced into the school bus with Varun and his mother remembers to hand him the hen too. Varun has a fruit tree as well, which is also carried to school to help him with his daily fruit needs.

Throughout the commercial, Raghubir Yadav sings a special rendition of Mary Had A Little Lamb - a folk version by Amar Mangrulkar - that talks of Varun’s cow, hen and tree. However, towards the end of the film, the song says that now

Varun can do without the three, because with Britannia Cakes, he gets the benefits of milk, eggs and fruits.

The TVC has been directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of Dungarpur Films.

The film puts forth the message that Britannia Cakes are made from the healthiest of ingredients. Besides underscoring the ingredient benefits, the ad also marks a shift in positioning of the cakes, from an indulgence to a health snack.

Noting that cakes have not been an active or salient category in mass media, Anu Narasimhan, category director, health and wellness, Britannia Industries says, “We went about understanding what the category barriers and triggers were. And realised that cakes suffer from being special occa-sion products and seen as ‘creamy and rich’, and

therefore, not for everyday consumption.”Hence, Grey was briefed to highlight the nutri-

tional aspect of Britannia Cakes, and place it in a relevant consumption moment.

Malvika Mehra, national creative director, Grey India, explains, “There was a very clear brief for Britannia Cakes. The client wanted to shift it from a ‘special moments’ indulgence’ to a ‘healthy, wholesome, everyday snack’ space. We dramatised the ingredient story and glorified the fact that the cakes are naturally healthy and wholesome. The whole film is an interesting product window.”

“Mothers want their kids to have healthier snacks, whereas kids want delightful foods. There are few snack-foods that fit the bill for both.

Delicious Nursery RhymeBRITANNIA CAKES

In the latest television commercial for Britannia Cakes, Grey Advertising turns to an age-old nursery rhyme to convey the goodness of the product. By Biprorshee Das

is Kotak Mahindra Bank and not just Kotak Mahindra. For a financial brand, this is an opportunity to lift the brand value and highlight the attributes of reliability and trust,” he says.

“Twenty-five is not that big a deal really. We still are the new kids on the block, but at the same time, the campaign signifies all that we have weathered during the period,” Marshan adds.

Noting that the 25th year is seen by many as a milestone in their life, the strategy of the bank has been to bring together a human insight and a corporate brand.

“Twenty-five is a wonderful age to be. It represents youth, exu-berance and free spiritedness. We felt that all the qualities of this age ought to be desirable in a corporate

brand and saw it as an opportu-nity. It makes the company a nice partner to do business with,” says D Ramakrishna, executive director, Cartwheel Creatives.

It must be noted that Cartwheel has been brought on-board by Kotak Mahindra specifically for this cam-paign.

The group otherwise works with McCann Erickson and JWT, but chose Cartwheel because it did not want to burden its existing agencies and was also looking at a slightly dif-ferent focus.

Another interesting part of the campaign is that the TVCs will be aired during primetime for three hours, through an exercise that is being called the break bumper. The

ads are the first ones to be seen as soon as a commercial break begins, ensuring maximum eyeballs.

“We understand the viewership of ads tends to be lower through the commercial breaks. The bet here is the break-bumper will ensure 100 per cent viewership, because it will begin before one can even know the break has begun,” says Marshan.

“We are cutting into commer-cial breaks with a pre-break idea. Channels generally do not take long ads immediately as a break begins. These 10-seconders lets us say a lot of things in a short time,” explains Natraj Sharma, general manager, Starcom MediaVest Group.

During the five days (21-25 November) the commercials were

aired on news channels. On GECs, it began more aggressively after the weekend, as the viewership on GECs generally takes a dip on Sundays, notes Sharma.

Besides the TVCs, a large-scale print campaign was also launched on November 21.

This was supported by a fair amount of outdoor promotions in the top eight Indian metros, and engaging exercises through radio, mobile and the internet.

Kotak Mahindra, while not known for high ad spends, is clearly looking to make the maximum impact with a limited time campaign, at a reason-able cost.

“Kotak has never been a big spender on advertising. With this media strategy, however, we are looking to pass the relevant mes-sage in an engaging way, keeping it impactful and yet inexpensive,” Marshan says. �

[email protected]

<< �� !��$

Silver Side Up

The bank, while not known for having high ad spends, is looking at creating the

maximum impact as it turns 25.

��%�>>

(Left) Akali and Mehra with Narasimhan: a dose of healthy food

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STARS BHI.

CRICKET BHISTARS BHI.

CRICKET BHI

Marketed byFor Advertising - West: Srinivas Kumar, Mumbai. Ph: +91 90046 88194, North: email: [email protected].

YEH HAI ASLI

Celebrity Cricket League is an idea to combine cricket and cinema to produce one sensational mixture of entertainment for the audience. It is for the first time in India that the film fraternities from South and Bollywood will battle each other for the coveted top spot à la the cricket way.

4 TEAMS, 6 LEAGUE MATCHES AND 1 EXPLOSIVE FINAL

The action-packed extravaganza is all set to evoke a sky-high adrenaline rush; what with so many superstars being seen in one place, at one time. That they are coming together to not only entertain and be entertained, but also to be part of the initiative for the next 10 years is the icing on the cake. What’s more, there’ll be an incremental team participation year on year.

WWW.CCLT20.IN

C R I C K E T & S T A R P O W E R

.I.

Murali Mohan, Delhi. Ph: +91 80080 11770, South: Snigdha Mulukutla, Ph: +91 97013 33321 K. E. Sharma, Ph: +91 98660 15740

ENTERTAINMENT!

WW

The Switzerland-based joint-venture between The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé S.A, Beverage Partners Worldwide

(BPW), recently launched Nestea in India. The lifestyle product has been launched in

lemon flavour and is being made available in an on-the-go 400 ml PET bottle priced at `25. It will be available to consumers in Mumbai through select channels and outlets.

The bottle has been specifically designed to resemble a sculpture of sorts and mimic an ‘ice rock’. The tagline of the brand is: Lighten up, with Refreshingly Light Lemon Iced Tea!

“In India, Nestea will be manu-factured at the Hindustan Coca-Cola bottling plant located at Atmakuru in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh,” informs Milind Pingle, region vice-president, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages.

The product is being rolled out in phases and the Mumbai launch is the first part of this phased launch. Next year, it will be rolled out across India. Ricardo Fort, vice-president, market-ing, Coca-Cola India reveals, “This is a test launch and in 2011 there will be a national rollout of the product. However, I cannot put an exact date to when the brand will move to other Indian cities.” Nestea primarily targets young adults who are optimistic, ener-getic and ambitious. The company specifies that Nestea finds a fit with this trendy audience, as the brand itself stands for modernity, youth and cur-rent trends. The launch rests on the rationale that the culture of consuming iced tea prevails strongly in India, in part owing to the current café culture.

Explaining the product offering, Fort says, “Our internal research showed that the on-the-go pack option for iced tea was missing in the Indian market. Though people consumed tea in its iced

form, this is the first time it will be available in the convenience of a bottle.”

He goes on to explain why this is a good time to launch Nestea in India. “The beverage market is growing here. With rural to urban migration and escalating disposable income, convenience is what consumers now need,” he declares.

The upcoming advertising campaign will be loaded heavily in favour of focused and experi-ential sampling. This will be done via consumer activation programmes and road shows at touch points populated by young adults, such as malls,

colleges, high-end traditional trade outlets and multiplexes.

Besides sampling and BTL (Below-the-Line) activation, there will be aggressive OOH (Out-of-Home), radio and print communication. Innovative POS (Point of Sale) branding is also on the cards. The authorities inform, TV is not on the communication agenda as of now. “Within the next two days, communication for Nestea will soar,” informs Fort

Product distribution will cover well-thought of outlets, including education clusters, multiplexes,

malls and convenience stores. The product will be made available in high-end groceries and the focus will remain on all high and medium income localities. Over the next four months, the brand will be retailed across 8,000 outlets in Mumbai, and a total of 50,000 product samples will be distributed.

While the ad spend figures could not be determined, it is learnt that investments will be steered in the direction of category building and future consumption channels.

The creative duties are handled by Pickle Lintas and the media duties by Lodestar Universal.

Interestingly, the flavour and packaging vary depending on the country; the Indian blend has been created keeping in mind the needs and tastes of Indian consumers.

The product is already present in over 60 countries and is available in several flavours besides lemon. It has a strong presence in the US, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and China. Coca-Cola recently launched energy drink Burn and mango-flavoured milk, Maaza Milky Delite. �

[email protected]

��

With this campaign, CEAT aims at increasing its market share, which is currently 14 per cent in the two-wheeler tyre segment. “This is a very high growth product category and we are looking at increasing our market share,” says Arnab Banerjee, execu-tive director - operations, CEAT.

He adds that the overall size of the industry is growing fast. The total two-wheeler tyre market is about 3 million, with 1.5-1.6 million in replacement. He says, “The market is

growing by 20-25 per cent, we expect to grow by almost 40-45 per cent in terms of volumes.”

The company expects the growth to come from its category 1 markets, which contribute about 35-45 per cent towards the overall growth of the company. These include Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and other tier 2 mar-kets, including Ludhiana, Jalandhar

and Bhubaneshwar.Banerjee says, “The demand

for two-wheeler tyres has gone up, as people have more choice. Bike launches are also multiplying; new players are coming in, such as Mahindra and Honda, which will fuel the demand for the segment.”

The company has also taken the initiative of spreading awareness

about road etiquette. For this, it has launched a website, www.beidiot-safe.com, to showcase bad driving, traffic violations and dangerous road habits. The objective of this social initiative is to acquaint the visitor with different types of idiots, who do not follow road etiquette and traffic rules and regulations.

“Companies are increasingly adopting cause-based marketing, as it helps the brand, as well as society at large. We felt that there is a need to address the road discipline issue, as India scores the highest glob-ally when it comes to road accident deaths,” concludes Banerjee. �

[email protected]

<< �� !��$

Handle...

Milind Pingle and Ricardo Fort at the Nestea launch in Mumbai

Ice Tea on the Rocks!COCA-COLA AND NESTLÉ

Nestea primarily targets young adults who are optimistic, energetic and ambitious. By Ashwini Gangal

With this campaign, CEAT aims at increasing its market share, which

currently stands at 14 per cent in the two-wheeler tyre segment.

Nestea has been launched in Mumbai as of now and will be rolled out in rest of India

by next year.


song. The song is a remixed version of the old Hindi film song Gadi bula rahi hai, Seeti baja rahi hai’, the words have been tweaked to Yaari bula rahi hai, Rahein dikha rahi hai in the ad.

To emphasise the value of friendship, the ad shows how small idiosyncrasies and habits of these friends have remained constant over the years and conversely, the passage of time has been stressed by showing a bystander age through the ad.

DOES THE YAARI CARD WORK?

For Naresh Gupta, director, stra-tegic planning, Dentsu Marcom,

it does. “There is a very evocative insight in this commercial. Biking is about bonding between friends, especially if you have grown up

together. You then tend to do many things that are similar, including try-ing to pick the college or the first job. To hook a bike to friendship is very cool,” he says, adding, “There are many layers in execution, some very well done and some a bit strange. The pulling up pants scene is a bit strange. The whole locality celebrat-ing friendship is nice.”

Quiz him about the song play-ing in the background and Gupta responds, “The ’70s sound and feel of the song may be a bit of a blind spot. May be there could have been a more modern song - or at least a more modern rendition.”

However, he feels that the stress on mileage gets lost in the overall mix. “With Hero Honda having such a strong equity of mileage, there is no obvious need to stress on it. For me, friendship is a dominant emotion and works very well,” he adds.

Titus Upputuru, executive crea-tive director, Saatchi & Saatchi,

speaking about the execution, says, “Biking is a lot about riding together. I remember an old One Show ad headline, ‘Misery loves company. Bring a friend’. It was for a cycling championship. Friendship can never be old fashioned,” he says, adding that the creative idea is “not bad”.

Upputuru says the execution has some good moments and explains that rain has been overused in Indian bike commercials to heighten emo-tion. About the revised version of the old Hindi song he says, “Bollywood songs always work. The song

becomes hummable from the first time you hear it. A new song takes that many more airings.”

Ankur Khurana, associate vice-president, Orchard Advertising, says, “I don’t know what the big idea is in this, or, for that matter, the insight.” He continues, “The film starts with something like Jawan style aur dildaar mileage ke saath...’ and then it is about bachpan ke woh din. The song sup-ports the video - but that is it.”

He adds, “I am doubtful if, at the end of it, one would really remem-ber the brand name. Splendor has a character and we need to build on that and not abandon it completely. This looks like a wannabe cool bike.”

Finally, Khurana confides that he is not convinced with the strategy, adding that the execution is “ok” and “in control”. However, he adds that a few nuances in the film look a little force-fitted - such as the girls laugh-ing at the man. �

[email protected]

Financial services group Religare Enterprises, with its various arms,

felt a need to raise brand awareness and make its tar-get audience familiar with its portfolio of services. Taking care that the message does not get lost, Religare has launched a corporate campaign that will serve as a comprehensive com-munication for future product specific communication, with an insight that is endearing and engaging.

Designed by the creative partner Ogilvy, the television commercial is a mosaic of various situ-ations in life that one can relate with a service offered by the group. For example, one situation in the film shows a boy passing a bouquet of flow-ers to a child - to be given to a girl he fancies. The child demands something in return for the service and is offered a chocolate, which implies broking.

Similarly, another instance shows a bunch of children collecting money and buying ice-cream, implying mutual funds. To explain insurance, a couple of children are shown walking in the rain as one of them carries a raincoat over the other.

