epages News [Advertising Agencies]

Pak win hikes brand value of Men in Blue

Mar 31, 2004: New Delhi: It’s not just the hearts of cricket fans that Sourav and his boys have won, advertisers too have been swept off their feet. A lot of fence-sitters are likely to join the endorsers’ club sooner than later. Tendulkar is likely to continue making hay, his bat shining or not, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and last but not the least, Sourav dada himself are likely to see their endorsement kitty getting bigger in 2004. The cricket endorsement market, which was at around Rs 50 crore in 2003, is likely to grow around 40% in the current year. This year, along with male-oriented products and white goods sector, a lot of FMCG companies are also likely to join the cricket bandwagon. Spectacular performance of new players in the team is a lure for those who can’t afford to bet on biggies like Tendulkar and Ganguly. According to market grapevine, among the new players, Yuvraj Singh is likely to sign a deal with a prominent chewing gum company and a cycle manufacturer. Similarly, Zaheer Khan is also renegotiating his deal with Himalaya group. Parthiv Patel is also quite hot among the younger product segment.

And it’s not just the advertisers, there is a race among celebrity management companies, too, to acquire new players. 21st Century Media seems to have outbid others by already having signed in Md. Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Hemang Badani and Patel along with Dravid and Anil Kumble. And while the young Turks move up brand charts, the veterans also keep going great guns. Sources indicate that Tendulkar will continue to rule the endorsement circuit despite his lacklustre performance recently. At present, Sachin accounts for over 40% of the total cricket endorsement market. Commanding a price tag of over Rs 1 crore per deal, making around Rs 20 crore a year. Ganguly and Dravid are, reportedly, making around Rs 10 crore with a market value of around Rs 80-90 lakh, followed by Sehwag, who makes around Rs 50 lakh per deal. Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj and others hover at around Rs 20-30 lakh.

Rani teases an auto driver in Fanta's new ad

Mar 24, 2004: Coca-Cola India is launching a fresh ad campaign featuring brand ambassador Rani Mukherjee. The new campaign ‘Rang Le Dil Khol Ke’ is an extension of Fanta’s earlier campaign ‘Dil Khol Ke’. Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai has conceptualised the campaign, which is going to be on air in popular Hindi and Tamil channels. The TVC shows Rani Mukherjee playing a prank on an auto rickshaw driver along with her friends. The concept tries to capture the vibrancy and free spirit associated with Fanta. Fanta has also been launched in a 600-ml pack size (500 ml+100 ml free) at Rs 15 across all key markets in India, keeping in tune with its affordability strategy. This new initiative is backed by a Fanta TV Commercial with the popular actress Simran, and is being run across all Hindi mainline channels, besides on-ground marketing activities and promotions. Fanta is currently the market leader in the orange drinks category and is identified as ‘The Fun Catalyst’ among the youth. Fanta this summer, will be focusing on consumer insights and consumer connect.

'Retro look' is the new magic mantra

Mar 24, 2004: Bangalore: Microsoft Corporation India launched BizTalk server 2004, aimed at businesses with multiple applications for enterprise application integration and business process integration. Cap Gemini Ernst and Young and Tata Consultancy Services said they had set up a centre for excellence for Biztalk based EAI solutions. According to IDC India, the Enterprise Application Integration services market in India is expected to grow at a four year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.4 % from $7.78 million in 2001-02 to $27.71 million by 2005-06. Today, enterprises face significant challenges in managing and automating increasingly disconnected business processes. Bitztalk server enables customers to manage and automate their business processes.

The world's black and white once more. Songs have a retro feel, television ads are inspired by classics and there seems to be nostalgia about a time when high hair buns and wide collars made a definitive fashion statement. Forget ads, even songs seem to follow the strategy that old is gold. Take pubs and discos, for instance. Stayin' Alive comes blaring out along with saiyyas and balmas. Pubs play a lot of remixes because that's what people want to dance to. Remixes have done a good job of highlighting them too. So this is the time to disco, definitely. Just take a look at movies — from Kal Ho Naa Ho to Main Hoon Na — costumes and songs are seeped in that retro look. Let's get set for that 60s show, once again.

