Campaign India

‘People will have to re-look at the rural opportunity’

Q&A with Ashwani Singla, MD & CEO, Asia, Penn Schoen Berland

IMC Day One: ‘You are defined by what you do not do than what you do’

Panelists at the Indian Magazine Congress discussed curating content in the era of information overload

INMA South Asia conference: ‘Skill gap in selling digital media a cause for worry’

‘Print can take advantage of coming TV inventory crunch with 10+2 ad cap’

MasterCard gets consumers thinking about a ‘World Beyond Cash’

Q&A with Raja Balasubramanian, VP - marketing, South Asia, MasterCard, on the digital contest

'Response to Publicis-Omnicom merger is to do what we are doing, but doing it fast': Sir Martin Sorrell

'India toughest BRIC market, but we remain bullish about it in the long term', says the WPP chief executive

‘At one level, you are Michelangelo, and at another you are a housepainter’: Nirmal Pulickal

Nirmal Pulickal, MD and co-founder, M&C Saatchi February, tells us about his advertising journey, the ‘industry-in-flux’ today, and the glory of awards

Spikes 2013: 'Every visual story by millennials is designed for reaction'

Visual engagement meets a number of uniquely millennial needs, said Emma Montogomery, Starcom MediaVest Group

Spikes 2013: 'Emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusion'

Andy Wilson, head of strategy, BBDO Asia Pacific, presented the case for triggering emotional response through creativity

INMA South Asia conference: ‘India is not America (of) 20 years ago’

The conference is focused on challenges and opportunities for newspapers in the digital age

Double Standards: Subscription-funded premium English TV?

Ferzad Palia, EVP – Viacom18 and head – English entertainment, and Debraj Tripathy, MD, MediaCom India, on the sustainability of subscription-driven channels in the space

Double standards: Why aren’t brand videos riding the viral waves?

Psy, Kolaveri, etc. took the virtual world by storm. Can brand virals be as powerful? If not, why not? Ananya Saha asks Prashanth Challapalli and Samar Singh Sheikhawat.

Anwesh Bose, SVP and digital head, DDB Mudramax Media, quits

Today is his last day at the agency; will move to an assignment outside India

“Our strategy was ‘Keep it snappy, seamless, smart’”: Punit Pandey, 9X Media

Q&A with the EVP - new business of the music network on flagship 9XM’s new look

Leadership changes on the anvil at W+K India

V Sunil and Mohit Dhar Jayal to continue as directors but step back from day-to-day ops

Close Up: “Agencies Are Dead”

Viral Pandya, co-founder and chief creative officer of Out of the Box, tells Ananya Saha about his creative shop and why he won't sell to another agency

‘Look Inside’: A platform to tell stories

Q&A with Intel’s Anuj Dua and Sandeep Aurora

Media planners react to round one of BARC data

If and by when would BARC data impact media buying?

Warc Conversations-India: Crafting communication with cultural connects, and more

Panellists discussed poignant themes emerging out of Indian (and Asian) market

IMC Day Two: ‘If they are suffering, there is definitely something wrong with how magazines are sold today’

As magazines try and re-invent themselves, how are media buyers viewing the medium?

‘You can always create demand in the regional market with your programming’

Q&A with Markand Adhikari, executive vice-chairman and MD, Sri Adhikari Bros Television Network, on the launch of Marathi music and humour channel MaiBoli

‘Magazines that cater to evolved audiences will survive’

Q&A with Manas Mohan, publishing director, National Geographic Traveller India and COO, ACK Media

“Media will become the mainstream platform for Millennials to express themselves”

MSL Group’s Scott Beaudoin shares the insights of their study ‘The Future of Business Citizenship’

“Earned media will lead owned or paid media”: John Kerr

The MD of Zeno Group Asia talks about emerging trends, potential partnerships with specialists and competition

Social and mobile silos will be broken down in 2015: Mark Henning

The head of media and digital, AMAP, Millward Brown shares his prediction about how marketing is likely to change in the next 12 months

IAA Retrospect and Prospects: ‘Bigger, connected middle class will demand more responsiveness from brands’

D Shivakumar, chairman and CEO, PepsiCo India, spoke at the inaugural edition of the International Advertising Association India chapter property

De-commoditising ‘FMEG’, premium by design...

Sunil Sikka, president, Havells India, tells Ananya Saha how the brand behind ‘wires that don’t catch fire’ has grown beyond switches, the ‘next 1,200 towns’, and brand extensions like Reo for rural India. Edited excerpts:

'We want information flow to work faster for our clients and for us'

Q&A with Prema Sagar, principal and founder, Genesis Burson-Marsteller

‘We are doubling our digital marketing budget every year’

Samar Singh Sheikhawat, senior vice president, marketing, United Breweries, talks about betting big on digital media for its initiatives

Ashok Lalla to exit Infosys, turn digital consultant

He has been global head of digital marketing for the IT major for three years now

Spikes 2013: ‘Forge a culture where everyone is creative’

Ogilvy's Tham Khai Meng urged creative agencies to lure consumers in ‘stealth mode’ like a ‘Trojan Horse’ for maximum impact

Double standards: How should print players chart their digital paths?

