M. K. ANAND MANAGING DIRECTOR and CEO with TIMES NETWORK CHANGE 18 How Times Network’S M.K
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
December 1-15, 2017 Volume 6, Issue 12 `100 INTERVIEW COPING M. K. ANAND MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CEO WITH TIMES NETWORK CHANGE 18 How Times Network’s M.K. Anand and the company found opportunity in difficult times. Subs riber o yf not or resale 10 20 21 PLUS SONY ‘Porus’ Goes on Air 21 MOST VIEWED ADS The most viewed campaigns across TV and Print on afaqs! 24 SAREGAMA CARVAAN OLA OBITUARY: K.V.L. NARAYAN Golden Oldies, New Era Shifting Gears Voice of NDTV Silenced MOVEMENTS A look at the brand’s new It is an auto rickshaw now, Viacom18’s COO Raj Nayak Who Moved Where 26 musical five-minuter. not a taxi. pays tribute. eol This fortnight... Volume 6, Issue 12 K Anand, managing director and CEO of Times Network, is fearless, EDITOR Sreekant Khandekar Mambitious, and doesn’t mince his words. Each time we’ve interviewed him, PUBLISHER December 1-15, 2017 Volume 6, Issue 12 `100 we’ve come away with some bold statements. Prasanna Singh EXECUTIVE EDITOR INTERVIEW COPING M. K. ANAND Ashwini Gangal MANAGING DIRECTOR The last time we interviewed him, in February this year, it had been around three AND CEO WITH TIMES NETWORK months since Arnab Goswami’s much talked about and overly analysed exit from the ASSOCIATE EDITOR CHANGE 18 Sunit Roy How Times network. He said at the time, “Let’s accept it, Arnab made Times Now what it is Network’s M.K. PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE Anand and the company today...” As Anand puts it, he would rather have a Salman Khan in his team than Andrias Kisku faced up to the difficulties that came their way against him. ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Shubham Garg He also famously said, “We will not allow Arnab to run past us...” (Oh, of course 81301 66777 (M) Apoorv Kulshrestha Subs riber o y notf or resale 10 20 21 PLUS that was our headline!) Back then, the focus of the chat was understanding how life SONY 9873824700 (M) ‘Porus’ Goes on Air 21 MOST VIEWED ADS had changed for him and the network. He conceded then that holding the team together Noida The most viewed campaigns across TV and Print on afaqs! 24 SAREGAMA CARVAAN OLA OBITUARY: K.V.L. NARAYAN was the biggest challenge at the time. Nikhil Jhunjhunwala Golden Oldies, New Era Shifting Gears Voice of NDTV Silenced MOVEMENTS A look at the brand’s new It is an auto rickshaw now, Viacom18’s COO Raj Nayak Who Moved Where 26 musical five-minuter. not a taxi. pays tribute. 9833371393 (M) Mumbai Before that, we spoke to him in April 2015, when he was little over a year old in the [email protected] network (he’d come in from Disney UTV Media Networks, where he worked closely MARKETING OFFICE with Ronnie Screwvala); back then, he spoke to us about his desire to make Times B 3, Ground Floor, Sector 4, Network a `1,000 crore brand, something he reiterated this time around as well. Noida -201301 Uttar Pradesh MUMBAI 302, Makani Center, 3rd Floor, “In the past, I was part of a big company. Suddenly, I was put in a new company Off Linking Road, Bandra (W), which I had to build brick by brick. That is when I realised how difficult it is to create Mumbai - 400050 a `1,500-2,000 crore company. I would like to achieve such a feat and that is what SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES energises me,” Anand told us this time. [email protected] Owned by Banyan Netfaqs Pvt Ltd and Interestingly, Anand works very closely with the network’s creative team; he’s Printed and published by personally involved in each and every part of the marketing and advertising process, Prasanna Singh, at 7-A/13, Ch. Ratan Singh Complex, down to the “right colour, right line, right look, right feel...”, something he never did Jawala Heri Market, Paschim Vihar, with this sort of rigour in the past. He treats his channels as brands, he insists. New Delhi-110 063. Printed at Artz and Printz 208 DSIDC Sheds, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi - 110020 Ashwini Gangal Cover Photograph [email protected] Kiran Patankar CONTENTS 13 16 POINTS OF VIEW Cannes Lions What’s wrong with the festival? Are the organisers taking note? 08 INTERVIEW Vijay Parasuraman Coke’s VP, Marketing talks ADVERTISING UTOPEIA about Thums Up 40th 17 birthday and the imminent Sonal Dabral Freebies on Offer launch of Thums Up Dabral’s two month stint in As the agency turns five, it invited briefs from five cash- Charged. Ogilvy has been a busy one. strapped