Pizza Hut ready with new campaign

Mar 10, 2004: New Delhi: Pizza Hut, part of global Yum! Restaurants international is looking to cash-in with the upcoming India-Pakistan Cricket series. It has booked ads worth Rs 3 crore on Ten Sports and ESPN combined. Pizza Hut is also ready with its latest TV campaign centred on 'Pan Hindustani Pizza'. The new campaign is also created by JWT. The agency has been involved in creating all its right till date. The first series of ads broke in middle of March in 2002. The communication task then was to open a window into the Pizza Hut restaurant. "The creative thought was centered around that fact that at Pizza Hut ‘every pizza is a bonfire’. And this led to the first series of commercials, which were shot against the backdrop of an arranged marriage scenario. It's latest campaign, currently on air, is focussed on Pizza Hut's delivery service.

"Pizza for just Rs 200', is running on several main-line channels and according to the company, has managed to deliver results for the pizza. Last year Pizza Hut had introduced its 'Tandoori range' which was promoted on TV with 5 commercials and an estimated ad spend of Rs 10 crore. This year the company is focussing its creative approach in promoting its specialised service and products. "Pan Hindustani campaign will be a step in that direction. The company is not looking at increasing its advertising spend very significantly. 2004 will see the company spend between Rs 10-12 crore but it will be launching seven TV commercial, two of which have already been on air. The company is also looking to enter the Kerala Market. It has already tied-up with SM Foods as its franchise. Delhi has 18 Pizza Hut outlets and it is currently evaluating few more outlets in the upcoming malls in Noida and Gurgaon. With the new campaign on Pan Hindustani Pizza, the company will be eyeing a substantial increase in its sales.

Cricket series hits TV ad rates for a six

Mar 04, 2004: New Delhi: The slog over among advertisers for the much-hyped India-Pak cricket series has begun. Television ad rates for the series which already carries the distinction of being the biggest selling title sponsorship in the history of the game has now reached a mind boggling Rs 5 lakh for just ten seconds. These rates are more than four times what the Cricket World Cup clocked last year. The scramble for the event is now in its final stages as only ninety seconds per one day match is up for grabs. It is learnt that the asking ad rates have jumped by 10-20% after it became apparent that Doordarshan will not be able to secure simultaneous telecast rights from Ten Sports. Also, the fact that the Indo-Pak series wouldn’t clash with the elections have also positioned Ten Sports at an advantageous position.

The channel can now generate guaranteed eyeballs. ESPN’s reach (the number of viewers switching on to the channel) among cable & satellite (C&S) homes in Delhi on these two days was 39% and 38% respectively. As against that, as much as 52% of C&S homes in Delhi watched news channels on polling day, December 1, and 59% on December 4, the day the votes were counted. For provincial MP, the numbers are even more decisively in favour of the netas and against the men in blue. The reach of news channels was 57% and 65% on December 1 and December 4 respectively, against 29% and 42% for ESPN on January 9 and February 6. Some big names have stayed away from the series given the high asking rates including Aviva, ONGC, LML, GE Countrywide, Revlon, Haier, BPCL, Nokia, Hyundai and Kinetic. And some are pulling out though for different reasons.

China to be world's second largest TV commercial market

Mar 04, 2004: Beijing: The soaring profits from advertising last year at $14.5 billion might make China the world's second largest TV commercial market, a leading market research analyst said. Despite the SARS epidemic outbreak, Chinese companies had made large profits from advertising last year, President of AC Nielsen's Asia and Pacific Branch, Forrest Didier said. Statistics from AC Nielsen show advertising generated $14.5 billion in China in 2003, a 28% growth from the previous year, of which TV commercials accounted for 75%, particularly from telecommunications, tonics and medicines.

An AC Nielsen survey showed that in China's urban areas, every household possessed atleast one TV set, and in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, people spent three to four hours watching TV each day on average. If the trend continued, China would become world's second largest TV commercial market. An AC Nielsen analysis predicted that in 2004, Internet, billboard and short message mobile phone ads would rapidly develop.

New Zealand Tourism campaign wins Pata Award

Feb 27, 2004: New Zealand Tourism’s ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ global marketing campaign has won the top ‘2004 Grand Award for Marketing’ from international tourism and travel organisation Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata),. The Website www.newzealand.com and the ad posters, part of the same campaign, have also won the gold awards.

New Zealand Tourism’s chief executive George Hickton attributed the award to consistent campaign as he says, “Getting an award like this from our international peers shows that our marketing work is of top international standard. But even better, the award helps profile not only the campaign, but New Zealand among the members of Pata, and other tourism organisations throughout the world.” The winning campaigns were selected from over 332 Gold Award entries by panels of international experts in each category. The awards are open to Pata and Pata chapter members only. The winners will receive their awards during the 53rd Pata Annual Conference in Jeju Island, Korea in April this year.