Ananya Saha caught up with BCCL’s Arunabh Das Sharma and INMA’s Earl J Wilkinson to know how print media should play the digital game.

Live Issue: Will differences over IRS weaken print media?

Would the medium suffer in the long run, with the IRS 2014 findings too being refuted? We ask stakeholders

Mission NCR: Charting a ‘liquid’ path to growth

In the 18 months since he moved to head O&M North, Kapil Arora hasn’t taken his foot off the pedal

CASBAA India Forum 2014: Is Indian content ready to go global?

Broadcasters discussed opportunities and challenges therein

INMA South Asia conference: ‘Any company that doesn’t have financial leverage will fail’

News Media Outlook: ‘Need to create budget room for experimentation’; ‘Emphasis would be on filling the revenue hole left by print ad migration’

Spikes 2013: Changing consumer behaviour, with consistent brand behaviour and heuristics

Guy Hearn, chief innovation officer, Asia Pacific, Omnicom Media Group, underlined that consumers find it easier to remember brand stories than brand attributes

Double standards: Digital media: Better for response than branding?

Ashok Lalla, global head - digital marketing, Infosys, and Somprabh Singh, marketing head - Titan, tell Ananya Saha that digital can lend itself to brand building too.

‘We see the regional market growing faster than the national market’

Q&A with Alok Agrawal, CEO, Zee Media Corporation, on the new look, content revamp, regional expansion and more

Live Issue: Do offline stores help e-commerce portals?

Physical stores help e-retailers establish credibility and reach a wider consumer base, finds Ananya Saha

Thums Up attempts to steal the thunder this Durga Puja

Q&A with Debabrata Mukherjee, VP – marketing and commercial, Coca-Cola India, on Thums Up’s ‘Amader Pujo’ campaign

Live Issue: Are Indian language mags better insulated?

Will factors affecting readership have lesser impact on Hindi and regional titles?

ad:tech 2014: Consumers switch screens seamlessly - can marketers keep pace?

Yahoo’s Gurmit Singh, Samsung’s Tarun Malik, Micromax’s Shubodip Pal, SET’s Nitesh Kripalani, Citi’s Sanjeev Kapur and Intel’s Sandeep Aurora discussed planning in a multi-screen world

Getting HT ready for the digital future: Sanjay Trehan

The digital veteran explains HT’s bullishness on digital, its converged newsroom, and Brand Studio

Headlines Today rebrands as India Today to target digitally savvy audience

The change will be communicated with 360-degree media campaign, devised by O&M.

‘Asia is creating its own strategic thinking and best practices’

Q&A with Edward Pank, MD, Warc Asia

‘Barometer of success is that you win more than you lose’

Nikhil Sharma, director - marketing, explains Perfetti Van Melle India's rise, pressure on margins, ambitions at the premium end and its trademark advertising

Double Standards: Are celebrity news anchors a double-edged sword?

Sunil Lulla, CMD, Grey Group India, and Ravi Rao, leader, South Asia, Mindshare, reflect on TV news anchors becoming bigger audience magnets than channels

FM radio phase III: What it could mean for advertisers

Radio could grow 20 to 25 pc with new frequencies, but high license cost in some cases may necessitate price increase, say industry watchers

Arise looks to rise with Asia Cup; says media investments impact revenue ‘slowly and steadily’

Q&A with Avinash Jain, MD, Arise India

Double Standards: Should ads cover increasing TV content cost?

Sunil Punjabi (SP), business head, AXN India Networks, and Anita Nayyar (AN), CEO, Havas Media Group, India and South Asia, tell Ananya Saha the way forward for monetising expensive content

‘Creative people are very vulnerable’: Titus Upputuru

The Dentsu Marcom NCD, who wanted to be a doctor, singer, poet and fashion designer at different points in time, isn’t doing too badly in advertising, finds out Ananya Saha

‘By making it into two channels, you get two prime times’: Vikram Chandra

Q&A with the NDTV Group CEO on business channel Profit’s revamp, and multiple sponsorship deals for programming bands

‘The bigger challenge is to grow the ad pie’: Arunabh Das Sharma

BCCL’s Arunabh Das Sharma on his journey thus far, his mandate and expansion plans

‘We know that it is about the brand and continue to invest in it’

Q&A with Ferzad Palia, SVP and GM - English entertainment, Viacom18, on Comedy Central that has completed two years of operations

ad:tech 2014: D Shivakumar on ‘The war of the wrist’

Excerpts from the keynote on day two of ad:tech 2014 by the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo India

All about: Crowdsourced ads in India

Ananya Saha explores if the crowd platform is the next big thing for advertising

“With age, you learn how it works…”: Ravi Raghavendra

The ECD and head of creative at ThinkStr tells us about 'taming the angst', his two mentors, and rise of independents

'Big guts are better than big money': Sam Balsara

Madison's Balsara, Olx.in's Amarjit Batra, Google's Sapna Chadha and RK Swamy BBDO's Srinivasan Swamy were among speakers at an IAA-DAC event in Delhi

Live Issue: Has digitisation brought down carriage fees?

