The Bhaskar Group has appointed Uttam Sengupta as State Editor of Dainik Bhaskar for Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana. Prior to this Sengupta was with The Telegraph, Kolkata, as Resident Editor for its Jharkhand edition. Before that he was been Resident Editor of The Times of India’s Kolkata, Lucknow and Patna editions at different points of time.
Publicis Ambience has appointed two National Creative Directors (NCDs) --Ashish Khazanchi and Prasanna Sankhe. They will jointly handle the agency’s creative reins. Prior to this, Khazanchi was with Rediffusion DY&R as ECD. As for Sankhe, he has been promoted to NCD from the post of ECD. Prior to Rediff, Khazanchi had done stints with O&M, McCann-Erickson and Publicis India, and he brings with him a work experience of 14 years. Sankhe joined the agency as Senior Creative Director after a stint with Alok Nanda and Co. He has been with Ambience since 2000.
Web Giant Reports 46% Profit Growth
Several leading portals like Yahoo!, MSN, Google, Indiatimes, Sify and Rediff are using leading language solution provider Webdunia. Additionally, the content of two TV channels is currently visible on Webdunia’s nine Indian language portals. The company also plans to launch a multiple language blog application by November.
Geneva-based Global Franchise Architects (GFA) has brought in to India, ‘The Donut Baker’, which serves a large range of innovative high quality donuts and other bakeries along with a menu of premium coffees and juices. The brand comes to India with the first outlet in Bangalore.
Networking site Fropper.com has launched its mobile initiative, mobiFUN, which allows users to network via SMS. Nearly all functions of the online model have been recreated for this mobile service. The company is also launching a video sharing and photo sharing site, besides introducing regional language tools in the next quarter.
Some strategic tie-ups in the industry came in for discussion at the general meeting of the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI), held in the Capital on October 18. Also at the meeting, Apurva Purohit, CEO, Radio City, and President, AROI, laid down the agenda for the radio operators’ body for the next two years.
As per the IRS 2007 Round 2 findings, the readership for the magazines on an overall basis has gone down, indicating a declining trend of readership across languages in India. English magazine readership has declined by 8 per cent, while Hindi magazines have slipped by 5 per cent.
South Indian regional language publications have shown a decline in readership trend as per the IRS 2007 R2 data. Across all the regional language publications every leader in their respective segment has lost a fair bit of their readers but have managed to retain their top positions.
There have been tomes of literature and writings on Ram. Now, in keeping with the Dussehra festival, Zee News has come up with a three-part series on the long ago King of Ayodhya and one revered even today. Starting October 18, Zee News has begun airing the well-researched series under the titles ‘Mil Gaye Raam’, ‘Sanjeevani Ka Sach’ and ‘Charan Chaleesa’.
Brand Curry has bagged the creative and strategic duties of LT Overseas’ brand Dawaat. The account size is worth Rs 5 crore. Publicis is the incumbent agency, which had handled the account for more than a year. Prior to that, the business was with Brand Curry.
"Whatever agglomeration had to happen has already happened. Whatever could be the impact and the consequences of that has already taken place in the market place. I don't think Omnicom is going to buy WPP. The most that can happen now is maybe say IPG can take its media agencies together. So, I don't see any development that can happen now that would make any material change in the way business would be transacted in future. There are four key players in India now and I think that is one too many – the rule of three will apply."