Liberty to invest Rs 30 crore

Feb 20, 2004: New Delhi: The Rs 250-crore Liberty Shoes will open its first six-concept store during the forthcoming Lakme India Fashion Week (April 29-May 5). 'Revolutions'—the concept store in its first phase will open in Mumbai followed by Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. There will be 24 such stores operating by the end of 2006. The store will be owned by Liberty Retail Revolutions Ltd, a subsidiary of Liberty shoes limited in which Liberty Shoes will hold the majority 51% stake. The company is in talks with some of the Malls located across Delhi and Gurgaon and depending upon the availability of space and location, the final decision will be taken. For advertising and promotions, Liberty has hired some of the known faces like Sushma Reddy and Carol Gracious who will feature in the forthcoming advertising campaign. Montage is the advertising agency for Liberty. Liberty also plans to increase its ad spends by 15% this year. Last year the company had spend Rs 12 crores on advertising and media, most of which had gone to TV. The latest commercial is of 90 seconds duration, one amongst the lengthier TV commercials in recent times.

LG to spend about Rs 50 cr on cricket related events

Feb 18, 2004: New Delhi: LG Electronics said it plans to spend close to Rs 50 crore on cricket related activities this year by acquiring title sponsorship rights of some matches and on advertising around these events. The company has already bagged title sponsorship of the Champions Trophy for $5 million. It plans to spend about Rs three crore on the India-Australia series, a senior company official said here.

Asked what was the company's gameplan for the upcoming Indo-Pak series, Marketing Head at LGEIL Anil Arora said "we will spend at least Rs six crore on this series, as advertisers on Ten Sports. But we are also planning other events to mark this historic series". He said the Australia-India series to be played in the country between October and December this year will see LG spending about Rs eight crore on ads, promotions etc. LG also announced the launch of a new range of fully automatic washing machines between five and seven kg capacity.

Marketing industry catering to non-white communities in UK

Feb 10, 2004: The Asian and black communities in Britain have disposable incomes worth 32bn pound, and the mainstream advertising industry is slowly recognising this. The number of advertising campaigns using ethnic minority actors trebled last year as the marketing industry woke up to the power of the ‘brown pound’ — the purchasing power of the non-white communities. One of the most visible black figures is Halifax’s Howard Brown, but NatWest and KFC campaigns have also recently featured Asian or black actors. In January ‘03, only 2% of campaigns featured black and Asian people, but that rose to 7% by November last year, according to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).

The IPA said ethnic minorities had more disposable income than ever before. Peugeot is another advertiser that turned its attention to the brown pound, using an Indian to help attract Asian buyers for its 206 model. The IPA said it had been campaigning to encourage advertisers to include ethnic minorities in campaigns in the same way it had pushed the ‘pink pound’ or ‘grey pound’. Anjna Raheja, managing director of Media Moguls, a marketing group that helps brands reach ethnic minority consumers, said advertising agencies still had to be more inclusive when creating campaigns. The institute is also trying to encourage more people from ethnic backgrounds to consider a career in marketing. At present, only 4% of employees at marketing companies are from ethnic backgrounds and 70% of that total work in supporting roles, rather than the more glamorous creative field.

Bachchan's sarcasm to sell Parker

Jan 23, 2004: New Delhi: Amitabh Bachchan is back with yet another new campaign. And this time he uses his sarcasm and wit to help Luxor reposition Parker pens. Luxor writing instruments private limited (LWIPL), the company which brought Parker to India in 1996 is releasing its latest set of five new television commercials after a gap of one year. The TVCs are created by Lowe & Partners worldwide. With this repositioning, Luxor is aiming to make Parker a Rs 100-crore brand by 2005. Currently, Parker is a Rs 60-crore brand for Luxor and contributes 40% to the total turnover of Rs 150 crore.

Luxor plans to spend Rs 10 crore (up from Rs 7 crore in 2002-3) as part of advertising and marketing efforts on repositioning Parker. It has bought 1,500 spots for the month of February-March on leading TV channels like Sony, Aaj Tak, Set Max, HBO, MTV, CNBC, NDTV 24x7 and amongst regional channels on ETV and Sun TV. Luxor wants to use Amitabh to the fullest, as he will be the brand ambassador for the company for one more year. His contract will expire in 2005.