Through the film, a music score is played that is distinctively Indian. The use of children in the film is a deliberate attempt to keep the ideas simple and reach a wider audience with an emotional appeal. Also, showing children from multiple geographies in a subliminal manner conveys Religare’s pres-ence beyond India.

The film has been directed by New Zealand duo Louis Sutherland and Mark Albiston of The Sweet Shop. The music is by Amar Mangrulkar.

Subhrangshu Neogi, director, brand and cor-porate communications, Religare Enterprises, says, “We wanted to tell our target audience and consumers at large about what we are and what we do, more than what they already know.

“The communication captures the range of

the group and its various busi-nesses in a warm and endearing manner. It attempts to demystify certain aspects in a slightly more exotic and yet simple way,” adds Neogi.

“Religare is a strong brand. The challenge was to tell con-sumers that Religare was more than what they think in the financial space. There were many facets and businesses that came together to make the com-

pany what it is and that had to be communicated in a humane and simple way,” adds Sanjay Thapar, group president, North and East, Ogilvy India.

Commenting on the execution strategy, Ajay Gahlaut, executive creative director, Ogilvy Gurgaon, says, “We used children to convey the message because that keeps it light and entertain-ing. Otherwise, it would get heavy. The music, too, is an appropriate track for the visuals and an attempt to keep the mix of both Indian and inter-national. We are showcasing an Indian company and hence, it was very important to maintain the Indian roots.”

The brand campaign will not work in isolation and will be punctuated by various product and business specific campaigns. Immediately ahead are campaigns for Religare’s broking and lending services.

Being in business for some time now, Neogi

��

Simplifying the SolutionsRELIGARE

Launching a major corporate campaign on television, Religare Enterprises attempts to communicate its products and services through a simple and endearing message. By Biprorshee Das

<< �� !��"

A Friendly...

Dabas: long winding road

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The use of children in the film is a deliberate

attempt to keep the ideas simple and reach a wider

audience with an emotional appeal.



SUNFEAST COOKIES Re-launching its cookie brand Sunfeast Special Cookies, ITC reflects core values of shared joy and happiness through its communication. The campaign showcases a spectrum of everyday moments of happiness across all age groups.

Creative Agency: Draftfcb UlkaNational Creative Director: KS ChakravarthyFilm Director: KopalProduction House: Rising Sun Films

BUSINESS STANDARD Targeted at premium audiences, the campaign ‘Know more. No less’ gives a 3D effect of a rolled up newspaper on a white base.

Exposure: Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Ahmadabad.OOH Agency: PosterscopeCreative Agency: Doosra

TATA DOCOMO A large sized banner ad, representing the virtual homepage of the site, slowly extracts and displays the content of the homepage. The ad conveys that the process of loading content will be faster with Tata Docomo’s 3G connection.

Creative and Media Agency: InterfaceExposure: Indiatimes.com, Sify.com and MSN.co.in

HDFC LIFE The insurance company unveiled a new campaign with a new brand identity to create more relevance and connect with the youth. The film focuses on ambition and emotions with a contemporary connect.

Creative Agency: Leo BurnettNational Creative Director: KV SridharCreative Team: Nitesh Tiwari and Rupesh KashyapFilm Director: E NiwasProduction House: White Onion Films

IDEA CELLULARAs a precursor to mobile number portability, Idea’s ‘No Idea’ campaign consists of four commercials that address four mobile service problems – network, customer service, suitable plans and instant information on balance deduction through quirky storylines featuring brand ambassador Abhishek Bachchan.

Creative Agency: Lowe LintasFilm Director: Amit SharmaProduction House: Chrome Pictures

New and notable campaigns across television, print, out-of-home and digital media

DIGITAL

Got some great campaign that has been published recently? Upload it on afaqs! for the world to see.Visit: www.afaqs.com/advertising/creative_showcase

SKODA YETI The ad shows how the vehicle is the quintessential super utility vehicle, capable of driving on all terrains.

Creative Agency: Saints and WarriorsChairman and Copywriter: Pushpinder SinghCreative Head (Copywriter): Pratim PutatundaCreative Head (Art): Mahendra ParabArt Director: Shrenik ChhedaSenior Visualiser: Komal Sawant

TELEVISION

GUZAARISHThe campaign through the creatives on billboards, bus panels, kiosks and a mobile van, displays the storyline of the film, Guzaarish.

Exposure: MumbaiOOH Agency: Bright Outdoor Media

VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE With the wedding season going on, Volkswagen’s campaign for the new Beetle talks about how the car is an ideal gift for consumers looking to enter a new phase in their lives. ‘Marriage does come with its rewards’ is the tagline for the campaign.

Creative Agency: DDB MudraChief Creative Officer: Bobby PawarNational Creative Director: Rajeev RajaAssociate Creative Director: Anshumani KhannaCreative Supervisor (Copy): Gururaj RaoCreative Supervisor (Art): Krishna Parkash

MONTE CARLO The ads for Alpha, women’s wear brand by Monte Carlo showcase the product with a take on old tales and legends.

Creative Agency: Bates 141National Creative Director: Sagar MahabaleshwarkarExecutive Creative Director: Sambit MohantyCopywriter: Binoy Sundar SarkarArt Director: Swasti Ranjan Ray

PRINT

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Bihar – the state witnessing a turna-round, is standing on the threshold of growth and development and is

bracing to regain its historic glory. Not much is known about the state which

has always been in the forefront for wrong reasons – the kidnapping industry, impov-erished people and dubious caste politics. There’s more to Bihar than what meets the eye.

The state has been showing impressive growth since last few years. Bihar state GDP has shown impressive double digit growth (see table). “The construction sector and the overall trade is driving growth in the hitherto underdeveloped Bihar,” said J.K. Sinha, Senior Jt. Director, Directorate of Statistics and Evaluation, Government of Bihar.

Let us get to know Bihar -- the new growth engine -- from some closer quar-ters. The state gets its name from Vihara, which means an ‘abode’ in Sanskrit. In the ancient and the medieval periods, the region encompassing the present state was dotted with the abodes of Buddhist monks. The geographical region historically comprised Anga, Mithila, Magadha and Vaishali as the four major territories and had been the world famous centre of power, learning and culture. It was from Magadha �� empire originated.

The region produced rulers who devised a system of administration known to be the root of the modern art of statecraft and its bridging with economics. Kautilya, the ��

of the modern science of Economics -- lived in Bihar. Buddhism – one of the most devoutly followed religions globally also has its roots here.

Since the time of India’s strug-gle for independence, Bihar has been an integral part of the political mesh. The state �� Prasad and many other political heavy-weights like Jayaprakash Narayan.

Since ancient times, politics and admin-istration have been ingrained in the social milieu of Bihar. It is a widely known fact that a large number of candidates from, or having association with the Bihar have been taking the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission every year. According to some estimates till January 2009, the country produced !"#$� ��%� ��&� �� '�&�� *�� +�� //13� ��%� ��&-ers accounting for 26 per cent of the total candidates selected.

Whether for good or for bad, Bihar has always been known for its people. Not many might know that Biharis have gone places, literally. Besides their home state, Biharis can be found throughout North India, West Bengal, Maharashtra and also in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Natives of the state travelled to various parts of the world in the 19th century to serve as indentured labour on sugarcane and rubber plantations. Countries like Guyana, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, Mauritius and South Africa have large

Looking forward to a more stable, brighter future the state is standing on the cusp of development. This marketing initiative track the winds of change...

BIHAR: A NEW AWAKENING THE RISING SUN ON THE FIRMAMENT OF GROWTH

populations of Biharis today.Mauritius the country that has been

recently named the top tourism brand in a study by FutureBrand 2010 has its President, the Prime Minister and majority of its cabinet members having cultural asso-ciations with India and especially Bihar. Bhojpuri, the language spoken in Bihar �� 5�� &�5� 5�� island nation.

According to media industry experts, while the language is spoken by 200 million people in India, around 100 million Bhojpuri speakers are in foreign countries like Mauritius, Fiji and Surinam.

Celebrating CultureMore than the natural resources, any

place is known more for its people and the way they celebrate culture. Indians have an international repute of celebrating multiple festivals that add a distinct zest to their lives. Like all other Indians, people in Bihar also believe in celebrating various religious and cultural festivities.

Chhath is one of the most popular festi-vals celebrated by Biharis. For this four-day festival, men and women fast for the wel-fare of their families and the society at 5� �� 5�� &�5� �� '��counts the most, to celebrate this festival, is ��7��%�� 8� �Sankranti, Eid, Muharram, Mahavir Jayanti and Buddha Purnima are some other major

festivals celebrated throughout the state.Other than the festivals, the creative

genius of Biharis has got global recogni-tion through handicrafts like Madhubani paintings. The origin of these paintings is wrapped in antiquity. Historically, this style of painting started at the time of Ramayana, when King Janak commis-sioned artists to make paintings for the �� %��:� ��

Traditionally, women of villages in Madhubani district have been making these paintings. Originally done on freshly plastered mud walls of the houses, these brighty-coloured paintings are now done on cloth, handmade paper and canvas and are famous worldwide.

Celluloid as CanvasBhojpuri cinema, another famous export

of the region, is gaining popularity and huge fan-following all across. It is giving Bollywood, a run for its money in some territories. The popularity of the regional language cinema can be gauged from the ��&��5��;� ��5�� 5��annually has doubled from 50 few years back to about 100 this year.

=�� ;�>� ��&��&�55�&��+�� 5��'�'�55�� 125 crores per annum,” said the spokesper-son of the Bihar Jharkhand Motion Picture Association. The biggest customer base of +�� 5�� +�� *�� as well as Mumbai, having sizeable migrant population from the Hindi-speaking belt. +�� 5�� 5�� ; �8� ;�� West Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat, which are also home to migrants from the state.

In this article we tracked the overall changes sweeping the state of Bihar. The following articles in this series will focus on Bihar as a market and its people as indulgent customers of various goods and services. �

BIHAR SECTION

Source: Directorate of Statistics and EvaluationGovernment of Bihar

BIHAR STATE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT

Year SGDP

2004-05 75.612005-06 81.682006-07 101.52007-08 118.352008-09 145.022009-10 172.14

As against popular belief, Bihar has done fairly well on the growth front since last ��

2 7afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 0

ADVT

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Nalanda University: Centre of excellence

Britannia Cakes do and hence, were positioned as the bridge between the mother and the child. We then realized that mothers did not exactly know why cakes were good for their children, which is why they did not actively include them in their lives. This TVC just adds granularity to the Britannia Cakes partnership, by giving it a context and a clear rea-son,” elaborates Amit Akali, national creative director, Grey India.

The current film follows two other campaigns done by Grey in 2008 and 2009, Devil Mom and Smiley, respectively,

for Britannia Cakes.

THE HEALTHY OPINIONS

When approached, creative experts had a kind word for

the commercial, mentioning that the purpose at hand is well served by the execution.

“I saw this ad while watching TV with my kids. The first time they saw

it, they grinned. The second time it came on, they started humming the song. At the end of the programme, they asked their mom to pick up some cakes on her way home. Do you still need an opinion?” exclaims

Nilesh Vaidya, executive creative director, Euro RSCG India.

While stating that the film works well, Vaidya adds that from a crea-tive perspective, it is an engaging and sweet way to put across the product

benefit. However, he wishes that the execution was slicker.

Rahul Jauhari, national creative director, Pickle Lintas is of the view that visually, the ad could have been simplified.

“That the cakes are full of good-ness comes out clearly. I guess the harping on the ‘goodness’ is an attempt to make it a daily habit. The idea is simple; but visually, I felt there is a bit too much happening and could have been simplified,” he says.

Surely, the jingle cannot be missed and like Vaidya, Jauhari too notes that it serves a significant pur-pose in the film.

“If you ask me, the film will stick if the jingle sticks,” he says. �

[email protected]

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The ad shifts the positioning of the cakes from an indulgence to a health snack.

The Indian arm of the French cosmet-ics company, L’Oréal, has announced the launch of the second edition of Reveal,

which is a unique recruitment initiative. Reveal is an interactive e-recruitment platform, that encour-ages students to test their managerial skills through a series of multiple-choice questions on key busi-ness functions.

“L’Oréal is focussed on recruiting diverse tal-ent, and for that, it is important for us to have unique ways of attracting people,” says Mohit James, HR director, L’Oréal India.

He adds, “We hire a lot of young people, the Gen Y, and they have a very different mindset. So, the purpose of this recruitment practice is to understand them better, find out what they are good at and evaluate them on those strengths, rather than doing it the typecast way.”

Designed for students of all disciplines and backgrounds, Reveal is an online experience that enables participants to problem-solve in a virtual L’Oréal work environment. It also gives candidates personalised feedback, as well as the chance to be interviewed by the company - an opportunity to potentially fast-track through parts of the recruit-ment process.

In the online strategy game, players move through the various levels as management trainees working on virtual projects. Along the way, they solve different business tasks across departments such as finance, sales, marketing, operations and research and development.

The goal is to complete various challenges with maximum scores. The game takes a minimum of 48 hours to complete.

On successful completion of the game, the can-didates stand a chance to meet L’Oréal executives, receive hands-on experience with L’Oréal and an invitation to an exclusive event - B-Revealed and

an interactive session where shortlisted students are invited to explore the company. This includes different functions at L’Oréal, career opportunities and various products of the company.

The first edition of Reveal, which concluded in September, reached almost 1,000 students in 84 colleges, primarily the B-schools of the country.

“The initiative serves two purposes. First, they (the participants) get a peek into the world of L’Oréal. Second, they also get into cross-func-tional mode. Some discover where their strengths lie - the areas they are good at and which function they want to take up,” says James.

