Week at a glance: Pay for news - NBA to Google; Spotlight on women leaders

How brands are breaking through gender stereotyping in ads

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Adgully spoke to a cross-section of industry experts on how brand communication has evolved today in terms of addressing the women TG. Here’s what they had to say...

Our current SUV market share is 9.6%: Vivek Srivatsa, Tata Motors

Speaking to Adgully in an exclusive interview Vivek Srivatsa, Head - Marketing, PVBU, Tata Motors, spoke in depth about their plans and explained their approach and strategy to make this vehicle as the most preferred brand in the SUV category.

The snacking segment grew by 10% in 2020: K Ramakrishnan, Kantar

K Ramakrishnan, Managing Director – South Asia, Worldpanel Division, Kantar, has several interesting stats to share regarding growth in various categories during the pandemic period. He also talks about certain categories, such as hygiene, immunity-boosters, snacking that have gained prominence in these times.

How work culture is getting reinvented, and women’s important role in the new normal

As part of the #TwitterChat discussion held just before International Women’s Day on March 8, the focus turned to “Creating A More Conducive Environment For Women In Post-Pandemic Times”. While women have been breaking through glass ceilings at the workplace, the overall women workforce in the country – and even globally – remains a dismally low as compared to be the male workforce.

Carat India appoints Ashish Singh as Vice President - Planning

Carat India, the flagship media agency from the house of dentsu international, has appointed Ashish Singh as Vice President - Planning. In his new role, Singh will report into Anita Kotwani, CEO, Carat India, and will lead the agency’s digital mandate for North and East. He will focus on developing and leading client relationships for Carat in addition to helping the agency deliver enhanced digital solutions to clients.

Preeti Vyas Giannetti & Sonal Dabral – An unabridged lesson in Design

The Women Disruptors Lifetime Achievement Award for 2021 was conferred upon Preeti Vyas Giannetti, Chairwoman & Chief Creative Officer, Vyas Giannetti Creative. Giannetti was recognised for her tireless efforts and significant contribution towards the Indian Advertising and Design industry in various ways for the past 3 decades.

Women today have become the drivers of economic recovery: Heeru Dingra

In conversation with Adgully, Heeru Dingra, CEO, WATConsult, speaks about adapting to the rapid transition to digital during the pandemic times, maintaining work-life balance while working from home, lessons in effective leadership and more.

“Marketers will have to be more intuitive, interactive, immersive in the new normal”

Nikhil Rungta, Country Manager – India, Verizon Media, speaks about how brands will have to rethink solutions across the omnichannel media journey in the new normal. Along with all the ‘Digi-ruptions’, he also sees the good old email surfacing as the frontrunner.

Back in India, IPL 2021 shrugs off pandemic effect with multiple venues

After a highly successful season held amid the global pandemic last year, and that too outside India, the 14^th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will kick off from April 9, 2021, with the opening match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore and will be played in Chennai. The tournament will conclude with the finals being played on May 30, 2021. The world’s largest cricket stadium, Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, will host the playoffs as well as the finals. Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata will host the marquee event in the 14^th edition.

HUL says no to ‘normal’ in its ads & packs, adopts new positive beauty vision

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) today announced that it will eliminate the word ‘normal’ from all of its beauty and personal care brands’ packaging and advertising, as part of the launch of Unilever’s new Positive Beauty vision and strategy.

It took a pandemic to reveal the leadership power of women: Industry experts

While the global pandemic has led to a lot of disruptions, hardships and life-changing transitions in everyone’s life, the impact has been especially a significant one on women professionals. Adgully’s marquee Women Disruptors 2021 event turned the spotlight on ‘Impact of Pandemic on Women in Marketing, Media and Communications’.

Real is progressive - How women marketers feel about the current state of advertising

Women are the most significant market opportunity on earth and are principal shoppers in both consumer and business markets. The role of women as consumer, influencer and secondary influencer can be felt in most categories. Yet gendered segmentation in marketing is prevalent and has been influencing advertising communications for decades. At the Women Disruptors Summit 2021, we were joined by some of the most astute women leaders in the business of advertising to understand a better way to communicate to women.

Insight is the bedrock for developing great creative work: Neeraj Bassi

To get a clearer perspective and a deeper insight on strategy and design, and how the business has evolved in the last two decades, Adgully caught up with Neeraj Bassi, Chief Strategy Officer, Havas Group India, who shared his point of view and explained how crucial it is for design and strategy to play a key role in the journey of a brand. 