Ecco Shoes seeks ad agencies

Jan 16, 2004: New Delhi: The leading Danish shoe manufacturing company is all set to enter the Indian Rs 300-crore-premium footwear market. The $570-million turnover and seventh largest casual wear brand in the world could be looking to hire a creative agency for its advertising and creative strategy prior to the Indian launch (the account is estimated to be in the range of Rs 5 crore or more). A family held business, Ecco Shoes plans to enter the Delhi market by September 2004 with an average price tag of Rs 5,000 per pair.

Lately the Indian premium footwear market has been attracting leading global shoe brands. In late 2002, the $1-billion Skechers entered the Indian market. Skechers footwear brand was made famous by teen pop icon, Britney Spears. Selective print campaigns along with outdoor publicity are being planned for the launch of Ecco, a product clearly positioned for the 'rich & the famous'. For its global ad campaign, Ecco has taken the services of a local Danish advertising agency called Black Pencil while media planning and buying is done in-house. To begin with, Ecco shoes will be made available in select retail outlets for which the company is already in talks with several retail chains and leading shops in and around Delhi.

Sachin not to be TVS Centra brand ambassador

Jan 13, 2004: New Delhi: For the latest offering from TVS Motor Company, TVC Centra, the company plans to spend Rs 20 crore on advertising and promotions but Sachin Tendulkar will not be seen in the ads. The first phase of television commercial (TVC) will be on air from January 20 during the current VB Series Cricket matches currently being played in Australia. Unlike TVS Victor, which has a brand ambassador in Sachin Tendulkar, TVC Centra, a Rs 36,990, 100cc bike, will not have a brand ambassador. The TV commercials will inform the potential customers about the Centra's USP–'Fill it Once a Month Bike'. Sachin Tendulkar has a three-year contract with TVS Motor Company to endorse TVS Victor. His contract with the company is on till 2005.

The TVS Centra ads will focus more on television to be followed by print and below the line activities. With this launch, TVS Motor Company will be aiming for a 7-8% market share in the 100-cc category. TVS Centra comes with Variable Timing intelligent engines (VT-i). The TV ads are created by Saatchi & Saatchi while Universal McCann is the media planner and buyer.

Madison bags Hyundai's Rs 50-crore account

Jan 12, 2004: Mumbai: One of the longest media pitches in recent memory comes to a close with Madison Media bagging the account for Hyundai Motors. The account is estimated to be worth over Rs 50 crore. The planning and buying account for the Korean automaker was keenly contested, with everyone from incumbent Zenith to Grey’s Mediacom, Euro RSCG’s Media Planning Group and Mudra's Optimum Media Solutions involved in the pitch. Among Madison Media’s other clients are Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Godrej, Kinetic and Acer, with a couple of high profile recent additions. Hyundai says the move should be seen more as Madison’s gain than Zenith’s loss.

National Geographic to explore Mars

Jan 09, 2004: Mumbai: National Geographic Channel, which telecast last year its `Mission Everest' programme, will shortly bring home the second such initiative, this time dealing with the exploration of Mars, including behind the scenes action at NASA and the recent landing of the probe `Spirit' on the red planet. The series premieres with `Mission Mars', a one hour global television event, airing on January 11 at 8 PM, channel officials said at a press briefing here today. The `Mission' property is to be an annual initiative by National Geographic Channel that will build on the channel's spirit of exploration and adventure. According to National Geographic Channel, "Mission Everest was instrumental in broad basing our viewership and increasing advertising revenues.

MTNL prepares to beef up cellular base

Jan 09, 2004: It was a successful year for almost all the cellular service providers, but for Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), which managed to add only 85,000 subscribers in both the high growth metros – Delhi and Mumbai – during the past one year. Alarmed at the slow growth in its cellular subscriber base, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has instructed MTNL to take immediate steps to improve its performance. The company has been asked to prepare a report on the readiness for expansion of mobile services and submit category-wise outstanding and figures of the revenue collection efficiency. That apart, MTNL will need to improve its quality of service by optimising the base transceiver stations (BTS) for this purpose.

According to a Business Line report, drastic steps have been called for to overhaul the cellular services and the public perception regarding the quality of its services. The latest subscriber statistics show that both Bharti (in Mumbai) and IDEA Cellular (in Delhi), which started offering their services months after MTNL, have managed to overtake it in only a couple of months. While Bharti has 4.78 lakh customers in Mumbai currently, IDEA Cellular has close to 4.21 lakh in Delhi. MTNL has fallen way behind, failing to capitalise on the advantage it had.