The company is promoting this game through its Facebook page. It is also communicating directly with business schools through mailers and student forums, apart from visiting campus-es such as Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Management Development Institute, Faculty of Management Studies Delhi, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

Globally, the company has a gender ratio of 43:57 (male:female); whereas in India, this figure stands at 69:31.

In 1993, the company started with a glob-al management game called Brandstorm, as a recruitment tool.

Brandstorm is an on-campus game for those interested in the marketing function. Till date, more than 50,000 people have taken the test across 43 countries. In 2010, around 7,100 students from 221 universities across the globe participated in the game. �

[email protected]

Reveal Your TalentsL’ORÉAL

The cosmetic company has launched an e-recruitment initiative to tap Generation Y. By Poojya Trivedi

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Designed for students, Reveal is an online

experience that enables participants to problem-solve in a virtual L’Oréal

work environment.


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Will Newspapers Reach Profitability With Niche Papers?

IF THERE IS A PREDE-FINED READERSHIP FOR A NICHE EDITION, IT SHOULD PROVE TO BE A PROFITABLE INVEST-MENT - BUT ONLY OVER A SPECIFIC TIME PERIOD.

However, such publica-

tions cannot survive solely on

the basis of advertiser inter-

est. It has to retain the main

paper’s editorial guidelines

even in the niche paper so

that the latter’s content is not

governed by advertisers.

Besides, I don’t think such

niche newspapers can survive

independently and have to

be distributed along with the

main paper.

YES, THERE IS POSSIBIL-ITY FOR NEWSPAPERS TO REACH PROFITABIL-ITY. BUT THESE NICHE DAILIES HAVE TO BE RESTRICTED ONLY TO THE EIGHT METROS where there is a demand for

differentiated content.

For a choice of subjects,

newspapers could be guided

by specialist magazines.

Classic examples of such

niche newspapers are The

Crest and the Speaking Tree,

introduced by The Times of

India. The Crest is priced at

Rs 10 and is targeted at the

high end readers. It’s a heavy

paper with lots of information

while the Speaking Tree has

a cover price of Rs 2. Thus,

both cases very well reflect

that the consumer is now

ready for content which caters

to his or her area of interest

and price is not a big factor.

TODAY’S READERS ARE BOMBARDED WITH NEWS FROM ACROSS PLATFORMS, WHICH IS WHY A PUBLICA-TION THAT PROVIDES NEWS OF THEIRinterest is always a preferred choice and it can be profitable as well.

However, such newspapers shouldn’t make the mistake of running after a high circulation figure as long as they are reach-ing out to their core target group.

But when it comes to adver-tisers, the publications have to broaden their approach. For example, a newspaper publica-tion might launch a paper on golf, which is of niche interest, but the newspaper could have adver-tisers from all categories be it luxury or financial.

IT WOULD DEPEND ON THE SUBJECT. IF A NICHE NEWSPAPER IS TARGETED AT THE YOUTH, IT MIGHT NOT SUCCEED AS THERE IS TOUGH competition from the digital media category.

The publication has to be very careful in selecting the subject. If the subject falls under the first circle of influence for the reader, it will have greater chances of succeeding than the subjects under the second circle of influence. For example, auto and housing would be in the first circle for males while child devel-opment will be in the second circle. Niche areas, which fall in the second circle of influence, are less likely to succeed.

Similarly, a youth would anyway get his information on mobile and music from the net. Therefore, such subject areas might not work. But if it’s a publication on education, which provides tips on cracking the board examination, it might work.

�'()(��*(+(��(Director, Lokmat Group

(,� �*'�-*(Senior VP, ZenithOptimedia

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-('��'��)�+�)�President and Publisher, Outlook Group

If newspapers get into specialised content to cater to a specific set of readers and advertisers, can they find audience? And profits? By Anushree Bhattacharyya

SUSH

IL K

UMAR

SUSH

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UMAR

FOTO

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Facebook.com has announced that it will launch a new messaging system, which will provide facilities similar to those by Gmail,

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail.The social media site will facilitate its existing

(more than 12 million in India) and upcoming members to create an e-mail address with ‘@Facebook.com’ as suffix. Users can then send, receive and forward e-mail messages to Facebook and non-Facebook members, such as users of Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Thus, web users, who are not members of Facebook.com, will be able to connect, communicate and send e-mail to Facebook members through external e-mail systems and vice versa. Like other e-mail systems, Facebook will enable e-mail users to attach files to their messages, and will also provide the CC and BCC functionalities in e-mail.

Interestingly, the social media site will not act just as an aggregator of e-mail messages. In fact, Facebook aims to make its new messaging system a conversation hub, where it will collect all interac-tions - in the form of chats, notes, e-mails and text messages - between two users.

Conversations will be classified under two folders named ‘Inbox’ and ‘Other’. Bulk mails, spam and e-mail from people who aren’t friends or friends of friends will be routed to the ‘Other’ folder; while messages sent by friends will be dis-played in the ‘Inbox’.

Considering the fact that web users are already spending a significant amount of time on Facebook, this additional e-mail functionality will definitely help the social media site to retain traffic for a longer period of time.

But what will be more interesting to watch out for is how this development changes the dynamics of communication in the web space. Will it affect traditional e-mail sites?

Amit Bhartiya, general manager, Vizisense.com, says, “Passive e-mail is giving way to a lot more context-based and active conversations on Facebook through wall posts, comments, pokes, live chats and messaging. Hence, the use of traditional e-mail accounts for the purpose of con-necting with the personal community is slowing down drastically.”

According to Vizisense.com (September 2010 data), the average time spent per visit on Facebook (17 minutes) is more than the average time spent per visit (between 5-10 minutes) on major e-mail sites, such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Rediffmail.

“Also, the convenience of integrating all mes-saging under Facebook will definitely result in further time spent on Facebook and may reduce usage of e-mail sites further. Traditional e-mail sites will definitely find it tough to get new web users - who are pretty much starting their online experience with social media - into their fold,” Bhartiya adds.

Prasanth Mohanachandran, co-founder, AgencyDigi, believes that existing e-mail users

may not easily shift to Facebook for all their mes-saging needs; though it is possible that the new set of web users might only use Facebook Messages.

“The fact that Facebook now allows you to keep a record of Facebook chat is something which could pull Gtalk users to it. The other feature of filtering messages according to the user’s relation-

ship with the sender will make sure you never miss an impor-tant message,” he adds.

Sandeep Amar, head, marketing, audience, pre-sales, Indiatimes, agrees that Facebook’s new messaging sys-tem can be the game changer in the messaging space. He points out, “Already, a lot of messag-ing is happening on Facebook, which has shifted from e-mail. And with the introduction of a new messaging system, which

offers a mailbox, chat history, and one-to-one conversations, personal communications/conver-sations can now move to Facebook.”

He adds, “The e-mail inventory is the core of Yahoo! monetisation, which is already feeling the heat from Gmail, but this Facebook e-mail service can hurt both of them in all major markets.”

Raj Menon, chief operating officer, Contests2win, has a different opinion. He thinks that Facebook Messages will not affect existing e-mail systems in the short term. “In spite of all the hype, Gmail is a distant third with 179 million users; Yahoo! Mail is second at 270 million; and Hotmail is the undisputed leading e-mail site with 360 million users, worldwide, according to com-Score October 2010 data. This proves that habits are difficult to change,” Menon points out.

Mohanachandran raises a few concerns about the new Facebook Messages. He believes that Facebook is still too protectionist about the con-sumers’ data while Google - by destroying all walled gardens - scores over Facebook. �

[email protected]

Trying OutFACEBOOK

The site is set to roll out a new messaging system that will enable users to create an e-mail address ‘@Facebook.com’. Will it hurt e-mail services? By Kapil Ohri

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(From left) Bhartiya, Amar, Mohanachandran and Menon: Hopeful

Turner International India has closed an exclusive deal with Zapak Digital Entertainment to market and distribute

Cartoon Network’s popular multiplayer online games, Ben 10 Omniverse: Rise of the Heroes (www.ben10.net) and a brand new version of the hugely popular Toon Football (www.toon-football.com).

Zapak has tied up with Cartoon Network because of its strong presence in the industry.

Turner is expected to leverage Zapak’s strong promotional channels to expand the reach of Cartoon Network’s online gaming experience in the country.

Zapak will also support the launch of CN Coins game cards, the first ever Toon currency designed for the youth gaming space in India. CN Coins will be available at more than 100 outlets of Zapak Gameplex, Zapak’s gaming café network, along with 500 other private cafes across 35 cities in the country.

As the exclusive marketing and distribu-tion partner for CN’s games, Zapak will provide significant ongoing support to Ben 10 Omniverse: Rise of the Heroes and Toon Football via promotional activities, gaming tournaments and customised retail promo-tions across Zapak Gameplexes and the private cafes. Zapak will promote the two games heavily on Zapak.com and is targeting kids in the age group of 7-15 years.

In addition, Zapak will also act as a premium payment partner, integrating the games into payment channels including credit and debit cards and electronic coupon purchase (called CN Coins) in its Gameplexes and at its online payment gateways.

Commenting on the partnership, Rohit

Sharma, chief executive officer, digital busi-ness, Reliance Big Entertainment, says, “The kids aged 15 years and below contribute to more than 20 per cent of traffic on Zapak.com. They serve as one of the stickiest users on the site. Ben 10 is an extremely popular CN Toon Star amongst kids in India, while the sports genre has always been one of the most popular genres of gaming.

“Hence, this partnership with Turner will offer the very best to our growing kids segment. With the launch of the first time ever Toon currency, CN Coins game cards, we believe that it will give the smart kids in India a chance to manage their transactions wisely.”

Benjamin Grubbs, executive director, Turner Entertainment Interactive Media and general manager, TurnOut Ventures, says, “India is a priority market for us - so our partnership is a win-win for both Turner and Zapak. The alliance expands the distribution of Cartoon Network games and associated payment options as it leverages Zapak’s enviable network of promotional channels. We’re already enjoying some of the highest game plays and web traffic in the region coming from India - so we look forward to welcoming even more players to our sites.” �

[email protected]

Following the tie-up, Zapak will also support the launch of CN Coins game cards, the first ever Toon currency designed for the youth gaming space in India. News Bureau

TURNER INTERNATIONAL

Expanding the Footprints

says that while the campaign could have been done earlier, Religare wanted to evolve as a brand and reach inflection point by attaining a certain size and scale.

Given the footprint that the brand has in the country, the current cam-paign will be led by television and supplemented with cinema, outdoor and online - and limited usage of print. The media duties are handled by Lintas Media Group.

SIMPLE THOUGHTS

Responses to the film have been mixed. While the insights and

the execution work for a few, some are of the view that it is time for corporates to think beyond tried and tested methods.

Harish Arora, ECD, Dentsu India thinks that the film works on an

emotional hook for the target audi-ence and does a good job at it.

“The insight is simple, yet mem-orable. The idea to show kids to amplify the ease of financial services is heart warming and the use of the logo as an integral part of the film adds to the desired output of brand

recall,” says Arora.“The strategy lies in the univer-

sal insight of how we all react to numbers and finances - it is always a complex and complicated area of our lives. To show just the opposite is a welcome relief,” he adds.

According to Arora, the recall

potential of the film comes from the point that the vignettes are stories that are glimpses of everyday life, things that we all have either done or can relate to, and the music, visuals and idea work well together.

Sandhya Srinivasan, managing partner and chief strategy officer, Law and Kenneth, is slightly more critical. “Most corporate ads have vignettes and convey the portfo-lio, so this was obviously done to communicate the expanse of the brand. Sometimes I do wish cor-porates did something dramatic...very unlike the codes. Refreshing maybe,” she says.

Srinivasan is of the view that the film is one of the many that use warm, fuzzy stories and does not look very striking initially.

“If I look closely, some of the situations are fresh and cute. I still believe something deep rooted, possibly purposive, would be more effective, memorable and enjoyable,” she says. �

[email protected]

<< �� !��

Simplifying...

��

Turner will leverage Zapak’s strong promotional

channels to expand the reach of CN’s online gam-

ing experience in India.

The challenge of the campaign was to tell consumers that Religare is more than

what they think in the financial space.

“The kids aged 15 years and

below contrib-ute to more

than 20 per cent of traffic on Zapak.com.” ROHIT SHARMA

(Left) Neogi, Thapar and Gahlaut: simplifying the brand

SUSH

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UMAR



A product category that did not exist 15 years ago is now among India’s top ad spenders. Last year, 2009-10, telecom marketers spent an estimated `1,400 crore in communicating to their consumers.

According to media agency Mindshare, about `1,000 crore went into television with print getting `195 crore and radio `104 crore. Mindshare estimates digital spends of about `30 crore and industry estimates peg out of home budgets at another `100 crore, taking the total to around `1,400 crore.

Now that 3G is upon us and is expected to change the telecom business in a fundamental way, will it also affect the nature of the media plan?

3G will be a big business as evidenced by the fact that seven private players bid and won licences across all the 23 circles in India, paying over `65,000 crore between them. These seven include Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Tata, Aircel, STel and Idea Cellular. MTNL and BSNL introduced 3G last year but failed to create much buzz.

People in the telecom business are both excited and nervous about what 3G could mean. All of them have been brought up in the ‘voice’ era and are trying to adjust to the reality that growth will now come from ‘data’ (that is, everything other than voice). To complicate matters, there isn’t a single telecom player who has got a 3G license across all circles. Pricing and service delivery will be a complex issue. Some form of collaboration between service providers across circles seems inevitable.

