Move over men…
...women are having all the fun!

(column by Pallavi Srivastava)

“Talk advertising, and there’s the good mother who doesn’t think of herself but only about her kids’ wellness, a girl who is almost always standing on the highway in a short skirt, asking for a lift... a dumb girl with red hot lips et al. There are no grey shades. There are no blacks either. Only whites - fair and lovely,” says Titus Upputuru of O&M on the depiction of women in advertising. He adds that the real Indian women are far more stronger. And most would agree. She’s independent , strong, aware, blah blah... A whole lot of products are targeted at her; she is the decision maker with increased purchasing power.

However, all is not white. Since the time Lalitaji sold us Surf, there has surely been a change in the definition of a housewife, though a subtle one. Those with an observant mind have already sensed the change. A sizzling Priyanka Chopra rides a Hero Honda Pleasure with aplomb and announces ‘why should boys have all the fun?’ The latest ad of ICICI prudential Life insurance gives the white saris and tears a miss, rather has a tongue-in-cheek way of communicating its product attributes where the wife takes the lead. Says Preeti Nair of Lowe, “Most of the ads today showcase women in a more controlling and revolutionary role. A lot of this change is because we as a country are changing…”

Not hard to believe considering that even the highly debated Fair and Lovely ads have started to move on. Just a few years back, they said – get fair and get married (remember the ‘Kundali mil gayi’ ad!). And now they promise – get beautiful and become successful.

So, has advertising got over the stereotyped face of the women portrayed in ads? Prathap Suthan, NCD, Grey Worldwide is quick to disagree, “There is no paradigm shift. Though there are a few brands that have started to portray women in other than their traditional roles, and the women in ads have become more cosmopolitan, but still they are few and they can’t really bring a mass impact”. Fair enough, but the silver lining is: For every five ads that have the selfless mother or the sexy girlfriend, there is one that shows the new age women who boldly warns, Pink se panga nahin lene ka… Never!

(End of Pallavi Srivastava column)

People Movements

• With Indian advertising on a high tide, Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and National Creative Director, O&M, India has been elevated as the Vice Chairman of Asia Pacific region. He has been a part of the agency ever since 1994 and has been often credited with the success of the MNC agency in the country.
• Sujay Ghosh and Anchal Duggal have been roped in by Mudra, Bangalore as Group Business Directors to overlook the South expansion of the agency. At Grey Worldwide, New Delhi, Rupam Ganguly has joined as VP. Prior to this, Ganguly was with Philips, Singapore.
• Bidding a goodbye the advertising world and Triton, Anil Sanjivan is joining TV production house Miditech as Executive VP. Also, Mani Jayaram has moved to Euro RSCG as VP. He comes from Innocean and replaces Satbir Singh who has been elevated to the post of CEO Euro RSCG, India.
• In the media world, Bharat Ranga, incharge of the cinema channels of Zee Network will now Head Zee Entertainment’s International Business. Anooj Kapoor has been appointed the Business Head of SAB. He has more than 16 years of experience in diverse industries.
• Rabe T Iyer has been re-located to Mumbai as MD, West & South Operations, ZenithOptimedia after serving as GM Vietnam.
• ING Investment Management India has a new MD & CEO – Vineet Vohra who will be responsible for managing and growing ING’s investment management business in India. Also, Firdose Vandrevala, Chairman, Motorola India and Corporate VP, Motorola Inc. is bidding goodbye to the handset major. Dabur India has appointed Peter Baker the CEO of its retail venture – H&B stores.

Titan gets its edge
No put ons this time, it’s the real Aamir Khan’s rendezvous with Titan Edge...

(column by Romsha Singh)

Remember the MotoSLVR vs. Abhishek Bachchan series of ads that rocked the tele-tube some months ago? For the uninitiated, in the campaign Jr. Bachchan always loses to the ‘cool’ phone as he tries to hog all the limelight. Made by O&M, the series was quite a hit. Well, quite similar is the stance that Titan Edge’s latest ad takes (also made by O&M) and one can’t help but get reminded of the Motorola ads where the celebrity (Abhishek Bachchan) was overshadowed by the product. However, in this case, the celebrity (Aamir Khan who is back after a long gap) becomes the cynosure of all eyes and is highlighted thanks to the classy Titan watch he wears.