Airtel launches Masala Service in Kerala

Jan 09, 2004: In yet another pioneer move, Airtel has announced the launch of its content-rich WAP-enabled portal, Masala Service, in Kerala. The service will provide customers with the choice to download content, such as java games, polyphonic ring tones, wallpapers, videos etc on their GPRS-compatible handsets. To use the service, customers are not required to pay any subscription but to pay for specific downloads.

T Elango, COO, (Kerala) Airtel, said that in the near future, extensions of this technology would also support online game competitions among Airtel users. The company has launched this service for customers across all its 16 circles.

Now, Saatchi campaigns with sex

Jan 07, 2004: A building split in two by an earthquake features in Saatchi & Saatchi’s latest press and poster campaign for the erotic shop Coco de Mer in a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the power of good sex. The campaign aims to make the subject of sex more approachable and accessible through the use of humour. The ads have a truly fresh feel to them, different from anything else in the category. The first ad, called “earthquake”, shows houses damaged by a natural disaster. The second, called “crucifix”, shows the head of a wrought iron bed with the stain of an absent crucifix above it. Saatchis has done a fabulous job dramatising our belief that sex is part of everyday life. The ads will run outdoors and in titles such as SnowBoard UK Magazine. “Earthquake” was art directed by Ian Gabaldoni and written by Richard Baynham. “Crucifix” was written by Amber Logan and art directed by Graham Lang. Media planning and buying was by Saatchis.

Cows stage a supermarket heist for Arla Foods

Jan 07, 2004: BMP DDB’s next ad for Arla Foods’ Cravendale premium fresh-milk brand shows a herd of ram-raiding cattle breaking into a supermarket in the early hours of the morning to get their milk fix. The 30-second television spot — “supermarket heist” — breaks on 2 February and is the second instalment of the campaign. The first ad showed Cows following a man home from the supermarket. The new ad also uses the endline: “Cravendale tastes so good, the Cows want it back.”

The cattle are shown converging on a closed supermarket early one morning. They narrowly avoid being rumbled by a lone jogger before managing to disable the security system and smashing through the window using a train of shopping trolleys. Arla Foods is part of a Scandinavian-based co-operative that manufactures products including the Danish butter brand Lurpak, the flavoured milk drinks Gulp! Rosenberg Blue Cheeses and Anchor. Following approval by the Competition Commission, Arla Foods took over Express Dairies in March this year.

Sivananda launches new TV ad

Jan 06, 2004: New Delhi: Sivananda Bal Chyawanprabha from Mayar Group's health care division has launched another television commercial (TVC) to promote what it calls "India’s only 'Child Specialist' chyawanprash". The last TVC was launched on November 27, 2003. The size of Chyawanprash market is estimated to be in the tune of Rs 350 crores, but the company is not competing with the likes of Dabur which has a market share of over 55% and which recently launched its new TVC penned by McCann's Prasoon Joshi, featuring the big B, Amitabh Bachchan. Rather, the company has opened a new segment within the Chyawanprash market to target kids. With the punch line 'Dhimag Bright toh Bhavishya Bright'- the new Sivananda Bal Chyawanprabha TVC aims to build direct connect with parent's aspirations for their children. Created by TBWA / India, the 30 seconds TVC will hit the tube from January 6, 2004 on channels like Sony, Zee, Zee Cinema & Sahara.

The company will be spending Rs 2 crore in this January to promote their latest TV campaign. The media spends in December 2003 were also to the tune of Rs 2 crore. The commercial is completely shot in rewind mode. The new TVC aims to build on the earlier commercial aired during the launch of the brand. While the first commercial brought out the fact that children's needs are different from adults' and therefore created an awareness of the need for a child specialist product, the new commercial moves on to communicate the core benefits a child gains after consuming Bal Chyawanprabha, instead of other standard formulations. While the first scene of the ad film depicts a successful architect being applauded for his work, the film moves back to trace his early interest in sketching buildings, his studying hard in school and graduating from college and then working hard to conceptualise the design of a sky scraper. The film culminates with a visual of how the architect's mother gives him Bal Chyawanprabha throughout his childhood, thus facilitating his mental development, which made it easier for him to face the competitive hurdles.

 
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