There is excitement because, in the simplest terms, 3G will enhance the mobile telephony experience. In voice, this means greater clarity and fewer call drops while in VAS (value added services) 3G spells efficient interactivity on the move, with outstandingly fast speed for internet access, downloads, photos and video sharing and more.

afaqs! Reporter attempts to decode what 3G will mean for telecom operators and consumers, and how that might change the nature of marketing communication.

A

WHOLE NEW WORLD

In just 15 years, mobile telephony in India has been through a lifetime. In the early days, the task was to educate consumers about easier mobility

and talking on the go, which later became a fight to gain critical mass and penetration. The coming of Reliance opened up the market for the com-mon man. Unrelenting competition brought rates down, making India one of the most affordable mobile telephony markets in the world.

As rates fell, telecom service providers turned to other forms of earning revenue, known in the business as VAS. Though technically a part of VAS, peer to peer SMS (that is, messages from one consumer to another) is low value and not much of an improvement over voice. Of the rest, the only other VAS service to have really taken off is ringtone downloads.

The one recent exciting development is the mobile web which has grown by over 300 per cent in the last 12 months. Beyond that, the success of VAS has been limited.

It is currently a pale reflection of what it ought to be: one may talk of cricket, Bollywood and ‘Astro’ alerts but these are just ‘scratching the surface’ variety of applications.

In a voice-dominated business, VAS currently contributes around 10-12 per cent of the total revenue. According to telecom analyst Kunal Bajaj, director, Analysys Mason, VAS’ share is expected to reach 20 per cent by end of 2014, with the average for the 3G user being higher than the one using 2G.

Experts believe 3G will be more about enhancing the VAS experience. “Voice clarity will be slightly better, but it won’t be much of a discernible difference for a consumer,” reckons Mahesh Prasad, president, Reliance Communications. “Speed is where 3G will make a difference,” he adds.

Punitha Arumugam, group CEO, Madison Media, which handles the Airtel media account, adds that 3G won’t increase the now stable voice revenues “for sure”. “In fact, fewer call drops means I won’t land up calling the same person ten times, so hey, where’s the revenue?” she quips. “As far as 3G goes, the excitement around VAS is what will lead to revenues.”

People in the telecom business are both excited and nervous about what 3G could mean because all of them

have been brought up in the voice era.

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What it means for the telecom business and how it might change the nature of advertising in one of India’s largest spending categories.

By Devina Joshi

TIFF

IN B

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TG FOR 3G

Popular notion has it that 3G is aimed at only the top 10 per cent of the subscriber base. Within this, media planners predict that youth

and business executives will adopt 3G quickly, and should be ide-ally targeted. The typical ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) today is around `200 per month but for the top 10 per cent it is about `900-1,000. College students are tech savvy and will guide growth in mobile social networking but many others don’t know how to use data services and will need to be guided through marketing communication.

“3G won’t be cheap at all,” states Kapil Arora, senior vice-president and country head, Team Vodafone at Ogilvy India, because the government has offered a limited amount of spectrum and companies have paid a fortune for it. Players cannot afford to ‘massify’ it.

However, another school of thought says targeting just the crème de la crème won’t work - 3G after all, is not a service in itself, but a technological enabler of services. Which socio-economic strata are targeted could well be an equation of the mix of services a telecom operator chooses to promote on the back of 3G.

Telecom analyst Mahesh Uppal prophesies that in the initial stages, the top end would be the ideal TG as it is more familiar with gadgets and data services. But elements like Bollywood, cricket and religion generate huge interest, so in small towns perhaps 3G can help capitalise on the craze for such information and entertainment.

Low-spend consumer in small-town India could be enchanted because they can’t get enough of big-town India. “If 3G can be a facilitator on that count, it will excite all of India,” thinks brand consultant Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults. If the price is right, it could get in people who have never gone online leapfrogging to use the mobile web.

Another marketing consultant, Delhi-based Samit Sinha, in fact thinks that “the moment we have mobile phones giving an enhanced experience and bigger screens, things will explode. The internet consuming population on mobile phones will probably double overnight!”

It may be realistic to assume a ‘3G for all’ scenario, the way tariffs are getting competitive already, with the launch of Docomo’s 3G service at 0.6 paise per second. “It won’t be a terribly niche technology. There will be substantial numbers. It isn’t just about better data services; it is also about leading to the spurt of better devices, larger screens and applications. So, the 3G reach will be better as affordability and devices get better,” says telecom analyst Bajaj.

PRICING: IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY

In 2008, it was assumed that the top 15 per cent of the subscribers would turn to 3G within five years of launch. That figure is now being revised

to about 20-25 per cent. As time passes, the belief that 3G is unaffordable is being questioned and market forces predict that competitive pricing will

shape its future. There will be bundled offers - appli-cations for free, advertising of co-branded handsets

and devices (like music devices). Prashant Gokarn, senior executive vice-president,

Reliance Communications (which will roll out its 3G services by 2010-end), says that services on 3G will be

for every class of consumers. The latest music video by a popular artiste will cost more than a low resolution

Hindi song video, for instance. There will be affordable services for the lower classes and the media mix will vary

accordingly.3G poses different challenges for newer and well established players.

While established players struggle to get their high-end subscribers to warm

up to the concept, newer players might bleed a little more as they try to get the higher revenue subscribers to migrate to them, especially in view of imminent number portability.

Affluent and perhaps urban audiences will like a good mix of entertainment and utility services, while the less privileged and rural audiences will prefer mostly utility services, feels Ravi Kiran, the outgoing CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group, South Asia.

There will be affordable services meant for the lower SECs as well - today, 3G-enabled handsets are available at price points as low as `1,900. Clearly, 3G need not be a premium offering; if a customer sees value in it, he will pay for it.

WHAT IT MEANS TO ADVERTISING

How will all of this change the nature of telecom advertising? A lot of layering will be involved when one talks of the manner in which 3G is

presented to the public. Telecom experts agree that educating people about 3G is extremely important, and the initial stages of communication perhaps ought to be about the general experience of 3G without getting too technical. A prime job will be to make current 3G-enabled handset owners under-stand what they can do with 3G, and convince non-believers - or who are unaware - to make the switch.

Abdul Khan, senior vice-president, marketing, Tata Teleservices, feels the advertising should highlight access to entertainment whenever and wherever one wants at mind-blowing speeds.

“Communication will be more about the services mix one uses,” he says. 3G will encourage telecom players to increase their allocation for online and mobile advertising significantly.

Arumugam of Madison Media says it is difficult to predict media plans since these will depend entirely on a marketer’s game plan. “There will also be a big push on experiential marketing, since a lot of 3G service benefits will need to be demonstrated person to person,” opines Kiran of Starcom.

So the judgement at this stage on how telecom operator’s new media plans will look: television will continue to be the driver medium with support from the print.

However, as telecom operators try to reach the young as well as business executives to build the early mass of 3G converts, spends on online media, mobile advertising and experiential media will increase significantly. �

[email protected]

(Based on interviews with Abdul Khan, senior V-P, marketing, Tata Teleservices; Anand Halve, director, chlorophyll; Harish Bijoor, brand expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc; Kapil Arora, vice-president and country head on Vodafone at Ogilvy India; telecom analyst Kunal Bajaj, director, Analysys Mason; Mahesh Prasad, president, Reliance Communications; Mahesh Uppal, telecom consultant; Prashant Gokarn, senior executive vice-president, Reliance Communications; Punitha Arumugam, COO, Madison Media; Ravi Kiran, the outgoing CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group, South Asia; and Samit Sinha, managing partner, Alchemist Brand Consulting).

Targeting just the crème de la crème may be limiting - 3G after all, is not a service in itself, but a technological

enabler of services.

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WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

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I Venkat and Eenadu have grown together which makes it very difficult to separate the defining moments of I Venkat’s career from those of the Telugu

news daily. Venkat, who has spent around 40 years with one company Eenadu, has held

only three positions there – trainee, ad manager and director. afaqs! Reporter traces the turning points in his life.

Fate kept me in India: After my graduation, I was planning to move to San Francisco to pursue a course on business. But some issues with my sponsorship cropped up and I had to stay back which turned out to be a defining moment in my career.

I enrolled in a law college and it is then that I was introduced to Ramoji Rao, who owned Kiran Ads. I joined the agency as a trainee in 1970 and worked there for four years, until Eenadu was launched. In 1974, I moved to Vishakhapatnam as an ad manager for Eenadu. In 1986-87, I was made the director on the board of the company.

Experience was learning: When we started the journey at Eenadu, we were complete novices and we dealt with the market, based on our own understanding of things. As we moved ahead, we learnt the tricks of the trade through trials and error.

Soon the paper started growing; in 1978 – the fourth edition was launched and we beat giants like Andhra Prabha and became the No. 1 paper in Andhra Pradesh. This was another defining moment both for me and my newspaper.

New innovations: In the next few years, we tried several inno-vations which turned out to be the defining moments for me and Eenadu. In 1987, Eenadu was the first newspaper to execute the idea of ‘district newspapers’. Similarly, Eenadu was the first in the country to launch a coloured page exclusively for women (Vasundhara in 1992) at the time when newspapers were consid-ered to be mostly read by men.

Post the electronic boom in 1995, Eenadu was the first newspaper group to start an infotainment channel - ETV and my passion was back-end operations. Back then, only a few channels existed including Zee, Sun and Star. I am the only guy who has been in a newspaper and in TV through and through and has held both the portfolios at the helm!

Also, everything was under one person- scheduling, billing, accounts, marketing, collections, selling. My colleagues used to say I’m the head cook to the bottle washer. Handling a dual role at Eenadu was another defining moment of my career.

Of late: Since the last two years, I’ve deliberately been lying low as far as the day-to-day operations at Eenadu are concerned; I spend my morning hours at The Nimmagadda Foundation (Hyderabad), an NGO which focuses on children’s health and education.

Professionally, my main responsibility is the development of a new back-end software system that will be up for sale to other newspapers early next year. For me, Eenadu is a case of jeena yahaan marna yahaan, iske siva jana kahaan! �

As told to Ashwini Gangal

India’s No. 4 mobile carrier, Tata Teleservices, recently rolled out an out-of-home campaign in

western UP to promote its latest offer - free talk-time of 2 lakh sec-onds on purchase of a handset for `2,000.

The company’s OOH agency, Milestone Brandcom came up with the idea of showcasing this commu-nication through a magic hat.

A dummy 3D cut-out of the phone was placed inside a hat. With the help of a motor, the phone was pulled out of the hat, while the

actual colour handset was shown to consumers. This gave the impression that the phone had come out of the magic hat.

The company created one inno-vation at the Begum Bridge, which connects Meerut with surrounding cities and villages, and on the main junction of the city. The innovation cost approximately `1.5 lakh.

Prashant Mishra, management supervisor, Milestone Brandcom, says, “The idea was to create the ‘wow’ factor on a larger-than-life billboard at busy Begum Bridge, Meerut, which is the lifeline of the city. We created a magic hat, which was a backlit execution, connect-ed the audience with other media

communication and created intrigue value, resulting in quick awareness and buzz in the city.”

Milestone Brandcom has execut-ed the campaign in cities such as Meerut, Dehradun, Agra, Bareilly and Aligarh, among others. Notably, striking innovations have been put up in Meerut and on the Delhi-Meerut Highway - NH 58.

The agency has also used gan-tries, unipoles and billboards for the campaign to connect with a wider audience in the region.

UP West is one of the most

important circles for telecom brands, with Meerut being the shopping hub in the region.

The telco recently rolled out the ‘2,000 main milengi 2 lakh ki khushiyan’ offer. As per the offer, on purchase of a new colour FM handset and a first recharge of `1,000 (thus, the effective price for the offer is `2,000), custom-ers would get free talk time of 2 lakh seconds and 50,000 free SMSes.

The OOH duties for Tata Indicom, which comprises three businesses - CDMA, Photon and Walky, are handled by Milestone Brandcom. Madison’s outdoor divi-sion - MOMS, handles the OOH duties of Tata Docomo. �

[email protected]

The Magic HatAn OOH innovation by Milestone Brandcom promoted the brand’s latest offer of free talk-time on the purchase of a handset. By Poojya Trivedi

TATA TELESERVICES

The One Company Man

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A dummy 3D cut-out of the phone was placed inside a hat which, with the help of

a motor, was pulledout of the hat.


Google India is beefing up its efforts to rope in more local advertisers for AdWords, the online advertising program that helps

marketers to serve ads (as sponsored links) on Google’s search results page.

For this purpose, the company has decided to set up new local-language call centres, which would contact, communicate with and teach the usage of AdWords to marketers, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Google will also establish its physical presence across various towns and cities in India.

The internet firm has already set up a new call centre (inbound and outbound) in Hyderabad, which will provide regional language - Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam - support to SMEs or marketers in the southern region for its AdWords program.

However, this is not Google’s first customer care centre for AdWords in the country. Its first call centre went live in early 2009 in New Delhi, from where it provides AdWords support in English and Hindi. The company claims that it handles calls from about 1,000 advertisers daily at its New Delhi call centre.

Over the next few months, Google plans to launch more call centres in other parts of India, providing assistance in Bengali, Oriya, Gujarati

and Marathi.Through the new call centres, the firm plans to

contact more than 2,000 advertisers daily by 2011.Apart from contacting prospective advertisers

over the phone, the company has already initiated its endeavour to reach local marketers in smaller towns and cities such as Udaipur and Chandigarh through on-ground events, direct mailers and AdWords partners.

Sridhar Seshadri, head, online sales, Google India, reveals, “We will inform SMEs through direct mails and conduct 100 road shows or on-ground events across 25 cities, such as Jaipur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Cochin and Tirupur in the coming year to inform and educate local marketers on how they can utilise and leverage Google AdWords for their busi-ness.”

