Bennett, Coleman has created a new position of Chief Marketing Officer and appointed Rahul Kansal, Brand Director, The Times of India, to the position. He will continue to report to Ravi Dhariwal, CEO Publishing. The brand heads of TOI, ET, and Mumbai Mirror would report to Kansal.
Arms Crestra, has won the creative duties for the recently launched auto magazine ‘Auto Bild’. The media duties would be handled partly by Arms Communication and partly in-house. The promotional campaign is expected to roll out next week.
In India, an estimated 11% of total travel bookings take place online. The figure is expected to rise to 25% by 2010, indicating a huge opportunity for online marketing.
Ideacts Innovation, a Mumbai-based Internet media venture, on Wednesday launched a desktop interface application called Clinck, which is targeted at cyber cafe users. The company has also received funding of $5 million from Sequoia Capital India. Clinck provides shortcuts to Internet browsers, messengers, search, news, entertainment and online storage, as well as advertisements from various companies.
Hindi GEC 9X, the flagship channel of INX Network, is now available on DishTV, a part of the Zee Group. Following this agreement, all the three channels of INX Network – music channel 9XM, English news channel NewsX, and now 9X, are available to DishTV subscribers.
Fever FM has come up with a month-long promotion campaign in the form of a contest titled ‘I love Fever 104’ in Bangalore and Kolkata. The contest is being supported by an elaborate 360-degree media plan involving TV, print, outdoor, etc. The aim is to capture the listeners’ attention and reward their listening experience on Fever FM.
Total cellular services revenue in India is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent from 2008-12 to exceed $37 billion, according to a report by Gartner, Inc. The India mobile subscriber base is set to exceed 737 million connections by 2012, growing at a CAGR of 21 per cent in the same period.
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Wednesday announced the appointment of Adfactors as its associate for public relations activities. It is for the first time that the auto major has opted for an external PR agency.
Hero Electric, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Hero Group, has beefed up its senior management team. Sohinder Gill has been appointed as CEO, while Mahesh V Patil has been made General Manager, Product Development. Sanjeev Gandhi has been appointed as Vice-President, Sales & Business Development.
CNBC-TV18’s ‘Young Turks’, which has featured acclaimed and upcoming young Indian achievers, is now paving the way for global young achievers to be featured as part of its special extension, ‘Young Turks International’. The show is being launched on July 3 and will air on Thursdays at 6:30 pm, with repeat telecasts on Saturdays at 2:00 pm and Sundays at 12:00 pm.
ESPN-STAR Sports (ESS) has announced a new contract with FIFA for the exclusive television rights to broadcast FIFA’s stellar line-up of 275 international football events, including the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Confederations Cup, for the Indian Sub-continent.
Discovery Networks India has announced two senior management appointments. Rajiv Bakshi has been promoted as Director, Marketing and Communications. The second elevation is that of Karamjit Dua, who is now the all-India Ad Sales Head. He was earlier Vice-President, Advertising Sales. Both Bakshi and Dua will continue to report to Rahul Johri, SVP & General Manager, Discovery Networks India.
After settling a caste dispute in an innovative way and helping an over-eager guide communicate with a hearing impaired foreign tourist, the latest Idea campaign highlights another socially relevant cause – ‘Education for all’. The common thread in these three campaigns is brand ambassador Abhishek Bachchan, who imparts a warmth and touch of humour to the campaigns.
Jai Talwar has joined Business India Publications Ltd as President-Advertising from July 1. He moves from Last Minute Media Pvt Ltd, a company promoted by Dentsu for their online media trading portal Lastminuteinventory.com, where he was Senior Vice-President.
IDG Ventures India, a $150 million early-stage technology venture capital fund, has announced its Series A investment in online advertising network Ozone Media. As part of the investment, Manik Arora and Ritesh Banglani from IDG Ventures India would join the company’s Board of Directors.
The Supreme Court upholding the Madras High Court’s order banning hoardings has not only shocked the hoarding owners but also the entire advertising fraternity and left many in doldrums. With the ban on hoardings, the advertisers are left with few options, and the result is that prices of other out-of-home mediums such as road medians, bus panels and bus shelters have gone up.
Viacom 18 Media is all set to launch its Hindi GEC Colors on July 21 at 7.00 pm. Colors on Wednesday unveiled its power-packed line-up of eight new shows showcasing an entire spectrum of emotions. The channel had earlier revealed ‘Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi’ featuring Akshay Kumar as its driver show.