Brands
Honda MotoGP team extends title sponsorship deal with Repsol until 2020
MUMBAI: Repsol, Spanish oil giant has extended its title sponsorship deal with Honda’s MotoGP team until 2020. It will remain the main sponsor for the motorcycling outfit and continue as the supplier of the fuel and lubricants used for the team’s bikes.
Honda Racing Corporation president Yoshishige Nomura was quoted stating, “During this period, we have successfully faced together the many exciting challenges posed by the rapid evolution of technology, the ever-increasing level of racing competition, the growth of the worldwide MotoGP audience in traditional and new markets, and the fast-changing means of communicating with fans,” to Crash.net.
Both the parties joined hands for the first time in 1995. Honda and Repsol have won 13 premier rider world championships and secured 163 Grand Prix victories, with the most recent coming from Spanish star Marc Marquez at the Dutch TT.
Repsol executive managing director- communications Begoña Elices García said, “We are very pleased to have renewed our alliance with Honda -an alliance that will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year and that goes well beyond a traditional sponsorship agreement.”
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
