Week at a glance: Think Ink’s disruption; Key acquisitions; Programmatic march

The Disrupters: Think Ink – A lesson in taking on the Goliaths of the PR biz

Radhika Nihalani, Co-Founder & CEO, Think Ink Communicatons, speaks to toAdgully on setting up the Think Ink business, the challenges faced, and what makes the company a disrupter in the industry.

India’s OTT market to grow 22.6% to reach Rs 53,630 mn by 2022: ASSOCHAM-PwC

The number of smartphone users in the country is expected to double to 859 million by 2022 from 468 million users in 2017 growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.9 per cent, according to an ASSOCHAM-PwC joint study.

Reliance Brands acquires British toy retailer Hamleys

Founded in 1760, Hamleys has over 250 years of celebrated history of being the oldest and largest toy shop in the world. Hamleys opened its flagship Regent Street London store in 1881. This flagship store is set over seven floors, covering 54,000 sqft with more than 50,000 lines of toys on sale.

Havas Group acquires UX design firm, Think Design

Havas Group announced today the acquisition of Think Design, a leader in user experience consultancy and design in India. Founded in 2004, Think Design has since grown steadily and today has five design centres in India and the US (Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Denver).

PHD’s Mike Cooper named Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group APAC & EMEA

It is a role for which Cooper is uniquely qualified, having spent the better part of the past two decades building OMG agencies in APAC and EMEA.  As the first regional CEO - and first employee - of OMD, he established OMD’s footprint in Asia Pacific and laid the foundation for the agency’s global expansion.

Philippa Brown named CEO of PHD Worldwide

Close on the heels of Mike Cooper’s appointment as Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group APAC and EMEA, Omnicom Media Group (OMG) has named Philippa Brown CEO of PHD Worldwide.  Brown, who joins PHD from her role as CEO of Omnicom Media Group UK, succeeds Mike Cooper.

How iProspect India is taking the lead in gender diversity & women leadership

iProspect India, the digital performance agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has been a frontrunner in introducing initiatives to encourage its women workforce to take on leadership roles.

Programmatic helps Mindshare drive 28% increase in efficiency for PepsiCo

Mindshare, the media agency network that is part of WPP, has successfully provided seamless end-to- end reconciliation of the programmatic supply chain using blockchain for PepsiCo in partnership with Zilliqa Research, Rubicon Project, MediaMath and Integral Ad Science.

Adoption of programmatic in India is in a very select circle: Pranjal Desai

Adoption of programmatic technology is poised to pick up in 2019, with 52 per cent of marketers in India either planning to adopt or currently evaluating whether to adopt programmatic buying. However, such growth does not come without challenges, such as a lack of programmatic-trained marketers and understanding towards how programmatic can fit within the marketing strategy.

Arnab Goswami to acquire Asianet’s stake in Republic; to assume complete control

Republic TV completes two years of broadcasting in the first week of May 2019. This two year anniversary has seen the continued leadership of Republic TV in English News, completing 100 weeks as number 1, and the launch of Republic Bharat in February 2019.

Wunderman Thompson, South Asia bags over 50 accounts in the last four months

Wunderman Thompson, the new Creative, Data and Technology company, formed by the merger of J Walter Thompson and Wunderman became a reality only at the beginning of 2019. And in just four months, it has won over 50 new accounts and assignments across its group companies in South Asia.

VodafoneZiggo appoints WPP as its strategic transformation partner

WPP has been awarded VodafoneZiggo’s strategic marketing and communications brief, following a competitive pitch process.

Hughes and Airtel to combine their India VSAT operations

As per the agreement, Hughes will have majority ownership in the combined entity and Airtel will have a significant shareholding.

Star Sports & Ogilvy launch ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 campaign #CricketKaCrown

The World’s biggest sporting event, ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, is set to enthral audiences around the world as Star Sports, the official global broadcaster, launches the campaign to celebrate 45 days of cricket extravaganza starting May 30th across the Star Sports network and Hotstar.

Get paid for watching ads, Batooni gives a twist to hyperlocal advertising

atooni, the first-of-its-kind hyper-local mobile advertising startup in India, has crossed an important milestone by acquiring over half a million users in a span of just 60 days. Batooni is a video advertising platform that was founded earlier this year. The platform is in the form of a dialer app, which plays an 8-10 second video ad when users dial a number through it. Once the user dials in, the app effectively transfers money to them as compensation for watching the advertisement.

How redBus captured the market one ad at a time

redBus has rolled out a large scale, 360-degree integrated marketing campaign, featuring MS Dhoni. Conceptualised by McCann Worldgroup – Bengaluru, the campaign highlights key propositions of the platform with a strong narrative, delivered by Dhoni, who was recently appointed as the brand ambassador of redBus.

BARC Wk 18: Most channels maintain rankings; Zee TV’s shows create an upset

Zee TV’s ‘KumkumBhagya’ climbed up a couple of notches to the numerouno spot with 10,851 (000) Impressions. ‘KundaliBhagya’, the spin-off shows of the long-running ‘KumkumBhagya’, also climbed up a couple of notches to the second spot with 10,048 (000) Impressions. It may be recalled here that these two shows had continuously claimed the top 2 slots for several weeks before TRAI's new tariff regime came into force.

Offbeat: Mitchelle Carvalho – Powering ahead with a need-to-know spirit

MitchelleCarvalho, CEO, CogMat Digital Marketing Agency, leads a team of 50+. CogMat today has progressed to providing 360-degree digital solutions, including Social Media Marketing, Online Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimisation, Online Advertising, Affiliate Marketing among Websites and e-commerce design and development. By investing in a strong work ethic and good people, the return on investment on these two are bountiful.

Quaker Oats shares the Real Fit stories of women who juggle multiple roles

Quaker Oats, India’s leading brand in oats segment, salutes the energy and zeal of women in its new film under its ‘Fuel for the Real Fit’ campaign. A third TVC has been launched recently as part of the campaign, which features a fictional character, PrernaNarang, who is a brave police officer, a mother and a loving wife, who juggles multiple roles in a single day, but with a smile.

Mayur Hola to head Creative for OYO, India & SE Asia

MayurHola will lead Creative for India and South East Asia for OYO, India's fast-growing and largest hotel chain. Prior to this, he was with Havas India as National Creative Director.

SPNI launches My Reasons to Watch UEFA Champions League’ campaign

Sony Pictures Sports Network along with Farhan Akhtar - UEFA’s official guest from India, kicked off a series of exciting activities leading up to the build-up of the most awaited UEFA Champions League finals. Bollywood actor, Farhan Akhtar will be heading to watch the finals of the tournament at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, Spain on 1st June 2019. Fans can watch the second leg of the UEFA Champions League Semi-Finals and the Finals live and exclusive on SONY TEN 2 and SONY TEN 2 HD channels.