A n e w s l e t t e r f r o m D D B M u d r a G r o u p - I s s u e 3 , 2 0 1 5

H tStuff

Madhukar’s Message

Gamification - the next big thing?

01

Global Connect

Global Wins

Global News

02 - 05

First Person

Back from Kathmandu - Shaken,

Not Stirred

06 - 07

Q & A16 - 17

The Highlights

DDB Mudra Group adds girl powerto the Cannes Lions Festival 2015

See It. Be It.

DDB Voice 2015 rolls out

DDB MudraMax announcesNew Structure

Mother’s Day

Father’s Day

New Joinees

5th Little Sparks Contest

Wassup @ MICA

08 -15

Best of DDB Worldwide

Skoda

AT&T

Fundicion Argentina DeTransplante Hapatico

WECOMPOST

Volkswagen

AXE

KLM

McDonald’s

No Somos Delito

Steinlager Pure

18 - 20

Best of DDB Mudra

Mathrubhumi Classifieds

Lenskart and EBAI

New Volkswagen Jetta

Kingfisher Premium

fbb

Pudin Hara

Royal Challenge

Symphony

Dhara Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil

UNICEF

Thus Spake Zeigler

The science of marketing andthe case for creativity

Guts & Glory

Thought Leadership

Sonal Dabral

Know More

True Gender Equality

Loyalty alone is never enough

Media Spotlight

Last Word

Now Hiring: Your NewPersonal Assistant

21- 23

24 - 25

25

26 - 27

29 - 31

28

32

IBC

Contents

Meet the Chief Innovation &Growth Officer

Madhukar’s Message

Gamification – the next big thing?

Madhukar KamathGroup CEO & Managing Director DDB Mudra Group

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Gamification is the concept of applying game design techniques to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals. Its main purpose is to engage, teach, entertain, measure and to improve the perceived ease of use of information systems. Gamification techniques strive to leverage people's natural desire to socialize, learn, master, compete, achieve, etc. Early gamification strategies used rewards for players who accomplished desired tasks or competition to engage players. Types of rewards included points, achievement badges or levels, the filling of a progress bar, or providing the user with virtual currency. Making the rewards for accomplishing tasks visible to other players or providing leaderboards were ways of encouraging players to compete and fuelled deeper engagement.

The research company Gartner had predicted that by 2015, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention would become as important as Facebook, eBay, or Amazon, and more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations would have at least one gamified application to drive desired user behaviour that is advantageous to their brand.

Gamification is a very practical technique to take advantage of big data. By capturing and analyzing the big data on behaviour, businesses can create a more engaging experience that motivates employees and users. 71% of companies expect big data to have a significant impact on sales.

By providing extensive insight into user behaviour, big data can indicate what activities, content types, and frequencies are yielding the best results. It also allows companies to adapt to various user behaviour and motivation. In order to get the most value out of gamification, it is important to go beyond the data and try to understand not only how the users are behaving but also to ask 'why', and also come up with creative ideas to improve the system. Effectively using data analytics and gamification, in turn, helps businesses sell more and increase customer loyalty.

Gamification has been widely applied in marketing. Over 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies surveyed in 2013 said they planned to use gamification for the purposes of marketing and customer retention. For example, in November 2011, Australian broadcast and online media partnership Yahoo!7 launched its Fango mobile app, which TV viewers use to interact with shows via techniques like check-ins and badges.

Gamification has also been used in customer loyalty programs. Starbucks gave custom Foursquare badges to people who checked in at multiple locations and offered discounts to people who checked in most frequently at an individual store.

A study at MIT Sloan found that ideation games helped participants generate more and better ideas, and compared it to gauging the influence of academic papers by the numbers of citations received in subsequent research.

The New York City Department of

Education with funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation set up a school called Quest to Learn centred around game-based learning, with the intent to make education more engaging and relevant to modern kids. SAP has used games to educate their employees on sustainability. RedCritter Tracker, PlayCall, and Arcaris are examples of management tools that use gamification to improve productivity.

Digital Brand Group is the first company in India to fully gamify their work process to make their work style more engaging and encouraging. Experts anticipate that the technique would also be applied to health care, financial services, transportation, government, employee training and other activities.

PHD, the Media agency which is part of the Omnicom Group launched its online gaming tool as far back as 2012. It is a global operating system called Source that taps into the “gamification” trend. Source is designed to mimic a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. It encourages participation and collaboration by allowing approximately 3000 employees across the global PHD network to tap into the “PHD mind,” providing ideas and solutions for briefs all over the world. Employees score points when their suggestions are used and can keep tabs of their position on a global leaderboard that is updated on a real-time basis. Source enables employees to remain abreast of new trends that can be applied to their clients’ businesses and is considered to be a “game-changer” for the media planning and buying industry.

Global Connect

DDB at Cannes

DDB had a great week at Cannes! The network won a total of 78 Lions from 27 offices in 21 countries, including 1 Grand Prix, 12 golds, 28 silvers and 37 bronze.

The wins were across categories as follows:

Branded Content: 5

Creative Effectiveness: 1

Cyber: 10

Design: 1

Direct: 4

Film: 4

Film Craft: 5 (including GP)

Health | Pharma: 3

Innovation | Data: 1

Media: 6

Mobile: 2

Outdoor: 10

PR: 3

Press: 10

Promo & Activation: 8

Radio: 4

Titanium & Integrated: 1

DDB Spain was the most-awarded office with 16 awards, followed by adam&eveDDB London with 14. Paris, Amsterdam and Germany each won a total of 5 Lions.

EMEA was the most-awarded DDB region with a total of 36 Lions. Latina took home 25, APAC 10 and North America 7. Spain’s “Holograms for Freedom” was the big winner this year and the team was up on stage collecting gold Lions nearly every night. In total, they received 16 Lions across 8 different media. adam&eveDDB brought home the Grand Prix in Film Craft for John Lewis’ “Monty”. They also received a gold Lion in Branded Content for “Monty” and a Creative Effectiveness gold for John Lewis’ “The Bear and the Hare”. Also receiving gold Lions were DDB Singapore for their “4G4Good” Promo campaign and the Musée de la Grande

Guerre Du Pays de Meaux Press campaign out of DDB Paris.

DDB Singapore strikes GOLD: #DDBCannes Winners

DDB agencies across Asia Pacific enjoyed success at this year’s Cannes Lions festival. DDB Singapore walked away with a gold Lion in the Promo & Activation for its ‘4G4Good’ for Starhub. It was the only gold for Asia in this category. The campaign was also awarded a bronze in the Direct category. DDB Sydney was awarded a bronze Lion in the Promo & Activation category while a bronze Lion in Outdoor was picked up by DDB Mudra Group in India.

DDB shines at 2015 APAC Effies

Three DDB agencies left Singapore with heavy pockets after bagging multiple metals at the 2015 APAC Effie awards, following yet another fantastic performance across the region.

DDB New Zealand, DDB Singapore and Lifelounge agency reeled in a total of six individual awards. DDB New Zealand was also named #3 Agency of the Year.

DDB wins top honors at Singapore Effies

DDB has been named agency of the year at the Singapore Effies, an awards show it has dominated since it was launched 12 years ago. The Omnicom agency claimed gold for McDonald’s and Singapore Air Force, and silver for National Environment Agency and

Ministry of Communications and Information.

DDB Singapore boss David Tang said: “Everybody knows DDB loves the Effies, so winning for the 12th year running feels really gratifying”.

DDB bags Pencils at 2015 D&AD & The One Show Awards

Coveted campaigns by DDB Mudra Group and DDB DM9 JaymeSyfu scored yet again at this year’s D&AD Awards. D&AD celebrates outstanding work in design and advertising, and a D&AD Pencil is recognized the world over as a symbol of the very highest creative achievement.

DDB Mudra Group’s ‘Bi-Xenon Headlamps’ for Volkswagen won a Pencil in the

graphic design category, while DDB DM9 JaymeSyfu’s ‘Pocket Fire Extinguisher’ for the City of Las Piñas won a Pencil in the White Pencil/Design category.

adam&eveDDB and Grey London also received a combined 11 Pencils (Joint 4th).

Meanwhile, DDB Group New Zealand won a Bronze Pencil for SKY TV ‘Bring Down The King’ at The One Show Awards held at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City and DDB Melbourne won two Bronze Pencils for RSL Australia ‘Minute of Silence’ in Interactive and Mobile.

DDB Düsseldorf scoop up gold at ACDN Awards

DDB Düsseldorf, together with MediaMonks, took home gold for Bic’s

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Global Wins

Global Connect

“Universal Typeface Experiment” at the recent ACDN Awards in the Netherlands.The ACDN is the Association for Creativity in Advertising and Design in the Netherlands.

DDB Group Singapore is Marketing’s Agency of the Year

DDB Group Singapore scored the coveted title of Overall Agency of the Year at Marketing’s Agency of the Year Awards 2015, held in Singapore on 27 May 2015.

DDB’s digital arm, Tribal Worldwide Singapore, bagged a gold award and the title of Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year, as well as two silvers in the Digital Marketing and Social Marketing category. DDB also picked up two silvers in the categories Brand Consultancy and Content Marketing, and a bronze for Creative Agency of the Year.

DDB Hong Kong steals the show at 2015 MARKies

DDB Hong Kong emerged as the 2015 MARKies’ most awarded creative agency of the night, after receiving a total of 11 trophies, as well as 4 other awards entered with media partners. The agency scored 2 golds, 5 silvers and 4 bronze metals for a total of 6 campaigns.

Tribal Worldwide Singapore walked away with a gold award for Best Print Idea at the MARKies for the campaign ‘Trust Us’ for client DBS Private Bank.

Alma DDB is Most Awarded U.S. Hispanic Agency at WAVE, FIAP and USH Ideas

Three of the largest international creative awards festivals took place in April 2015

starting with the Wave Festival in Rio de Janeiro, the FIAP in Mexico City, and then the U.S.H. Idea Awards in Miami. Each award show recruited top creative professionals in the industry to recognize the best in creative advertising work.Alma DDB was the highest winning U.S. Hispanic agency at all three of the award shows.

DDB Helsinki wins Most Effective Campaign at Grand One

DDB Helsinki and McDonald’s Finland won the title of “Most Effective Campaign” at the national digital marketing award show, Grand One.

DDB and Tribal Worldwide win 21 Honors at The Webby Awards

DDB and Tribal Worldwide offices in Amsterdam, Milan, Toronto, Germany, New Zealand, New York and Chicago garnered 21 honors in all five major categories. Of those, 12 standout campaigns were nominated to contend for The Webby People’s Voice Award. In the end, DDB Germany was honored with the Webby in Advertising: Best Use of Mobile Media for their BIC “Universal Typeface” and Tribal Toronto was named the People’s Choice winner for McDonald’s “Fry Defender” in Advertising: Mobile Campaigns.

DDB wins at North American Effie Awards

Winners of the North American Effie Awards competition, which honors the most effective marketing communications cases in the U.S. and

Canada, were announced, with DDB offices in New York, Chicago and San Francisco receiving recognition in five categories. Gold, silver and bronze trophies were awarded at the annual Effie Awards Gala on 4 June 2015 in New York.

adam&eveDDB wins at British Arrows Awards 2015

adam&eveDDB hauled an impressive two golds and one silver for the John Lewis Monty campaign at the recent British Arrows awards. In addition, the agency took home one silver and bronze for Mulberry as well as three bronze for the Volkswagen Value campaign. Finally, John Lewis took home the Advertiser of Excellence award.

DDB Oslo recognized at Golden Pencil Awards

At the recent Golden Pencil Awards in Norway, DDB Oslo received one gold, four silvers and two nominations. McDonald’s “Snapchance" was awarded gold and the agency took home silver for client Netcom.

DDB Canada wins Best of Show at 2015 Bessies Awards

Celebrating the best in Canadian screen advertising, DDB Canada earned top honors at the 2015 Bessies Awards. Presented by the Broadcast Executive Society and produced by the Television Bureau of Canada, Netflix’s “Pep Talk” creative by DDB Canada was awarded Best of Show along with multiple wins in the copywriting, direction and television categories.

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Global Connect

DDB at Cannes

DDB has a rich history at Cannes. In fact, the network has won more Grand Prix awards at the Festival than any other agency network. In total, DDB made 2131 submissions from 72 offices with some really strong work across every category and from every region.

This year DDB had 12 jurors representing its network, including two jury Presidents: Juan Carlos Ortiz in Outdoor and Andy Payne in Design.