To extend reach, the search firm will also appoint more AdWords sales/reseller partners in various cities in India. “Anyone or any local organisation -- technology or web development firm, search marketing company or digital agency - can become a partner for AdWords. It is like a franchise system,” says Seshadri.

He adds that the role of the partner would be to “help us reach or fetch more local marketers, without the physical existence of Google in the local areas. They can organise on-ground events and contact advertisers directly.”

“Partners will be free to offer other value-add-ed, Web related solutions to advertisers, whom they will rope in for the AdWords program,” Seshadri adds.

He clarifies that Google would not charge any fees from firms or persons who want to partner for AdWords. Instead, partners will be free to earn their revenue from value-added services, such as webpage development. Google already has seven sales partners for AdWords in India.

The search giant is also contemplating the use of traditional advertising to reach advertisers in smaller towns. “We may use print and radio advertising and beef up on-ground activities to add more AdWords users from smaller towns next year,” says Seshadri. �

[email protected]

GOOGLE

Going Local The search giant plans to launch local-language call centres and appoint more sales partners to increase AdWords users in small towns. By Kapil Ohri

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The Hindi daily, NaiDunia, has come out with what it calls the ‘first time ever by

a Hindi daily’, a newspaper for school children in Indore. The core audience of this eight-page news-paper is students from Class 6 to Class 12.

Bearing a cover price of `1, NaiDunia Disha is a Berliner-format newspaper that was launched in November. It is being published six days a week. The launch edition of the daily was distributed in 20 schools in Indore, reaching more than 15,000 students.

Since it is a newspaper for stu-dents, NaiDunia Disha is being promoted through posters and banners in the schools across

Indore city. In the near future, the media house plans to organise various contests and take NaiDunia Disha to the next level of engage-ment with its audience.

Talking about the genesis of Disha, Debu Mishra, vice-presi-dent, sales and development, NaiDunia, says, “The reason why students shy away from traditional newspapers is the newspaper itself.

The content is not made keeping children in mind. They deserve knowledge sup-plement, in addition to their textbooks. To acknowledge this, NaiDunia has brought this newspaper for the school chil-dren.”

Right from news customised as per the needs of children to puzzles, science projects, jokes and riddles to challenge young minds, the daily will have some-thing for all its young readers. The content mix of the daily would include motivational, educative and entertaining short stories, a science section that will incorporate the latest developments in the field and FunDunia, a fun-n-learn section. Apart from this, a page in the daily will be designed by students. About the content strategy of the

newspaper, Mishra says, “There will be a mix of news, values and learn-ings for the students.” NaiDunia Disha will be made available in the schools on demand. NaiDunia plans to take this Berliner to its other major centres, including Bhopal, Gwalior and Raipur. �

[email protected]

Targeting YoungTitled NaiDunia Disha, this newspaper will be published six days a week for students across Indore. By Sumantha Rathore

NAIDUNIA

“Partners will be free to offer other value-added, web related solutions to advertisers.” SRIDHAR SESHADRI

Bearing a cover price of `1, NaiDunia Disha is a Berliner-format newspaper.

The launch edition of the daily was dis-tributed in 20 schools in Indore.


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The UK-based mobile messag-ing firm Blyk has partnered with mobile operator Aircel,

which has more than 48 million sub-scribers in India, to bring the concept of free mobile services in return for consuming SMS in India.

The mobile firm, Blyk, sends information, tips and alerts for vari-ous categories such as entertainment, sports, events, astrology, career and lifestyle as interactive SMS or MMS to its subscribers.

Members can click on the SMS and use the interactive option to extract more information. Depending on the usage of interactive features by its members, they will be reward-ed with free talk time, free data and SMS packages. More interaction with messages implies more rewards.

How it works? To subscribe to the service, a user is required to pur-chase a subscription coupon (at `74)

from Aircel and register with the service. A new subscriber will receive messages from almost all content cat-egories in the first eight weeks. Based on the interaction of the user with the messages in the first eight weeks, Blyk determines the type of content that the user would like to consume in future.

Is it for advertisers? "Advertisers can use the service to serve branded messages, use it for conducting mar-ket research and test their products and advertising before unveiling it to the general public," says Shubhodip Pal, country manager, Blyk India.

Blyk has already roped in 21 advertisers including Levis, Nokia, Red Bull, ESPN and Smirnoff.

Aircel is promoting the Blyk ser-vice through various media. Pal says, "We will spend about 50 per cent of our advertising budget on digital marketing. The rest of the ad budget will be allocated to print, radio, OOH and below-the-line advertising."

There are no plans to use TV to promote Blyk services in India. �

[email protected]

A key person credited with the success of the Bengali general entertainment channel (GEC), Star Jalsha, now has a new challenge. As the

CEO of Mahuaa Media, Yubaraj Bhattacharya will have a broader canvas to paint than as the program-ming head of Star Jalsha. Mahuaa Media has two regional language GECs, Bengali and Bhojpuri, apart from a news channel. The company also plans to launch a slew of channels in other languages.

Bhattacharya, shares his journey so far with afaqs! Reporter and how he got into the television business.

Bhattacharya, who finished his schooling from St. Lawrence, Kolkata, decided to pursue a course in chartered accountancy after graduating from Ashutosh College. He soon realised that it wasn’t his cup of tea. And one day on a friend’s suggestion, he decided to sit for the copy test at Contract. Though he cleared the copy test, he was deemed a better fit for the planning function. Within a year’s time he was sent for an induction programme called Windows in Mumbai, run by the legendary Subroto Sengupta, former boss of the ad agency Clarion.

After spending a year at Contract Mumbai, Bhattacharya moved back to Kolkata for personal reasons. When he moved back to Mumbai a year later, he joined the media function of Chaitra Leo Burnett (now Leo Burnett). Here, he got the opportunity to work with many media stalwarts such as Pravin Tripathi, LV Krishnan and Ravi Kiran. It was at Leo Burnett that his talent received recognition and he was shifted to servicing.

However, destiny had some other plans for him. Bhattacharya had to return to Kolkata again to look after his parents, who were unwell. Once there, he decided to pursue his first love - film making. He joined a production company, Black Magic Motion Pictures. “It was during my year-long tenure at the

production company, that I got intrigued by the art of making soaps for television. So I focused on learning more about television production.”

Bhattacharya was then called to be a part of the launch team of Star Ananda - the 24-hours news chan-nel by MCCS, the joint venture between the ABP group and Star India. At Star Ananda, Bhattacharya got a chance to work under Uday Shankar, now the CEO of Star India. “I feel I was very lucky to work with the launch team at Star Ananda as I got to learn a lot about the news business as well the television business in India,” reminisces Bhattacharya. Looking back, he thinks that “Star Ananda changed the way the audience in West Bengal consumed news and ended up creating

a market for Bengali news channels.” After working for three years, he decid-ed to take a break.

During this period, Bhattacharya received a call from his ex-boss Uday Shankar who told him that he was planning to launch a Bengali general entertainment channel. Bhattacharya says, “I was called to launch Star Jalsha. I spearheaded the launch of the chan-nel, including selection of people, the producers and creating a production network.”

While conceptualising the channel, Bhattacharya looked for new directors, writers and new concepts. His experi-ence and knowledge of the Bengali

television market was his biggest strength. Calling the Star Jalsha launch - a sweet success, he adds, “We began with 92 GRPs and within eight months, we were able to beat the market leader. In less than 2 years we managed to break even.”

At Mahuaa TV his first job will be to build the brand. In spite of its popularity, Bhattacharya knows that “the brand Mahuaa does not have much equity in the market, so my task will be to develop the brand. Mahuaa Media has both, GECs as well as news chan-nel. I will get a chance to use my learning to develop Mahuaa as a big brand in the regional space.” �

[email protected]

By Anushree Bhattacharyya

Regional Challenge

YUBARAJ BHATTACHARYA I CEO I MAHUAA MEDIA

Click n EarnBLYK.COM

Pal: something for everyone


“I feel I was very lucky

to have worked with the launch

team of Star Ananda.”

AFAQS!/RADIO ONE

Getting Together

Radio One, the joint venture between Mid-day Multimedia and BBC Worldwide, has partnered with afaqs!, the leader in

B2B marketing communications, to launch a radio show that aims to give a larger footprint to senior professionals in advertising, media and marketing.

Christened the Radio One afaqs! Show, the new property allows B2B personalities to reveal their lives in a B2C environment, using music to build connections.

The one-hour show is aired every Saturday at 1 PM from November 27 across the seven cit-ies where the radio station is present - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru. The first personality to be covered on the show was Piyush Pandey, executive chairman, Ogilvy India.

Sreekant Khandekar, director, afaqs!, says, “I am pleased about this show, because perhaps, this is for the first time that something of its kind is being tried in the industry and I am glad that we did it first.”

Vineet Singh Hukmani, managing direc-tor, 94.3 Radio One, says, “The duality of the idea excited us when we arrived at it. It

allows us to showcase the musical side and also the emotional side of the people in our industry.”

He further adds, “Besides, this show will allow advertising and marketing profes-

sionals to face the consumers of the brands they create. You watch so many films, and you like them, listen to so many jingles and

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afaqs! and Radio One have come together to launch a radio show that introduces audiences to eminent advertising, media and marketing professionals. News Bureau

Multi-Screen Media (MSM) aims to utilise mobile and online media

to retain consumer interest and earn revenue from the quiz show brand, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), dur-ing the current season and after the TV show goes off-air.

The media company has already unveiled the KBC microsite (KBC.Indiatimes.com), where it uploads videos and games related to the show. The channel also plans to launch a mobile phone game called KBC.

The game, developed by UTV Indiagames, is the virtual replica-tion of the quiz show and lets users play the quiz on the mobile platform.

Similar to the game show on

TV, a total of 13 questions of progressive difficulty are presented to the mobile phone user during the game. The user has to select the right answers at each level to win a virtual

amount of up to `5 crore.Moreover, if the user gets stuck

on a question, four lifelines includ-ing Phone a Friend, Audience Poll, and Double Dip, are offered.

Initially, the game will be distrib-uted as a downloadable application on the mobile sites of all major mobile phone operators. Later, there are plans to offer it on mobile

applications stores owned by various operators and handset manufacturers.

Both the mobile game and the microsite will be retained and fresh content will be uploaded, after the show goes off-air. Nitesh

Kripalani, vice-president, business development and digital syndica-tion, MSM, points out, “We plan to keep the microsite live for the next six months and to upload more exclusive content, after the show goes off-air.”

“The idea behind the mobile game and KBC’s online presence is to replicate the experience and build engagement with the game show or KBC brand, beyond the one-hour show on the TV channel,” says Danish Khan, head, marketing, Sony Entertainment Television.

He adds, “It will help us in bringing viewers back for the next season.”

Is it just a branding exercise, or does MSM aim to monetise the mobile and online presence? Kripalani clarifies, “MSM also intends to monetise KBC’s digital presence, apart from keeping the brand alive.”

He elucidates that the game application will be offered for free but mobile users will be charged (by the mobile phone service

Going DigitalSony intends to keep Kaun Banega Crorepati alive through a microsite and a mobile version of the game show after the show goes off-air. By Kapil Ohri

SONY

Khan: on the idea

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The game will be distributed as a downloadable

application on the mobile sites of

all major mobile phone operators.


(From left) Khandekar and Hukmani

Swapping Wives

In the past, many Hindi general entertainment channels have tried their hand at sensational reality

shows, such as Pati, Patni Aur Woh, the Indian adaptation of BBC’s Baby Borrowers; and Sach Ka Saamna - the Indian version of the popular American reality show, The Moment of Truth. While Pati, Patni Aur Woh was tele-cast on Imagine TV (formerly NDTV Imagine), Sach Ka Saamna was aired on STAR Plus.

Both shows managed to gain enough attention, but they also ran into legal trouble and were eventu-ally pulled off air. It appears that now Sony has decided to walk the same line as it readies to bring in a reality show called Wife Swap. Produced by UTV, the show is expected to go on-air early next year.

Speaking about Wife Swap, Ajit Thakur, busi-ness head, Sony, says, “The show, while borrowed from the international format, will be designed keeping Indian values in mind. The name of the show can be misleading, but the content will be in line with Indian society and its beliefs.”

Originally produced by the UK independent television production company, RDF Media, Wife Swap has been created by Stephen Lambert.

As per the international format, two families, usually from vastly different social backgrounds and lifestyles, swap wives for two weeks. During the first week, the new wife must follow exactly the same rules and lifestyle of the wife she is

replacing. Each wife leaves a house manual, which explains her role and duties in the family.

During the second week, the new wives are allowed to set their own rules, and their new fami-lies must adhere to these rules. At the end of the two weeks, the two couples meet for the first time and discuss how they felt about the two weeks.

Is the Indian audience ready for another sensa-tional reality show or will Wife Swap meet with a fate similar to that of other such shows?

Nandu Ram, professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, says that the concept of swapping wives might be prevalent amongst certain sections of Indian soci-

ety but people may not be happy with such a show being aired on national television. After all, Indian society is still very conservative.

Amit Kaur, counsellor, Delhi Police (Women Cell), says, “The show might find audience in the upper strata of the society, as they are aware of west-ern culture and lifestyle. However, the show will definitely not appeal to the masses as it is against Indian values.”

While a few sociologists feel that the average Indian is not mature enough to accept such shows, many in the trade believe that going by Sony’s viewership profile, the show might find acceptance.

Amit Ray, president and COO, Lintas Media Group opines that Indian audiences are modern and are aware of western culture and society,

and Sony, as a channel, caters to modern India. So, it will not be difficult for the channel to find view-ers for the show.

