Media Research Users Council (MRUC) has recently appointed Andrey Purushottam as its new chairman. The council is a registered not-for-profit body of members drawn from major Advertisers, Advertising Agencies, Publishers, and Broadcast/Other Media. Purushottam was the vice-chairman of the organization for the past two years.

Earlier G Krishnan, CEO of TV Today served as the chairman of the organization. Purushottam has an industry experience of over 22 years and has worked with agencies like Lintas India, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), Initiative Media, Asiacontent.org and Starcom India. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Mumbai Mantra, the film and entertainment arm of Mahindra & Mahindra Group.

The vice-chairman’s position has been given over to Bharat Kapadia, Director of Lokmat Group.

The council members top most priority will remain facilitating media research across consumers and advertiers.

Dentsu India, the advertising agency announced Rajat Sethi as the new Managing Director of Dentsu Marcom. He will be reporting to Dentsu India President Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal and his focus will be to lead business and operations at Dentsu Marcom from the city, the company officials confirmed.

Sethi has worked with Reader’s Digest International, Wunderman, McCann Relationship Marketing and Lintas in the past.

Dentsu Marcom handles advertising for Parx, Park Avenue, Fedex, Canon, Honda and Indian Oil.

Posterscope India, a joint venture between UK’s Aegis Group Plc, the world’s leading OOH planning and buying company Posterscope Worldwide has recently completed its first year in India. In this short time span, Posterscope has worked on about 350 ooh media campaigns across various towns and cities. It has created the world’s first real Out-of-Home communications network with billings in excess of $2.0 billion.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman – India & CEO South East Asia, Aegis Media added, “We are extremely proud of the phenomenal success that Posterscope India has achieved within a year and what Haresh Nayak and his team have done in this market is nothing short of a miracle. Not only have they put together a team of the best OOH professionals, they have also brought in and localized the world famous Prism suite of tools that Posterscope Worldwide is well known for. They are truly helping professionals in an otherwise disorganized market. My heartiest congratulations to them.”

Posterscope has an impressive clientele which includes brands like Future Group, UB Group, Mont Blanc, Essar, World Gold Council, Shopper’s Stop, Tanishq, Philips, Amul, Rayban, Godrej Interio, Google, Go Air, Tourism Australia, Blue Star, Lee Cooper, Ginger, Adidas, ING Vysya, Big Bazaar, Levi’s, etc. It is currently working on its 350th campaign for Titan.

“Posterscope India has already conducted campaigns in more than 500 cities and towns. Today, Posterscope India is the only agency with Prism tools and we are rolling out more of the suite as time progresses. We aim to have offices in 32 cities and have a team of 100-plus professionals before our second birthday. It has been a delightful year for us,” said Haresh Nayak, Country Head, Posterscope India.

It seems that advertisers prefer outdoor media even in times of recession.

Montblanc TVC features Anil and Sonam Kapoor (Watch the video)

Montblanc, the German manufacturer of luxury writing instruments has released its first ever tv commercial in its journey of branding. The brand has been closely related to social engagement and has not taken up much for advertising. However, they thought the medium suited the Indian audience and experimented with it. Dilip Doshi, chairman and managing director, Montblanc, clarifies, “TV as a medium is probably the best way to traverse the length and breadth of this country. I am very pleased with the global management that they went ahead with the medium and used it for the first time in India.”

Meridian Communications had won the account about six months ago and the Mumbai wing has done the campaign. The campaign was led by Rensil D’Silva and Harshad Sharma. The agency officials highlighted that the campaign will serve the sole purpose of generating awareness about the brand and its intention to reach out to a larger set of people and talk about its inherent values. The brand has been around in the market for sometime, but a larger set of people seem to be unaware of its presence.

Rensil D’Silva, executive creative director, Meridian, says, “It was a big challenge for the Meridian team to come up with the Indian leg of the Montblanc campaign, especially since it’s such a well- established international brand. But I think we have a really interesting campaign and some great star power from Sonam and Anil Kapoor. I have the faith that this campaign will only take the brand forward.”

On choosing the Anil and Sonam Kapoor duo, Doshi says, “It’s the sheer emotions that the father-daughter duo exudes that prompted us to cast them. The brand is about heritage, legacy and rich culture. Therefore, we have maintained the script and the visual depiction on the same lines too, to help the audience connect better with the brand.”

Nikhil Rungta is the new Noogler at Google India…if you’re wondering what it means, let us tell you…Noogler is the term used by Google employees for its new employees. Nikhil Rungta has joined Google India as head of marketing. Rungta has about 13 years of work experience across sales, marketing and advertising domains.

Since 1998, he has worked with companies like Shaw Wallace & Company, Contract Advertising, Dhar & Hoon Communications, McCann Erickson India and Yatra.com. While working with these companies he has been part of several brands like Royal Challenge Premium Lager, Haywards 5000, NIIT, Revlon, Real Juices, Aiwa, MasterCard and Microsoft XBOX to name a few.

Rungta has done his BSc from Hindu College, Delhi University and is an MBA in marketing and international business from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

An official statement by Google mentions, “Rungta will be based out of our Bangalore office and will be responsible for driving the strategy and execution of all marketing efforts to support Google’s sales verticals, products and partnerships in India.”