Amir Kassaei packs a punch with #DoThisOrDie manifesto

Amir Kassaei, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Worldwide, held a keynote titled “DO THIS OR DIE” in the Debussy Theatre of the Palais on 26 June 2015. Inspired by the classic “Do This Or Die” ad from 1969, he gave another wake-up call to the industry on what should really be relevant.

While everybody is talking about what will change, ‘Do This Or Die’ is all about what will never change. An emotional Kassaei took the stage and blew the audience away with his heavy words charged with meaning. Following a week of celebrating awards, Kassaei’s sober words “blew the whole damn operation out of the water”, according to The OTTO Empire producer Sophie Woods.You could hear a pin drop when Kassaei implored his audience to stop creating work for awards, suggesting that winning awards only means you are good at winning awards.

“We believe, in our advertising arrogance, that what we are doing for

people is important,” said Kassaei. “What we should be doing is providing relevance for people that is better and more efficient. It needs to be about truth. Remember the reason why you love what you do. The purpose isn’t about winning an award.”

In the words of Campaign Brief Asia’s Claire Davidson, Kassaei believes we have to start now, as the latest moment, to re-navigate. We need to sit down and reflect on what the true purpose of our industry is. We have to guide our clients, not confuse or bullshit them. We are not smarter than our clients. We need to have, and can have passion, dedication and talent to change the world for the better.

Advertising used to have an impact on society. People looked at what they were doing that was relevant and valuable. It was meaningful. Stop. Refocus. Get rid of your phony ideas. It’s not about views, or clicks or likes. Collectively, we can make the world a little bit better. Use your talent to change things to a better mould. Be honest to yourself. Respect people. Create influence by being relevant. Or die.

“I didn’t even get a photo because I had my hands over my gaping mouth in astonishment the whole time,” added Woods in her recount of the seminar. “Let’s not fall into the trap of doing things that are irrelevant and waste our talents. This industry is full of the most creative, bold, exceptional people so let’s use our powers for good,” she said, reflecting on Kassaei’s hard-hitting message.

Kassaei’s powerful wake-up call to the industry also hit a note with regular Cannes blogger Paul Yole. “Although this was a much more subdued Amir than we are used to, his presentation was incredibly emotional, impassioned, provocative and timely,” said Yole. He added that Kassaei is right to challenge the industry by asking whether it is awarding stuff that has no relevance in life, and, in so doing, just kidding itself.

DDB legend Keith Reinhard takes

the stage with The Backpacker

Intern at Cannes

At this year’s festival, DDB legend and

Chairman Emeritus, Keith Reinhard met

Mark van der Heijden, otherwise known

as ‘The Backpacker Intern.’

Mark hails from the Netherlands, but for

the last year and a half, has conquered

6 continents (including Antarctica),

exchanging his creative skills to

agencies, brands and charities for food

and board in what has become an epic

global expedition. In fact, he’s already

graced three DDB offices in Vietnam,

Malaysia and California!

Mark has conquered the world and lived

to tell the tale, resulting in more than 750

job offers worldwide. Among his feats

can be counted presenting at TEDx

Teen, scoring an invite to the White

House as one of the 100 Most Influential

Travel Bloggers, or coming up with the

next big idea for a major Heineken

campaign, All at the age of 28.

Having experienced first hand the

“Creative Revolution” inspired by Bill

Bernbach; Keith hails from the ‘Mad

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Global News

Global Connect

Men’ era, a time before digital hit the

scene where people were committed to

engaging the consumer with “humor,

wit and storytelling.”

The dynamic duo took to the stage to discuss everything from Keith’s account of industry life during the ‘Mad Men’ era and the dramatic office antics that led him to meet his wife in the most unlikely of circumstances, to Mark’s bountiful adventures across 30 different internships worldwide, including three separate visits to DDB offices in Vietnam, Malaysia and California. The rising star also revealed his master plan for Wanderbrief, a global mobility initiative built on the foundation of ‘Think less. Do more’, headed by van der Heijden himself, which he hopes will send creatives to other areas to work.

As a final treat for the audience, DDB’s Amir Kassaei and Richard Tan joined Reinhard and van der Heijden to kick off DDBingo – a raffle to give away books, backpacks and an internship at DDB China Group in Shanghai!

Nancy Hromom, Director of the The Misfits and also writer for B&T Magazine won the all expenses paid trip to Shanghai to join its Future Bernbach program.

DDB Melbourne’s Young Lions score silver at Cannes

DDB Melbourne’s Jordy Molloy and Chris Hanrahan secured the Young Lions Film silver. The challenge was to create supporting material for WWF and its new tagline, ‘Together Possible’, about humans uniting for the benefit of the planet.

The pair opted for a very simple message about how animals have been working as a team to stay alive for centuries, and now it’s time for humans

to work together and help animals survive.

Following a tense stand-off between judges who were unable to decide between the top two entries from Australia and Germany, judges said that it came down to a toss of the coin, and praised the Australian entry for its simplicity, insights and excellence of execution.

adam&eveDDB's Murphy named AA chairman

The Advertising Association appointed James Murphy, the co-founder and chief executive of adam&eveDDB, as its new chairman, replacing Cilla Snowball. He will work alongside Andy Duncan,

the AA president and chief executive of

Camelot, and Tim Lefroy, the chief

executive of the AA.

Murphy will look to develop the AA’s

relationship with politicians and other

senior figures from outside the industry,

as well as put the body’s agenda of

responsible advertising into practice.

Amir Kassaei at LIA

Amir Kassaei, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Worldwide, was named as the Integration Jury President for the 2015 London International Awards (LIA).

The Integration Jury consisted of a host of the industry’s global leaders, including Jay Benjamin, Prateek Bhardwaj, Francisco Cassis, Adam Kerj, Diego Medvedocky, Marcus Rebeschini, Tiffany Rolfe, Alexander Schill and Luis Silva Dias.

Spike Lee inducted into AAF’s Hall of Fame

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) inducted Spike Lee, Filmmaker, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spike DDB, into the Class of 2015, at the 66th Annual Hall of Fame (AHOF) Gala held in New York. Lee was among nine other legends honored by the advertising industry for their extraordinary achievements in raising the standard for excellence. He accepted the “Golden Ladder” trophy among long time friends and coworkers at a special Induction Ceremony and Gala Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria.

Haydn Kerr hacked Facebook

DDB New Zealand Digital Creative Director Haydn Kerr attended the Facebook Creative Hackathon in Menlo Park, California, where he was the only creative from outside the U.S. and the U.K.

Tribal Worldwide Shanghai ranked among World’s Best Digital Agencies by Warc 100

According to the latest ranking released by Warc 100, Tribal Worldwide Shanghai was number 15 among the best digital agencies in the world. Tribal Worldwide Shanghai is the only China agency listed in the top 20 rankings.

Warc 100 is an annual ranking of the world’s 100 best marketing campaigns and companies, based on the tracking results of more than 2,200 individual award winners across 87 different effectiveness and strategy awards schemes held around the world. As a global marketing independent online service, Warc’s annual list is recognized as one of the most reliable and influential rankings in the marketing and advertising industry.

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First Person

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Back from Kathmandu - Shaken,Not Stirred

was scheduled to kick off at 10:30 a.m. on 1st floor. People overslept. Some came late. Some were nauseated, they were called from the rooms, and some came very, very late.

I was there before 10:30 a.m. and I yelled the place down. Punctuality, I insisted, was most critical for future managers. When I thought I’d gotten the point across, I went easy and lightened the situation. There were many new joinees and they introduced each other. If you had to go to the casino with somebody, who would it be? That’s how they gave the intros. We discussed vision for Delhi, the 6 Ps, the service profit chain — ‘People First’ prerogative and I initiated a DDB Mudra versus other agency’s in Delhi…analysis on chart papers.

That’s when… the lights went off. A terrifying sound of thunder was heard. Was it the generator? And what a raucous one, we wondered. Then the floor shook. Not gently, not with notice. Just all at once. The earth gave way under our feet. It shook and trembled so badly that we fell down. Even those on chairs tumbled down. One moment, I was standing; the next, I came hurtling down to the ground. Glass shattered. Things fell down from the top. We knew some terrible force was at work.

Some took shelter under the table to escape things getting on to their heads.

Talking of the UNEXPECTED? Well, here’s something that sent shivers down the spine. Literally. Creepy. Real. Frightening. Welcome to my personal encounter with an earthquake.

It was 25 April 2015. I could have never imagined this fun trip was going to prove a nightmare for the whole DDB Mudra team led by me. We landed the previous evening. Not unexpectedly, the plane was late. But we didn’t care. We were in Kathmandu and we were going to have fun. Until yesterday, the Wiki page on Kathmandu had nothing ominous. Now you will find these words on that page: Kathmandu has been devastated by a 7.9m earthquake that has resulted in severe damages, along with avalanches that occurred in Mount Everest on April 25, 2015. That’s my yesterday, folks.

We got in late on 24 April, checked-in at the Radisson Blu and then quickly reassembled for drinks and dinner, after which many of us proceeded to the casino at Yak and Yeti hotel. Each one secretly hoped that this would turn out to be a lucky day. Little did we then know what Fate had in store for us. It was fun and most of us returned at 2 a.m., while others got in at 3 a.m. and some straggled in at 6 a.m. Every one slept late, if they did. Little did anyone know we were shortly going to lose sleep, sanity, and all reason.

Everyone came in at their own time for breakfast the next day. The conference

Shrieks were heard. Someone yelled, “Run down, don’t take the elevator”. Pandemonium prevailed. One heavy tremor rocked our day, which we had just begun with a workshop. We were jolted by a foreshock of 7.9 magnitude. Enough to bring on the panic, we ran down the stairs and forgot all about anything in life!

We got a few moments to breathe a sigh and get a hang of what had just happened. Then, we heard the rumbling again. Another after shock of 7.4 magnitude! Scare got scarier. Fear more fearsome. We had to sit on our knees with our head bent towards the ground, managing gravity.

One brave business head of our office risked going in to the conference room on the 1st floor, in the dark, a couple of hours after the earthquake. He went looking for his cell phone, could not find it but returned with wallets, hand bags, chargers and all other cell phones that he of course restored to the rightful owners.

All 40 of us stayed in the open overnight, after the quake happened, dressed and prepared for anything that could follow. It stopped quaking but our minds were reeling. Since then, we dealt with many aftershocks. The young ones from our team broke down and cried. Older ones were too terrified to speak or cry. I hugged. I consoled. I grieved. I prayed. I got into action.

Vandana DasPresident, DDB Mudra North

My phone became most useful. Everyone needed to get in touch with family. Never thought telling someone that you’re alive was so important! Our lives changed in those moments. We were operating out of the lobby. The parking lot became open bedrooms. The hotel staff was good, very good. They spread carpets, gave blankets as it was cold, gave us cookies and bananas. Bruises were nursed.

People were desperate to go back into the hotel. But did we dare?In batches, we went in to have dinner. The long, starless night was spent in fear, gazing at the cracks in the earth. Encouraged everyone to sleep a bit and rest. I did not sleep as they were few others of the team who were tense and awake. The dawn broke, we sighed with relief. It was short lived for around 6.30 a.m.…. another after shock. Not a good morning at all !

Now the next ordeal, how to get out of the hotel? How would we reach the airport? We took out our list to tick mark all 40 on the list. Two hotel vans ferried us to the airport in batches, and the TV announced hope by declaring that our flights had resumed. With this light in our hearts, we reached the airport at 8.30 a.m. only to find a sea of grieving people queued up till another planet, waiting to board a rescue flight.

We pushed our way in to the airport and checked in our baggage and got our boarding cards at the Druk Air counter

( KB 204 flight from Bhutan to Delhi via Kathmandu). Immigration, security done, we all reached the waiting area to hear announcements for boarding. And another earthquake rocked us, magnitude of 6.9.

We all ran out to the outside airplane bay area. After a few hours of waiting, we learnt that our flight had been cancelled. So we gathered all our people at one corner of the bay area at the airport to tell them the flight had been cancelled, not to panic and not to lose hope. We shall together try our best to get out by night.

Along with many colleagues, I started running from pillar to post for getting us out of this, pleading with the embassy guys, the IAF people and even the airport staff but to no avail. Meanwhile everyone was trying to pull and push through higher up connections but all networks had failed. What do you do when life takes you to the ragged edge of reality? And you have 40 people looking at you for helping them. You experience God.