On the other hand, many feel that the show might land with the same fate as Sach Ka Saamna.

Navin Khemka, senior vice-president, ZenithOptimedia, adds that from the audience’s point of view, it will not be possible to go ahead with such a show as it will generate a lot of back-lash. “So far, getting married on television has been accepted but swapping wives can be going to extreme limits. Also, advertisers tend to stay away from such shows.” �

[email protected]

��

Going by past experience, Indian audiences are not yet ready for sensational reality shows. Nevertheless, Sony is set to bring Wife Swap - a popular UK reality show - to India. Will the concept work? By Anushree Bhattacharyya

you love some; the audience at large needs to know who created those jingles and who are the unsung heroes of the advertis-ing and media fraternity.”

Prasanna Singh, chief operating officer, afaqs!, is of the view, “We are enthused to be a part of this radio show that will bring some of the biggest industry figures closer to a broader set of audience.”

The show plays on the tag-line, ‘Maximum music, ‘maximum faqs’; wherein ‘maximum music’ reflects Radio One’s proposition and sets out to explore the music tastes of B2B personalities featured in the recently launched ‘Who? 2010’ directory.

According to Prajjal Saha, exec-utive editor, afaqs!, the show is “a great opportunity to reach out to a wider audience with news and facts from our industry, that will help build better quality awareness the way the industry works”.

‘Maximum faqs’, on the other hand, makes an attempt to reflect the spirit and passion of the team at afaqs!, in a bid to capture the essence of the human beings behind the designations.

This will be done by capturing interesting facets related to their

careers and their work, which will be integrated with the music that is played on the show.

One can catch the recorded ver-sion of the radio show subsquently on afaqs.com. �

[email protected]

provider) for data usage. The rev-enues earned will be shared between MSM, UTV Indiagames and the mobile phone operator.

Apart from this, MSM has a dedi-cated digital sales team, which will monetise the microsite through pre-roll video ads, banner advertising and sponsorships. The TV channel has roped in advertisers such as Idea Cellular, Aditya Birla Group and Microtek for the microsite.

On how much revenue MSM aims to generate from the digital presence of KBC, Kripalani replies, “We aim to generate 5 per cent of the total revenue that KBC generates on TV.” �

[email protected]

The show on Radio One, will explore the music tastes of

advertising, media and marketing personalities.

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A New Wave Going digital

SONY

“The show, while borrowed from the

international format, will be designed keep-

ing Indian values in mind.”

AJIT THAKUR


GlaxoSmithKline’s Horlicks NutriBar recently launched an innovative cam-paign. This activity comes close on the

heels of GlaxoSmithKline revamping its flagship brand, Horlicks, after a gap of seven years, where the logo and packaging were redesigned to bring about a unified new look in all the products under the Horlicks portfolio.

The main aim of the campaign in its first phase was to drive the target group - males and females in the age group of 25-35 years - to try out the Horlicks NutriBar.

The on-air and on-ground campaign done by Big Live, is being rolled out in six metros across the country. The campaign in its first phase was rolled out in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata with a key message, ‘Jab bhook lage tezi, don’t go crazy’.

The next phase of the campaign was rolled out in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad that com-municated the message: NutriBar khaane ke hazar reasons hai. Aapka reason kya hai? Horlicks NutriBar - iss mein hai wheat, rice, oats aur 11 vital nutrients.

Discussing the product, Vipul Gupta, brand manager, GSK, says, “We continuously identify and cater to the needs of various consumer seg-ments by developing products that specifically provide benefits linked to nutrition and wellness. Horlicks NutriBar is a convenient snacking option that renders pleasurable nutrition for today’s young, on-the-move achievers.”

As part of the campaign, a radio activity on 92.7

Big FM was executed in all the six cities. Apart from the brand spots, the on-air activity con-sisted of two elements - Bhooki Galtiyan (Hungry Mistakes) and NutriBar GYM Offer.

Bhooki Galtiyan campaign called for an action element, wherein listeners were asked to share their Bhooki Galityan.

Listeners had to SMS NutriBar followed by a space and then write down the mistake and send it to 55454.

In the NutriBar GYM Offer, listeners were asked to carry three wrappers of NutriBar and go to the selected participating gyms across all six cit-ies, where they could avail free trials.

For on-ground, a BPO-based activity was car-ried out, where, Nutribar Nutrition Units had been placed. At these units, people were asked to try out the NutriBar and then guess its ingredi-ents from the options displayed on a chart.

A ‘Corporate Complex Activity’ was also car-ried out, where participants had to spin a NutriBar clock and if the hour hand pointed to the section which was not a part of the regular meal timings, the person was awarded gifts.

Besides this, a gym activity was carried out, where weighing machines with NutriBar’s crea-tives and NutriBar dispensing slot machines were placed.

The people coming to the gym were asked to check their weight by the promoter of the gym, who then educated them about the benefits of NutriBar.

On the initiative, Navneeth Mohan, nation-al head, experiential marketing, Big Live, says, “Being associated with clients such as GSK has given us great knowledge about launching a campaign on such a large scale. With the low attention span of the audience, it was imperative that we created an innovative activation platforms to engage the target group.” �

[email protected]

HORLICKS NUTRIBAR

Endless Reasons Creates branded on-air and on-ground platforms to engage consumers in order to educate about the nutritional benefit of the NutriBar. News Bureau

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Times OOH, which recently bagged the advertising rights for T3, the new Delhi air-

port terminal for 20 years, plans to set up 200 digital screens by end of March 2011.

Amsterdam-based Ad Board International has designed the cas-ing for the 65 inches digital screens.

T3 will also have static media across the terminal, in addition to the media space available outside the airport. In fact, Times OOH has hired two UK-based OOH consultants, Dennis Sylavin and Le Lorrance to design the media space.

Sunder Hemrajani, managing director, Times OOH, says, “We have followed the less is more prin-

ciple. The idea is to keep it less cluttered, so that the value of each property increases.”

He explains that while design-ing the media space and making the media plan, one has to look at various aspects. The lessons learnt from the experiences at the airports at Mumbai and Delhi have been

implemented for a better plan.In view of the increased traffic at

night (due to international flights), the media installed outside the air-port has been backlit.

Times OOH claims that T3 will help it garner 40 per cent more rev-enue this financial year.

Hemrajani adds, “Currently, about 75 per cent of the media is occupied at T3 and the number will increase with the installation of more media.” �

High on DigitalTimes OOH plans to install 200 digital screens by March, 2011. By Anushree Bhattacharyya

T3

For on-ground, a BPO based activity has been

planned in metros.

Hemrajani: talking plans


GOOD KNIGHT

Naturally Bite Free

Good Knight Naturals, the mosquito repellent cream from Godrej Sara Lee, has rolled out a new ‘awareness’ cam-

paign across platforms such as outdoor, radio, print, web and on-ground.

Conceptualised and created by JWT, the ads show people trying to protect themselves with strange body wraps wherein the copy reads, ‘There’s a simpler way to protect yourself from mosquitoes.’

The campaign stems from the fact that com-pared to in-home mosquito repellents such as coils and mats, the personal application category is highly underpenetrated, even in metros where occasions for use are high.

Kapil Dev Pillai, category head, household insecticides, Godrej Household Products, says, “While Good Knight mosquito repellent cream gives great protection from mosquitoes in any situation, our belief is that it brings greatest value to consumers in outdoor usage, where no other realistic solution exists. Our communication idea actually amplifies the fact that till now, if one wanted outdoor pro-tection from mosquitoes, one needed to go to complete extremes. Thus, in a humorous way, the ads try to highlight the fact that fear of mosquitoes can compel you to take bizarre

measures outdoors. However, in reality, the solution is easier.”

Since concern for mosquitoes outdoor is highest at the outset of this season, Godrej decided to launch the campaign during this time period.

The three-month-long campaign, kicked-off in October, will run till December.

The outdoor campaign is being handled by Pioneer Publicity.

The campaign employs full bus wraps, train wraps, hoardings and Meru Cab branding. A cut-out hoarding was also created.

All other media planning and buying is being handled by Madison Media. �

[email protected]

��

The new OOH-led campaign for Good Knight Naturals, in a witty way, tries to communicate that there are easier ways to protect oneself from mosquitoes than full-body wraps. By Surina Sayal

(Left) OOH hoarding and train wrap

With the Hindi GEC space getting fiercely aggressive with each passing day,

channels keep adopting new strate-gies to increase their shares of the ever fragmenting viewership pie.

Recently, Zee TV decided to advance its weekday original pro-gramming to 6 PM from Monday to Friday, while Sony launched a new weekly show with original content to feed its Saturday 8 PM slot, with an aim to tap into the male and youth audience segment.

Now, the genre will witness one more stunt to grab the untapped audience set.

Star One, the second GEC from the STAR stable, has extened its prime time programming to Saturdays, beginning November 27, so as to give a boost to its viewer-

ship and fill the gap of fiction-based shows over the weekends.

Star One will push its prime time shows from five days a week (Monday-Friday) to six days a week (Monday-Saturday), with the line up as follows: Yeh Ishq Haaye (8 PM), Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani (8.30 PM), Dhoondh Legi Manzil Humein (9 PM), Geet (9.30 PM) and Odhani (10 PM).

So why did Star One choose to take such a step?

Speaking to afaqs! Reporter, Nikhil Mirchandani, general man-ager, Star One, says, “Research

shows that the television consump-tion habit of viewers on weekends is no different from that on weekdays.

Currently, the weekend slots are heavier with weeklies, non-fiction and reality content. Thus, we saw that there was an opportunity to be tapped, wherein we could fill the gap and cater to the fiction-based view-ers over the weekends (Saturdays).”

“Also, since audiences are gen-erally hooked onto their favourite shows during weekdays, this move will help us aggregate eyeballs dur-ing weekends. Viewers could sample the channel and its shows and then choose to stay back on it if they like it. This could, therefore, translate into loyal viewers on weekdays,” he adds.

With this extension, Star One will run 15 hours of original pro-gramming (five shows) from 8 PM

Time for Some Ample Sample? Saturdays are usually free of fiction shows. Star One plans to use this gap and increase the sampling of its weekly fictions. By Anindita Sarkar

STAR ONE

With this extension, Star One will run 15 hours of original programming (five

shows) from 8PM to 10.30PM.

Mirchandani: on the weekend path

��>#�>>



The Indian economy is estimated to have grown over 7 per cent in

2009-10. According to the latest Central Statistical Organisation �� banking, insurance and real estate sectors rose more than 9.7 per cent in 2009-10.

Investment is increasing and India is surely a lucrative market. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), puts the number of registered Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) at 1,710 till May this year. The

�� January to May 2010 was US$ ��!� "�� #%�� -dence in Indian economy and the same was also highlighted in the Economic Survey 2009-10. &�� %�� led to strengthening of Indian Rupee against the US Dollar.

According to Reserve Bank of India, by June this year India’s foreign exchange kitty stood at $271 billion, an increase of $9.87 billion over the same period

last year. Gujarat has been a major

investment region out of all the states in India. Vibrant Gujarat Summits, held bi-ennially since 2003 have helped attract more than $300 billion worth investments in the state. The Government of Gujarat is organ-ising the Fifth Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2011

S P E C I A L I N V E S T M E N T R E G I O N S

With the Indian economy booming and striding past other major Asian players, exciting times are beckoning. Gujarat is a part of the party.

��

�� !��"��#��$��$%��&$��

#�'��#�(#��'��!�)#��*+,-�.��.�$.(��(#/#�0�#��$)��

��'��#�#��,�

Source: International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook

COUNTRY/REGION 2009 2010

US -2.70% 1.50%

UK -4.40% 0.90%

EU -4.20% 0.30%

JAPAN -5.40% 1.70%

CHINA 8.50% 9.00%

INDIA 5.40% 6.40%

Advanced Economies -3.40% 1.30%

Emerging Economies 1.70% 5.10%

World -1.10% 3.10%

ECONOMIC GROWTH PROJECTIONS BY IMF

��


in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.According to a Deutsche Bank

Research report, Gujarat ranks �� %�� '�� *�among 27 states in the country. With a 50 million population and the geographic area that is 6.2 per cent of the country, Gujarat has a Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of $45.3 billion, and a per capita income of $915 at current prices. It is one of the most industrialised states, with 37.4 per cent people living in towns and cities.

The primary market in India witnessed improved activity during 2009-10. The number of companies which accessed the primary market was 76 in 2009-10 compared to 47 the previous year. Amount mobilised was `57.5 billion during 2009-10, as against `16.22 mobilised during 2008-09. The number of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) increased to 39 in 2009-10 from 21 in 2008-09 and the number of rights issue increased to 29 from 25 during the same period.

MONEY MATTERSAccording to the global

economic growth projections by the International Monetary Fund, while India is expected to clock a growth of 6.4 per cent this year, the neighbouring China will grow by 9 per cent.

While every other state in India is striving hard for growth and development, Gujarat has always been at the forefront as +�� -vices is concerned. “Between 14 to 16 per cent of the total volume of trade happening on the two national commodity exchanges (MCX and NCDEX) happens from Gujarat,” said Naveen Mathur, Associate Director, Commodities and Currencies Markets, Angel Broking.

Some of the reasons Mathur

attributed to the popular-�� +� �� //�� trading in Gujarat are higher risk-taking appetite of Gujaratis, rich entrepreneurial sense and �� /� � � �the state.

According to the Socio-Economic Review of the state government, Gujarat demon-strated a high industrial growth rate of 12.5 per cent in the 2002-07 period. The State is home to over 800 large industrial units and 3.20 lakh micro, small and medium enterprises.

