Percept Talent Management (PTM), the 360-degree talent management company has won the award for “Best in Celebrity Management” at the 4th INDY’S Awards 2010. The Indy’s Award Ceremony is a very unique event which is held every year to honor the best talents for their outstanding performance in the field of marketing, PR, advertising & branding.

Confirming the news, Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, said: “Percept Talent Management (PTM) marks a confluence between creating, inculcating, honing and promoting ‘TALENT’ in every sense of the word. We are happy that our aim to provide a 360-degree solution for Talents from the media and entertainment arena has been appreciated and would like to thank the INDY’S for recognising us with this award. With such an excellent kick start to the year, we hope to continue to seek out new opportunities in the rapidly changing media and digital landscape while providing unparalleled service to our clients.”

Shailee Sanghvi, COO, PTM, added, “Being pioneers of the talent business over the past 15 years, it’s been our one point agenda to provide our clients (brands and celebrities) with innovative solutions to address their communication needs. It feels great to be felicitated with such an honor as it’s symbolic of our client’s faith in us over the years, that makes us want to try newer, better and bigger things. We look forward to an equally exciting 2010.”

Percept has managed celebs from all fields, be it sports, music or bollywood. Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherji, Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, Sreesanth, Mallika Sherawat, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Somdev Devvarman, Priyanka Chopra, Karan Johar, Amrita Rao, Katrina Kaif, Kolkata Knight Riders, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Raima Sen and Madhur Bhandharkar are some of the names associated with Percept.

The company has worked with bigshots like Nokia India and Gitanjali Group and has done a commendable job with their ambassadors.

Hindustan Unilever Limited, India’s largest FMCG Company has appointed Omnicom Media Group as its digital agency. The agency will handle the entire HUL portfolio including Dove and Ponds. Meanwhile, Mindshare still remains to be the traditional media agency for HUL.

HUL’s digital media account is pegged at about US$7 million. OMG has been appointed after a global review of Unilever’s media buying business.

The company is expected to explore the digital medium through search, display and mobile marketing for more than 10 brands including Dove, Ponds, Axe, Lakme, Kwality Walls and Knorr.

The move emphasizes the need of not only having an online presence but also creating an impact on the minds of the consumers.

IndiaMART.com, the online business portal is all set to reach out to its target group. The portal has launched an extensive two month campaign across radio, Internet and print media. The campaign will spread awareness amongst buyers and suppliers regarding the medium and will encourage them to partner with the site.

Launching the ad campaign, Dinesh Agarwal, founder and CEO, IndiaMART, said: “The world is changing fast and everyone knows it. More and more people are doing business online and even the smallest business can no longer afford not to be there on Internet. IndiaMART.com has made it very simple for buyers and suppliers to do business from anywhere to anywhere. We wish all SMEs and MSMEs become part of the silent revolution and adopt Internet as a new way of doing business to achieve sustainable expansion, growth and competitiveness.”

Agarwal also said, “At a time when everyone is cutting on hiring and marketing activities, the Internet serves as an economical means of reaching newer markets. There are numerous such hidden opportunities that businesses can explore on Internet.”

Arun Tyagi, general manager, marketing, IndiaMART.com, spoke about the campaign, “India has more than 10 million SMEs, out of which only about one million SMEs are online. Our integrated marketing campaign aims to bridge this gap by communicating the benefits of Internet to the small and medium businesses and make them understand how Internet has become a new channel of sales for their business. Nationwide presence across print, radio and Internet shall help us in taking our message to the large part of the target audience. In a first of its kind branding experiment, we will have presence in the national daily newspapers during the entire duration of the campaign.”

The print campaign will be featured in newspapers like Times of India, Economic Times, Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times and Vijay Karnataka. The campaign will also have an online presence by featuring on Google, Yahoo, Rediff, Moneycontrol, Times of India. com , Economictimes.com , Indianexpress.com etc. and other 1000+ websites.

LG Electronics is all set to launch 14 new models and reposition the brand as a fun-loving, free-spirited brand, which promises quality, innovation, style and excellence in performance. LG has therefore signed Bollywood hotties John Abraham, Genelia D’souza and Abhay Deol to endorse its latest range of mobile phones.

LG officials added that John, Abhay and Genelia are youth icons and fit the role well. Sudhin Mathur, business group marketing head, Mobile Communications, LG Electronics India Limited, further added, “They are youth icons. Having established ourselves in the field of innovation and design, LG Mobiles is now poised to scale new heights. As part of our overall strategy to reposition LG Mobiles as a youthful brand, the brand ambassadors will help us in relating with our consumers.”

Prior to this LG did not have any celeb endorsers except for Abhishek Bachchan, who was the brand ambassador for LG’s consumer durables range. Co-incidentally this will also be Abhay Deol’s first association with a FMCG brand. He has been associated with Video Volunteers, an organization that aims at creating alternative media at the grassroots level.

Abhay Deol confirmed the news and spoke about his association, “I always stand for what I believe, be it professional or personal life. Brand LG has always been a personal favourite, and when I was approached for these elegant and stylish mobile phones, I was very excited. These phones come with the perfect bundle of offerings that any youngster would want and is a perfect fit with me.”

