The Park Hotels, five star luxury boutique hotels in India have appointed Wieden+Kennedy, Delhi as its creative agency. The agency will be responsible for overall brand development and the launch of its two new properties: The Park, Hyderabad and Apsara Cruiser and The Park on Vembanad Lake.

Confirming the news, Vijay Dewan, managing director, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, said, “As creative partners of the Park Hotel brand, W+K will be responsible for creative brand strategy. The selection of this renowned creative agency was governed by their understanding of what our brand stands for, their creative strength, proven track record in developing global brands and their iconic work.”

Mohit Jayal, managing director, W+K said, “We are delighted to be working with The Park Hotel and look forward to creating work that uses global and local pop culture, contemporary art, design and technology to set new benchmarks in customer experience. We hope to build a long-lasting alliance with The Park Hotel.”

Balaji Telefilms has appointed IPAN Hill & Knowlton as its PR Agency. Balaji Telefilms, the production house owned by Ekta Kapoor is one of the leading production houses’ in the country. Balaji Telefilms Ltd. is India’s leading entertainment content provider providing entertainment on all the leading channels.

Ekta Kapoor, Joint Managing Director, Balaji Telefilms Ltd., said, “We are pleased to have IPAN Hill and Knowlton as our Public Relations partner because of their extensive understanding of the Corporate and Strategic requirements for various businesses under the Balaji Telefilms umbrella. The Agency’s experience in the entertainment sector is in perfect synergy with our communication objectives and will help us in achieving greater heights.”

Radhika Shapoorjee, President and IPAN Hill and Knowlton, also added, “We are delighted to have been chosen as the Public Relations agency for Balaji Telefilms Ltd. This initiative is going to be very exciting for us as we would be deeply involved in the communications positioning of various business verticals at Balaji Telefilms.”

IPAN Hill & Knowlton is India’s leading public affairs and public relations consulting firm. Founded in 1988, IPAN Hill & Knowlton Hill & Knowlton continues to serve some of the finest organizations in the world.

After a multi-agency pitch from advertising agencies, Maruti Suzuki has given its creative rights to Dentsu Creative Impact. The account is estimated to be worth Rs. 25 – 30 crore. Eeco is Maruti’s latest multi-purpose vehicle launched at the Delhi Auto Expo.

Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager Marketing, Maruti Suzuki confirmed and added, “The reason we gave the creative duties to Dentsu Creative Impact was because their capabilities and ideas were really different from others in the presentation. It is a 360 degree account comprising print, TVC, OOH and the Internet. The print ad has already broken. The TV ad is slated to break next week.”

Other agencies who also pitched were Capital, Percept Hakuhodo and Lowe Lintas. The media rights of the account are handled by Lintas Media Group.

ET Now, the news channel from the Times Group is now available on Tata Sky, a direct-to home provider. The channel will be available on Tata Sky’s channel no. 542. The channel had made it available on Airtel Digital TV last year as well.

The channel is among the top leading news channels in India and aims to increase its viewership by having its presence felt in the DTH sector.

Confirming the news, Vineet Jain, managing director, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) said, “Since its launch in June last year, ET NOW has acquired significant audience acceptance. In line with our effort to increase reach and viewership, ET NOW will capitalize on the high reach of Tata Sky across the country. We are committed to transforming the demography of the business news broadcasting segment and emerging as a preferred choice for corporate India.”

Vikram Kaushik, managing director and CEO, Tata Sky, further added, “Tata Sky, since its inception, has focused on creating a strong premium brand. In a similar fashion, ET NOW has successfully achieved a niche status as becoming the voice of India Inc by delivering authoritative and accurate developments in real time. Making ET NOW available to our subscribers is one more way of enhancing experience of viewers who look for such insights.”

BloombergUTV has appointed Manoj Padmanabhan as Vice President, Sales. He would be responsible and will be taking care of growth in sales thus resulting in more revenues. Prior to this, Padmanabhan was working as Director for Ten Sports.

Confirming the news, Padmanabhan said, “I chose to move to BloombergUTV as it has a young talented team and is a combination of two big names in the industry. The channel has a lot of promise. The intention is to provide a very good alternative to the current market leader.”

Padmanabhan has earlier worked with Times of India (two years), Zoom (for a year) and Ten Sports (five years).

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Dabur Hajmola, the popular digestive range has added another variant in its kitty. The company has launched Hajmola Kachcha Aam as a strategic move to push the sales of the product. Hajmola currently is the market leader with 60% share of the digestive tablets in India.

Mr. K K Rajesh, Vice President-Marketing (Healthcare), Dabur India Ltd Executive said, “Hajmola has established itself as a ‘tasty & fun digestive’ for post meal consumption. Hajmola’s huge success can be gauged by the fact that over 2.5 crore Hajmola tablets are consumed in India daily. Over the years, we have introduced many flavours to offer consumers greater variety. The launch of Hajmola Kachcha Aam is another step forward in this direction. Kachcha Aam is extensively used in Indian cuisine to enhance taste and is also popular for its digestive properties (pickles). So, it was a logical new flavour for the Hajmola digestive range.”

Hajmola Kachcha Aam will be available in Re. 1 sachet of 6 tablets, and will offer digestive and nutritional values of raw mango. The brand will also rollout a campaign for the variant, which will feature on television and on-ground activation programmes.
Mr. Rajesh, further added, “As part of our new consumer-connect initiative, Hajmola is joining hands with the scores of popular street food outlets across the country, giving them a new look-and-feel. Customers at these outlets will be served Hajmola to promote its post-meal connect and further establish Hajmola as a hygienic, tasty and easy-to-consume post-meal digestive.”

Hungama is all set to celebrate this new year with the launch of its latest website, ArtistAloud.com. The website is an effort to promote unreleased music of independent artists. The website allows artists to upload their music and share it with the world.

ArtistAloud.com offers songs in mp3 format, supported by computers as well as mobiles. As of now, the site features songs from six genres i.e. alternative pop, classic Indi-pop, fusion, English rock, Hindi rock and Bollywood pop. The site offers various options like preview of the desired song and purchasing tracks. It offers DRM (digital rights management)-free music at Rs 10 a piece and four songs can be downloaded at Rs 20.

Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Digital Media, has said, “Hungama’s new initiative, ArtistAloud.com, combines the possibilities of digital platform with great musical talent. It rests on two pillars — giving each artist his freedom of expression and music lovers their right to choose from a wider offering.”

The site has been appreciated by leading singers, musicians and artists from Bollywood. Their views and opinions have also been showcased on the website.