Gujarat has better infrastruc-ture as compared to the other states. There are 42 ports, 13 domestic airport and one interna-tional airport. The state also has extensive road and rail network. Owing to better infrastructure the state contributes 16 per cent to the industrial production of the country.

Gujarat is a leader in several industrial sectors such as chemi-cals, petrochemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, dairy, cement and ceramics, gems and jewel-lery, textiles and engineering. The 12 major industry groups

together account for 86 per cent of total factories, 96 per cent of ��;��<�� /� ��=��per cent of the value of output and 95 per cent of value-addition in the state’s industrial products.

At current prices, the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Gujarat was about US$ 76.3 billion in 2007-08. The aver-age annual GSDP growth rate from 1999-2000 to 2007-08, was about 15.8 per cent.

Gujarat was among the states that recorded very high GSDP growth rates in the last decade, compared to the other states.

The state accounts for around 15 per cent of country’s stock market capitalisation, 21 per cent of exports and 9.5 per cent of the work force. Gujarat is the world’s largest producer of castor and cumin, has the largest gas-based sin-gle location sponge iron plant, the largest producer of processed diamonds, and the third largest denim producer.

“In terms of trade volumes +��/� �� /�?�� @�H��accounts for around 15 per

cent,” said Mayank Shah, CEO of Anagram Capital Ltd.

For commodities, the state has a major contribution. “Since the state is the largest producer of castor and cumin seeds, the trade volume in agro-commodi-ties from Gujarat is about 25 to 30 per cent of the total trade,” Shah said.

People from Gujarat constitute for major chunk of retail investors of the national stock exchanges. Both the stock exchanges now have their websites in Gujarati language as well.

“The website provides a win-dow of information to traders, investors and farmers from the state and will go a long way in popularising commodity futures market among the community,” B.C. Khatua, Chairman, Forward Markets Commission had said when MCX launched the Gujarati language website two years ago.

People from Gujarat are generally have acute business and entrepreneurial instincts �� leaving no stone unturned to %� �� %�� <��"�� commercial opportunities.

With rising per capita income, growing interest in business and entrepreneurship, improv-� �� +�� governmental support, Gujarat is surely on its way to growth and � ��

��"��$��%$��$/��12�.��$%��$�� 3��$��&��

��.#��(#��#$�!�41�.��$%��5.$��'�6,2�.��$%��

�$��(�)$��%$��,�

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook

RANK COUNTRY

1 China

2 India

3 United States

4 Russian Federation

5 Brazil

TOP FIVE FDI DESTINATIONS OF THE WORLD


�� A compilation of some major people movements in the last fortnight

MARKETING

> Anant Pal Singh has joined Tata Teleservices as GM, brands. His immediate mandate entails managing all branding related activities for Virgin Mobile.

Tata Teleservices has five brands - Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo, Virgin Mobile, Tata Walky and Tata Photon.

Prior to this, Singh was VP, Rediffusion Y&R, where he headed the Airtel account as national business head.

At Tata Teleservices, Singh will report to Ritesh Ghoshal, head, marketing communications, Tata Docomo and Virgin Mobile. According to sources, the operations for the two brands, Virgin and Docomo, are in the process of being integrated. It, thus, follows that Singh’s position is a new one.

Singh began his career with Ogilvy and later moved on to Rediffusion Y&R. Singh joined Everest Brand Solutions -- Rediffusion Y&R’s second agency - as account direc-tor. Five years later, he moved up the ladder to head the agency’s Delhi operations.

> Sports broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) has appointed Aloke Malik as managing director, South Asia, which includes its India operations, ESPN Software India (ESI), apart from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives. Earlier, Malik was chief operating officer, East, Idea Cellular. He will be based in ESI’s Gurgaon head-quarters and will report to Sawhney.

In his new role, Malik will head the management team and look after the distribution, sales and marketing of the company’s multi-media brands including ESPN STAR Sports, STAR Cricket, espnstar.com, mobile ESPN and Event Management Group.

An IIM Kolkata alumnus, Malik has more than 23 years of experience in general management, marketing, sales and distribution across a wide range of industries and consumer groups and has worked in diverse international markets such as Russia and Bangladesh. Some of his ear-lier stints include local and multi-national companies such as ITC, PepsiCo, Reliance Retail, Madura Garments and Idea Cellular.

> Times Television Network has roped in Avinash Kaul to head its Bollywood entertainment network, Zoom, as chief executive officer. Kaul will report to Sunil Lulla, man-aging director and chief executive officer, Times Television Network.

Kaul brings to the network 12 years of experience in the television business. He started his career as a media planner with HTA Fulcrum, and later moved on to Discovery Communications and STAR India. Subsequently, at NDTV Media, he spent several years handling diverse portfolios of operations and marketing and also headed its consulting division.

> Dealsandyou.com has elevated Gaurav Kachru to chief execu-tive officer. Based out of Gurgaon, Kachru will report to Harish Bahl, founder and chief executive offic-er, Smile Interactive Technologies Group.

Prior to this, Kachru led new business incubation and cor-porate development functions across the Smile Group, which has businesses with WPP, Yahoo!, the Scan Group, Group Buying Global AG and Brand Alliance Network (private shopping).

In the past, Kachru led the Manpower Global Accounts business in 14 countries across APAC. He also had a decade long stint with General Electric. In his last assignment as coun-try director, GE Transportation India, he helped grow sales for the locomotive business.

Kachru is an MBA in finance and international busi-ness from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. He is also a certified Six Sigma professional.

> Tribal DDB India has appointed Abhishake Das as creative director wherein his mandate will be to head the creative function with a strate-gic approach. Based in Mumbai, he will report to Max Hegerman, president, Tribal DDB, India and work on brands such as Volkswagen, Idea Cellular and Wrigley. Earlier, Das was with

Zed Digital, the interactive arm of ZenithOptimedia. Armed with more than seven years of experience, Das has worked on brands such as VW, Puma, Hyundai, Adidas, Uninor, Lufthansa, Nescafe, Intel and Microsoft.

> Media Contact, the digital arm of Havas Media, has elevated Arnab Mitra to regional director. Prior to this, Mitra served in the capacity of director with the company. As part of his new mandate, he will look after the agency’s South Asia operations. Mitra joined Media Contacts in 2009. Armed with a decade-long experience in online communication, Arnab has devised digital strate-gies for brands like Accenture, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Dell, ASUS, Barclays, AXIS Bank, Reliance, HSBC, TATA AIG, Asian paints, VW, Hugo Boss, HDFC, ICICI Prudential and Skoda.

> Ravi Kabra, MD of Media Contacts’ SEM and SEO opera-tions, Ecselis, based in Hyderabad, has been appointed as the director of new business for South and Southeast Asia. He will report to Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, South Asia and Rajeev Bala, MD, Southeast Asia and India, Media Contacts.

He has been involved in online marketing since 1999, encompassing various areas across e-marketing.

In his previous assignment, Kabra served as a senior researcher with a leading Indian market research com-pany wherein he worked with clients across industries on quantitative research projects. Mitra joined Media Contacts in 2009 and has earlier worked with Purple Media, a UK -based agency.

DIGITAL

>> MOVEMENTS/APPOINTMENTS<<ADVERTISING

> After spending over two years with the agency, Aniruddha Banerjee, chairman, Publicis Ambience, has put in his papers. His stint at Publicis Ambience ended last month.

Banerjee joined Publicis Ambience as its president and chief operating officer in March 2007, after serving as president, Mudra. In January this year, as part of a senior level restructur-ing, he was named chairperson, Publicis Ambience.

Banerjee began his advertising career with Contract Advertising in 1988. Having spent two years there, he moved to Bates for a stint that lasted eight years. He then joined Leo Burnett as client services director and was soon elevated as executive director and head at the agency.

After Leo Burnett, he joined Everest Brand Solutions in November 2004 as chief operating officer. He was associ-

ated with the organisation for two years before he joined Mudra.

> Ramachandran Venkatasubramanian, popularly known as Venkat, has been appointed senior director, invest-ments, MPG India. Prior to this, he was client leader, Maxus. He had moved to Maxus from Lintas media Group where he was heading the Maruti business as vice-president.

At MPG, he is expected to handle the media requirements for clients such as Hyundai, MTS, Kohler, VLCC, M3M, Radico Khaitan and many others.

Venkatasubramanian has 18 years of experience in the media domain, having worked on a spec-trum of brands including Adidas, Parker, Visa and Maruti, across agencies such as Media Direction and Lintas Media Group.

MEDIA

to 10.30 PM. However, eventually, that will be pushed up to 18 hours of original content as the channel plans to launch a new fiction show in the 10.30 PM band soon.

“We have launched three fiction shows in less than a month. Once these shows settle, we will bring in a new show for the 10.30 PM band,” adds Mirchandani.

So, is the strategy good enough to help the channel gain viewership?

According to Manas Mishra, executive vice-president and coun-try head, Mudra Connext, the move is definitely good and different as “the channel is trying to put eggs in different baskets instead of just one”.

He says, “Consumers do not put on a different hat on a Saturday or a Sunday. Rather, they have more time on hand to watch better con-tent. Right now, weekends cater to specific genres - reality and movies. There are not many fiction shows on

weekends. Therefore, the strategy could actually work for the chan-nel and in fact, could keep the small town people hooked onto it.”

Satyajit Sen, CEO, Zenith-Optimedia believes that if a particular programme appeals to the audience, “it really does not matter what for-mat the show belongs to”.

“Traditionally, channels have placed long format content such as reality and movies on weekends because audiences have more time at hand. However, that does not mean that other forms of content will

not work. It’s just that the content has to be appealing enough. Also, weekends are good to tap into the audiences as it is a less competitive environment,” he says.

STAR One will launch a mar-keting campaign announcing the extension of its programming line up next week, playing along the core thought: ‘Aap Shaniwaar ko kya kar rahe hai?’

“80 per cent of the promotions will be on the STAR Network,” says Mirchandani. �

[email protected]

<< �� !��>�

Time for...


��

What’s in a logo? Ask GAPA

fter a public outcry on social media, ‘GAP’ withdrew the new logo it had introduced

and brought back the classic blue box. This was in October.

More recently Airtel launched its new logo and again it’s the social media, which has been harsh and unkind. Before we get into merits and demerits of the case, let’s look at what goes behind designing a logo and how to judge one. Because consumer outcry is one thing and industry opinion is another.

To be fair, I want to gently remind our tweeting and status-updating judges the parameters for gauging a good logo and view-ing the design in the context of a telecom brand. Iconic logos have simple, yet magical qualities of evoking an emotional response in you, for instance when you look at the golden arches of McDonald’s you feel happy and hungry at the same time. Ever thought why this happens? It’s the colours, which do the trick. Yellow arches make you smile while the red McDonald’s background makes you feel hungry. It’s unbelievably true that the col-our red makes your blood pressure soar, and at the same time makes your stomach rumble.

When you judge a logo you need to keep five simple things in mind:

The symbol used should signify and communi-cate something about the brand’s ambition or vision in a clearly identifiable way while keeping the historic, cultural and category rel-evance in mind.

The style should com-municate the personality or

functionality or special attributes of the brand like: indoor, outdoors, cleanly, orderly, open or friendly.

Type should communicate a certain feel and vision of the brand. Type should tell you whether the brand is stiff or flexible, bold or fragile, feminine or masculine and so on, in an instant.

The graphics, icons, type and colour used should have a relationship with the target group and company values, goals or aspirations.

Colours used should represent and relate to the business and its aspirations. Colour used should communicate the intended message or emotion instantly.

Now let’s keep these parameters and look at some telecom logos through my point of view (not the creator’s).

It uses speech mark as a symbol to communicate the brand’ s ambition. Needless to say how simple it is for the people to comprehend and connect with the brand and the category. Styling of the graphics is near perfect to represent the preciseness with its orderly alignments and placements. Typography is bold, confident yet very friendly with its lowercase usage. Red, the colour of passion and action, provides energy and excitement to the brand. All the elements are used to perfection and is a classic example of art and science of design coming together. The logo of Vodafone is designed by the London-based Brand Union.

Inspired by nature and its role in the innovation in Scandinavian culture, this pro-peller like symbol was designed to communicate the delicate bal-ance of movement and change. It uses a purposeful tranquil feeling by delicately designing the sym-bol and the typography. A delicate and thin san serif font is used to enhance Scandinavian design aes-thetics. White, blue and black are

used in the identity to enhance the ‘Inspired by nature’ feel.

Uses its name that means ‘every where’ in Japanese (Dokomo), this logo was designed for the Indian market to commu-nicate ‘Do the new’, hence the fun typo design, keeping in line with the brand promise. It’s styled to perfection to connect with the youth and VAS users. Graphics are designed for flexibility to be used freely. Colours are young and vibrant and bring in fun and ener-gy. This logo keeps the evolution of the consumers in mind to bring in flexibility for co-creation by the consumers. The logo for Docomo has been designed by Wolff Olins of London.

Uses alphabet ‘A’ in lowercase in a causal yet dynamic way. Spiraling ‘a’ almost gives you a feeling of a tornado, generating lots of kinetic energy. It’s styled in a vibrant and youthful way to com-municate with the changing Indian consumers. Typography in the Airtel logo is youthful and inviting by using lowercase and reiterating its values of friendly, approachable service. The colour red is used for depicting energy and passion of the brand. The logo has been designed by Brand Union.

Designing or judging logos is a very difficult task especially for telecom, which deals with more interfaces and touch points than most categories. Redesigning and implementing a new identity is a mammoth task, takes months to reach every circle, leave alone the streets.