Despite the similarity, this one more than just entertains us. The ad shows Aamir Khan in his dressing room choosing a watch from his Titan arsenal. As soon as he puts it on, the paparazzi appears and starts clicking pictures. Surprised, he rushes out of the room but the paparazzi follows there too. When he finally decides to pose for them, they vanish much to his amazement. The secret was that his posture was hiding the watch. On discovering it, he hides the watch with one hand, however, is unable to start his car using only one hand. In the end, our star just gives up and gives in and flaunts the watch. The ad ends with the VO – more attention than you can handle and the tagline boasts “The slimmest watch in the universe.” The ad is an instant attention grabber and leaves one in awe of both, the sleek Titan Edge and Aamir Khan. Amit Sharma from Chrome Pictures who has shot the ad-film says, “The concept of this advertisement is that the watch attracts a lot of attention, so by wearing it one can’t help but notice you. And the best association that I can think of between Aamir and Titan Edge is that one can’t help but notice both!” Sure, no one will disagree to that!

Positioning its new range as the slimmest watch in the Universe, Titan has injected subtle wit into the ad and left Aamir to do the rest, through his expressions and attitude. Talking about the experience of working with Mr. Perfectionist Sharma states, “Shooting this advertisement has been quite an experience for me; this would most certainly be one of my memorable shoots.” Reminiscent of the shooting days, Sharma recalls, “One of the interesting things that happened during the shoot was whenever I used to brief Aamir about a particular shot, he had this peculiar way of saying ‘achcha’ which was really quite interesting and gradually a lot of my crew members started imitating that ‘achcha’, including me.” shall we term it the perfect achcha?!”

A hard core professional and perfectionist that Aamir is, he never fails to deliver his best and makes every shoot sail smoothly. Here’s something more for you to add to your list of praises for the actor. His co-ordination skills and his ability to grasp seem to have win Sharma’s heart as he quotes, “The crowd was very supportive and it’s amazing how Aamir included the crowd with himself.”

Titan has a legacy of creating some amazing advertising. With O&M as its agency and Aamir as its face, guess the class associated with its ads comes easily. And this time is no different. We are told that Titan was seeking ‘an extremely sleek and stylised film’. Well, not the best, but will surely put the spotlight back on Aamir and Titan.

(End of Romsha Singh column)

The Grey Cell Effect
“We are extremely small... But, we have worked for large clients all our lives...”

(column by Romsha Singh & Surbhi Chawla)

Be prepared to be taken in by a surprise... Enter Equus Red Cell at your own risk, you might just bump into some who turns up in a bathrobe or might get pulled into a conversation on who’s the best Superhero. While, one of its CEOs is busy listening to Bocelli, someone in the agency might be arranging for a golf date in the Sahara. Remember the eccentric mavericks of yesteryears that advertising was associated with? “We are a restless bunch of people who like to work for restless leaders, we know our strengths and weakness and live life on our own terms,” reminds one of the glorious days of Indian advertising of the 60-70s!

Set up by Suhel and Swapan Seth in 1997, Equus Red Cell is a small agency. Is that a problem? No! Instead, they have big clients. The agency has to its credit the launch of Kingfisher Airlines, and establishing its identity as an airline, which is young and spirited. It’s portfolio boasts off names like Coca-cola, Max New York Life, Max Healthcare, ABN Amro, Taj Group of Hotels, ITC hotels, VLCC to name just a few with NDTV’s Lifestyle channel – Life as the latest addition.

Inspite of the clientele that has the who’s who of the industry the agency maintains a low profile. Swapan Seth, CEO, Equus Red Cell says, “We don’t have departments that most agencies have, but we do have the skill sets that all these (big) agencies have. The fact is that we are extremely small and we have always wanted to be that ways. But, we have worked for large clients all our lives.”