After spending almost three and a half years at Channel V as VP, content and communication, Saurabh Kanwar has decided to move on. He has resigned and is currently serving his notice period. The move has been associated with the revamping of the music channel, the new reality shows and its brand new baseline ‘Bloody Cool’ launched last month.

Saurabh has earlier worked with Radio City for about 11 months. Prior to this, he worked with Walt Disney as Head, sponsorship marketing. Confirming the news, Kanwar said, “Yes, I have put in my papers. I found a good opportunity and I took it.”Kanwar did not disclose his future plans as he thought it would be too early and premature to talk about them.

Prem Kamath, senior vice-president and general manager, STAR India, says, “He has been with us for more than three years and it has been a fruitful experience for both him and the channel.” He also mentioned that a replacement has not yet been finalized and the search is still on…

Spikes Asia announced the TOI Group as the winner for its initiative to bring a new breed of political leaders into the political arena by creating a highly-visible platform where new candidates could showcase their vision, ideas and skills to lead the country. Times Group was given the ‘‘Advertiser of the Year’’ award at the film festival which took place in Singapore.

The Times Group also walked away with seven more awards, including the Grand Prix in the Integrated and Direct Marketing categories for ‘‘Teach India’’; three silvers for the ‘‘Chennai Naka Muka’’ film (one in the Media and Publications category, two for craft, that is, best film and art direction); and two in the digital category for the Chennai website ‘‘Jallikattu’’.

Most of these Times campaigns had been designed by JWT, which won the ‘Agency Network of the Year.’

The winners of Spikes Asia, the leading creative advertising competition for Asia, were revealed at last night’s Awards Ceremony which took place to a packed room in Singapore’s Victoria Concert Hall.

Of the 2685 entries competing at this year’s awards, the jury awarded a total of 258 Spikes Asia trophies across the 11 different categories.

The Outdoor category was the strongest with a total of 51 winners, followed by Digital with 36, there were 35 in TV/Cinema, 34 trophies were awarded inPrint, 29 in the Direct and Sales Promotion category, 20 in Design, 16 Media awards, 12 Print Craft winners, 9 TV/Cinema Craft trophies awarded and 8 Radio winners. 8 Jade Spikes were given in the Integrated category.

JWT India took away both the Direct & Sales Promotion Grand Prix and the Integrated Jade Spike Grand Prix for their Bennett Coleman’s Teach India campaign.

Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok won the TV/Cinema Grand Prix for the Thai Life Insurance Co. ad Melody of Life.

The Print Grand Prix went to BBDO/Proximity Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur for the Chrysler Korea campaign Bushman & Eskimo, Husky & Camel and Mountain Goat & Crocodile.

The Outdoor Grand Prix was awarded to Dentsu, Tokyo, for Uniqlo’s Human Vending Machine WorldTour.

The Media Grand Prix went to JWT Singapore for Silkair’s Cinema Takeover.

Robot Communications, Tokyo, won the Digital Grand Prix in the Digital Tools category for Sony Music’s ad Wish I Could Be True to Myself.

McCann Worldgroup, Hong Kong, took home the Grand Prix in the newly launched Design category, for Nike’s Paper Battlefield.

In the Craft category, JWT Shanghai won the Grand Prix for CEPF’s print ad Shan Shui.

There was no Grand Prix awarded in the Radio category.

Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok, Thailand were honoured with the Agency of the Year. Runners up were Saatchi & Saatchi, Petaling Jaya in Malaysia who came 2nd and BBDO/Proximity Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur who were 3rd.

The inaugural Media Agency of the Yeartrophy was awarded to OMD Hong Kong with JWT Singapore taking 2nd place and in 3rd, Dentsu Tokyo.

JWT were presented with the Network of the Year trophy with Ogilvy & Mather coming 2nd followed by BBDO in 3rd.

The winners of the Young Creatives competition were also revealed during the ceremony with the team from Leo Burnett / Arc Worldwide Singapore picking up the Gold medal for their Integrated work for Mercy Relief.

The first Advertiser of the Year Award, presented to advertisers who have either distinguished themselves for inspiring innovative marketing of their products, who embrace and encourage the creative work produced by their agencies or who lead the way forward with new communication initiatives was presented to The Times of India Group in honour of their Lead India campaign, an initiative to seek out the next generation of leaders for India.

The winning work, which was judged in Singapore over the last week by 39 top international creatives and media experts from 18 countries, can be viewed at www.spikes.asia/winners.About Spikes Asia

The 1st Asian Advertising Festival to celebrate and inspire Asian creativity in advertising. Suntec City, Singapore, 16-18 September 2009

Building on 22 years of the illustrious Spikes Awards, the Spikes Asia Festival is the result of a collaboration between the International Advertising Festival, organisers of Cannes Lions, Dubai Lynx and Eurobest and Haymarket. It will provide the region’s growing creative and advertising industry with a platform to network and exchange ideas, bringing together some of the finest creative thinkers from across the region and around the world.

The Festival will offer a challenging programme of seminars and workshops focusing on creativity and learning, exhibitions of creative work from Asia, networking events in the evening and the Spikes Asia awards show.

The Awards, judged by leading international and regional creatives, will honour the best creative work in the categories of TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Integrated, Direct, Sales Promotion, Media, Print Craft, TV/Cinema Craft and Design.

Source: Spikes Asia