And, he answered. Through a contact provided by my sister, we spoke with an IAF pilot who was to fly a plane into Kathmandu. He told me that we should make every effort to get on to any plane and not wait for him to arrive. There was space for two people in a small IAF plane……so we sent two young girls from our group.

No one sat still. Everyone ran around, talking, begging each and every

official….me with my limping foot and courage filled heart, with all team members along side. My lieutenant was our Facilities Management Head who did all the possible running around at all times, without batting an eyelid and was the last person to board the rescue plane. Hats off to him.

And finally it paid off. We stood in queue. Gave names of all women in the team first, to the official followed by men. There was a long queue of many others also ahead of us. The ordeal ended when a few of us got onto an IAF plane where all people were stuffed in like cattle (we were, I would guess approx 250 of us on board ). The rest followed by the next IAF flight.

We landed at Palam airport totally shaken at 11.15 p.m. With God’s grace and the strong prayers of all our well wishers, we were Alive, Unhurt and Back Home with our families.

First Person

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The Highlights

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DDB Mudra Group adds girl powerto the Cannes Lions Festival 2015

e.g., Chinese Food, Jeans, etc. This,

leading to more social conversations.

Selected as second runner-up in this

highly competitive contest were Pankaj

Nihalani and Prasad Kamtekar, also from

DDB Mudra Group.

Nivedita Agashe, Group Head,

DDB Mudra West was chosen as one of

the 12 women from across the world,

invited to Cannes Lions 'See It Be It’

initiative. Initiated in 2014, the

'See It Be It' initiative aims to highlight the

talented creative women in the industry,

accelerate their careers; expose the

powers these women bring to the work,

and encourage agencies to nurture

women’s careers from the inside.

As part of See It Be It initiative, across

three days (21-24 June 2015), Nivedita

and the other 11 women invitees were

part of an inspirational and educational

program which took place during Cannes

Lions. The agenda included guided

access to the jury rooms, meet and

greets with VIP speakers, dedicated

sessions by industry leaders and by the

Berlin School of Creative Leadership, and

a mentorship event supported by

SheSays.

Four female employees of DDB Mudra

West, Shivani Singh, Stephanie

Fernandes, Nivedita Agashe and

Deboleena Chatterjee represented India

at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity

2015. An unparalleled achievement by

any agency, thus far.

Shivani Singh and Stephanie

Fernandes from DDB Mudra West were

announced as the winners of the Young

Lions Print contest. The Young Lions

Festival is a country-wise competition

hosted every year by the Times Group,

for advertising and marketing's next

generation including all those under the

age of 28 and 30 respectively. Each

country sponsor selects the best team

from their respective country through a

rigorous judging process that includes

the country’s most well-known Creative

Heads.

Out of the top three winning teams

chosen by the jury, two teams were from

the DDB Mudra Group. The winning team

- Shivani Singh, Art Director and

Stephanie Fernandes, Creative

Supervisor, presented their campaign

called ‘Sticky Solutions’ with the idea to

expose stupidity, in and around things

that have been said to ‘Cause Rape’,

Deboleena Chatterjee, a planner with DDB Mudra West, gave DDB Mudra Group its fourth accolade by being named as one of the winners of the Cannes Confessionals contest, where participants were told to upload a simple 15-second film of themselves to Instagram or Twitter, tagged with #CannesConfessionals, explaining why they were in need of some Cannes Lions inspiration to become better at their job. The winners were jetted to Cannes for a week of intense exposure to excellence as an official delegate of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Commenting on this achievement, Sonal Dabral, Chairman & CCO, DDB Mudra Group, said, " We are extremely proud that not one, not two but four of DDB Mudra Group's young women professionals represented the country at this year's Cannes Lions. This is testimony to the fact that within the new DDB Mudra Group we have some amazing world beating young talent that’s starting to write the future of advertising in India. In a year that Cannes Lions is focusing on gender equality issues by introducing the Glass Lions and commendable initiatives like See it Be it, an all women achievers team from India has set a great example. More power to DDB Mudra. More power to woman power."

Shivani Singh Stephanie Fernandes Nivedita Agashe Deboleena Chatterjee

“I am so lucky to be a part of this programme.”

“You are not lucky, you are talented. And you deserve to be here.”

This is part of a conversation that I happened to overhear and according to me forms the essence of a very special, very unique initiative started by Cannes Lions last year. See It Be It.

As a part of this initiative, 12 creative women were chosen from across the globe and brought together at the Cannes Lions Festival for an inspiring three-day programme. And this year, being one of them may not have been my luck but it certainly was my privilege. It was an initiative that questioned the lack of female leadership in advertising when clearly there is no lack of talent. It questioned why women are underestimated, not just by others but also by themselves. And, it questioned why more women are not in the roles they deserve to be in. And it did so, not

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with words, but with actions.

Over those three days we got the kind of education and inspiration that will last us a lifetime. We met people we had only

ever hoped of seeing. The advice they gave us was invaluable and their point of view, not just on advertising but on life, gave us a whole new perspective on how we should approach both.

The original Mad Man Keith Reinhard didn’t just charm us with his quick wit but also told us that nothing is more important than passion and persistence in this industry. As women, we got an insight into what it takes to achieve all that you want from none other than Wendy Clark who told us that it wasn’t about balancing the act but integrating your life as a whole. We met the extremely fierce Cindy Gallop who urged us to always speak our mind and fear nothing. Moreover, we also got to have one-on-one conversations with some brilliant people through the mentorship session. The fifteen minutes we spent with each of our three mentors gave us all a chance to ask the questions foremost in our minds.

From the behind the scenes tour of the jury rooms to the carefully picked schedule of some of the most inspiring talks and workshops. From the chance to interact with the jury of the first ever Glass Lion to the award shows that showcased the best creative work. The entire experience truly gave us a clear

view of where we could reach if we persisted.

But to me, the most important part of this experience was what is going to last beyond the festival. The bond that I was able to form with some exceptionally talented, smart, extraordinary women. The time I spent with them and the things I learnt from them, and I’m still learning from them, has been absolutely priceless.

I hope the program will continue to grow and help women to draw strength from each other so that they can be the leaders that they have the potential to be.

See It. Be It. An insider’s Point of View- Nivedita Agashe

DDB MudraMax announces New Structure

and this consolidation is the next step in achieving exponential growth.

Aneil Deepak (popularly known as Andee), Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group and Head of Ideas, DDB MudraMax was given charge of the DDB MudraMax Experiential business as well. Andee has taken the lead in delivering pathbreaking campaigns for clients in the Experiential and Engagement space, viz., Health Cha Shree Ganesh, The Misunderstood Scoreboard, Eye for an Eye. With the Experiential business added to his portfolio, the Group looks to build innovative and engaging brand experiences, that deliver business growth for all clients.

Sameer Mehta, Head Business & Operations, TracyLocke took

In line with the changing consumer and market dynamics and the imperative need to offer seamless consumer engagement solutions to clients, DDB Mudra Group realigned its Media, OOH, Experiential and Retail businesses offered under the DDB MudraMax brand.

Sathyamurthy Namakkal, Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group and President, DDB MudraMax Media (including Digital), was given additional charge of the DDB MudraMax OOH business. This consolidation is expected to bolster the multi-channel media offerings of the Group and help clients benefit with access to the entire gamut of services in Data Analytics, Media Planning and Buying across all media touch points. Both units have grown aggressively over the past three years

independent charge of the business. Sameer has been instrumental in delivering technology led solutions for clients to help grow their business in the Field Marketing, Shopper Marketing and the Retail space.

Commenting on the restructuring, Madhukar Kamath, Group CEO & MD, DDB Mudra Group said, “Partnering our clients in solving their business challenges and rewarding top performers in the Group have always been top priority for us. Realigning the DDB MudraMax business helps us achieve both these objectives. We will also see several young and deserving talent in the Group grow into positions of responsibility aligned to our constant endeavour of building an agile organization.”

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DDB Voice 2015 rolls out

People come first at DDB Mudra Group. And nothing demonstrates this better than DDB Voice, the independently run Employee Satisfaction Survey that is rolled out every year.

Last year, close to 800 respondents participated from the DDB Mudra Group. Based on the unfettered feedback that was received, appropriate changes were incorporated in this year’s survey to

to gather feedback – both positive and

constructive and to provide aggregated

data that would help DDB Mudra Group

take clear, actionable steps based on the

results.

The analysis of the results will be rolled

out globally by DDB in September 2015.

employee engagement survey

Look for the e-mail in your inbox Tell us how you feel before July 3, 2015 Your response is 100% CONFIDENTIAL

...so tell us how you really feel.

VOICESonly you can hear the

in your head

enhance the quality of analysis. As the name suggests, DDB Voice provides all associates and employees an equal voice in making DDB Mudra Group a better place to work and helping shape its future.

The third edition of DDB Voice was rolled out on 15 June 2015. The survey was conducted by an independent third party, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC)

employee engagement survey

Look for the e-mail in your inboxDeadline: July 3, 2015

L eading in advertising

lagging in telepathy

LEADING in advertising

we won’t know until you tell us

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Mother’s Day

The email circulated to all employees urged them, “This Mother’s Day gift your mother the best gift you can. Your time. Your mom is special. You know that. And we do too. But we’d like to know why. Tweet your reason using #ThanksMaa@DDBMudraGroup”.

The following four tweets, one from each region, were declared the winners:

“Maa is special because she makes me feel special 24x7x365.”

“Everyday I wake up to the smell of food and there she is sweating it out with chants of God in the background.”

“There is no age limit to needing you.”

Lord Krishna said, Maa to sabhi ki ek sii hoti hain, i.e., they all are special because they are mom.”

The lucky winners Ann Joseph, DDB MudraMax, Vinayak Dubey, DDB Mudra West, Ahmedabad, Sambit Mohanty, DDB Mudra North, Gurgaon and Vivek Ranganathan, DDB Mudra South, Bangalore were awarded a dinner voucher each – to be used for a date with mom.

Father’s Day

On Father’s Day, DDB Mudra Group

found a unique way of saying thanks to all

the fathers in its family who work so hard

to provide for their loved ones.

It launched an unusual employee

engagement social campaign which

involved asking all the fathers across the

Group to respond to a set of three

questions as follows:

• What do you love most about being a

dad?

• Complete the sentence: Being a dad

makes me...• What have you learnt about yourself

since becoming a father?

The responses flooded in and were used as posts on various social media pages and platforms. Here are a sample of some of the most interesting ones:

“My daughter is my laughter.” Arpan Jain, DDB MudraMax.

“Being a dad helped me understand the struggles, challenges which my father might have faced when I was growing up.” Nitin Singh, Business Director – Digital, DDB MudraMax-Media.

"The best part about being a dad is that you see yourself growing up." Aneil Deepak, Head of Ideas, DDB MudraMax.

"My companion, my friend, my teacher, my student, my critic, my son, my Parth." Ashish Phatak, Executive Creative Director, DDB Mudra West.

"To me, being a dad is telling hundreds of stories, answering thousands of questions and taking her to wherever she wants to go." Amit Kekre, National Strategic Planning Head, DDB Mudra Group.

“Being a dad makes me happy, mad, frustrated, ecstatic - sometimes all of this at once!” Sambit Mohanty, Creative Head, DDB Mudra North.

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New Joinees

Vishnu Srivatsav: Vishnu Srivatsav has joined DDB Mudra South as Creative Head South & East. He has come from Grey Worldwide where he was Senior Executive Creative Director and brings in experience of over 15 years. He began his career with RK Swamy BBDO and thereafter worked with various creative agencies including FCB Ulka. Vishnu’s work for Duracell has won Cannes Gold Lions and Bronze Lions. He has also been awarded with a Cannes Bronze Lions for his work on DHL. His other accolades include an Adfest Gold Lotus, D&AD Inbooks, One Show Merits and Kyoorius Blue Elephants. Vishnu is deeply passionate about advertising. He loves X-Box, soccer, music and reading. He is also a big movie fan and never misses a film every single day.

Shaleen Sharma: Shaleen Sharma has joined TracyLocke as Vice President – Strategic Planning & Analytics . He has worked in places like Boston Consulting Group, Mindshare and JWT. His last stint was with Wireframe where he was associated as a Partner and Chief Strategy Off icer. Hav ing worked across var ious categor ies, he br ings on board a s ign i f icant understanding of consumer engagement, brand management and building strategic marketing platforms that combine digital, media and entertainment domains. He has also been involved in developing a real time web analytics tool that is capable of integrating all the brand variables, like sales, click through rates, footfalls, etc. He has a Bachelor of Science degree with specialization in Genetics and Biochemistry, a Master’s degree in Brand Management and Marketing Research from MICA and is currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural Anthropology.