John Abraham also added, “I love the networking concept in LG phones. I believe in togetherness, sharing, networking and am completely hooked on to social networking sites, which help me keep in touch with family and friends.”

“LG mobile phones are trendy, stylish, funky and chic; just the way I am. The mobile phones are conveniently designed, which makes them user friendly and simple to operate,” concluded Genelia.

Rachana Dharia from Tribal DDB India has decided to join Rediffusion Y&R as head, digital (West and South region). She will be reporting to Nisha Singhania, executive vice-president, Rediffusion Y&R (Mumbai). She was working as head, digital solutions at Tribal DDB India.

Dharia confirmed the news and spoke about her role in Rediffusion, “I will be responsible for beefing up the digital advertising capabilities of the agency and also work towards the evangelization of the digital medium within the agency and its clients. Apart from this, I will be involved in chalking out the digital strategy and getting new businesses for Rediffusion Y&R in the West and South regions.”

Nisha Singhania also added, “Dharia will be based in Mumbai and head the West and South markets. Kiran Dhillon, who was appointed business head, digital in August 2009, will now head and handle the northern and eastern regions.”

Dharia has an experience of 14 years and has worked extensively in the digital media space. In the past Dharia has worked with agencies like Tribal DDB, Tech Mahindra and Infosys.

PepsiCo India has launched its first ‘Smart Choice’ café in Chennai. The café will promote the health segment of the company which is marketed under the name ‘Snack Smart’. The company plans to open such outlets in New Delhi and four other cities by the end of the year.

The café will offer a variety of healthy food dishes and beverages like Quaker muffins, Quaker Idly (made from Quaker oats, a PepsiCo product), Tropicana 100 per cent smoothies, Nimbooz (the company’s lemon-flavoured beverage), coconut mint mocktails. The café along with promoting PepsiCo products will also act as an incentive for its consumers to eat healthy foods and stay fit.

Mallika Janakiraman, vice-president, health and wellness, PepsiCo India, said, “Keeping with its emphasis on performance with purpose, PepsiCo has always partnered with different stakeholders in promoting good nutrition and healthy lifestyles, and this is yet another milestone in a continuous endeavor to do better than our best to be part of a solution to make tomorrow better than today.”

The company has collaborated with the Centre for Nutrition Counseling, Research and Extension Activities at Women’s Christian College, Chennai to set up the Smart Choice Café in college campuses and will offer students healthy breakfast choices.

In the coming years, health segment will be one of the priority markets for PepsiCo, as announced by Indra Nooyi, global chairman of PepsiCo.

Imran Khan, the Bollywood star who made a smashing debut with Jane Tu Ya Jaane Na is all set to debut in the world of endorsements. Imran has been signed as the brand ambassador of Coca-Cola.

Talking about the association, Imran said, “This is actually the first and the only endorsement I have signed over a year and a half since I have joined the film industry. This was the only endorsement that I wanted to sign before they ever came to me. I think Aamir has been endorsing Coke for 10 years now and ever since I was a kid, I used to watch his ads. I have always considered Coca-Cola to be synonymous with refreshment and happiness. I am sure everyone will find the new Coca-Cola communication extremely engaging.”

The new campaign also features Kalki Koechlin (from Dev D). Speaking about the TVC, Imran added, ‘The entire concept of the film is about how Coke breaks the ice between two characters who might not have been together, if Coke wasn’t there. What is really interesting in the ad is that we have used an imaginary bottle.’

The campaign was conceptualized by the creative team of McCann Erickson and was directed by Dibakar Banerjee (director ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ and ‘Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!’).

Coca-Cola also plans to get mamu Aamir Khan and nephew together for an ad shortly. Until then, enjoy this one..

Any student enrolled in Mumbai University’s three year holiday course with a degree certificate (also known to some as BMM), will be quite aware of the fact that a considerable portion of their marks depends on their projects. And projects are probably the factor that set undergraduate courses apart from the ‘memorize and vomit’ format to which students were hitherto accustomed. In other words, any student wishing to begin or continue a streak of good scores after taking up BMM needs to do more than just learning prescribed answers to stereotyped questions by heart (as is quite commonly the norm in CBSE schools). Therefore a list detailing some of the common errors made by earlier batches while executing their BMM projects has been compiled for the benefit of such students (and also of the indifferent majority comprising other varieties).

*Please do note that the list has been provided so that the errors can be avoided rather than repeated.

1. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!

Start work from Day 1

Many have wondered about the best time to begin work on their projects in BMM. In such a situation it is wise to assume that the professor probably had a reason for assigning the projects so far in advance of the submission date (rather than imagining that these dates were decided through an elaborate process involving a calendar and darts) viz. that the project requires a considerable amount of research and therefore, considering that there’ll be other activities to keep students busy, it would be best to start it as soon as possible.

*Note: If not too busy flirting/daydreaming, it would be advisable to write down the project brief as the professor explains it.

