Date-wise News

Aashish Varma will be joining the newly launched event and entertainment website Buzzintown.com as Zonal Head-North and East, and will report to Ajay Arora, Director-Sales and Marketing. Varma has 12 years of experience spanning across different companies including Asterix Events, RAMS and Nimbus Communications. Prior to joining Buzzintown.com, he was Vice President at Promodom Communication where he handled the BTL division. Throughout his career, Varma has successfully coordinated innumerable conferences, events and brand campaigns, both at the marketing, sales and operational levels.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:24 AM

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Asia Pacific has appointed Lau Loo Lan as Regional Director of Design, and Ranjan Malakar as Regional Revenue Manager. The additions to the growing South West Asia team are seen as a vital move to fortify the growing operations of IHG, especially in India. Lan has been working with IHG for almost 10 years in various roles throughout Asia. Malakar started his career in the hospitality industry almost 10 years ago and joined IHG in early 2003. He was most recently posted as the Area Revenue Manager for IHG in Malaysia.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:23 AM

TNS has appointed Rosie Hawkins as Global Head of Brand and Communications Research, effective January 2008. She was previously heading TNS’ Brand and Communications Research for Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East. Before TNS she worked with Millward Brown and Guinness Brewing, and then spent five years with specialist brand and advertising consultancy Hall and Partners.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:22 AM

Kishore Ajwani, anchor of primetime programme 'Badi Khabar' in Zee News, has put in his papers. Ajwani was Deputy Executive Producer and was associated with Zee News for the last seven years. According to industry grapevine, he may be moving to Star News. Before moving to television journalism, Ajwani had worked with Leo Burnett in Mumbai from 1997-2000. Thereafter, he joined Zee News and worked as a reporter and anchor in the business section of the channel. He was made Deputy Executive Producer a year and a half ago.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:21 AM

Sumantra Sengupta, Senior VP and General Manager, RMG Mumbai, has put in his papers. Sengupta has been associated with the JWT Group for the last 17 years. He is currently serving his notice period at the agency. He started his career at Lintas Kolkata in 1986. After spending close to five years there, he joined JWT Kolkata and worked on various ITC brands there. Five years later, he moved to JWT Mumbai, where he worked for a brief period before moving to JWT Chennai. In 2001, he joined RMG Mumbai.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:20 AM

Anindya Banerjee has joined Publicis India as Senior Creative Director, moving from Contact Advertising. At Publicis, he will be in charge of the Nestle and ABN Amro Bank accounts. Banerjee started his career in Contract in 1995 as a management trainee. He was there for five years and moved out in 2000 as Creative Group Head of Contract, Delhi. He moved to O&M Bangalore the same year as creative supervisor. He was with O&M till 2006, when he returned to Contract for a second stint – as Creative Director at the Delhi branch.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:19 AM

After a stint of 14 years, Wilfred Fernandes, Chief Manager, Times Response, Mumbai, has decided to move on to Ekta Group, a company in the real estate business, as Chief Marketing Officer. He joins from January 16, 2008. Currently, Fernandes is heading the Display Category for the entire Western region. Fernandes has been in various roles with Times Response. He started off with the business-to-business section, where he has worked on many niche magazine brands. He has managed special features platforms like Times Computing, Education Times and Times Properties. Fernandes has also worked on the 'integration of media', wherein multimedia packages are offered for selective properties.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 9:18 AM

In tune with its strategy to diversify its product portfolio, homegrown FMCG major Dabur India plans to foray into the milk segment to tap the Rs 100 crore milk-based beverages market.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:49 AM

Animal Planet will present a new 13-part weekly series ‘Planet Wild’ starting from December 31, to be aired every Friday at 8 pm. Each episode of the series will try to showcase the planet’s most enigmatic creatures, revealing their struggle to survive, their diverse habitats and their interaction with their neighbours.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:46 AM

Fastrack, the youth accessories sub-brand from Titan, has launched a ‘Dynamic Media Room’. The online initiative, media.fastrack.in, intends to be a one-stop online destination for media professionals as well as others who follow the brand to get updates on the brand’s latest activities.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:45 AM

As part of its initiative to boost sales, Kellogg’s Chocos has tied up with Xbox to offer specially designed Xbox handheld mini-games – Mutants, Car Racing and Reactors. These games would be available with select 650 gms packs of the cereal, which are priced at Rs 225.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:43 AM

Mavcomm Consulting has been appointed to handle the communications and public relations activity for the ninth Auto Expo, beginning from January 10, 2008, in the Capital. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) are the organisers of the eight-day long expo.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:43 AM

Everest Brand Solutions has bagged the creative duties for the ACC Cement account in a multi-agency pitch. Industry sources close to the development inform that the account size is in the range of Rs 10-12 crore. The incumbent agency is Lowe. OMS remains the media agency for the brand.

Rishi Vora Dec 28, 2007 6:42 AM

For those who plan to stay at home this New Year eve, they can look forward to some entertaining times in front of their TV screens. With all the general entertainment channels all geared up to welcome 2008 in style, viewers could have a busy time pressing that remote button. exchange4media aims to make channel surfing a bit easier with this sneak preview.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Dec 28, 2007 6:41 AM

The exodus at the ABP Group continues with two more top managers – Biplab Bannerjee and Kanak Ghosh – having put in their papers. While Bannerjee was Vice President-Human Resources, Ghosh was Vice President-Circulation, for dailies.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 6:40 AM

The International Advertising Association (IAA) has embarked on yet another initiative in its endeavour to make the Association reach beyond the usual ambit of an Indian advertising and marketing body. The IAA is organising a tête-à-tête with thought leaders, and the first is a meeting with Dr Rajendra Pachauri on January 3, 2008 in Mumbai.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Dec 28, 2007 6:39 AM

The Hindi music channels saw a decent share of excitement in the second half of 2007 with MTV revamping after a decade. Also, newcomer 9X M entered in this period and has been garnering channel shares that have kept it on the number one slot ever since its launch.

Noor Fathima Warsia Dec 28, 2007 6:38 AM

The last three months have been good for Draft FCB Ulka. The agency’s Delhi office garnered an array of accounts from diverse categories like motorcycles, social networking, fans and electrical appliances, education and beer. An official has quoted the business wins to be worth over Rs 100 crore.

exchange4media Mumbai Bureau Dec 28, 2007 6:36 AM

We want to be the largest retail chain for digitally delivered products and services in the country. It is an assisted e-commerce model and whatever we would be selling through the 'assisted kiosks', the same can be transacted through the web and mobile. By building this large infrastructure of physically manned e-commerce kiosks and aggregating multiple products and services, we would be catalysing the growth of e-commerce in the country and would be creating an alternate option for consumers to transact on the Internet.

e4m Desk Dec 28, 2007 12:00 AM