MAM
Alpha Marathi kicks off brand building exercise with below-the-line activities
MUMBAI: Zee Network’s Marathi language channel Alpha Marathi is planning a slew of brand building initiatives based on below-the-line (BTL) activities. This will include daily online contests, promo campaigns on local cable networks and outdoor campaigns.
Alpha Marathi, which had earlier advertised its programmes on the local cable networks in Mumbai, is going one step ahead and launching promotional campaigns of its shows on local cable networks across Maharashtra. The initiative is targeted at both the urban and the rural segments. Another ploy the channel is planning is to set up television sets which would beam only Alpha Marathi channel in Mumbai’s 12 Apna Bazar super market outlets.
“This year, the marketing strategy is to groom Alpha Marathi as a brand. The brand building exercises will be conducted all major cities across Maharashtra with a focus on consumers. For the promotions, we want to explore the possibilities of below-the-line activities to its full extent,” offers Alpha Marathi senior manager – marketing – Pranita S. Loke.
The online daily contests were first launched on primetime shows Avantika (Monday-Friday 8:30 pm) and Vaadalvat (Monday-Friday 9 pm). Inspired by the success of the two contests, the channel is now launching two more show-based contests, on Bandhan (Mon – Fri 8 pm) and Adhuri Ek Kahani (Mon- Fri 10 pm).
Episode-based questions were asked to the viewer on the channel ahead of the show and viewers were given two options to send in their answers – either by a calling a BSNL number or by sending SMS to 7575. The correct answer was revealed in that day’s episode and the winners’ names were announced in the primetime news bulletin. The Avantika, Vaadalvat contests ended last week.
The channel claims to have received 347000 calls and 74599 during the three-week long activity (23133 calls per day on an average). According to the channel, calls have been received from all corners of Maharashtra and even outside with places like Delhi, U.P., Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. The prizes ranged from Maruti Alto (mega prize, awarded to the person who sends in the maximum number of correct answers in a week) to two wheeler bikes to washing machines and pearl jewellery.
Alpha Marathi senior vice president Nitin Vaidya informs that the channel could generate a huge database through the contests. “We generated a vast database of the contact details of our viewers in just three weeks. This will be useful for our future interaction purposes”, he offers.
The coming months will see the regional channel launching more marketing initiatives. According to Loke, the channel will be making an extra effort on the brand building part in 2005.
“This year, our efforts will be to position Alpha Marathi as a strong brand. The contests and other activities are meant to get closer to our viewer and keep them glued to the channel,” sums up Loke.
Brands
Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