Oriflame is planning to double its business over the next 3 years: Naveen Anand

Life is good only with loved ones, food, and a strong WiFi connection – that has been a key takeaway for Naveen Anand, Senior Director, Regional Marketing, Oriflame South Asia, from the entire pandemic disruption. In this interaction, Anand speaks about Oriflame’s performance during the pandemic period as well as future growth strategy.

Online ads with diverse representation have higher recall: Facebook

A study published by Facebook looked at misrepresentation and underrepresentation in online advertising. The study was conducted in partnership with experts on the field of representation. The effort included a survey of 1,200 people, a review of more than 1,200 brand lift studies and an analysis conducted with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media of more than 1,000 Facebook video ads.

F&B sector ad volumes on Radio up 60% in Q4 2020: TAM AdEx

TAM AdEx’s overview of advertising by the Food & Beverages sector in 2020 across TV, Print, Radio and Digital reveals steep growth in all four media platforms in the post-lockdown period, with Radio recording a growth of 60%, TV saw an ad volume growth of 37%.

Subconscious biases exist in every organisation in varying intensities, say women leaders

The panel discussion on ‘Women leaders of tomorrow- Are we encouraging them enough?’, provided a lot of interesting insights into how Indian corporate are grooming and mentoring future women leaders. The discussions also touched upon topics such as gender sensitivity, harassment at the workplace and much more. The session was moderated by Girish Huria, EVP, Growth and New Initiatives, Avian WE, Western Region Chair, PRCAI, and the speakers who joined him were:

E-comm has become a very big enabler for non-conventional tea market: Nalin Sood

Nalin Sood, CEO, Teamonk Global, shares his insights on the growth in the tea consumption market and how the consumption patterns of tea in India have changed drastically in the recent years. He also speaks about how e-commerce is a very big enabler now, especially for the specialty tea market. 

NBA writes to Google urging revenue sharing by intermediary tech platforms

Highlighting how digital platforms have fundamentally changed the way media content is produced, distributed and consumed, the NBA letter stated that a changing media landscape, with the majority of the public using digital platforms to obtain their news, has resulted in a power imbalance between traditional media/ news organizations and big-tech/digital technology platforms.

AajTak takes on rumour mongering in 3rd film of #AajTakSabseTez campaign

As part of the on-going #AajTakSabseTez campaign, the nation’s undisputed No.1 news channel AajTak, today launched the third film of the series. The film titled ‘Afwaah’ features AajTak’s star anchor Anjana Om Kashyap and demonstrates the adverse effects of rumour mongering in news which if unchecked poses a danger to the society at large. What makes the film really interesting is its tongue in cheek style, shot in a salon setting, which also happens to be the epicentre of all random national and political news & opinions.

Women have a history of fighting adversity to get what they want: Asha Jindal Khaitan

In conversation with Adgully, Asha Jindal Khaitan, Founder of asa, points out that empathy wins in times of crisis, and adds that women have a better grasp on effective communication, inspiring and motivating those around them to keep together. 

#TwitterChat: Cracking the social commerce code

Social commerce is the ability to integrate commerce into the native social media experience. It is not simply redirecting users to the e-commerce store after viewing a paid promotion. To enable social commerce, the social media needs to enable features like checkout, product listing, reviews, and customer support, while the brand needs to take care of logistics and delivery tracking. Enabling commerce capability requires seamless integration of a lot of features on social platforms.

How The Beauty Co is carving a niche for itself in the women’s grooming industry

In conversation with Adgully, Suraj Raj Vazirani, Founder & CEO, The Beauty Co., speaks about what motivated him to start his own venture, the difficulties faced, message for budding entrepreneurs and much more. 

Now, NBF writes to CCI, wants it to probe BARC’s monopoly practice

After seeking the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s (MIB) intervention and action in resumption of TV ratings for the news genre by BARC India in February this year, the News Broadcasters Federation has now written to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), seeking investigation into, what it calls, the monopoly practice of BARC India.

WPP to accelerate investment in India, China and South America in 2021

WPP has put up a resilient show, witnessing further recovery in Q4 of 2020. Its net debt at December 31, 2020 was reported at £0.7 billion, which was better than expected and down £0.8 billion year-on-year, reflecting continued strong working capital and cash management.

The newest kid on the block "VOOT Select" completes a year

Launched with the brand promise of ‘made for stories’ that are differentiated and compelling, Viacom18’s premium SVoD offering VOOT Select has emerged as the fastest growing Indian OTT platform to hit a landmark milestone of  one million active direct paying subscribers in less than a year of launch.