Keeping in tune with the religious and spiritual flavour of Chennai, Radio Mirch Chennai has beefed up its morning programme line-up with new devotional show called ‘Mirchi Devaragam’. The channel has branded this programme as a New Year gift to its audience.
Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar has announced the Dry Ideas creative contest for advertising agencies and amateurs. In its fourth consecutive year, the contest for the first time will be open to entries from amateurs from the creative field.
Abhijit Pradhan’s Superstar Business Solutions has signed up a Change Management/ Vision Alignment project for TBWA\India. Commenting on the development, Shiv Sethuraman, CEO, TBWA\India, said, “I believe that any process of organisational change and growth requires genuine co-creation by the key stakeholders. No lasting and effective change was ever achieved exclusively through top down mandates. In Abhijit and Superstar, I feel we have found the people who have a vision and a process that will benefit TBWA\India enormously as we prepare for the next level of growth.”
Mudra Mumbai has been assigned the communication duties for the ET Power of Ideas platform. This win comes close on the heels of the agency adding four new businesses in the last quarter of 2008 (HCC, Lavasa, Incredible India and Great Indian Shopping Festival).
Real Global Broadcasting (RGB), the joint venture between Alva Brothers and Turner
“Content remains the king. But with changing times, the definition has to be broad based. Primarily, you need good quality content to attract your reader. It is good content which attracts the advertiser as well. Hence, advertising follows good content. But, it is a close second,” says Shishir Joshi, Group Editorial Director, Mid-Day Infomedia Ltd.
It was an ‘inauguration’ as spectacular as it was historic – Barack Hussein Obama taking oath as the first African-American President of the US on January 20. Media went on an overdrive to air the ceremony live from Capitol Hill, with all news channels in India beaming the same images simultaneously.
Amid the slowdown gloom Radio One has something to cheer about. The FM player has reported a 72 per cent growth in revenues for the period April to December 2008 as it declared its Q3 results on January 20, 2009.
The Indian media agency business is never short of action, and the year 2008 was no different. In fact, the year would go down in the history of Indian advertising for several reasons - the top one being Sam Balsara’s acquiring a 51 per cent stake in WPP’s MediaCom India, and the second one being the impact of slowdown and the blow that many media agencies in India faced. <br> <b>Guest Article:</b> <br> <a href=http://www.exchange4media.com/Annual/2008/Guest_Jasmin.asp target= _blank >Who would have thought!: Jasmin Sohrabji</a>
The Barack Obama success story has been as much the US President’s personal charisma as it has been a sustained Net campaign, especially virals. <b>Karl Gomes,</b> NCD-Digital, Rediffusion Y&R, takes a look at the hectic viral activity during the US Presidential campaign and how virals can make all the difference in today’s connected world.
This week veteran journalist <b>Sandeep Bamzai </b>comes out strongly against Pakistan’s shenanigans and dangerous trysts with the jehadis. With Home Minister P Chidambaram talking of an all links embargo on Pakistan, the time has come for all encompassing sanctions to be imposed. He adds that India has to convince the western world that not only is Pakistan a failed state, it is increasingly a rogue state.
Metro Now, the compact daily from Metropolitan Media Company, a 50:50 joint venture between The Times of India and HT Media Ltd, is shutting shop in its current avatar. Company sources have confirmed that Metro Now would now be converted from a daily to a weekly community paper, beginning with the Gurgaon market.
9X has embarked on a severe downsizing exercise. From a 350-strong team, the channel has already asked around 80-100 of its executives to exit the company in the last one month. The departures have been from across the functions of marketing, programming and operations.
Close on the heels of bagging the creative duties of Times Global Broadcasting’s forthcoming channel ET Now, Lowe India has added another media entity to its client portfolio – BBC World News channel. The win follows a multi-agency pitch. The incumbent agency is VGC. MediaCom continues to be the media agency on the account.