startups. The carrot? Free ads. afaqs! Reporter, December 1-15, 2 0 1 7 3 e SONAL DABRAL “I Might be a Monk” Sonal Dabral has completed over two months as group chief creative officer and vice chairman, Ogilvy India. A recap in his own words. By Ashwini Gangal love advertising, I love people, I but we have to be sensitive about love teaching. I’m never worried, how we use it. Instead of saying, I I never feel any pressure, I’m ‘Oh I love these shots and must calm. Like a cucumber. I’m almost include them in this film’ we must Zen. I never get angry. It might be wonder whether the audience has a flaw… or I might be a monk,” says the patience to sit through it.” Sonal Dabral, group chief creative At a recent event organised by officer and vice chairman, Ogilvy Facebook, Dentsu’s Ashish Bhasin India, at some point during an hour- made an interesting statement - long quasi interview with me, after ‘It’s not about TVC planning; it’s which he patiently posed for our about video planning’. Marketers photographer for another hour, the frequently stress on the need to former actor in him (Dabral has ‘go beyond the TVC’ and expect acted in Fauji and hosted Philips Top an agency to do ‘more than just 10 on TV) still amongst us. make TVCs’. It has almost become Seated in the ‘Cigar Lounge’ at fashionable to bash the ‘typical Ogilvy’s Mumbai office, we chatted TVC’ today. What is Dabral’s take? about his 32-year-long career, which “This bashing that you speak of reached a peak when he joined is a bit shortsighted. TV, in India, Ogilvy in mid-September this year. is still the most efficient medium to “Of the three decades I’ve spent in reach the masses. You have to use advertising, almost two have been that 30- or 60-second commercial with Ogilvy. So it’s part of me in a for any brand to be built here. A way...” he says. The past couple of TVC is still a revered piece of film; months have been a whirl for Dabral. a lot of ‘thinking time’ of some A fortnight after joining, he went ‘expensive’ creative teams, and a lot to judge the London International of money goes into it.” Awards for about 10 days; when he About the consumer, Dabral says, got back, he spent time “meeting “With so many different screens, people, getting inducted into the touch-points have increased. Earlier accounts... after I came back from our audience was more ‘disciplined’. judging, I hit the ground running. They sat and watched TV, saw Some accounts are new for me (Tata billboards, then heard the radio. Sky, Pernod Ricard, Amazon), some Now, at odd hours they’re checking are old (Pidilite, Asian Paints).” their phones, WhatsApp messages, A lot was said and written about looking at YouTube, binge-watching his recent move from DDB Mudra programs, recording these... there’s to Ogilvy. What did Dabral make a whole lot of indiscipline. Since we of all the hype and noise around no longer have a captive audience the development? “In a way, the our storytelling has to be that much noise was expected, because I’ve better...” spent so much time at Ogilvy (India, The world of the client has Malaysia, Singapore) and have changed too. “Today, we’re moving partnered Piyush (Pandey) on many towards a world of collaboration, great pieces of work, which took “Till a robot sheds a tear or smiles at a joke, with more ‘content houses’ and Ogilvy to the top... I can understand our work is safe.” expertise outside of the lead agency. why that noise was created. It was a But I still feel brand custodianship big thing, even for me.” describe these ads, the fitting one is the bane of many commercials. should sit with the lead agency,” Dabral began his career with - simple. Is some of that simplicity Creative people get greedy. We want Dabral says. According to Dabral, Lintas, but his “growth as an missing in what is seen today? to put in too much,” he says about newer and more complex media like advertising person happened with “I won’t call it ‘simple versus the ‘then’, before going on about the augmented reality, virtual reality and Ogilvy.” It is here that he learnt how complicated’; I’d say when you have ‘now’, “In the digital era, it’s become artificial intelligence will become to lead, “first a group, then an office, only 20 or 30 seconds to tell your possible to tell longer stories, work mainstream someday. “There are then a country office.” story, there’s a certain discipline that with emotions, build more layers, algorithms and software programs For the most part, our chat was comes in. You have to communicate more characterisation, work with that can create an ad,” he says.