Week at a glance: India on Budget watch, industry reactions and more...

Digital players across India are upbeat about the Budget 2018 proposals and see them providing a huge growth impetus for India's digital advertising sector as well as powering the Digital India drive. 

Meanwhile, media players – be it television, radio, print or content producers – also see a growth-oriented Budget 2018 as they believe the doubling  of allocation for Digital India drive as well as creation of 5 lakh Wi-Fi hotspot will give a boost to broadcasters and content consumption on-the-go. 

Reacting to the Union Budget 2018-19, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network, has welcomed the focus on the rural and agricultural sector. He also welcomed the emphasis on Digital, particularly higher-end digital areas like Artificial Intelligence and usage of Block Chain, which he was confident of providing a further digital thrust. 

Several measures and sops have been announced to give a boost to the Government’s Digital India initiative, led by doubling the allocation for Digital India to Rs 3,073 crore. Vivek Bhargava, CEO, DAN Performance Group, is upbeat about the Budget proposals, which he is confident will give a boost to India’s digital economy. 

There has been an outpouring of grief and tributes for Ranjan Kapur, Chairman WPP India and former Managing Director Ogilvy India who passed away on January 27, 2018. Sir Martin Sorrell, CVL Srinivas, Bobby Pawar, Raj Nayak, Devraj Sanyal, Babita Baruah, and Shekhar Kapur remember the ad veteran and their association with Kapur. 

Kyoorius Group recently joined hands with The One Club for Creativity, the leading global non-profit organisation behind The One Show, ADC Annual Awards and other programming, to serve as the Club’s official representative in India. Under the agreement, The One Club will also contribute to the composition of the jury for all future editions of Kyoorius Creative Awards, as well as provide the Club’s high-integrity judging process and proprietary back-end voting technology platform. Adgully spoke to Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club for Creativity, and Rajesh Kejriwal, founder and CEO, Kyoorius Group, to know more about the nature of this association, how it plans to benefit the Indian advertising and creative industry, promoting young talent in India and much more. 

Viacom18’s second music channel, MTV Beats, is into its second year of presence in the Indian market and has seen 118 per cent growth in its viewership, with increasing time being spent on the channel. In conversation with Adgully, Ferzad Palia, Head, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, traces MTV Beat’s journey so far, the factors that have contributed to the channel’s growth, the way forward for the music genre in India, and much more. 

OnePlus is on a roll to capture and establish itself as the “it” mobile phone brand for its consumer base, that the brand prefers to call the ‘OnePlus Community’. In conversation with Adgully, Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, explores the many facets behind the rapidly growing mobile phone brand in India, building the OnePlus community, breaking the monopoly of well-established mobile phone brands in India, the Amazon connect and much more. 

Greenply Industries Ltd recently kicked-off the second phase of its breakthrough ‘Ask Greenply’ campaign. Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, the latest campaign continues in the humourous vein of the previous TVCs. Throwing more light on the second phase of the campaign Kamal Kant Mishra, Associate Vice President & Head of Marketing, Greenply Industries Ltd, said that it is largely inspired by the success of the first phase of the campaign. 

Ashish Shah, Founder & CEO, Vertoz, takes stock of the major development and trends in 2017 that will have a significant impact on the growth of digital advertising in India in the year ahead. According to Shah, the programmatic advertising business model has changed from B2B to B2C, which will allow digital agencies to directly sign on clients. He also highlights the increasing need for impression-by-impression targeting. 

Bipin R Pandit, COO, The Advertising Club and avid music lover, is back with yet another edition of his annual musical extravaganza – Khumaar. As Pandit gears up for Khumaar, which will be held in Mumbai on February 10, 2018, Adgully caught up with him to know where the music maverick unfolds his idea behind his musical endeavour, his thoughts on promoting new talent in music, his association with The Ad Club and much more. 

Rupa, India’s leading knitwear brand that produces innerwear, casual wear, thermal wear and sleep wear for men, women & kids, has picked Creativeland Asia as their creative partner. As part of the mandate, Creativeland will be responsible for creative communication strategy, planning and execution on 6 brands of Rupa – Frontline, Euro, Thermocot, Bumchums, Torrido and Jon. 

Danone India has roped in Taproot Dentsu as their creative agency on record for the entire portfolio of their health food drink brand, Protinex. Danone India is part of the global food-products multinational corporation Danone, headquartered in Paris. 

Sintex has appointed J Walter Thompson Mumbai to handle its creative duties. The agency’s Mumbai office will handle the account, which was won post a multi-agency pitch. 

Publicis Groupe has announced the continuation of its transformation through the evolution of its Solution Hub leadership teams and the implementation of its Regional Leadership Model. These moves are the next step in Publicis Groupe’s strategy aimed at breaking down silos while strengthening its vertical practices. The Groupe has also lined up some key top management changes in its India operations, which will be announced shortly. 

Zenith has published a special edition of its data & insights publication, ‘Global Intelligence’, focused on eight key areas of focus for marketers over the coming year. Called ‘2018 The Year Ahead’, the publication builds on Zenith’s previous annual trends reports this year, acknowledging that many areas of real opportunity for marketers have been developing over the past couple of years. 

BARC ratings for Week 4 of 2018 (January 20-26) [HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals] saw a strong show being put up by the FTA channels on the viewership front. Zee Anmol held on to its No. 1 spot, followed by Star Bharat, Sony Pal and Star Utsav. 

In the lead-up to the presentation of the Union Budget for 2018-19, Adgully spoke to a cross-section of key industry experts from the advertising, digital, media & entertainment sectors to find out their wishlist for the Finance Minister. Almost all players were hopeful of greater impetus by the Government to grow the Digital India ecosystem. They were also looking forward to more sops to strengthen rural India and bring it under the ambit of Digital India. Well... as it turned out, the Finance Minister did fulfil these wishes.