MAM
Contract Advertising bags Ashok Leyland account
MUMBAI: Contract Advertising has got the creative mandate to work with Ashok Leyland.
The agency‘s Mumbai branch will handle the account. It aims to create a new position and campaign for the company‘s medium and heavy commercial vehicles.
Mudra was the incumbent on the account.
Contract Advertising EVP Kumar Subramaniam said, “Ashok Leyland is an established name with a strong positive equity and we will aim to build on that equity as we develop new ideas for the brand.”
Ashok Leyland head – branding and marketing communications Alok Saraogi stated, “Contract, besides creative, projected their smart understanding of our business, which really pursued us to get into a relationship with them.”
Mindshare handles the media duties of Ashok Leyland, the flagship of the Hinduja Group.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