Yes, say stakeholders, but state coherently that the drop has not met expectations. Ananya Saha reports.

‘If a brand has an interesting story to tell, consumers will stand up and listen’

Issac John, head of marketing, Puma India, makes claims on the brand’s growth and explains its digital moves

INMA South Asia Conference 2015: ‘We tend to oversell how much measurabillity digital has’

News media urged to invest in 'adjacenies' leveraging core assets, ‘anticipate saturation’

All about: SMS votes vs. new alternatives

Text messages that delivered votes and revenue aren’t growing, finds Ananya Saha

Spikes 2013: ‘Never apologise that social responsibility drives profit for your brands’

Lowe and Partners’ Tony Wright and Unilever’s Samir Singh underlined how social missions are best integrated into business models

NDTV Good Times repositions, says #LiveYoung

Programming changes to reflect quest to be ‘India’s youngest lifestyle channel’

Gionee to invest Rs 150 crore in marketing, target 12 to 25-year-olds

Claims to have clocked revenue of Rs 500 crore in India in FY 14; eyes five-fold jump

Epic banks on quality of audience, prepares for pay avatar

While building its 10 pm slot, the channel is also keen to expand audience base outside metros

INMA South Asia conference: ‘Technology is not going to take our lunch away; it’s going to change how we sell'

‘We need to re-imagine the product, price and business model’

‘Quality content can be created only in a pay television scenario’

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific's Rahul Johri says being dependent on one source of revenue is a flawed model

Edelman Trust Barometer 2014: NGOs rise in the minds of ‘informed publics’

Business most trusted institution in India despite drop, Media falls on trust (behind NGOs), Government falls further; Q&A with Rakesh Thukral, COO, Edelman India

‘Our scale gives us the start-up challenger advantage’

Q&A with Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media Group, India and South Asia

‘Creative team of the future is an art person, a copy person and a technology person or a coder’

Q&A with Atishi Pradhan, chief strategy officer, Cheil Worldwide SW Asia

Dainik Bhaskar enters Bihar with edition in under-penetrated Patna

Q&A with Pradeep Dwivedi, chief corporate sales and marketing officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group

All about: Bollywood-based gaming

Are Bollywood-based games used more as promotional tools? Ananya Saha reports

ad:tech 2014: ‘Till now, reach has been built in a data-deficient world’

Nielsen’s Piyush Mathur, GroupM’s Tushar Vyas, MakeMyTrip’s Mohit Gupta and Fork Media’s Upen Rai engaged on the evergreen subject of RoI

Live Issue: Will IBL smash its way into the big league?

If the game gains, brands will follow suit. Will badminton and players gain much from IBL, asks Ananya Saha.

Profile: ‘Our acquisitions have been fairly successful’: Anant Nath

The director at Delhi Press, and editor of The Caravan, opens up on the digital path for the group and more

PNB MetLife makes an ‘over-the-counter’ assurance on network strength

Watch the ad film Conceptualised by McCann Erickson here

News on FM radio: I&B Minister reiterates allowance of only AIR bulletins, industry hopes for change of stance

Prakash Javadekar was responding to a question in the Lok Sabha on 16 July

TV measurement: Advertisers cancel ROs to channels that moved to monthly data

FMCG majors among advertisers who have reacted; solution expected soon to end no-win situation

Ad:tech 2016: Technology to beat malicious technology

The second day of the conference saw discussions ranging from ad fraud to going vernacular and 'real' metrics vs vanity metrics

"We see this channel to be a category creator"

Q&A with Priyanka Datta, business head - Zindagi and FTA cluster, ZEEL

Star Plus attempts ‘disruption’ route to take Mahabharata to India

20 pc of project cost for marketing; initiatives range from mobile museums to apps targeting youth and OOH innovations

Ad:tech 2015: The marketing challenge - customisation at scale

Ravi Vora, SVP -- marketing, Flipkart addressed the audience on how brand marketing as a function is changing in the internet world

IMC Day Two: Exploring regional and digital opportunities

A panel discussed ‘the power of regional magazines’, while another discussed how digital editions could push up readership

Google looks to address local problems, drive digital India story

CEO Sundar Pichai and team announce dates for free WiFi at railway stations, reveal plans to train 20 lakh Android developers in three years