2. YOU’RE NOT SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN!

In other words – don’t jump out of the window believing you can fly or believe that you’re capable enough to do the project without the help of your teammates.

Anyone who believes that the phrase ‘one-man team’ makes sense needs to re-appear for their Math and English papers before continuing the course. No matter how skilled an individual may be, a project by his/her so-called ‘inferiors’ who worked together as a group would, 9 times out of 10, be superior to a project done individually by him/her simply because of the value of brainstorming and pooling together the group’s collective experiences and strengths. Make sure the entire group is involved in EVERY aspect of a group project and meets regularly to evaluate progress.
*Remember: Too many chefs spoil the broth, but the chef alone can’t manage the entire kitchen.

3. DO NOT WAGE WAR!

Words many wish George W. Bush (among others) had paid heed to a few years ago.

However, in a more relevant context, do not believe your peers to be your enemies. It’s possible that there will be those who try to rise up by pulling others down, but there’s no reason to categorize all your peers that way. Be open, friendly and don’t hesitate to exchange information about your projects fearing they’ll steal your ideas. You may learn a lot from each others’ mistakes and your professors aren’t dumb that they won’t recognize a copy when they see one.

*Remember: One who needs to copy is one who is ill prepared. And a well prepared original is much better than a shoddily prepared copy (which is probably why nobody’s ready to pay $1 million for my version of the Mona Lisa).

4. DO NOT JUMP IN WITH GUNS BLAZING!

Max Payne could do that, but he had bullet time.

Before starting on a project, it is recommended that one view similar projects by the previous batches to see how things are done and more importantly, to get an idea of how the end product of their hard work (well… not always) turns out. It’s also important to chalk out a step by step strategy for the execution of the project. This makes it easy to keep working and to monitor one’s progress. Play devil’s advocate with your group members. Question each choice so that you’re ready with answers when others do.

5. DO NOT MAKE IT AN EGO BATTLE!

Just because your idea wasn’t selected for the project doesn’t mean you haven’t contributed anything to it.

One very often brings their ego into the equation while working on a project. If such is the case, then it is advisable to slap oneself on the face and remember that the project is more important. It is quite demoralizing when one’s ideas are not accepted/do not meet with approval. However, that’s no reason to squabble with one’s teammates.

*Remember: Professors don’t give you marks based on how many of your ideas made it to the hard copy. It’s not a call centre.

6. DO NOT MAKE A GROCERY LIST; DO NOT WRITE A 200 PAGE NOVEL!

Your marks do not depend on the weight of your hard copy. They depend on what’s within.

Your project hard copy needs to explain not only what you’ve accomplished in the course of the project, but also the thought process behind it. So make sure it contains all the information required, but don’t drown it a sea of words making it hard for the examiner to FIND the info.

7. DO NOT COPY+PASTE/CTRL+C, CTRL+V!

Wikipedia (and Google too) is great. We all know that. But chances are that if YOU could find it on Wikipedia, so can your professors.

While there’s no problem using Wikipedia as a source of information, do not make it the ONLY source of information, and DEFINITELY do not copy the content directly onto your soft copy. Learn to paraphrase the information. Understand it and write it down in your own words. Your project isn’t a means for your professor to unravel the mysteries of the world. It’s a way for YOU to learn more about the topic. Whenever you copy directly from a source, (not more than a 50-word paragraph… and that too occasionally) make sure you give them the credit for the information.

8. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PRESENTATION!

A picture’s worth a thousand words, but don’t turn your hard copy into a graphic novel.

A well formatted, well presented copy will (and rightly so) always by awarded more marks than a less appealing project of the same merit. Spend some time making some snazzy visuals in Photoshop and learning to format your document in word.

9. DO NOT FUDGE FACTS!

Neither the American government (Mission Apollo) nor the head honchos at Satyam could get away with it. So the likelihood that you will isn’t very promising.

The term ‘fudging facts’ includes but is not limited to surveys where the college dog, your imaginary friend and the President of Czechoslovakia graciously agreed to fill in your questionnaire. You get half the day off (unlike engineering students) to give you ample time to work on your projects. So make sure you’ve actually done the work you claim to have done in your project.

Note: If you’re good at cooking stuff up, organize a charity bake sale and put it to some good use.

10. DO NOT STRATIFY YOUR TEAM!

Division of labor is smart; lack of communication between divisions is stupid.

While it’s necessary for the work in the project to be divided amongst the members based on their aptitude, every team member must still be well informed of what that others are up to. Just because someone does one job well doesn’t mean he/she’s completely useless elsewhere. Be open to inputs from other members but try not to step on their toes while providing feedback.

Remember: The professor can ask any of you about any segment of the project. He knows nothing of how the work was divided. (Also for an example on the consequences of a lack of communication between departments, examine any government in the world) 😉

Afterthought: -Probabilities of power cuts, printer failures, hard disk crashes, dogs/cows chewing up homework etc. tend to increase on the day before project submission. Make sure you have everything ready two days in advance. Professors tend to get cynical at times.

– Raghav Rao