Suketu Gohel: Suketu Gohel has joined DDB Mudra North as Creative Director. He has more than nine years work experience, his last stint being with Publicis India. He has several awards from Abby’s and two Cannes Lions shortlists for Park Avenue clothing. Some of the leading brands he has worked on include Citibank, HDFC Mutual Fund, Ambuja Cement, Fiat, ICICI Bank, Park Avenue, Tata AIG, Colgate, Coca-Cola, Heinz, Tata Motors and Bank of Maharashtra. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the M S University, Baroda.

Ankur Kalita: Ankur Kalita has joined DDB Mudra North as Creative Director. His most noteworthy recent professional achievements include a silver Lotus at Asia Pacific Adfest 2014, Thailand, a gold Spikes at Asia Pacific Media Spikes Awards 2013, Singapore, and EFFIE Bronze (India) 2013. He has served as a Jury Member – Adstars 2013, Busan, South Korea. His work has been featured in Contagious Magazine for creative excellence. He was a finalist at Cannes Lions 2011 and has many more awards to his credit. He comes from Cheil India where he worked as Creative Director. He has twelve years of experience and has worked on brands such as Pantene (P&G) , Maste rCard , Honda, Coca-Co la , N I IT, Wh i r lpoo l , Vo l tas , GlaxoSmithKline, Samsung, National Geographic, Max New York Life, Dettol, Domino’s Pizza, Volvo, Spice Telecom, Dabur, Aircel and Nestle.

Rajat Ray: Rajat Ray has joined DDB Mudra South as Associate Vice President. He is a seasoned professional with 16 years of experience with leading international ad agencies like Ogilvy and Euro RSCG, and with stints in national agencies like Fountainhead and Response. He has extensive expertise in B2B marketing and digital-social media marketing spaces. Rajat has worked on a diverse portfolio of brands spanning FMCG, durables, real estate, healthcare, apparel, BFSI and IT. Rajat has a P.G.Diploma in Marketing Management from Annamalai University.

Vijay Joseph: Vijay Joseph has joined DDB Mudra South as a Senior Creative Director. He comes with an extensive experience of more than 10 years in almost all the leading agencies in the industry. He has a wide-ranging exposure of working with various categories that include clothing, lifestyle, real estate, beverages, sports, automobile, etc. Vijay has won The One Show Award for designing an eco-friendly bag for Lifestyle in 2013. Vijay has completed his PG Diploma in Marketing & Advertising from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

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Gyaan Sagar: Gyaan Sagar has joined DDB Mudra North as Creative Director. He comes from

Grey Group where he was the Creative Director (Art). He began his career in 2001 with McCann where he

was a Visualiser. The major brands he has worked on include Vodafone, Honda, Seagrams, Samsung,

Canon, Big FM, Delhi Traffic Police, UTV, Air Sahara, Zee News, Sony TV, Blackberry. He was awarded a

Merit in One Show Design for - Delhi Traffic Police and shortlisted at Cannes in Outdoor for – Killer Jeans.

He has done Applied Arts from Delhi College of Art.

Manoj Bhagat: Manoj Bhagat has joined DDB Mudra West as Group Creative Director. He comes from Greenapple Design, Mumbai where he was a Creative Director. He has more than ten years experience which includes a stint with DDB Mudra Mumbai. Some of the brands he has worked with include PE Bags - Aditya Birla Group, Indus Pride - SAB Miller, Orange Telkom, Deutsche Bank, Sony Walkman, UNICEF, Tata Motors, Magnum – Unilever, Cadbury, Toyota and Suzlon. He has been a finalist in AAAI Goafest and has won recognition from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai and others. He has a Bachelor in Applied Arts and a Diploma in Fashion Designing from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Vadodara.

Rajesh Gola: Rajesh Gola has joined DDB Mudra North as Sr. Creative Director. He comes from JWT Delhi where he worked as Sr. Creative Director. He has more than 14 years of work experience in advertising with extensive experience in handling Still Photography, Print Production and Films. He has won a number of Account Pitches in his stints with Bates Delhi, Saatchi and Saatchi and Grey Worldwide. The brands he has worked on include Hitachi AC, Monte Carlo, Radico After Dark, Max Bupa, Mother Dairy, Bata, Airtel, VLCC, Delhi Police, ONGC, Zen Mobile, Dabur, Fortune Magazine. He has also worked with the acclaimed photographer David Wynn Jones for Print and TVC. He has a B.Com. degree from Deshbandhu Gupta College, Delhi University.

Tripti Surana: Tripti Surana has joined DDB Mudra North as Creative Director. Her last job was as a Freelance Creative Consultant and she has worked on leading brands such as UNICEF, GPI, Cremica, Done by None, Oranjery, MyRuh. Earlier she worked as Head (North) - Creative Services Team for Radio Mirchi where she had the opportunity to work on Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Airtel, Nokia, Uninor, Samsung, ESPN, Perfetti, Hero Honda, Maruti, Frito Lays, LG, Hitachi, Whirlpool. She has been awarded several silver and gold awards from the Advertising Club, Kolkata and from the Srijon Samman Awards Kolkata. Recognition has also been received at ABBY’s Mumbai, Luerzer’s Archive and the Kolkata Short Film Festival, 2006. She has a Master’s degree in English Literature from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Vinit Sanghvi: Vinit Sanghvi has joined DDB Mudra West as Creative Director. He comes from McCann Erickson where he worked as Creative Team Leader (Associate Creative Director). Prior to that he was at Ogilvy & Mather where his last position was Creative Controller (Group Head). The major brands he has worked on include Parachute, Reebok, Piramal Healthcare, Tata Sky, ICC World Cup 2011, Mattel Toys, The Economist, Nerolac, Jet Airways, Škoda, Times Now, Godrej Interio, GoAir, Bombay Dyeing and Bharati AXA. He achieved a finalist at Spikes Asia 2014, two merits from One Show 2013, a bronze from Cannes Lions 2012 and a bronze at Abby 2011. He has a Diploma in Applied Arts from the L S Raheja School of Art.

Gerald Roche: Gerald Roche has joined DDB MudraMax as Sr. Vice President Media Planning. He was earlier Vice President at Starcom MediaVest Group. He has more than 17 years of experience in media planning, buying and AOR management across multiple geographies in Asia, with client interests in FMCG, Luxury, Banking/Finance, Media & Entertainment, Automobiles and Aviation. Specialist in Media Planning & Buying, digital strategy and brand building innovations. He is a two time winner of the Grand Emvie (Highest Individual Honor) at the Bombay Ad Club Emvies Awards (2008 & 2012). The clients he has worked with include: Asian Paints, Axis Bank, Bharti AXA, Britannia Industries, Cadbury & Kraft Foods India, etc. He has many awards to his credit including the Media Abbies 2008 -09, Emvies 2008-09 and 2011-12 (Including Grand Emvie for Saffola). He has a Bachelor's degree in Arts and has done Mass Communication.

Moodbidri Prasad Rao: Prasad Rao has joined DDB Mudra West as Creative Director.

He comes from McCann Erickson, Mumbai where he worked as Creative Director. Among his

achievements can be listed a finalist in Print at Cannes 2008, a finalist in Outdoors at One Show

Design in 2009 and a host of awards at Goafest. He has a Diploma in Applied Arts from the L S

Raheja School of Arts where he ranked 1st in the state.

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5th Little Sparks Contest

The others who made it to the shortlist were Chiranjeev, son of Navin Subbarao, Associate Vice President, DDB Mudra South; Darsh, son of Paresh Joshi, Group Head IT, Ahmedabad; Rachit and Sagar, sons of Mahander Saini, Associate Digital Pre-Press Services/Creative Services - Gutenberg Networks, Gurgaon and Avani, daughter of Amresh Jain,

Shaurya, 7-year-old son of Nitin Singh,

Business Director Digital,

DDB MudraMax Media was declared the

champ of this year’s Little Sparks contest

which attracted 61 entries from

25 participants aged between 3 and 9.

Shaurya was awarded a gift

prize of ̀ 10,000.

Shaurya, son of Nitin SinghBusiness Director Digital, DDB MudraMax Media

Exectutive - OOH. They were rewarded for their imaginative efforts with a goodie bag.

The winner and the shortlist were selected by Sonal Dabral, Chairman and CCO of DDB Mudra Group.

Some of their work can be viewed below and will be used as greeting card designs in the course of the year.

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Wassup @ MICA

Sweet SuccessProf. Varsha Jain co-authored a working paper titled, "The evolving nature of political brands: a comparative study exploring the Internal and External Brand orientations of David Cameron’s Conservative Party from 2010 to 2015" for which she received "Best Working Paper Award" at the 20th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communication, Izmir University of Economics, Izmir, Turkey.

Events at MICAThe MICA Qualitative Research Group (QRG) an initiative by Prof. Manisha Pathak Shelat was launched. The QRG plans to focus on three aspects: Advancing theoretical and practical grasp on qualitative methodology, methods, and writing; organizing writing retreats to accomplish goal-driven writing; and peer reviewing research papers with a clear eye on publication and hold workshops. The MICA monthly research colloquium series was hosted Dr. Ashwini Awasthi, Professor in the Marketing area in Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad who spoke on “Effect of Service Recovery Strategies and Causal Attributions on Perceived Justice”. Prof. Pravin Mishra held a 2-day fun-filled workshop for children of MICA’s fraternity called ‘Any Body can Draw’ (ABCD). Thought LeadershipDr. Nagesh Rao was invited to be an Associate Member of the Executive Committee of the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA), under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Govt. of India. Prof. Manisha Pathak Shelat was invited to give a talk on "Transcultural Citizenship and Media Literacy" at the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. She also presented a blind peer-reviewed paper “Cyberactivism, Civic Agency, and Social Change: The Significance of Discursive Civic Action" at the conference on Communication for Social Change,

Universitat Jaume I, Castellon De la Plana, Spain. Anushree Karani (RA) presented a paper (co-authored with Prof. Rasananda Panda) on " Corporate Social Responsibility: A way for image management" at the Global Summit on Corporate Social Responsibility jointly organized by IIM Raipur, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (Gurgaon) and National Law School of India University (Bangalore).

Prof. Rasananda Panda presented a co-authored (with Diwakar Sharma, PGP - 2013-15 batch) paper on Understanding Big Data Analytics and Its Application for Brands - An Exploratory Study at the 4th IIMA International Conference on Advanced Data Analysis, Business Analytics and Intelligence at IIMA. Prof. Panda was invited to participate in the “Conference on Regulatory Framework for IFSC in India” which was graced by the Union Finance Minister and the State Chief Minister, at the Convention Centre, Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar. He also delivered a lecture on “Analytical tool for the business forecasting and its importance in Business Development” at the 12th National Level symposium on Trends & Tactics of Business Development at Centre for Management Studies & Centre for Media, Entertainment & Communication, Ganpat University, Ahmedabad.

Prof. Varsha Jain was appointed as co-track Chair of Academy of Marketing Science, AMS, 2016, a peer reviewed premier marketing event, organized at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Orlando, USA.

Prof. Dipti Kulkarni was invited to deliver a lecture on Proposal Writing at the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Central University of Gujarat.

Prof. Shubhra P. Gaur conducted 2-day workshop by invitation on "Role Clarity, Role Efficiency and Motivational Development" for the District Program Officers of Gujarat State Child Protection Society supported by UNICEF. She also represented MICA at the joint

MICA-WCD (Women & Child Development Department, Government of Gujarat) Case Writing competition on Gender Inclusivity - 2014 Award Distribution Function.

Prof. Dhaval Patel who will be representing MICA at the Annual Meeting in Berlin of the Muhammad Yunus Centre was also invited to give a talk at the Indian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility in Mumbai on "The Role of Communication in Social Development Programs for Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives". Rashmi Taparia (RA) presented a paper titled "Adoption of M-commerce by Incubators" at the International Conference on Telecommunication Technology and Management 2015 organised at IIT Delhi.

Lavji Zala (KEIC) was invited as a keynote speaker at the International Conference and Workshop on DSpace organised by P.K. Chaudhari Mahila Arts College, Gandhinagar . Khyati Jagani (FPM 2014-17 batch) presented a paper titled, "The multi-level choices through multi-screen to attain gratification from a live cricket match - Identifying an Active Audience" at "8th Doctoral Thesis Conference" at IBS Hyderabad. Durva Shastri (RA) presented a paper (co-authored with Prof. Rasananda Panda) titled, “Policies pertaining to Telecom Regulations in India over the years: its impact ", at the International Conference on Telecommunication Technology & Management which was organized by Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology & Management, IIT Delhi.