INMA South Asia conference: Defining ‘New Media’ house

Structure and leveraging financial benefits of a digital platform in focus

There’s lots of work to be done yet: Kartik Iyer

With a slew of wins, Carat is on an upswing. Its MD tells us about the journey, that began in 2008

BARC readies for summer 2014 debut

Technical and research agency to be finalised by December

India Radio Forum 2014: ‘How people listen to radio and how advertisers perceive radio is being heard are different’

The one-day forum was hosted in New Delhi on 31 May

‘We talk to youth in their own parlance’

Q&A with Vishal Vyas, GM - marketing, Skore Condoms

Delhi Daredevils aspires to rise with merchandise

Hemant Dua, CEO, Delhi Daredevils, on re-branding, marketing efforts for 2014, an upcoming anthem and exclusive stores

Profile: Growing together, sans baggage and the silos

Narayan Devanathan, EVP, national planning head, Dentsu India Group, talks Ananya Saha through his ad journey

“It is not a Batman story... it is an Avengers story”

Ashish Chakravarty, NCD, Contract Advertising, opens up on the growth of Contract, drying up of 'advertising' monies, and the 'tectonic shift' in the industry

Canon India looks to stabilise 50 pc share in DSLRs by year-end

The brand is targeting women currently, and will focus on youth and students subsequently

‘The consumer is moving online, and comfortable buying insurance online’

Q&A with Jyothsna Pai, VP, marketing and corporate communication, Bharti AXA General Insurance, on the ‘Working Patient’ initiative

'Consumers will upgrade to better, safer vehicles’: Rahul Gautam, Ford India

The marketing VP tells us why the auto major will steer clear of the entry segment, explains category trends, and the brand's digital focus

‘We can do a lot more with existing customers’: Mohit Goel

Mohit Goel, EVP and head - marketing, Exide Life Insurance,speaks about the rebranding of Exide Life Insurance from ING Vysya Life Insurance and the journey thereon

TAM is here to stay: LV Krishnan

The CEO of TV audience measurement body is positive that TAM's data will stay relevant

'Coupons and discounts will not make them stick'

Coffee Day Global's Bidisha Nagaraj on the brand's agenda, a new CRM system and 'enhancing' its app

Patrika looks to 'Catch' netizens

Promises to 'deliver great substance in small pills' to the 18 to 45 age group

ad:tech 2014: ‘Chat apps have stayed ahead of the curve because they invested ahead of the curve’

Karim Temsamani, president, Apac operations, Google; and Raghav Bahl, founder and editor, Network 18, presented at the fourth edition of the tech convention

Newspapers in India: Will subscription revenue overtake ad revenue?

A WAN-IFRA report says global newspaper circulation revenues were larger than ad revenues in 2014; Indian market far away from that, say practitioners

Live Issue: Is creative talent thinking ‘digital first’ today?

‘Shares’ and ‘likes’ have become a measure of success. Is thinking led by digital? Ananya Saha asks adlanders.

‘Consumers own the brand, brands own the business’: Donald Chesnut, SapientNitro

Q&A with the global chief experience officer on ‘Storyscaping’, bridging the physical-digital divide, and metrics of ‘return on experience’

Double Standards: Are ad agencies ready for the future?

Are agencies facing their ‘Kodak moment’? Rohit Ohri, executive chairman, Dentsu India, and Nikhil Sharma, director – marketing, Perfetti Van Melle India, discuss

ADK-Fortune gets Honda Unicorn, Shine SP mandates; eyes South ops in 2016

ECD Rob Sherlock will take over as CEO of a converged ADK Global in January

NBA mulls next step on 10+2 ad cap post TDSAT dismissal of appeal

‘Rate increases will be relatively muted compared to what was expected earlier’: Ashish Bhasin, Aegis Media

Viewership ratings deadlock ends, broadcasters to revert to weekly TAM data: Sources

ISA, AAAI and IBF said to have agreed to work basis 'confidential' weekly ratings in absolute numbers, to be released from 25 July

‘Social buzz definitely leads to more engagement with (TV) viewers’

Q&A with Star India's Pallavi Tibrewal on an online game developed by Grey for the ‘Life of Pi’ premiere, role of digital initiatives, and monetising social buzz

'What consumers expect from advertising has changed’: Surjo Dutt

JWT Delhi’s VP and ECD Surjo Dutt about his ‘brilliant’ journey at the agency, love for advertising, Pepsi, and his exit plan from the creative business

‘We are more focussed on airing content in India and from India than generating revenues’

Marc Saikali, director, France 24, on the international news channel’s India launch

Spikes 2013: ‘Media disruption would have to move towards business disruption’

Rey Inamoto, chief creative officer and vice-president, AKQA, said that business ideas from the least expected players and angles would disrupt brands faster than advertising can save it