While the new Airtel logo may just have fallen short of critics’ expectations, it may well create enough excitement in the market. Who cares for critics that are inter-ested in what could have been done and in the missed opportunity? When people embrace change they do so with open arms.

Hope we can fill in the GAPs. �

Presenting afaqs! Reporter blogs: Get insights and fun picks from our renowned panel.

K V SRIDHARNCD, Leo Burnett India

Airtel recently launched its new logo and social media has been harsh and unkind to it. Here’s a look at what goes behind designing a logo and how to judge one.

FOTO

CORP

Designing or judging logos is a very difficult task especially for telecom,

which deals with more interfaces and touch points than most categories.


(From Left) Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, Sarita Vij, Sudha Natrajan, Sandip Vij & Vineet Singh Hukmani

Niraj Dutt with Sreekant Khandekar unveils Who? 2010 "Wanted Yesterday" at Work: (from left) Ralp Pais, Subhash Kamath, Rajeev Raja and Hitesh Dhutia

(Left) Sudha Natrajan & Jehangir Pocha (Left) Sreekant Khandekar & Kamal Oberoi

WHO’S WHO

Team AIDEM at the launch of Who? 2010

afaqs! released another edition of Who?, a comprehensive listing of the people who matter in advertising, media and marketing.

The book was launched by Sreekant Khandekar of afaqs! and AIDEM’s Niraj Dutt on November 25th at the Delhi’s hottest club, F Bar.

It was a treat to watch eminent members of the advertising and media frat shake a leg to the tunes of Wanted Yesterday, a rock band formed by three industry hotshots - Prabhakar Mundkur, CEO, Percept H; Rajeev Raja, national creative director, DDB Mudra Group and Subhash Kamath, managing partner, BBH India.

Here’s a photo feature of the launch party that saw the who’s who of the industry share some light moments.


��

(From Left) G Krishnan and Amit Kumar with a guest (Left) Alok Agrawal & Naresh Gupta

(Left) Satbir Singh & Prajjal Saha (Left) Suprio Guha Thakurta & Shouvik Roy (From Left) Sandeep Vij, Sarita Vij & Manish Vij

(Left) Vineet Singh Hukmani & Ramesh Krishnan

(From Left) Prathap P. Suthan, Maheshwer Peri, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar & R Rajmohan(From Left) Amit Tripathi, Dilip Venkatraman, Prasanna Singh, Sandeep Sharma & G Krishnan

(From Left) R Rajmohan, Dilip Venkatraman, Ashish Bagga & Suresh Selveraj (From Left) Titus Upputuru, Navroze Dhondy & Sreekant Khandekar

��

ALL

PHO

TOS

BY S

USH

IL K

UM

AR

(From Left) Raghav Subramanian, Sudha Natrajan & Prathap Suthan

(From Left) Nagendra Choudhary, Anirban Chaudhuri & Kunal Gill

(From Left) Sandeep Vij, Shravani Sen, Samit Sinha & Vanita Kohli-Khandekar

(From Right) Niraj Dutt & Kartik Iyer

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ANUJA CHAUHANFormer Executive Creative Director and V-P, JWT Delhi, and author of The Zoya Factor and Battle For Bittora

The series, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, is a fantasy epic with lots of sub-

layering in social psychology, philosophy and interestingly, management. The most striking aspect of the series is its treatment of the classical good versus the evil battle. While what is evil or ‘wrong’ is definitively

so, there is nothing which is definitively ‘right’. That sounds suspiciously like a strategy! One is clear about what should not be done as compared to what’s the right choice. It also has a mix of factors contributing to deci-sion making at different points of the narrative. Decision making is not about making choices from various isolationist factors; rather, it is about choosing from different plausible equilibrium points in the environment.

I just finished reading the sequel to Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories- a book called Luka and the Fire of Life. While Rushdie dedi-cated the former to his elder son, the latter is for his younger son. The fable is about magical realism and speaks of Luka’s quest for the fire of life to save his dying father. There is something magical about the way Rushdie talks about this; I love his language. It talks about the three ‘Jos’- Jo Tha (the past), Jo Hai (the present) and Jo Hoga (the future).

Interestingly, Rushdie has based the story on a video game, perhaps to maintain sync with the current generation. The protagonist plays nine levels to reach his destination - the fire. The characters are lovely and it is a complete Rushdie! The prequel, however, was better as it was penned right after the fatwa; Rushdie had something to say in that unlike in this one. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories he has used free speech and imagination to say something deep in a light way.

I’m not into genres - for me there are good books and bad books; I do a lot of re-reading. My favourite authors are Vikram Seth, Joseph Heller, Georgette Heyer and Douglas Adams.

Catch 22 (by Joseph Heller) and Catcher in the Rye (by J D Salinger) are my favourite novels. Next on my reading list is Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

As told to Ashwini Gangal

MANAGERS WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE ��!��!��46�004�

(��?��,�)��+�10�4��?�)��!�'��4��

The book, Managers Who Make A Difference - Sharpening Your Management Skills, is a part of

IIM-Ahmedabad’s business books. This book high-lights the qualities one needs to be a successful manager and how an executive can enhance the qualities he/she already possesses. It also examines how behaviour can shape the perception about managers at work. The book points out the ways people can make use of their ambition, sense of purpose, perse-verance, confidence, and resourcefulness to develop successful management skills.

The book is illustrated with anecdotes and experiences of well-known managers with an array of tips and self-assessment tools to sharpen one’s management skills and is a non-academic book from the faculty of IIM Ahmedabad.

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Abanner ad titled - Build a dream car was live across various websites like Zigwheels.com, Carwale.com, Linkedin.

com, Moneycontrol.com, as well as the Google content network this September.

When clicked, the banner ad redirected the user to a website, Buildadreamcar.com.

The website was made like an online work-shop, where users found more than 500 car parts and accessories, which could be utilised to design and build (assemble) a virtual car from scratch and earned points in the process.

To develop the car, which was a five-stage process, the user had to register on the website and clear various stages. In the first stage, the user was provided with basic car parts (such as engine, gear-box and tyres), which needed to be fixed accurately in the skeleton or chassis in order to move to the next stage. In the later stages, the user was asked to bring together various interior and exterior parts of the vehicle, choose special accessories and select a colour for the car.

Once the car-building process was complete, the user was then asked to write a review of the vehicle. The user who earned maximum points was awarded a free holiday trip.

Surprisingly, neither the banner ads nor the website revealed the name of the advertiser behind the campaign. However, the develop-ment of the site was credited to Mumbai-based digital agency, Experience Commerce.

When contacted, Sandip Maiti, chief executive officer of Experience Commerce said, “We can’t divulge the name of advertiser at the moment.”

He, however, revealed, “The site was actually a teaser campaign - targeted towards automobile enthusiasts - launched by a leading automobile manufacturer, to create buzz about its upcoming vehicle. The advertiser will reveal its identity on its own.”

Despite the confidentiality maintained by the digital agency, it was not a tough task to decode

the brand behind the teaser campaign.A close scan of forum discussions across

automobile portals such as Team-Bhp.com and Cararzoo.com, combined with a search on Google search for the keyword: Buildadreamcar indicated that Buildadreamcar.com was associ-ated with Tata Motors’ latest offering, Tata Aria, a cross between a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and a Multi Utility Vehicle (MUV). The car was launched in October this year.

Maiti, however, declined to comment on the forum discussions and search results.

Did the website gain traction? The digital agency claimed that 6,000 people started using the site to build a dream car. Of that, about 90 per

cent registered through e-mail IDs, while the rest accessed the site through the Facebook Connect option. The average time spent on the site was seven minutes.

To get this traction, the advertiser had already served more than 50 lakh banner ad impressions on various websites. A Facebook brand page, which gathered more than 500 fans, was also cre-ated for the campaign.

As per an industry estimate, the advertiser (Tata Motors) must have already spent up to `10 lakh on website development and the banner ad campaign. Indeed, a smart way of engaging the customer and driving home the buzz. �

[email protected]

��

Putting the Pieces Together

Over 6,000 people used the site, of that about 90 per cent registered through e-mail IDs.

TATA MOTORS

A digital initiative, Buildadreamcar.com, was live on the internet in September to promote Tata Motor’s Aria, enabling visitors to design and assemble a virtual car from scratch. By Kapil Ohri


� ��

70 afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2010

JOBSWITCHOrganization Name: Tribal Fusion R & D India Pvt Ltd.Position: Marketing ManagerLocation: Delhi/NCRProfile: The applicant should possess Masters degree with major in marketing or communications, and should have 6 -8 years of experience in Public Relations or journalism.Email: careers-india@exponential.com.............................................................Organization Name: JWT Connect Position: Account Manager/Account DirectorLocation: MumbaiProfile: The successful applicant will be accountable for all aspects of account management for 2-3 key clients. The role would include creative strategy & execution, campaign management, B2B marketing, basic analytics, data driven marketing and loyalty program management. Preference will be given to candidates who are Post graduate in Marketing and/or Mass Communication and to those with experience in Direct marketing, B2B marketing, digital communication, campaign management & CRM. Email: [email protected], sindhu.sheth@jwt.com.............................................................Organization Name: BVU Media LimitedPosition: Director - Business Development Location: MumbaiProfile: The applicant should be a MBA Marketing or related with at least 5 years of experience in similar field. She/ He should be a focused and result oriented individual capable of converting meaningful leads to lasting business revenues and should have thorough knowledge of event industry, functions and presentation skills. Besides, she/ he will have to explore new business opportunities, identify markets and contribute strategically to the growth and direction of the organization.Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: Music Broadcast Private LtdPosition: Marketing ManagerLocation: DelhiProfile: The candidate must have strong analytical skills with excellent relationship building skills. At least

5-6 years of relevant experience is desiredEmail: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty LtdPosition: Art Director/ VisualizerLocation: NoidaProfile: Art Director should have excellent work portfolio to show 5 to 10 years of experience from any ad agency of repute with academic training at a reputed institute. She/he will be responsible for visualization of Ads, Promotional Material, and Website Design etc. Copywriter will have to write copies for Ads, Promotional Literature, Website, Ad Film scripting etc. She/ he should also be good at concept development and should have academic training at a reputed institute like MICA, Lintas Ad School, etc. Besides, she/he should have excellent work portfolio to show and be willing to sit for copy test. 5 years experienced from any ad agency of repute is desired.Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: MRM Worldwide Position: Art Director and Account DirectorLocation: Mumbai Profile: -Art Director: The applicant should have a degree in art from an institute of repute, hands off experience in Digital Design of over 7 years, thorough understanding of digital medium and the ability to generate & visualize ideas quickly, manage creative projects and translate servicing briefs into creative strategies for online media. Account Director: The candidate will be responsible for successful development & implementation of both global & local client campaigns, identifying & progress strategic development & new business opportunities with clients, work with the MRM Team to ensure leverage and appropriate application of guidance for Global initiatives. At least 6 years of experience within an Agency or the Client side is desired. Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: Aim High ConsultingPosition: PR ManagerLocation: Delhi, Bangalore,

Chennai, MumbaiProfile: PR Manager will be responsible for the work and development of team’s PR Executives and PR Consultants and act as the day to day contact for clients. She/ He will be responsible for Strategy development and implementation of PR plan in support of business goals; Writing including senior management communications, media engagement plans and related materials, issues briefs and communications plans and Handling media relations & PR activities. Relevant experience of 4-7 years with Mass Communication/ Diploma in Public Relations from a reputed organization is desired.Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: Three d holograms pvt. Ltd.Position: GM- MarketingLocation: MumbaiProfile: The candidate must hold Diploma/Degree in Media Marketing / Sales / Mass Communication along with knowledge of different types of medias for OOH and POP, POS and digital signage. At least 10 years of experience is desired.Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: Xebec Communications Private Limited & Xebec e-Media Technologies Position: General Manager - Client Servicing Location: MumbaiProfile: The applicant should have minimum 7 years of ad agency experience, working at Client Servicing profile, besides having knowledge about various verticals i.e. Print, TV, Radio, Outdoor etc. She/ He needs to have Excellent Communication skills and prior experience of managing a team. Email: [email protected].......................................................... Organization Name: GKB Lens Pvt LtdPosition: Manager - Advertisement & CommunicationLocation: KolkataProfile: The candidate should be young, smart, dynamic and should be from creative background. She/He should have good communication skills and should be proficient in operating multimedia softwares. At least 2 years of relevant work experience is desired.Email: [email protected]

To advertise, contact:

Neha Arora Ph: 0120 4077866

email: [email protected]

Tejal Kantharia Ph: 022-40429708, 09619442284email: [email protected]

To view other jobs in Marketing,Media and Advertising, log on to:

http://jobs.afaqs.com

Prajavani, the flagship Kannada daily from The Printers Mysore Group, yet again proves that it is indeed the most trusted and respected in the category. Now with a total of 64.15 lakh* readers! That too at a time, when the print industry has generally shown signs of sluggishness. More and more Kannada readers choose Prajavani, because it is the voice of Karnataka. A trusted, dynamic voice you cannot ignore.

Growth comes naturally to us. This time it was even faster!An incredible 3,26,000 more readers.

��*

��

The influence of truth

�� Sudip Nag, GM (Advertisement) - 96861 88840. �� Vijaya R - 98440 92091, Tony Doulton - 98450 67371, Anantha Krishnan - 81477 52856 �� Deepak Menon - 98106 65814 �� Kaushik Laha - 98303 23151 �� A V Vinod Babu - 99520 16709 �� Ramachandra Rao - 98490 41737 �� Rajeev Pathria - 98201 51642. Or � ��[email protected]

PRAJAVANI THE MOST TRUSTED KANNADA DAILY

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