Eminent VisitorsProfessor Mike Ewing, Pro-Vice Chancellor & Executive Dean, Faculty of Business & Law, Deakin University, Australia.

Mr. Nicholas Booker, CEO, IndoGenius , a leading provider of learning opportunities for international students in India.

Ms.Kilmeny Beckering Vinckers, Deputy Consul General, Australian Consulate-General, India.

Can you give us a brief background on GMR Marketing ?

Founded in 1979, GMR Marketing is an award-winning global engagement marketing agency headquartered in Milwaukee, USA. We create unforgettable experiences across sports, music, entertainment and lifestyle — helping brands connect with people via their passions. The outcome: true connections that last. Our team of 850+ creates, consults and activates in 70 countries, from 17 offices in 9 countries. Many of the world's best known brands turn to GMR for insights and analytics; consulting and strategic planning; creative ideation and design; digital, social and mobile marketing; event and hospitality production and much more. In 2013, we helped our clients earn honors including Cannes Lions, Webby, Effie and EventTech awards. In 2014, Sports Business Journal named GMR the Sports Event and Experiential agency of the year.

Can you tell us more about the marquee sport and entertainment events that GMR is associated with?

To help our clients create unforgettable experiences for their customers and consumers through the passion those people have around sports and entertainment, it's necessary for us to be present at the biggest events in the world. As such, we regularly build programs for brands around the Summer and Winter Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, the NFL Super Bowl, the Masters, Ryder Cup and other major golf tournaments, Wimbledon and other major tennis tournaments, America's Cup, Kentucky Derby, NBA All-Star Game and many more. Our programs at these events cover the entire spectrum from consumer promotions and experiential engagement, to cause marketing

programs, B2B hospitality and media integration.

What are some the global brands that have used these tools ?

We have worked with some outstanding global brands in supporting their sponsorship marketing efforts, including SAP, Procter & Gamble, HP and Visa.

What was the purpose of your first visit to India?

I was invited by the TATA Group to make a presentation to their Global Brand & Corporate Communicators meeting, which was attended by several hundred of their senior executives in brand marketing and corporate communications from the various TATA Group companies.

Could you share the gist of your presentation to the TATA Group?

My presentation was on "Using Sports to Build Your Brand". It focused on how to effectively build your brand on a global scale by partnering with sports organizations that your consumers are passionate about. I touched on how sponsorships can help grow brand equity, create compelling two-way dialogue with consumers, showcase products and services in a relevant way, create a point of difference from competitors, boost the effectiveness and impact of other marketing vehicles and generate direct business opportunities.

India will host the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2017, please share with us your experience at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

The FIFA World Cup is a global event like no other. The incredible passion of the fans who come to the tournament from around the world is unmatched.

16

Q & A

The fact that this year's World Cup was held in a futbol crazed country like Brazil only made it a more exciting and vibrant atmosphere than normal. There was a lot of talk about the preparedness of Brazil to host, and they ended up doing a very good job with the logistics. While there were a few minor issues around traffic, parking, security lines, etc., overall it was a very pleasant experience. GMR has an office in both Rio and Sao Paulo and we have been building our presence in Brazil for the past three years, in preparation for World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. It was great to watch our teams deliver outstanding experiences for our clients throughout the duration of the tournament.

What are your plans for doing business in India?

We are very excited about the continued growth of sports and entertainment marketing in India. Working with our fellow Omnicom agency, DDB Mudra Group, we believe we can bring some deep experience and knowledge in using sports and entertainment to deliver on business objectives to the many Indian based companies who are continuing their global growth. We welcome conversations with anyone looking to get into the sponsorship space, or further build upon their existing efforts.

What are your impressions of the DDB Mudra Group?

I've travelled to many countries and worked with many agencies over the years, and there are few, if any who are as welcoming, collaborative and proactive in working with other agencies and with brands, as the team at DDB Mudra Group.

Everything you wanted to know about Sports Marketing. And then some.

Steve DupeeEVP - Business DevelopmentGMR Marketing

17

Q & A

Please share with our readers a few highlights of your career in Sports Marketing?

I have been working in the sports marketing industry all of my career. I started out at IMG as an intern in 1999 working on behalf of sponsor clients to ensure that they were getting the exposure that they had paid for via sponsorship investments across rugby, tennis, ice skating, golf and a whole plethora of other sports and entertainment projects.

Like a lot of people, I was attracted to the industry courtesy of my love of sport. What I learned at IMG is that sport doesn’t happen without the investment of brands and media owners – well, not professional sport in any case. Without their $$$$ or their wider marketing support, no events from the Olympics on down would ever be possible.

From IMG, I moved to a smaller, UK focused sports marketing agency called Sportsworld Media Group, then on to MediaCom and Repucom before landing at GMR in July 2014.

Could you tell us some more about GMR?

GMR is a full service sponsorship and brand engagement agency. We work with a number of the world’s largest brands to help them identify, negotiate, manage and activate investments in to engagement marketing. This often takes the form of official sponsorships (mainly in sport, but also in music) but can involve developing brand owned IP and events bespoke to their objectives.We work on behalf of a vast array of

brands including Microsoft, SAP, HP, VISA, P&G, Nissan and Adidas. What I really enjoy about GMR is that we are purely brand focused.

What is the main purpose of your visit this year?

I met Madhukar during one of my first meetings and discussions have continued from there about how we might be able to bring our sports marketing knowledge to the table to help augment DDB Mudra’s domestic Indian client relationships and unlock opportunities for the growing group of major Indian brands with global aspirations to access the global sponsorship market place through GMR.

Through Siddharth Raman, the perfect opportunity arose to combine a speaking slot at the WOW Awards and Convention in Delhi with a number of client meetings across Mumbai and Delhi. We met with two ISL teams, Mahindra, TATA, U17 World Cup LOC and Hero and all of these meetings offer some level of opportunity. We are certainly excited to be able to combine DDB Mudra local market knowledge and contacts with GMR global sports marketing expertise and the signs are very promising. Hopefully, this will unlock the need for many more visits!

What has been your experience in India and with DDB Mudra Group?

The experience has been an excellent one. Getting an insight into the DDB Mudra world, meeting the people and clients and seeing first hand what the market place is like in India has been invaluable. Sid and the gang have

done a marvelous job of looking after us and I genuinely can’t wait for the next trip.

What are your views on the sports marketing landscape in India?

There are two answers to this.

1) The landscape in India is really exciting. U17 World Cup LOC talked about that event as an inflection point for the sport of football in the country. I think he is right, but the sponsorship landscape has been going through a general inflection point since the birth of the IPL as athletes, brands, media owners and fans alike have witnessed first hand the benefits that major corporate investment can have on sport. Peoples’ passion has been enhanced by greater entertainment, wider and more regular access to ‘best in class’ sport and largely speaking everyone has benefitted. Now other sports and entertainment sectors have a path to follow and the understanding across brands and agencies about how to extract maximum value has increased exponentially.

2) The landscape beyond India is important, as brands like Hero, TATA, Mahindra and other indigenous Indian brands look to find their feet beyond the country’s borders. These brands are still feeling their way with global sports sponsorship activation but there is no doubt that they will quickly improve and become not only great sponsor brands but great ambassadors for India, similar to how Samsung and Hyundai have helped to revolutionize the world’s perception of Korea’s manufacturing capability and quality.

Charlie Dundas Business Development DirectorGMR Marketing

1818

Best of DDB Worldwide

The Skoda Octavia Scout is a car that can handle rough situations, both on and off the road. It is a tough roader with higher stance sturdier suspension, reliable 4wd system, tougher body and undercarriage. Even so, the brand struggled to prove itself as a high quality, high performance car manufacturer and was the target of some, for lack of a better term, shit-talking from time to time which kept it in an underdog position. Tapping into these facts DDB built a campaign with a central activity consisting of a physical experiment wherein the car was placed in front of a custom-built, rubbish-throwing machine. This machine was connected to an online tool where people could verbal ly “unload” their everyday frustrat ions and have their words transformed into physical garbage. The location was chosen carefully to tune into the car’s rough characteristics: a barren stony beach with a de-saturated palette, a single tree in the background, framing the character of the white car standing on a white simple podium, disconnected from the harsh nature.

According to the NHTSA, August is the most dangerous driving month of the year. This coupled with the most number of texting and driving related accidents in the city of St Louis created a sizable problem for everyone on the street. To help promote AT&T’s ‘It can Wait’ campaign against texting, a dedicated phone number was created so that people could call before getting behind the wheel to record voice messages reminding themselves about never to text and drive. Those messages were then broadcast as 30-second radio spots during the cities most dangerous drive times on the most popular stations. Pledge Radio broadcast thousands of messages and via radio and social media reached over 5,00,000 people in only three weeks. But most importantly it helped remind a city in their own voices that when it comes to texting and driving it can always wait.

Skoda | Built to Take Shit | DDB Stockholm

Every year, the equivalent of 1,866,664 trailer loads full of organic waste are sent unnecessarily to the landfill in Auckland, a mass so huge that it costs taxpayers approximately $77 million per year to dispose of it. So, in a bid to remind Aucklanders

about the problem of food waste while simultaneously encouraging them to consider composting, We Compost (a network of New Zealand businesses committed to reducing and recycling organic waste) launched a campaign via DDB and with support from Auckland Council that enabled Aucklanders to trade their food waste for a variety of treats. As part of the campaign, Aucklanders were able to exchange a bag of food scraps for goods such as coffee beans, muffins and t-shirts. More than 40 local businesses came onboard in support of the event, with Kokako café, fashion label Sitka, Little Bird Organics café and Ponsonby Central. The crux of the campaign was to attach a value to organic waste, so that consumers started seeing it as something that shouldn't simply be discarded but something of value that could be traded.

AT&T | Pledge Radio | DDB St. Louis

A touching commercial featuring a dying pet owner and his dog making its rounds worldwide will make you cry and consider donating your organs. “The Man and the Dog” ad commissioned by an Argentinian donor foundation showed off the strong bond between an older gentleman and his pooch, who travel everywhere together until a heart attack struck the man. The dog followed the ambulance car transporting his best friend to the hospital and waited patiently outside for developments, rain or shine. In a clever twist, the dog left with a woman who was supposedly the recipient of his owner’s heart. Within days of uploading the video to YouTube it had collected nearly five million views.

WECOMPOST | We Compost Bags | DDB New Zealand

Fundicion Argentina De Transplante Hapatico | The Man and the Dog | DDB Argentina

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Battery recycling is a problem in Russia, where in big cities like Moscow over 15 million batteries and accumulators are thrown away every year. One battery can pollute more than 20 square meters of the ground. To make it easier for locals to recycle, Volkswagen and DDB Russia installed The Think Machine, a specially-made vending machine that only accepted batteries as payment, in different parts of the country. The machines also enabled passersby to buy items from local community shops by parting with their old batteries. Two batteries would get them an anti-stress ball, four batteries would buy them a bottle of water, and for six batteries they could purchase an eco t-shirt. One single machine collected over 8,000 batteries during the first month it was installed. In comparison, a regular collection point in Russia usually gathered less than a thousand in a month.

During World Cup 2014, DDB Latina launched a new campaign for its client

AXE, the leading men's personal care line, which recognized women are

paying attention to soccer. The new campaign for AXE warned its consumers

that during this month, more help would be needed from its products, since

soccer players' physical attributes would capture the ladies' attention. With

phrases such as: "You watch the game, she watches the players;" "It's your

legs versus 11 pairs of toned legs;" "You watch Spain, she watches the famous

[Shakira's] boyfriend;" the AXE brand stood out from the turmoil of advertising

messages that highlighted sports pride, with its characteristic wit and humor

leading to the closing statement: "This month you'll need us more than ever."

DDB Latina's new AXE campaign was carried out throughout Puerto Rico in

print, outdoor and digital media outlets, as well as social networks and

activations in places where people were expected to watch the games.