Talk of living life on its own terms and Equus doesn’t accept the meager 15-17% commission that the whole industry abides by, instead it has marketed the flat-rate concept to its clients. For this flat, nonvertical and non-hierarchical agency, hard-line pitching, cold-calling and elaborate pitch presentations are just a few ways to win over its clients. Detailed pitch presentations are their USP and they don’t mind sounding like a consultants. Expect them to enter a client’s office and convince them that advertising is the least important aspect of their entire business. Their track record includes scouting for acquisitions or sourcing new business potentials for their clients, apart from of course, making great advertising for them.

If its defiant way of doing things sets it apart from others, then it also has an extremely young team to keep up that spirit where the average age is around twenty seven years. “The next rung of leadership could emerge anywhere between 25-32 at best which I think is fantastic as most agencies are filled with fuddy-duddies, dinosaurs. This is what distinguishes us. I walk in to pitches seeing people under whom I was training, still running offices in Delhi and Bombay. It is good to know that we would grow older much later,” says Swapan.

A WPP agency, Equus Red Cell (part of WPP’s Red Cell brand of agency), looks for emerging industries and goes after them. Talking about the work culture in the agency an employee says, “You do not need grey hair in order to meet the CEOs. They push you to do better.”

Swapan describes his agency as ‘fun’, doesn’t have a separate cabin to himself, “sees himself as the chief trader in a stock market”, believes in giving wings to his employees and seeks intellectual competition. Well, that’s the grey cells mixed with red cells effect!

(End of Romsha Singh & Surbhi Chawla column)

Entertainment unplugged...
...but will new general entertainment channels continue offering more of the same?

(column by Pallavi Srivastava)

Get ready to be bombarded with more of soppy saas-bahu bickering, put-on talk shows, hapless comedies, over-made-up nasty sister-in-laws (dressed in all their finery even when ostensibly asleep) and the absurdly unreal reality shows that put even real life to shame…

Yes! Come the fall of 2007 and if the ambitious plans of the key players materialise, rest assured that a rash of new Hindi general entertainment channels (GEC) will break out on your television sets, bringing the same old sob-saga into your living rooms. Oh! But I guess we are getting too cynical, because most all of them are promising to break the mould and get in something ‘different’ for the couch potato to chew on.

To begin with there’s NDTV with its Imagine (boasting an unimaginable line up of veterans like Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, Sameer Nair and Prannoy Roy). In his typical ‘a family that eats together stays together’ spirit, a buoyant Karan Johar believes that this partnership is like a “family bonding” and is convinced that his family will soon be creating all the celebration possible at a TV screen near you. Sounds suspiciously like more of the same, right? Anyhow, NDTV’s GEC is scheduled for launch by the end of this year.

Then we have UTV-Astro’s Bindass, which says that it will be a youth oriented GEC. In fact, Bindass, which is scheduled for launch in mid 2007 with an outlay of Rs.2 billion, says that it will be India’s first local youth entertainment brand (more of those chimerical singing, dancing, doling out slapstick humour, Indian idols?). There is also the recently announced Viacom- 18 venture in the GEC space, which has US-based Viacom, teaming up with India’s very own Raghav Bahl owned TV 18.

Waiting in the wings are other stal- warts like Peter Mukerjea’s INX Media, Anuradha Prasad’s BAG Films and Sun TV. In fact, just as Star One has worked as a GEC flank for Star Plus, Zee is also considering launching an additional Hindi GEC as a flanking strategy. Besides there are a slew of smaller players crawling out of the woods demanding more of the same to call their own.

So what is making the GEC space so attractive? Glamour of media apart, a fleetingly glace at the humongous ad pie (read: thundering revenues) speaks volumes. While total television ad revenues for the year 2006 have been around Rs.6,200 crores (up 15% from 2005) GECs command more than 40% of the share. And just look at the growth potential: total ad spends across all media, in India, as a percentage of its GDP is only 0.34% (as per a FICCI-PWC report), which is very low compared to the global average, which is 0.98% and in countries like New Zealand (1.38 %) and Singapore (1.12%) are even further ahead in this race. Haresh Chawla, Group CEO, TV18, says, “The entertainment space offers significant opportunities and this partnership (with Viacom) gives us the scale to compete and achieve leadership position.” What’s more, ad spends this year are pegged to zoom further northward.

