The position left vacant by Mahesh Chauhan’s elevation as Group CEO has finally been filled. Rediffusion Y&R has appointed Rohit Misra as President. His responsibilities will include leading the creative agency nationally in India as well as its Sri Lankan operations. He will be based out of Mumbai.
The Astro Group of Malaysia has picked up a 50 per cent stake in Mogae Digital Pvt Ltd, promoted by Sandeep and Tanya Goyal. Astro Group will invest up to $5 million in the venture. Mogae Digital is in the process of launching a mobile social network service portal.
Rajasthan Royals on February 3 announced that Raj Kundra, CEO, Essential General Trading LLC, and actress Shilpa Shetty, who is also CEO of S2 Global Productions Pvt Ltd, have bought a 12 per cent stake in the Indian Premier League (IPL) team and the champions of the inaugural IPL tournament in 2008.
Saurabh Gupta, Co-founder of Phonethics Mobile Media, was awarded the Young Communications Entrepreneur (YXE) Award. Arvind Agrawal, principal shareholder and CEO of Atherstone Investor Communications Ltd received the runners up award.
Marketers, advertisers, brand consultants got together to demystify today’s youth at the two-day Global Youth Marketing Forum, being held in Mumbai on February 3-4. While the pre-lunch sessions explored the youth mindset, the post-lunch sessions focused on how brands can create a greater connect with the ‘no strings generation’.
The two-day Global Youth Marketing Forum, being held in Mumbai on February 3-4 saw industry honchos discuss the challenges of marketing brands to today’s youth. Need was felt to understand today’s macro-economic and political scenario in order to understand the concerns of the youth of today, their aspirations and fears.
Media censorship is back, laments veteran journalist Sandeep Bamzai. He cites two recent incidents that have confounded industrywallahs over the last couple of weeks. The first involves Vir Sanghvi’s column ‘Pursuits’ being taken off Mint, the second involves NDTV’s legal action against a Holland-based Indian blogger.
‘Pitch’, a monthly magazine from the exchange4media Group, felicitated India’s top 50 service brands at a ceremony held in Mumbai on February 3, 2009. The top honours have gone to the old faithfuls – LIC, Indian Railways, SBI, besides Bharti Airtel, Vodafone among non-media brands. Among top media brands were Radio Mirchi, The Times of India, Star Plus and Sony Television, among others.
No one said it was easy to be a Hindi GEC player, and it only gets tougher every day. From a STAR Plus airing 12-plus hours no-ad content, to Saturday stacks, big titles, and some more regression from Colors, to the demise of music format shows on Zee TV, to a slew of new shows on NDTV Imagine, and some effort of new properties even on 9X, every channel has got very busy… and the fight can even be for just a few TRPs to add to the overall GRP count.
Dabur India Ltd has announced the launch of ‘Dabur Chyawan Super Champ’, a nationwide talent hunt to identify the student who embodies the values of Dabur Chyawan Junior – Hardum Fit, Hamesha Aagey. The contest will cover over 500 leading schools across 21 cities in India.
As part of its continuing expansion, Asia-Pacific’s leading luxury lifestyle media group, Edipresse Asia Ltd, a subsidiary of the Switzerland-based Edipresse Group, has announced a joint venture agreement with media veteran and entrepreneur Marzban Patel. The new entity will be called Edipresse India.
Percept/H has bagged the creative duties for Celio, a French men’s ready-to-wear fashion brand. The win comes in the wake of a multi-agency pitch.
Platinum Media, the second media brand of Madison Group, has appointed Radhesh Uchil as General Manager. Uchil will be based in Mumbai and head the Mumbai operations of Platinum Media.
When there are too many players in the market, consolidation is bound to happen in order to sustain. The same was true for the not so long ago airlines boom in our country. You can expect consolidation in the Chennai FM market, too, and that will happen very soon.