During the Super Bowl, several brands trended nationally on Twitter, thanks to either in-game commercials or pregame activity that ranged from TV spots to product giveaways that people loved. McDonald's, though, really stood out. The fast-food slinger tweeted like crazy about

Volkswagen | Battery Vending Machine | DDB Russia

AXE | World Cup | DDB Puerto Rico

KLM, known for its social savvy and service took both to new levels by promising to help travelers on any airline during #HappyToHelp week. Eager to prove to non-customers the quality of its customer service, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines offered help to as many travelers as possible—including those not even using KLM—on and offline, through an

ambitious global social campaign called #HappytoHelp. If you had forgotten your passport on the way to the airport over, KLM arranged for a driver to take you back home to get it. If you were unsure, what to pack for that last minute trip to Ibiza, KLM gave you a tailored weather report. The airline even hired a speed boat on the Hudson R iver to he lp out anyone who r isked missing a flight—any flight—due to being stuck in traffic on their way to JFK.

McDonald’s | Superbowl Twitter |DDB Chicago

KLM | Happy to Help | DDB Amsterdam

Best of DDB Worldwide

20

KLM, known for its social savvy and service took both to new levels by promising to help travelers on any airline during #HappyToHelp week. Eager to prove to non-customers the quality of its customer service, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines offered help to as many travelers as possible—including those not even using KLM—on and offline, through an

ambitious global social campaign called #HappytoHelp. If you had forgotten your passport on the way to the airport over, KLM arranged for a driver to take you back home to get it. If you were unsure, what to pack for that last minute trip to Ibiza, KLM gave you a tailored weather report. The airline even hired a speed boat on the Hudson R iver to he lp out anyone who r isked missing a flight—any flight—due to being stuck in traffic on their way to JFK.

other marketer's spots, and the messages garnered thousands of re-tweets. Twitter users were lovin' McDonald's after the fast-food company decided to give away dozens of prizes that tied in with each Super Bowl XLIX advertiser's commercial. The Golden Arches — which ran a big game ad about sharing love — offered up unique giveaways to those who re-tweeted flattering messages that it posted about fellow marketers. For instance, Twitter users who re-tweeted a McDonald's post

about the toenail fungus medicine Jublia were eligible to win designer sandals and a pedicure. Those who re-tweeted a post about Microsoft could win an Xbox One. Some of the prizes were silly — such as airline tickets and a suitcase full of Doritos in a nod to the chip-maker's ad about an airline passenger. Other prizes included a $1,500 Discover Gift Card, a 2015 Toyota Camry and a 2015 C-Class Mercedes.

Protesters in Spain came up with a novel way of taking on a new law that l imited the rights of the public to take part in demonstrations. Thousands turned out but nobody even came close to being arrested – because no one actually attended the protest. A number of holograms were projected outside Spanish parliament building, showing people across the globe, who were angry at the new so-called ‘safety’ law, which made it illegal to protest outside government buildings, insult police officers or refuse to reveal identification documents. 0n 10 April 2015, 17,857 people protested in f ront o f the Spanish Parliament in the only way the Gag Law allowed them to. Turned into holograms. It was the first Ho logram Protest in History. And, hopefully will be the last.

Wil l iam Trubridge didn't quite manage to break his own free-diving world record but, with the help of a big push from Steinlager and a live broadcast from TVNZ, he did manage to get plenty of New Zealanders to watch the attempt on Breakfast. Steinlager, DDB and Zenith Optimedia put in a big effort to promote the dive, with one of the highlights being the interactive 102m website. And it paid off. According to Nielsen stats, the cumulative audience reached was 209,700 in AP 25 - 54 and 462,100 in AP 5+. TVNZ publicist Rachel Howard said during the dive at 8.10am in AP 25 - 54 the rating point was 3.6 with a 47 percent share of the TV audience, and in 5+ the rating point was 4.2 with a 49 percent share. In addition to the TV viewership, there was also plenty of PR coverage for the stunt and lots of social engagement, in part because it ran the 'Tweet Sonar' during the dive, which saw updates running across digital billboards.

No Somos Delito | Holograms for Freedom | DDB Spain

Steinlager Pure | Sonar Deep Dive | DDB New Zealand

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In 2015, Volkswagen decided to re-launch the Jetta after a communication hiatus of nearly four years. While not a key volume player, the A notch segment is extremely important for Volkswagen, helping drive imagery and aspiration for the brand. The campaign had to improve awareness and consideration for the new Jetta and heighten the aspirational image of the brand. To begin with, the audience was defined sharply. The Jetta owner was an achiever, a person who was taking his first step into the world of luxury and someone who reflected a new India

New Vokswagen Jetta | Worth Everything | DDB Mudra WestMathrubhumi Classifieds | Goodbye foolish stones |DDB Mudra South & East

Mathrubhumi, Kerala’s most popular newspaper believed that the people of Kerala (like all Indians) aren’t made fools of only on 1 April, it happened, every day. While the State Government of Kerala announces numerous projects and public benefit programs with great fanfare, most never take off. This apathy made it celebrate Apri l fool’s Day, with a powerful message to the people and the Government through an interactive print campaign- Goodbye fool ish stones. The print campaign showed foundation stones of largely publicized government projects which were the first and last step of the developments. The ads appealed the readers to ‘open their eyes and react’. The call for action requested all to share instances of such neglect by the government through pictures, emails, WhatsApp, or by contacting the Mathrubhumi’s agents and reporters. The response was overwhelming with more than 1000 claims being received in just 3 days. After collecting all verified claims, the newspaper carried a special supplement named- ‘open their eyes and react’ on April Fool’s Day and shared it with the Chief Minister of the state.

On 15 April 2014, India’s Supreme Court granted the country’s Transsexual and Transgender individuals the r ight to se l f - ident i fy the i r gender. Making India the first country in the world to formally recognize them as the third gender. To mark the one-year anniversary of this historic e v e n t , L e n s k a r t a n d t h e Transgender and Transsexual community, gathered at Jantar Man ta r and a long w i th t he

support of the community from across the nation pledged their eyes as a thank you gesture to Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.K. Sikri who passed the judgment. The number of pledges that were received crossed 16,000 and the community has vowed to bring this number up to 2 lakh, making it the s ingle largest pledge of the country. Just ice Sikr i and Just ice Radhakrishnan in turn handed over the pledges to Eye Bank of India. In today’s world, brands need to show a heart, be humane and offer a point of view. Transgender and Transsexuals were always around but their presence was never acknowledged. So Lenskart sponsored the idea of Transgenders pledging their eyes, so those who can’t see, see. With a hope that those who can see, see too.

Lenskart and EBAI | Eye for an Eye | DDB MudraMax

Kingfisher Premium | #RuleTheIPL | 22feet Tribal WW

Kingfisher Premium aimed to dominate mind space and ensure high recall. In keeping with its brand’s tagline ‘Divided by Teams, United by Kingfisher’, this Twitter-led campaign innovatively reinforced the brand’s association with IPL. It focused on uniting its audience by identifying key moments and emotions during the cricket season. It used several situations in the course of the IPL viz. #UnitedByCricket, #UnitedByCatches, #UnitedByVictory, #UnitedByWeekend…universal clarion calls that brought together an audience that loves rel iv ing and rehashing every moment of India’s biggest sporting event. Twitter teams in India and Singapore identified key moments during the IPL and engaged the audience with unique content

such as exclusive reactive GIFs featuring cricket players from each team which were tweeted out at crucial moments. Cartoon GIFs of noted illustrator Abhij it Kini were used to inject a dash of humor. Contests were run to give away match tickets and other merchandise. The latest fad of the internet Dubsmash was used to leverage the iconic Good T imes j ingle, ‘Oo La La La Le O’. The campaign garnered 8 trending hashtags, 5 mil l ion Twitter imp ress i ons , and was vo t ed one o f t he bes t campaigns of IPL 2015 by industry experts.

Best of DDB Mudra

22

cultivating refined tastes, and venturing beyond the ordinary. The idea was to showcase the Jetta by heightening the desirability of the car, making it the epitome of luxury, craft and quality, and ultimately the car worthy of his obsession. Thus was born “Worth everything”. A deeply human story of desire and obsession was told through an unusual and clutter breaking creative device – the chameleon.

As India’s trusted fashion house, fbb was the honored sponsor of one of India’s most prestigious beauty pageants - Femina Miss India 2015. To leverage this opportunity the brand created a campaign ‘21 Days, 21 Looks’ which gave the brand an opportunity to launch its collection on a mass platform and showcase it via the divas that the common Indian woman could relate to. The campaign showcased each of the finalists modelling one unique look every day, for 21 days, and talking about their personal style mantras. This was published online across fbb's various social media platforms. This campaign was also accompanied by a series of videos. Each day saw one finalist talking about their fashion resolution for the upcoming year, which was published to YouTube, with the hashtag #fresolution. The campaign went online on 21 March, 2015 and was later translated to print as well, which was also crafted by RAPP India.

Dabur Pudin Hara is a herbal, effective remedy for stomach ache, gas and indigestion. It is one of the oldest and most important players in the Indian antacid segment. To create and strengthen its image a TVC was produced based on the premise that one can hide the pain of a heartbreak from public eye, but not the uneasiness of a stomach ache. The TVC opens with two friends having a meal at a restaurant. One of them is teasing the other about a newly-wed girl at the next table, making the guy visibly disturbed. His facial reactions lead one to assume that the reactions are due to long-lost love and heartache. The twist in the tale comes in when he confesses that the reactions are due to stomach ache and not heart break. The minute-long film was released digitally, on television and in-cinemas on May 11, 2015.

fbb | 21 Days 21 Looks | RAPP

Pudin Hara | Dil ka Dard ka Specialist | DDB Mudra NorthKingfisher Premium aimed to dominate mind space and ensure high recall. In keeping with its brand’s tagline ‘Divided by Teams, United by Kingfisher’, this Twitter-led campaign innovatively reinforced the brand’s association with IPL. It focused on uniting its audience by identifying key moments and emotions during the cricket season. It used several situations in the course of the IPL viz. #UnitedByCricket, #UnitedByCatches, #UnitedByVictory, #UnitedByWeekend…universal clarion calls that brought together an audience that loves rel iv ing and rehashing every moment of India’s biggest sporting event. Twitter teams in India and Singapore identified key moments during the IPL and engaged the audience with unique content

such as exclusive reactive GIFs featuring cricket players from each team which were tweeted out at crucial moments. Cartoon GIFs of noted illustrator Abhij it Kini were used to inject a dash of humor. Contests were run to give away match tickets and other merchandise. The latest fad of the internet Dubsmash was used to leverage the iconic Good T imes j ingle, ‘Oo La La La Le O’. The campaign garnered 8 trending hashtags, 5 mil l ion Twitter imp ress i ons , and was vo t ed one o f t he bes t campaigns of IPL 2015 by industry experts.

Best of DDB Mudra

23

Royal Challenge | Make a bold move |DDB Mudra South & East

Royal Challenge, one of India’s leading whisky brands wanted to strengthen its position amongst the youth. To bring alive the brand promise that Royal Challenge inspires one to drop inhibit ions and make a bold move, a one minute f i lm was created and used across digital platforms and television. Set in a club, the film captured the rush one experiences while going against convention and taking a risk. Using the word ‘No’ in various elements to showcase the clichéd ways people advise you to follow, the story shows the protagonist making the bold move and asking the girl for a dance. The hurdles that cross his path and the metaphors that tell him to question his goal are a depiction of real life. The story closes with the girl delightfully agreeing to the dance. The lyrics of the soundtrack used in the ad film were penned by Sonal Dabral, his third stint at writing song lyrics. The ad film was well received with more than 562,000 views on YouTube alone.

Over the years, the key segment of people who desire an AC, but find it unaffordable to run has been explored. With this campaign, the focus was shifted from “AC desiring homes” to “inert fan homes” and the pi tch was changed f rom “rationalization” to “upgrade”. Since Symphony was looking for exponential growth in the category, the inert fan homes seemed to be the largest market ripe for conversion. They displayed a mindset that understood the requirement of cool air, but continued to use fans due to inertia, lethargy or force of habit. Also there was the fact that fans are pretty much taken for granted in homes. Every home has them and people don’t take much pride or don’t have any relationship with the fan category or brands of fans beyond its functional utility. The TVC urges the fan households to upgrade to “Symphony” in a humorous manner. The fact that fans circulate and throw hot air whereas people are looking for cool air in the hot summers was identified as the pain point in the creative expression. The TVC was supported by print, POS, radio and digital.