Further, for players like NDTV and TV 18, the bid is to expand on their current offerings in the news space. With GECs too in their kitty, they’ll reach a wider audience, attracting better ad revenues.

Ad revenues apart, the me-too clamour to enter the GEC space stems from gaps in the present programming genre. Consider Star, Zee, Sony and Sahara, the present contenders in the GEC space. Look carefully and you realise that the bulk of their programming is specifically tailored for housewives, with little or no attention paid to other lucrative target audiences. Naresh Gupta, National Head, Strategic Planning, Grey Worldwide agrees. “Apart from one or two reality shows here and there, the entire GEC space is about housewives and that too from SEC C and B. There is nothing that speaks to a young girl, a teenage boy, a 40- year-male, a retired man. When movies come on these channels, the viewership jumps and so do ad revenues. Movies command better TRPs than the best of serials today because movies aggregate people, these serials don’t,” he reasons.

And that perhaps is another reason fanning the excitement of the new entrants. There’s tremendous scope to innovate, give the viewers something different and race ahead in terms of TRPs and ad revenues. If upcoming GECs keep their ear to the ground, break away from traditional moulds, and deliver to a sharper audience; attracting a larger share of the ad pie is guaranteed. “From the agency perspective, the sharper audience you deliver to me, the better results it will get. Why should I pay for the extra audience that I don’t want to reach. The issue is not how large an audience you deliver to me, but how sharp an audience you deliver,” says another media planner.

From this perspective, UTV-Astro’s Bindass seems to be on track, even as it focuses on the youth as a target audience. GECs targeted at niche audiences do seem to be emerging as the new mantra. In contrast, industry buzz says that NDTV’s GEC may have more of the same Ekta Kapoor stuff in its kitty (Karan Johar is a big ‘K-fan’); so the light at the end of the tunnel looks dimmer for Roy & company.

But, maybe we are being presumptuous and NDTV’s GEC will pull out a winner from its magical hat. After all, they are a lethal combination, with Johar’s sense of (family?) drama, Sameer Nair’s proven track record (he was the one who convinced Big B to host KBC) and Prannoy Roy’s vision.

Be that as it may, the coming months are set to witness a lot of pluck and pugnacity on the idiot box. Already both, the new kids on the block and the veterans have begun to pull up their socks to slug it out in the GEC combat zone. Star will be no pushover and having already lost to Star (and each other too at various points) Zee and Sony too will not give up without a fight. And while earlier instances of off-screen face-offs were few and far between; marketers and viewers can expect more on-screen and off-screen skirmishes unfold before their eyes now. Game, all ye couch potatoes?

(End of Pallavi Srivastava column)

Broken the glass ceiling yet?
‘Education is the key’ says Archana Dalmia, Chairperson, Grievance Cell, AICC

In Nehru’s immortal words, India has a tryst with destiny. Its population of a billion people is its most potent strength. With their enterprise, savvy and skills, they are striding surely and not so slowly onto the world’s stage.

Yet, imagine what could happen if all of India’s people and above all women were truly empowered? If women had the confidence to demand the quality of infrastructure and services they rightfully deserve, from education and healthcare to the foundations of power, water and transportation, they could unfurl an economic and social force so powerful that it would dramatically alter the face of India.

The Chinese say that women hold up half the sky. Yet, women often have fewer opportunities, and more than half of India’s women cannot read or write. Empowering women can give them greater choice in determining how many children to have and when, reducing fertility rates, and leading to well-nourished and better educated future generations.

Yes, some Indian women are empowered, a minuscule fraction and the difference between those empowered and those not, is as stark as black and white. We are often fed with glossy reports of Indian women who have achieved great success in the cut-throat world of business. These women do us all proud and are a source of tremendous inspiration for other women who want to break out of gender definitions.

India, today is a country where women are becoming more prominent. Not just in politics – the country’s dominant political party, the Indian National Congress party, is after all, headed by Sonia Gandhi, a woman who is very powerful on the world stage – but in big business too. Women are fighting long-standing prejudices and are working their way to the top of companies or starting their own businesses, breaking the proverbial glass ceiling.

