It’s Priyanka Chopra for the new season of Colors’ ‘Fear Factor – Khatron ke Khiladi’. The stunts done by Akshay Kumar, who had hosted the earlier season, were a huge factor in drawing the audience. But will Chopra’s glamour quotient and 13 cricketers on the show do the trick? exchange4media finds out from some leading media planners.
The Digital Media Conference 2010, an exchange4media Group initiative gets underway in Delhi today. Presented by zapak.com, the conference will cover wide ranging topics related to advertising in digital media, the growth drivers and General Motors’ perspective, among others. Capping the Conference will be the Grand Finale of the ‘DQ, Will you Click 2010’ quiz contest, which will pit the best digital media brains in the country.
Speculations are rife about Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar putting in his papers at Rediffusion Y&R as Chief Creative Officer. He is reportedly on his way to Bates 141 as its new National Creative Director. Bates 141 had been on the lookout for an NCD for some time now. Despite repeated attempts, officials from neither Rediffusion Y&R nor Bates 141 were available for comments.
The organising committee of the Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi has announced Coca-Cola India as the official beverage partners for the 19th Commonwealth Games. Coca-Cola India’s product will exclusively be sold to spectators and served to all the athletes, team officials, volunteers, etc., during the Delhi Commonwealth Games.
After over four years of supporting Marico Bangladesh primarily out of Kolkata, Bates 141 has now set up Bates 141 Bangladesh to support the growing needs of Marico, as well as tap emerging businesses. The agency is in the process of appointing a Country Manager for Bangladesh and will announce the same soon.
The 11th edition of FICCI Frames came to an end on March 18, 2010 on a happy note with I&B Minister Ambika Soni announcing several sops for the entertainment industry during her valedictory speech. The Government is also learnt to have finalised the Cinematography Act to curb piracy.
The Global Thought Leaders Series on Day 3 of FICCI Frames 2010 saw an interesting discussion on the needed to hasten digitisation and also delved upon the menace of piracy and ways to tackle it. Moderated by exchange4media Group’s Anurag Batra, the panelists included Nokia’s Adam Mirabella, Intel Corp’s Jeffrey T Lawrence, and IBM’s Steven M Abraham.
Delivering the keynote address at the concluding day of FICCI Frames 2010, Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India, stressed that there was hunger for good content. He also pointed out some of the serious concerns that this industry would face in the future, the first one being low level of innovative content and repetition of successful formats.
According to TAM Sports from TAM Media Research, the first three matches of IPL3 played on March 11 and 12, 2010 received an average rating of 5.0 TVR, which is the same as last season. This is despite all the hype and hoopla over the ‘homecoming’ series.
Rediffusion Y&R has augmented its planning team with two new senior appointments. Sumeer Mathur and Vikram Dhaliwal have joined the Mumbai offices of Rediffusion Y&R as Planning Heads. This is a homecoming for both of them as they have been associated with Rediffusion Y&R earlier. Dhaliwal was a brand partner based out of Delhi, working on one of the largest clients Airtel and Sleepwell, while Mathur was a planner on the Colgate-Palmolive business in Mumbai. Mathur joins after spending six years with Lowe, Mumbai where his responsibilities included being the regional planner on key Unilever brands like Clinic Plus, Clinic All Clear & Global Planner on Fair & Lovely. While Dhaliwal was Senior Planning Director at Bates, Delhi, heading the strategic planning function for the office, including all new business initiatives. The key clients that he worked with at Bates were various Dabur brands like Uveda and Gulabari, Hitachi, Artd’inox, iBibo, etc.
MSM Discovery Pvt Ltd, popularly known as TheOneAlliance, has announced the appointment of Makarand Palekar as Senior Vice President - Sales and Affiliate Relations. He will be taking on as a key member of the senior management team and will be responsible for the all-India sales and affiliate relations. Prior to joining MSM Discovery, Palekar was Sales Head at ESPN Star Sports, of which he was a part since its start-up.
<p align=justify>I don’t know any holding company that honours India like Omnicom does. They call APAC, Asia, SE Asia, we call it India. Even my card mentions APIMA, which basically means Asia Pacific India Middle East Africa. Although that in itself might not mean a big deal, but I do believe that it’s the path that counts. Japan and China are investing in India in a big way, but you don’t see that unless you are looking at the region way differently. Our vision is not of the vision of the present, but of where we see things going in the future. It is estimated that by 2025, India will be the second largest economy and that to my understanding merits being paid attention to.