Symphony | Pankhe What is This? | DDB Mudra West

Dhara Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil |Zyada Jhanjh Chahiye? | DDB Mudra North

UNICEF | Paheli ki Saheli | DDB Remedy

Dhara has a strong lineage in the mustard oil category and aimed to reinforce the position of Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil by positioning it as an aid to better taste due to its Jhanjh, a word which commonly stands for pungency but colloquially also denotes attitude in the Eastern parts of the country where it is consumed the most. The campaign made extensive use of television, outdoor, digital and print mediums. The three ad films which comprised the larger part for the campaign correlated Jhanjh to a person’s attitude. A series of 3 different scripts showcased an upcoming singer, a political party worker and a footballer, be ing gu ided by the i r mentors . The f i lms had the protagonists show their best work to the mentors and the mentors advising them that while they have the required talent, they did not have the X factor (Re: Jhanjh) to make it big. The films closed with a call for action to use Dhara Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil for consumers who want Uttam jhanjh, Behtar Swaad.

T h e o b j e c t i v e o f t h e campaign was to educate the ear ly menarche g i r ls about menstrual hygiene and how to tackle the menstrual cycle by developing an informational audio-video. This empowered the girls to better understand the physical and behavioural changes that come wi th puberty. Explaining health issues and topics which are way too sensitive, to children is difficult. The best solution

was to convey to them in a playful way so that they understood better and also remembered. To do this, riddles were presented to the girls by their peers, with whom they are most comfortable talking. These riddles related to menstrual hygiene and as they solved them, they were introduced to the concept of menstrual hygiene and how to manage the same. Apart from a film, print, posters, a flipbook and diary were also used.

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Thus Spake Zeigler

Is marketing an art or a science? It’s an old question, but still relevant.

When we talk of creativity, we often think of flashes of genius that cannot be predicted or controlled. But, in recent years there has been a push to introduce a more scientific approach to marketing. And clients are listening.

Most creatives will not be aware of Andrew Ehrenberg. He’s not up there with the likes of Bill Bernbach, DDB’s founder, in the industry’s pantheon. But the ideas of this economist, who died in 2010, are increasingly winning converts. The Ehrenberg Bass Institute, which he co-founded, works with some of the biggest brands on the planet. Its staff of ‘marketing scientists’, among them Professor Byron Sharp, has written some of the most influential marketing books and journal papers of recent years.

It is crucial that the advertising industry understand the arguments they make, for two reasons:

1. They talk in terms of growth, and how brands grow – and growth is the number one concern for any marketing director. And, if you have read my other posts, you will know I believe, if the creative industry is to present a convincing case to clients, it must understand this growth agenda.

2. At a time when the advertising industry is losing influence, it is crucial to show that creativity is a worthwhile investment. By presenting creativity in a more ‘scientific’, more predictable light,

agencies will be better placed to justify that investment.

So what can creative agencies learn from this ‘marketing science’? And does it support a case for investment in creativity, or undermine it?

It’s all about the consumer

Ehrenberg’s starting point was not advertising, but buyer behaviour. He looked for recurring patterns in consumption behaviour, and the way people purchase brands within a given category.

It is hard to sum up decades of analysis in a few lines, but some key points include:

• Patterns of purchasing and brand loyalty are very similar across categories and markets. Big brands tend to have slightly higher rates of purchase frequency than smaller brands. The big tend to stay big, and it is very hard for a small player to grow significantly.

• Brand loyalty is rare. Consumers switch between brands, and tend to have a repertoire of brands they choose from.

• Penetration should be a brand’s goal; success is most likely to come from persuading the mass of infrequent buyers of a brand to buy it slightly more often. Reaching this mass of light buyers is key.

• Consumers rarely remember much about a brand. Certainly, most of a brand’s finely honed work to create differentiation versus the rest of the category is wasted. It is more important for consumers simply to remember the existence of a brand when they come to make a purchase in that category.

• It is better to pursue ‘salience’ rather than ‘differentiation’. This means the role of advertising is to remind consumers that a brand exists and to get the brand into the consumers’ ‘repertoire’. It is about nudging more than persuading.

The theories are complex, but compelling. So how do they link to creativity? On the surface, a focus on reach and ‘salience’ seems to favour a numbers-driven, media-led approach. And it is certainly worthwhile for creatives to understand the importance of reach. Brands have to know they are talking to as many of the ‘right’ people as possible. That is why so much emphasis now goes on the media plan before anything else.

But ironically, a better understanding of the ‘science’ of marketing supports the case for creativity. The great mistake many clients make is to assume that, basically, any creative treatment would work within the ‘right’ media schedule. That is definitely not the case!

Being distinctive sells

As Andrew Ehrenberg wrote 10 years ago in the Journal of Advertising Research, the need for a brand to be ‘distinctive’ elevates brand storytelling above concerns such as brand differentiation and selling propositions:

"… Advertising a better mousetrap is fairly easy if it is in fact a bit better. One can, for instance, just say so. But having to center your advertising on adding year after year some indiscernible 'Whiter and Brighter' product-boon can restrict the kind of creativity that aims at memorable impacts for the brand.

"In contrast, publicising a brand gives ample scope for imaginative insights ('The Big Idea') and for disciplined marketing communication skills ('Always Coca-Cola'). This can stimulate creativity, that is, distinctive and memorable for the brand out of next to nothing. This seems the hallmark of good advertising as we know it.”

So creativity can create the ‘distinctiveness’ a brand needs to enter a consumer’s buying repertoire. If the goal is ‘telling a brand story well’, that should place creativity at the heart of marketing.

And, there’s more good news for the creative industry. Marketing scientists also make the point that consumers

The science of marketing and the casefor creativity

need to know which brand an ad is for. That does not mean a pack shot in every frame. It means building a distinct look and feel that can act as a shortcut to remind the viewer about the brand. That requires consistency. It requires a long-term approach where creativity builds a recognisable identity over time.

Our work with Devondale, dairy co-op in Australia, is a great example of client and agency working together to build a distinctive character for the brand. To establish an emotional connection with our customers – rather than selling them on rational product benefits – we decided to use humour in a category that would generally not. The work won Devondale and our DDB Melbourne agency Ad Campaign of the Year.

A call for a more effective marketing department

Another of our client’s, Mars Incorporated is one major brand profitably pursuing some of Ehrenberg’s principles. It has tested the theories, and found they fit the categories they work in around the world. It has retrained its marketing teams around

achieving growth, and is seeing business rise as a result.

Wrigley's, a subsidiary of Mars Incorporated, Eclipse, through the ‘Hello’ campaign, is one of the brands that has benefited. Mars’ Snickers, ‘you’re not you when you’re hungry’ is another. As Bruce McColl of Mars and Rachel Kennedy of the Ehrenberg Bass Institute wrote in 2012: “Grabbing the attention of light users of a brand demands that the advertising gets noticed. The goal is to engage—to pull viewers’ heartstrings, tickle their funny bones—but not to do so at the expense of branding. Both creativity and science can—and should—work together.”

The result? A more effective marketing department. “One of the great benefits of applying the laws of growth across the business has been the increase in credibility of the marketing function,” they continued. “When marketing becomes fact-based, it is dramatically more compelling for general managers and chief financial officers to “trust” the marketing recommendations.”

I have no doubt that creativity’s future

lies in the heart of a business. Creativity, with its role properly understood, becomes a key investment for growth. And our industry - with its knowledge of consumers and human insights - is best placed to drive this growth if we properly practice creativity and prove to marketers that we do more than make ads.

Indeed, the need to be distinctive, and to find new stories to tell that link a brand with a particular category in people’s minds, opens up new opportunities for the creative industries. It means requiring deep knowledge of categories or consumer segment. It may also mean engaging with the client differently to understand the potential. Ultimately it means reassessing our current model and changing it to reinforce and deliver creativity to a growth agenda. I feel confident this will happen, mainly because it is already happening in many agencies, but wouldn’t our world be a better place if more clients understood the case for creativity and the impact this has on growth?

Thus Spake Zeigler

Meet the Chief Innovation & Growth Officer

Anthony James aka AJ is the Chief Innovation & Growth Officer at DDB.

He has been tasked with taking head on the challenge to:

• provide focus to DDB Group’s innovative business growth solutions

• commercialize new and existing

digital and tech solutions to generate growth for agency clients

• engage properly practised creativity and innovation for long-term business growth

• apply creative thinking across business processes to deliver a competitive advantage and new revenue streams

• connect the best minds within the agency in order to look at business problems from a different perspective

AJ works closely with Tribal Worldwide Asia Pacific, and spearheads the commercial success of innovative digital solutions for DDB's clients – from mobile apps to web-ordering systems to e-stores and interactive retail assets – as well as enhancing client revenue streams and customer engagement to 'hack' into creative business growth

opportunities.

AJ was in India recently on his first visit and he was highly impressed by the creative, imaginative, and innovative thinking and ideas from across DDB Mudra Group and 22feet Tribal. He was really thrilled to see how many passionate people make up the India team.

According to him, the opportunities that abound in the Indian market are substantial and the team that has been put in place is prepared and ready to take these challenges head-on! He is, therefore, very excited to be working closely with a team that is open and willing to learn from other markets and experience and adapt to the local market. This is why he believes that the future looks very bright and the possibilities limitless for DDB Mudra Group and 22feet Tribal in India.

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Guts & Glory

26

HotStuff Book IssueSize : (W) 235 X (H) 345 mm

The Asset Triple A Awards 2015

In an award ceremony organized at Hong Kong, DDB Mudra Group and Deutsche Bank were awarded The Asset Triple A Awards by Asset Publishing and Research Ltd. for being the Best Cash Management Solution in India. The award was presented to Anurag Bansal, Chief Financial Officer, DDB Mudra Group.

The Asset Triple A Awards is Asia’s defining recognition for excellence in the financial industry. This reputation has been built upon the stringent methodology, combined with the rigorous approach to the selection of the winners of the coveted Triple A (Asset Asian Awards). The awards are adjudicated by The Asset’s Board of Editors who collectively have several decades’ worth of evaluating industry awards in Asia.

The recognition was conferred to DDB Mudra Group and Deutsche Bank following a stringent awards process which involved a formal written submission, a half-day assessment meeting with the independent judging panel and client interviews and feedback.

Cannes Lions

DDB Mudra Group won a Bronze Lion in the Outdoors category for its entry for Volkswagen at the 25th edition of Cannes Lions held in June 2015. The work titled ‘Identity’ has won at various other award shows too. Apart from this, 'Misunderstood Scorecard' an outdoor campaign for Zee News was shortlisted in the Media category.

AMES 2015

DDB Mudra Group won a bronze for Big Bazaar - Sabse Saste Din at the AMES Awards and Conference held on 3 June 2015, at the Grand Hyatt Singapore.

As the must-attend event for everyone who is involved in effective brand strategy, the Conference provided excellent opportunities to hear from the "big thinkers" in the industry, and to engage in client-agency discussions on strategic brand solutions. Presentations of shortlisted entry case studies from the 2015 Awards offered unique insights to today's most successful brands.

Guts & Glory

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FAB Awards 2015: DDB Mudra Group bags India’s only metal

Winners of the 17th International Food and Beverage Creative Excellence Awards

were announced in London on 28 May 2015. DDB Mudra Group and McCann

Worldwide were the only two Indian agencies to be nominated, with the former

emerging as the only winner. DDB Mudra won the FAB in the Experiential

Campaign category, for its ‘Health Cha Shree Ganesh’ entry on Nutralite.

Goafest 2015 DDB Mudra Group brought home three gold, five silver and two bronze Abbys from Goafest 2015. ‘Health Chaa Shree Ganesh’ for Nutralite received a gold Abby in the Brand Content & Entertainment category, a silver Abby in Brand Activation & Promotion, and a bronze Abby in Experiential Advertising. ‘The misunderstood scoreboard’ for Zee News received a silver Abby in Branded Content & Entertainment and a gold Abby in OOH - Travel, Entertainment and Leisure. The agency’s negative space series for Volkswagen, which highlights the Bi-Xenon headlamps, automatic distance control and hill hold functions, received two silver Abbys in Print Craft – Best use of Illustration and OOH – Automotive Vehicles and Accessories, and a gold Abby in Print Single – Automotive Vehicles and Accessories. The agency’s retail campaign for Hometown, including print for ‘TV unit’ and ‘Dining table’, received a silver Abby in Print Single – Household Products and Maintenance. Finally, the Hand 1, 2 & 3 campaign for ‘Care Mate’ received a bronze Abby in the Toiletries, Cosmetic & Healthcare category.

Kyoorius Awards

Kyoorius in association with D&AD, announced the winners of the 2015 Advertising & Digital Awards at a spectacular celebration held at DOME @NSCI, SVP Stadium in Mumbai.

DDB Mudra scored big time, winning the only Black Elephant awarded this year. The Black Elephant is the highest award presented by Kyoorius and is equivalent to the Grand Prix in other award events.

