Mandolin Sky Entertainment (Msky), a Mumbai-based TV and film production company promoted by Rajiv Vyas, Mahrru Sheikh and Mozez Singh, has tied up with Eyeworks, a leading international production company headquartered in The Netherlands, to license and produce one of the biggest and most successful, blockbuster IQ-based TV events ever, ‘Test the Nation’.
It could be said to be the moment of truth for Star Plus as its late night gamble – ‘Sach Ka Samna’ – is paying rich dividends for the channel. The reality show, which had generated a lot of interest even before launch, opened with a TRP of 4.6 and managed an average of 4.3 TRP in its opening week despite the timing of 10.30-11.30 pm. Prior to this, Star Plus was getting an average TRP of just 0.8 from this time band.
Size does matter, especially for Platinum Outdoor’s latest OOH campaign executed for Blackberry. Billboards have been put up at Mohali in Punjab to announce the launch of Idea Cellular’s Blackberry services. These billboards sport a giant Blackberry handset that revolves about its own axis, grabbing eyeballs.
‘Jiyo Befikar’ is the message that actor Saif Ali Khan is conveying to people through the latest ‘Bajaj Allianz - Love Aaj Kal’ co-branded TV campaign-cum-contest. Bajaj Allianz has tied up with Saif and Deepika Padukone-starrer ‘Love Aaj Kal’ to spread the message of security and fearlessness.
Bhaskar Group has invested Rs 315 crore into upgrading of printing infrastructure and machinery. As part of this, the state-of-the-art KBA machine has already been installed at Dainik Bhaskar Jaipur. The machinery upgradation is expected to give the paper a competitive edge in terms of more pages of content, late closure of news and better printing quality.
Dentsu India is moving to a new corporate office on July 22, 2009 in the National Capital Region. The new office will be inaugurated by Yuzuru Kato, Executive Officer, Dentsu Inc, Tokyo. Taking inspiration from Dentsu Inc’s global corporate philosophy of ‘Good Innovation’, the décor celebrates idea, entrepreneurship and technology.
What is it about newspaper and magazine editors and owners that makes them go in for endless redesigns and relaunches? Why do we want to contemporarise and bring up to speed the design quotient without addressing the content side? Veteran journalist Sandeep Bamzai ponders on this in light of the recent design changes in Hindustan Times.
Cybermedia India, Mid-Day, HarperCollins Publishers India Ltd, and Avantha were among the Indian winners at the Asian Multimedia Publishing Awards (AMPA) 2009 held in Manila recently. AMPA is Asia’s premier publishing awards programme that recognises the best multimedia publishing practices in Asia.
Bank of Maharashtra has released a tender inviting agencies to make presentations for its overall communication, following which it will decide on the empanelment of agencies. The account size for the creative business is believed to be substantial.
STAR CJs, the home-shopping joint venture of STAR and Korea-based CJ (Cheil Jedang), is on the lookout for a media and creative partner. At present, BBH India is the frontrunner for the creative business. A decision on the media agency would be known in the next 15 days. The account size is pegged at Rs 15-20 crore.