Yet another rumour doing rounds in the Indian advertising fraternity is that WPP has decided to merge Bates 141 with Grey Worldwide. Some have even added Equus Red Cell to the mix. We are not saying it has happened already, but exchange4media has brought this rumour on the table. And a closer look shows that in the present scenario, the move may just benefit both companies, especially from a human resource point of view.  more...

They don’t seem to create ad icons out of a nobody anymore; instead, what we have is a celebrity-led ad circus. Gone are the days when campaigns created enduring icons like Lalitaji (Surf) or Karen Lunel Hishey (the original Liril Girl). It’s been ages since one saw such enduring brand icons (the Hutch/Vodafone pug being an exception). exchange4media.com finds out from some of the biggest names in Indian advertising why there has been a dearth of such enduring icons in recent times.  more...

TAM Media Research has initiated the process of segregating the digital homes from the analog ones in the data that is released every week. A look at last month’s numbers shows that digital homes have a different story to tell for some players. In the Hindi general entertainment genre, Star Utsav is the clear No. 3 player in digital households.  more...

KK Birla was perhaps among the last of a generation of Indian industrialists who knew Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and always believed that it was the duty of industry to contribute to the task of nation-building. Along with another legendary second-generation industrialist, late JRD Tata, Birla had co-authored what is called the ‘Bombay Plan’ that outlined the role of business and the government in building a nation.  more...

Even as several international agencies are setting shop in India, there have been quite a few mainline agency people, who have ventured out to set up their own small communication start-ups. Bangalore has been seeing its fair share of such creative hot shops gaining ground. What is it that is encouraging this trend?  more...

Salem-headquartered Asian Health & Nutri Foods appointed Lintas Media Group Chennai as its media AOR. The size of the business is estimated to be in the region of Rs 8-10 crore. The pitch involved one more agency besides LMG. The creative duties are being handled by RK Swamy Chennai.  more...

Sanjay Bahadur has quit Mail Today as Associate Publisher-Impact for the India Today Group’s newspaper project. He had joined the Group in November 2006. Bahadur’s next destination is not yet known.  more...

With technology compressing the gadgets we use everyday – mobile phones, laptops, etc. – it is also changing the way we consume news, which is increasingly becoming news on the move. What impact will it have on the newspaper industry? With nearly all major publishers introducing compacts, the industry is trying to adapt in its own way. In order to understand compacts, impact organised a Roundtable on the Compact Newspapers.  more...

In a bid to provide yet another platform to advertisers, Indiatimes.com is launching an advertising service on mobile phones, called AdRingles, by the end of this year. With this service, each time a person calls an AdRingles customer, he will hear an ad or a movie dialogue instead of a ring tone until the called party answers the call.  more...

The Delhi High Court has sought response from the Information & Broadcasting Ministry and broadcast regulator TRAI on a petition seeking regulation of fee charged by multi-system operators (MSOs), cable operators and DTH operators to carry Total TV channel on their platform.  more...

Ratings, share and ad revenue normally goes up during Ganesh Mahotsav. This festival enables channels to target people across Maharashtra. FMCG, telecom, local and retail advertisers and jewellers, saree manufacturers are the categories that are active during this period. These are the sectors for who cultural connect matters a lot.  more...

Leading industry captains like Star India CEO Uday Shankar, PepsiCo’s Sandeep Arora and BBDO’s Josy Paul, among others, shared their thoughts and personal brand experiences on the theme ‘Bend your brands to what extent?’ at a seminar organised in the Capital by the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS).  more...

Everyone in the ad industry laments the talent crunch. Josy Paul, Chairman and Chief Creative Director, BBDO India, has a solution. He said that BBDO would be using local radio stations to hunt for new local talent across different places and added that the future lay in regionalisation.  more...

Print advertising of the biscuits category rose by 6 per cent in the first half of 2008 as compared to the corresponding of the previous year. Surya Food and Agro Pvt Ltd led the advertising of biscuit brands in print during H1 2008, while Parle Kreams Orange topped the chart of new biscuit brands during the said period.   more...