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Indian advertising honchos remain bullish about 2010. The signs of an economic recovery, has instilled a sense of hope in them with expectations that spend levels in the New Year will be better than what they were in 2009.
"Focusing more on online advertising and moving away from the current commission-based remuneration system will be the key challenges for the Indian communication and advertising industry in 2010, says Charles Cadell, CEO, Lowe Lintas India Pvt. Ltd. Cadell, a British and New Zealand citizen, has worked in India for about two years and has earlier been in several crucial South-East Asian markets such as Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
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Bollywood may be having a late golden run at the box office with Raju Hirani’s ‘3 Idiots’, but 2009 clearly belonged to Hollywood in India. At least two films — James Cameron’s epic action adventure ‘Avatar’ (20th Century Fox) and Sony Pictures’ disaster flick ‘2012’ grossed over INR 150 crore at the box office, surpassing most Hindi releases in 2009.
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Reliance MediaWorks (RMW), formerly Adlabs, has acquired the assets of ilab UK Ltd, one of only two film processing facilities operating in London’s Soho. With this acquisition, RMW has expanded and strengthened its international presence which is already spread well across the globe.
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Coca-Cola India, the country’s third largest advertiser, has just shot its most expensive television commercial with actor Akshay Kumar for Thums Up – the country’s largest fizzy drink – at an estimated cost of Rs 4.5 crore ($1 million). Ad industry officials say this could be the most expensive Indian TV commercial, and by far surpasses that of Bharti Airtel DTH’s inaugural campaign that featured 10 celebrities.
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"Oh God!! Marketing meetings are tougher and more stressful than shooting a film ... it's the order of the day...” says a tweet by Karan Johar
on January 3,2010
From Amitabh Bachchan reading news on television to Salman Khan launching a nationwide hunt for unsung heroes or Aamir Khan travelling to different parts of the country in disguise as part of an alternate reality game or Shahid Kapoor and Genelia D'Souza spending a night together in a car, movie marketing has come a long way from actors shaking a leg in television reality shows and sundry events, giant glitzy billboards, funky film posters and traditional television commercials.
With recent success stories at the box office proving that promoting one's film is as important as the film itself, producers are now spending more on marketing than ever before. Strategies are getting as experimental and innovative as the film subjects itself.
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This time around, the Idea Cellular campaign champions the cause of environmental awareness. After the breakthrough “Walk when you talk” campaign, Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular has come out with another hard-hitting message. This time it’s championing the cause of the “Environment” by urging people to use their mobile phones instead of paper.
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Its time for brands to look beyond questionnaires that throws up vague data. Instead looking deeper into people’s personalities and thinking of them as ‘Tribes’ can be fruitful. Consumer questionnaires are too restrictive, leading to vague data that cannot be effectively used by brands. The answer is to look deeper into people’s personalities and think of them more as ‘Tribes’. Many companies conduct major segmentation studies, but few will claim to derive real value from them. This is a concern, given that segmentation is most typically used when the essential brand strategy is under review.
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The endearing Ranchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad of ‘3 Idiots’ is tearing away the record books once again, and suddenly it seems that ‘Aal Eez Well’ with the Indian advertising space. Actor Aamir Khan has just landed the biggest endorsement deal in Indian advertising history. He will promote new telecom entrant, UAE’s Etisalat, for Rs 30-35 crore for three years, kicking in some fresh energy into the Indian advertising segment that has been licking its wounds from the financial slowdown.
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Bollywood's sagging fortunes could be salvaged by a business vehicle called ‘Limited Liability Partnerships’ (LLPs). Taking a cue from Hollywood, where the model is hugely successful, a clutch of Indian filmmakers like Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC), UTV, Percept etc are looking at forming LLPs that allow artistes and technicians to have stakes in ventures without necessarily investing capital. Besides existing film production houses, corporates wanting to invest in the film industry could also find the LLP route an attractive model, feel experts.
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