DDB Mudra won the Black Elephant for its direct marketing campaign, Health Cha Shree Ganesh for Zydus Wellness Ltd's Nutralite. The campaign for Nutralite gave everyone’s favourite portly idol a healthy makeover – with a physically fit statue and equally fit priest, accompanied by sugar-free modaks and offerings at a pandal in Mumbai. Devotees could participate in Zoomba workouts while waiting in line and donate calories while working out on a treadmill.

DDB Mudra also picked up six Blue Elephants giving it the second-highest tally of trophies after O&M at the Kyoorius Awards.

Thought Leadership

Sonal Dabral

28

HotStuff Book IssueSize : (W) 235 X (H) 345 mm

He was invited to judge the Outdoor Category at D&AD in London on 21 and 22 April 2015. One of only a handful of truly

prestigious award shows in the world, D&AD is arguably the toughest. One of DDB Mudra’s entries at D&AD this year, a

Poster 'Bi Xenon Headlamps' for VW won a coveted D&AD Pencil.

reminisces at Goafest 2015

Sonal also moderated a Q&A session

with his old friend and hit director of

'Queen' Vikas Bahl as part of the

Knowledge Seminar at Goafest on

11 April 2015. They spent the hour

reminiscing about their days at Ogilvy,

nights spent playing pool and snooker,

talking about creativity and, of course,

‘Queen’. Totally impromptu, the session

was straight from the heart and the

audience enjoyed it for that reason.

Sonal Dabral, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer - DDB Mudra Group participated in a panel discussion on ‘Hactivists, Activists, and Trolls: What happens when the bot fails?’ at the New York Festivals from 14 to 21 May 2015. The discussion was moderated by Michael Schiferl, Executive Vice President

speaks at New York Festivals

Weber Shandwick and the other panellists, included Patrick Coffee, Senior Editor - Adweek Blog Network, Graham Lang, Chief Creative Officer - Y&R (South Africa) and Anna Qvennerstedt, Senior Partner / Chairman of the Board / Copywriter - Forsman & Bodenfors (Sweden).

judges at D&AD

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29

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Hurray for the race towards equality! Gender equality in particular. The effort has been yielding, slowly but surely.

The journey though, of the archetypical nurturers playing on equal footing with the proverbial providers hasn’t come without collateral damage. Get this, the contemporary woman - she changes diapers as she closes a business deal, bakes a cake as she catches a con-call, picks up groceries as she parades back home from work. All-round perfection? Or double jeopardy? All this to prove herself equal in capacity and capability to men.

Multitasker. Superwoman. All rounder. Fatigued. Tired. Overwhelmed. She is pressured to perform in a world that makes her misery her merit, her grief her glory, exposing a deep malaise; a society failing to recognize that the very essence of equality is difference. The premise of equality rests on recognising and respecting the differences between people and considering their inherent diversity as equally essential in the functioning of the world as we know it. Nurturing and providing are two sides of a complete picture. Take either out and the picture pales. Regardless of who wears which hat, we must credit them for what they bring to the table.

The problem worsens when media - movies, TV soaps and adverts unwittingly celebrate this double whammy, all the while thinking they are contributing to progressive thought. The Airtel advert where the woman is a

demanding boss to her husband at work and goes back home to cook up a full dinner for him is unreal, unfair, and unequal. Unlike Ariel’s #sharetheload and P & G’s #thankyoumom campaigns that offer support and recognition.

Ladies, you can only be the boss lady at work if you are also the slave lady at home! This pressure of the ‘also’ is awful. This broadening of roles is schizophrenic. We want equality; how about, if a woman brings in the dough, she needn’t knead it also. Or, if a man takes care of the home, he needn’t provide for it also.

The root problem is a society not recognizing that ‘sitting at home’ (What does that term even mean? Who sits at home?) is an actual, real and legitimate job to which we need to ascribe a monetary value. Nurturing is just as strenuous as hunting. Why monetarily reward one and take the other for granted? Homemakers, regardless of their gender, should be entitled to an equal share in the revenues of the incoming salary in the household.

Now, it just so happens that most women are better homemakers. Intellectual harakiri as it may be in times where ‘Is the woman’s place only in the kitchen’ is the liberal-feminist war cry, I ask, ‘so what if it is? Why is it something to be apologetic about? Women are built differently. They can make babies, men can’t. This biological benefit alongside others arguably makes women ‘biologically’ more suitable for nurturing.

On the other hand, there are women I’ve known who don’t have a maternal bone in their body.

Biology is not the only marker in deriving a person’s worldview. Whatever a person’s biological predisposition, their personal choice should be the only index by which they should decide their role, nurturing or providing. If a woman’s choice is to fly a fighter plane, so be it. And if it is to make paper planes for her kids instead, so be it. Just don’t make the fighter pilot go back home and make the paper planes also.

These images of ‘supermoms’ and ‘superdads’ can be, for some, an effortless personal prerogative, but as prescribed performance pressure, they stifle and suffocate. True equality will be when we celebrate the either/or, regardless of gender tags, for what they bring to the table and not put the pressure of the also.

True equality will be when we monetize what the nurturer does at home, which, I suspect that when you put a number on what she does might add up to a number as high, or in fact, much more than that of the ‘Chief Wage Earner’, pointing towards a surprising side to the equality debate:

Is it possible that if at all, in this difference between men and women, it is the women who maybe, just maybe a notch superior?

That’s another debate. For another time.

Amit KekreNational Planning Director

DDB Mudra Group.

True Gender Equality

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30

I graduated during the hey-days of loyalty marketing, getting my career started in the 90s in New York. I even spent a few formative years working at American Express, supporting the king of all loyalty programs – AMEX Membership Rewards.

I’ve worked on loyalty programs across 10 countries and three continents with a variety of different features from points to stamps to discounts to content, etc., etc., etc.

What do I think today? Loyalty programs are outdated and brands need to really think about loyalty as an objective if they’re planning to launch one.

There are two main reasons why loyalty programs don’t work as well today:

• The truth is for most brands (with a couple notable exceptions) people are less – not more – interested in connecting directly with you.

• People are also pretty sophisticated consumers of marketing content these days. They know you are just dying to add them to your database collection.Of course, if they are your customer, and you are handing out free stuff (points, rewards, etc.), they will be happy to take these items off your hands. But that isn’t loyalty – it is intelligence.

“So what” – you might say?If a loyalty program can get customers to

Loyalty alone is never enoughgive you their data and buy from you this relationship isn’t based around “true love” – you guys are both going in eyes wide open and both getting what you want, right?

No.

You are getting nothing.

What you are doing is paying a customer to continue to buy from you (key note – you are not investing in that customer. Investments have a finite time period – after which you can stop paying and continue to reap benefits). Instead of paying customers – you could spend that money on any number of marketing programs and drive a lift in sales.

The other argument you might make – is that a good loyalty program creates a switching cost. It makes the customer so invested in the value that they have earned with you, that it is hard to switch to a competitor.

And, I agree with that approach – if your business is an airline.

The cost of building up hundreds of thousands of miles is huge and the benefit of a lounge or an upgrade for a long flight is worth maintaining your Gold status. But if you are a retailer, or a beverage maker, a coffee shop, or even a hotel – it is not that costly and won’t take that long for a customer to duplicate that value elsewhere.

Another issue is the money you spend on loyalty limits what you can spend on acquisition. In other words, loyalty spending takes away from investing in company/brand growth.

Now don’t get me wrong, you know your business better than I do and actually I am all for cultivating deeper customer relationships. But a loyalty program is not the best way to get there.

Consumers today either love you or are increasingly indifferent. Don’t incentivise the indifferent customers to come back to you.

Go beyond loyalty. The goal is advocacy. This is not a play on words – it is a critical shift in thinking.

Don’t fight to keep and grow the same customer – fight to delight that customer so much so that they unlock new revenue opportunities for you.

Think about Apple. Yes – it is an easy and obvious example, so hopefully it’s also one we can all agree on.While I like Apple, and while I am currently the owner of an iPhone, an iPod, an iPad, a MacBook Pro and an Apple TV – I think it is important to understand that their success is not based on them offering a superior product alone. Their success is also deeply rooted in their fans. Apple fans have convinced and converted the rest of us into believing that if you want technology there is Apple or abacus

Cairo MarshFormer Managing Director,

DDB Group, Japan

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31

(or maybe a Samsung these days).

Apple customers create social pressure on others to buy Apple.

Apple customers – unlock growth. It’s WAY beyond loyalty.

Now, you may not shape an industry like Apple has – and your brand might not be the sexiest. But it is your leading-edge followers who have the ability to shape your brand perception.

You can build a program to encourage advocacy.

It’s precisely what Nike did with Nike+. They didn’t pay people to shop, however they created a way for fans to celebrate the brand and influence broader consumer perception.

It is also what Patagonia did with their Common Threads Partnership program http://www.patagonia.com/us/common-threads/. By working with eBay to establish a program that allows customers to resell usable Patagonia gear, they are not only creating consumer managed outlets for the brand, they are reinforcing the brand values of conservation and consideration of the environment.

Going beyond loyalty is harder. But it is more rewarding (to brands AND consumers).

To go beyond loyalty you have to:

• Design your program to be a living, sustainable articulation of your core brand/product promise. Offering miles makes sense for airlines – does it for you? Offering points per transaction makes sense for credit cards – does it for your brand?

• Understand that advocacy only comes from authenticity. You can’t fake it. A brand that creates visceral communications has to stand for something consistently.

• Commit to your program as a core brand asset. It doesn’t live within the CRM team, it lives at the C-suite.

• Ensure the program empowers the customer via the brand. Make the brand a consumer asset. Patagonia via eBay becomes a way the consumer does some environmental good while making a little money. Nike+ allows the consumer to celebrate their fitness.I believe the brand that serves the consumer best is the brand that usually wins. Going beyond loyalty is a way to do that.

BILL BERNBACH Said

Technique for its own

sake can be disastrous.

Because, after a while,

you’re so anxious to

do things differently,

and do them better

and funnier and more

brilliantly than the

next guy, that becomes

the goal of the ad,

instead of the selling

of the merchandise.

Media Spotlight

HotStuff Book Issue (Page 32)Size : (W) 235 X (H) 345 mm

32

Business Today - 07 June 2015 Brand Equity - 03 June 2015

ET - 22 April 2015

DNA - 25 May 2015 HT Mint - 12 May 2015

IMPACT - 05 April 2015

Editor - Pilloo Mullan | Editorial Team - Siddharth Raman and Akanksha Mishra | Cover Design -Dhrupal Mehta, Art Director, DDB Mudra West.

Artwork – Vithal Malgundkar and Sachin Panchal | Print Production – Chandrashekhar Deshmukh and Hrushikesh Inamdar, Gutenberg Networks India.

Last Word

Now Hiring: Your New Personal Assistant

For 40 years, it’s been the stuff of science fiction to be able to talk to a computer and have it talk

back to you. Sure, there were demonstrations like ELIZA in the 60s and attempts like Ask.com and

Microsoft Clippy since then, but still nothing quite like Captain Kirk’s computer or the HAL 9000.

Suddenly, things are changing. As we speak, the biggest technology companies are quietly in a

new arms race—the race to reign supreme with a natural language user interface. Why? Because

unlike with other computer interfaces like keyboards, mice, or touchscreens, most people have

mastered the learning curve for speaking by the time they’re three. As a direct result, companies

are now realizing that the more intuitive the interface, the more people will use it.

IBM launched the first salvo when Watson won on Jeopardy back in 2011. Apple followed suit by

acquiring Siri and building her into every new iPhone later that year. Google quickly caught up with

Google Now the following year. This year, watch Amazon as it takes orders for Echo, Microsoft as

it rolls out both Cortana and its attempt at Skype’s real-time translation. Apple once more as it

releases the Apple Watch, and JIBO as it comes off a record-setting Indiegogo campaign.

How do you prepare for this impending shift where users everywhere are chatting it up with their

virtual personal assistants? The answer might surprise you: search optimization.

Implications: No matter how fancy the interface gets, remember that at its core, all of these

“personal assistants” are really searching for things. Whether you ask Siri to tell you tomorrow’s

weather or ask Google Now to find the best pizza place nearby, they’re continually “searching.” So

great SEO practices—understanding the short-tail and long-tail phrases your users are looking for,

creating authoritative and engaging content to answer those needs, and having your users spread

the word about you via links and social—will still be the keys to success in this brave new world.