Week at a glance: Of new executive bodies and rise of the FTA brigade

The week (September 11-16) ended with back-to-back elections of executive members of key industry bodies in advertising, marketing and media – ASCI, IBF, ISA, MRUC and ABC. 

At the board meeting of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) on September 14, 2017, Abanti Sankaranarayanan, Former Vice Chairman, Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC), was unanimously elected as Chairperson of the Board of ASCI. Adgully caught up with Sankaranarayanan to know more about her new role as ASCI Chairperson, her immediate agenda, planning for a better advertising ecosystem and more. 

Punit Goenka, Managing Director, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited has been re-elected as President of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the representative body of television broadcasters. The elections took place at the 18th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of IBF. 

The newly elected Executive Council of the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) met on September 15, 2017, where Sunil Kataria, Business Head - India and SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Limited, was elected Chairman of the ISA. This is his second consecutive term as the ISA Chairman. 

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), has been elected as the new Chairman of Media Research Users Council (MRUC). Pratap Pawar, Group Chairman, Sakal Media, has been elected as Vice-Chairman. The new executive body for 2017-18 was elected at the MRUC meeting held on Wednesday, September 13, 2017. 

Debabrata Mukherjee, Vice President, South West Asia Region Operations, Coca Cola, was unanimously elected as the Chairman of Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) for the year 2017-2018. Hormusji N Cama, Publisher Member on the Council representing ‘Mumbai Samachar’, was unanimously elected as the Deputy Chairman. 

In major account wins this week, Puma has decided to partner with the DDB Mudra Group for its creative mandate in India. Under this partnership, the agency will be responsible for the creative strategy and execution for Puma’s marketing communication in India. 

Birla Gold, the cement division of the BK Birla Group of Industries, has appointed BBH as its creative strategy & advertising agency partner. BBH will be responsible for the development & execution of business-driven creative campaigns. 

Following a multi-agency pitch, leading packaged foods company, MTR Foods has appointed Dentsu India as the agency on record to lead the communication mandate on MTR’s brand ‘Snack Up’ and its parent company Orkla’s brand ‘Laban’. 

In a bid to strengthen and grow its business operation, Publicis has appointed Krishnendu Paul and Amitabh Sreedharan as Vice President - Account Management, and Prateek Suri as Creative Director. Paul and Sreedharan will report to Ravpreet Ganesh, Executive Director, whereas Prateek Suri will be reporting to Nitin Pradhan, Head of Creative. 

Dentsu X, an integrated media specialist and part of Dentsu Aegis Network, has roped in Roopam Garg as Chief Client Officer (CCO). Garg brings with him a rich experience of 22 years across multiple markets; India, MENA, China, Vietnam, London. 

Bobby Ghosh, Editor-in-Chief of Hindustan Times, has put in his papers as he will be returning to New York for personal reasons. Prior to joining HT, Ghosh was Managing Director at ‘Quartz’ and International Editor at ‘Time’ magazine. 

BBDO Indonesia has appointed Vaishali Sarkar to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Having spent her first 16 years at OgilvyOne India, and the last decade in Indonesia, she has been instrumental in building profitable business units that include Ogilvy One, Soho Square and most recently Ogilvy Advertising. 

BARC ratings for Week 36 (September 2-8) [HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals] saw Zee Anmol hold on to its lead. However, it is Star Bharat’s (formerly Life OK) performance that has created a buzz. After debuting at the fifth spot last week, the channel climbed up to No. 2. It will be interesting to see whether Star Bharat can give some serious competition to Zee Anmol. 

In a move to strengthen its position in the English cinema cluster, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) is all set to launch its premium HD offering – &Privé HD. The English movie channel will go live across HD DTH platforms from September 24 at 1 pm. The channel will launch with the Academy Award winning movie ‘Moonlight’. 

Hindi GEC Zee TV is all set to don a new look from October 15, 2015. The current blue-coloured logo will be replaced by a new one in orange. According to industry sources, the tagline: ‘Har Lamha Nayi Umeed’ will be replace by a more future-focussed tagline: ‘Aaj Likhenge Kal’. 

Ever since BARC India started reporting data on rural viewership, Free To Air (FTA) channels such as Zee Anmol have been on a roll. Ashish Sehgal (Zee Unimedia), Rohit Gupta (Sony Entertainment Television), and Videocon d2h decode the rise of FTA channels in India, factors triggering their growth, the viewership game, and implications for broadcasters, distribution companies and content creators. 

Vivek Bhargava (DAN Performance Group), Tejinder Gill (Truecaller), Nitin Goel (Intex Technologies), Yash Mishra (VoxWeb), and Saransh Agarwal (The Glitch) spoke to Adgully on the disruption by mobile in the content consumption space and whether mobile can it be considered a threat to TV going forward. The industry experts listed down the possibilities. 

‘Offbeat’, our section that seeks to give a glimpse of the lesser known facets of our very well-known industry leaders, this week features Rohan Mehta, CEO, Social Kinnect/ Media Kinnect. Mehta reveals how he was as a child, about being the youngest black belts in Taekwondo in India, the social cause that he is most passionate about and much more. 

Siddharth Kumar Tewary, Founder, Swastik Productions, has acquired the IP rights of ‘Porus’, thus becoming the first producer in India to claim IP rights of a show. In a freewheeling conversation with Adgully, Tewary speaks about the 10-year journey of Swastik Productions, upcoming show ‘Porus’, creativity in Indian television shows, regressive content, evolution of the Hindi GEC space, and much more. 

Prasoon Joshi, CEO and CCO of McCann Worldgroup India, Chairman of McCann Asia Pacific comments on McCann’s 7 metals at Clio Awards 2017. The agency’s tally included three Gold and two Silver and two Bronze metals for its campaigns – ‘Immunity Charm’ done for Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health, and ‘World for All’ done for client World for All Pet Adoption. 

Praful Akali, Founder-Director, Medulla Communications, speaks on being part of the Executive Jury for both NY Festival’s Global Awards 2017 (Health & Wellness) and Clio Health Awards 2017 (Design, Film, Out of Home & Print). 

Mitchelle Rozario Jansen, Senior Account Manager, WATConsult, is our Adland’s Young Gun this week, who shares what it takes to climb up the ladder in advertising.