However, women in India, a country that prides itself on being a traditional society, still face enormous pressure to conform to social mores. More often than not, the hurdle of conforming to traditional roles within families poses as much of a barrier to businesswomen in India as the still-too-thick glass ceiling in companies.

Though women have made great strides in the corporate world in last three decades, women from all income groups are still too often discouraged by family members from having careers that infringe too much on family life. A handful of Indian businesswomen, including Lalita Gupte, Kalpana Morparia, Anu Aga, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Simone Tata, have quietly broken through barriers of social conformity – both at home and in the workplace – to become successful entrepreneurs and professionals.

Why are some women doing so well in India? One reason: the country’s long history of valuing education, so women who achieve academically are seen as smart and savvy. And it ordinarily doesn’t hurt to come from moneyed or an entrepreneurial family either, especially when you’re trying to start a business. Unfortunately this is what we haven’t been able to provide… education, the stepping stone toward empowerment.

At the cost of sounding churlish, I beseech a reality check. The difference between black and white is stark. Even as we celebrate a woman President, alongside are reports of female foeticide of the most horrific kind. Yes, we are taking strides in the right direction. Yes, some women are torch bearers who will lead us into the light. Yes, the government is taking huge steps towards empowering women.

We have to introspect and face the truth and realise fast that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Who better than a woman to empower women?

Rising fast and moving on!
Raveena Raj Kohli, Ex-President, Star News, on how she faced discrimination at the work place and why women are better at their job!

As a woman, I have never faced any sort of discrimination in my career. The only time I ever felt that I am a woman, was when I began heading a news organization (Kohli’s previous stint was as President of Star News), where I was not the traditional prototype chief executive. Everybody expected a man from a journalistic field or a woman who really didn’t care about her looks, to fit into the role as head of a news organisation. For someone like me to fall somewhere between the two categories, was a real challenging task. In the sense one had to face a lot barbs and sarcasm, which I didn’t particularly mind at the time because I had expected that to happen from the very first day at work.

That was the only time when I felt that people on the outside have more complexes than people on the inside. It was the only time when to my horror, I realised that there will always be a few nasty people who will discriminate against women, no matter what her qualifications and experience are.

Having said that, my experiences during my career have convinced me that women make fantastic professionals. I say this because I realize that a woman who enters an active professional life, does so for reasons that are far more committed and individualistic than those of their male counterparts.

Now, this does not imply that I am biased against men in professional life. In fact, they make great colleagues and are also competent workers. But women are just far better professionals, especially in a space which is very demanding on time. And in the news organization that I ran, I have found women particularly to be very quick to learn, very quick to rise to challenging situations and being totally fearless in their approach. And that is the reason why I have become more inclined to work with women than with men colleagues.

Looking at the attitude towards women in India, I think it has already changed a lot. What’s more, this change has baffled and left a lot of men completely bewildered and blinking madly. I feel that a lot of this change has come about, thanks to older women in the Indian family system. For the past few years, older women in families have increasingly become far more supportive and encouraging to younger girls in their vicinity, and thus have been the harbinger of change in their status. And that is what I believe, has brought commendable change in the status of young women in India. I have never seen such a thing happen anywhere else in the world. However, let me add that saying this does not mean that I deny the importance of male support to women, which is just as critical as ever.

One thing that I have been extremely against is reservation. In my view, reservation is the most demeaning thing that can ever happen in a civilised society. If you are giving reservation to women, it simply symbolizes that she is not capable of achieving it through fair competition. It sounds like compensation for her handicap of being born a woman, which is an insulting proposition.

Summing up, women are simply great and the best thing that ever happened to the workforce. Take for example, women like Indira Nooyi (CEO, PepsiCo) or just look at women political leaders in India, who are rapidly breaking traditional moulds. All the jobs that people said women can’t do, they are doing, and doing them well. In my industry – the media – women are rising so fast and are adding such amazing value to the business that my message to them is: don’t stop... the world is yours!