MAM
AdFest 2014: India brings home 26 metals
MUMBAI: At the Adfest 2014 held at Pattaya in Thailand from 6-8 March, Indian agencies won a total of 26 metals, eight less than last year.
This year, McCann Erikson led the charge with 11 medals, of which three are Gold, five are Silver and three are Bronze.
JWT India and Grey Worldwide followed winning four metals each. Next are TBWAIndia and Creativeland Asia with two metals each and BBDO India, Taproot India and Linen-A Lintas Group with one each.
The most-award winning campaign by McCann was Audiobook – the William Shakespeare/Mark Twain/Oscar Wilde campaign, which received two Golds in the Print Craft Lotus category for Art direction and Best use of illustration; and for Point of Sale: small scale sub category in the Design Lotus category. The campaign also picked up Silvers in Point of Purchase – Display sub category in Outdoor; Poster sub category under Design Lotus and Best Use of Computer Generated Imagery under Print Craft Lotus. In addition to this, it also took home bronze awards in the Press Lotus category under Best of Communication Media & Publications sub category, and Best of Travel, Entertainment & Communication Media sub category in the Outdoor Lotus category.
Apart from this, McCann won a Silver each for its AIDS Awareness campaign under Media Lotus and Big Babol campaign in Best of food sub category under Outdoor. And, it won a Bronze for Rain catching Adshel campaign for Catchtherain.org in the Outdoor category.
Nike’s Parallel Journey’s campaign helped JWT India stuck Gold under Best of sports, fashion cosmetics and luxury goods sub head in Film Lotus. The campaign also got two Silvers in the Film Craft Lotus category. The Health Capital campaign for Rotract Club of Mumbai Shivaji Park in the Direct Lotus category got the agency its single Bronze.
Grey Worldwide picked up a Gold and a Bronze for Duracell Positive & Negative: Dock/Monkey campaign in the Press Lotus and Outdoor Lotus categories, respectively. For another Duracell campaign called Ageless Wonder: Music/Man/Woman the agency was awarded Silver in the Press and Print Craft categories.
Creativeland Asia’s campaign for Frooti helped the agency grab Gold in the Original music score sub category and Bronze for direction under Film Craft Lotus.
TBWAIndia won two Bronze medals for its Adidas Wall cricket campaign under External/street signs and street furniture and Guerrilla marketing sub categories in Outdoor Lotus.
Taproot India’s Times of India’s farmer suicide campaign secured finalists berth in many categories but was only able to win Silver in the Outdoor Lotus category.
BBDO was awarded Bronze for a public awareness campaign Stick It Art under Best use of ambient: small scale sub category in the Media Lotus category.
Lastly, Linen-A Lintas Group was the only Indian agency to get a bronze in the Radio category.
MAM
MSM Unify appoints Rohit Kumar to lead India campus business
Ex CollegeDekho COO to drive partnerships, scale campus engagement in India.
MUMBAI: From classrooms to boardrooms, the campus playbook is getting a new chief architect. MSM Unify has appointed Rohit Kumar as founding member and president of its India Campus Business, signalling a sharper push into one of the world’s fastest-evolving higher education markets. In his new role, Kumar will oversee the company’s India business vertical, taking charge of institutional partnerships, campus engagement strategy and domestic growth. The mandate is clear: build scalable, technology-led models that connect Indian universities and colleges with global academic and career pathways, while staying grounded in local campus realities.
Kumar brings over 24 years of experience across telecom, IT services and education technology, an unusually broad mix that mirrors the convergence shaping modern education platforms. Most recently, as co-founder and COO of Collegedekho, he helped scale the business into a Rs 300 crore enterprise, delivering a 67 per cent CAGR over five years and building partnerships with more than 2,000 institutions nationwide.
That growth journey also saw the platform expand into adjacent verticals including learning, marketing services and overseas education, backed by multiple funding rounds from investors such as Girnarsoft, ADQ, ETS and Man Capital.
Earlier in his career, Kumar held senior roles at companies including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Sify Technologies, Indiatimes and Videocon, where his work spanned revenue growth, operational efficiency and market expansion across key regions including Maharashtra.
His appointment comes at a time when India’s higher education ecosystem is undergoing structural shifts driven by digitisation, global mobility and increasing demand for outcome-linked education. For MSM Unify, the opportunity lies in bridging domestic institutions with international pathways through a more integrated, tech-enabled approach.
As the race to own the student journey intensifies, Kumar’s task will be less about building from scratch and more about connecting the dots between campuses, careers and a rapidly globalising education economy.
