Brands
JSW Cements plans Rs 30 crore campaign
BENGALURU: JSW Cement has a manufacturing capacity of six million tonnes per annum (tpa) or just two per cent of the 300 million tpa capacity that India has, however all of it is Portland Slag Cement or PSC. The company says that over 90 per cent of the cement consumed globally is PSC, but in India the ratio is in single digit percentage. The products offered by JSW Cements include PSC and Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag or GBBS, a component required for PSC mix.
JSW Cements director Pankaj Kulkarni said, “With the new governments in place at the centre and the state (Karnataka), we expect the infrastructure sector to get a big boost and the cement sector is expected to grow nine per cent year on year. Metros like Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kochi will lead the way in the southern market.”
The company has now planned a 360 degree campaign, conceputalised by O&M, for south India that will run until the end of the current fiscal with a budget of around Rs 30 crore. “The campaign will have two main objectives – one, to create awareness about the benefits of PSC over other cements available in India, to educate about the way to use PSC and secondly, brand building,” said JSW Cements brand head Rahul Akkare.
The media communication plans include TVC spots on all major TV channels including regional, news, business, entertainment, infotainment, music, movies, sports, local cable; for radio the company has planned spots at peak commuting hours; for print magazines on concrete and construction related business lines, trade lines, monthly main lines; Newspapers -leading dailies in English such as Deccan Chronicle, The Hindu, Indian Express, Times of India; in Telugu – Eenadu, Sakshi, Andhrajyothi, Andhra Prabha, Namasthe Telangana, Hindi Milab, Siasat, Vaarta; financial print publications such as – Economic Times, Business Today.
For out of home (OOH), JSW Cements has plans for presence on bill boards, bus shelters, medians, transit branding – bus/truck/auto; on social media networks like FB, Twitter, Google Plus, Linked-in, through blogs – Architect celebrity bloggers, Real – estate, Civil Engineers, are being targeted. Web-ads – educating consumers about PSC, campaigning with info fusion. For dealers and sub dealers, the company will provide signage and posters. In view of the approaching festival season, JSW Cements has planned to provide buntings and danglers at and near points of sales.
The campaign will have a tagline of ‘Banao pyaae se’ and is set to begin by the end of this month. About Rs 15 crore will be spent on ATL, focusing mainly on television, followed by trade print, social media and digital. About Rs 15 crore will be spent on BTL- we want to approach and train the influencers like the dealers, sub-dealers, masons, engineers, builders, contractors etc. “We are approaching engineering colleges to include the benefits of PSC as a part of the course for architects etc,” informed Akkare.
JSW reaches 1500 dealers and 3500 retailers in eight markets in South India.
O&M handles the creative duties for JSW Cements as well as group company JSW Steel. “We have 2 or 3 pitches for media buying and should decide on a media buying agency soon,” revealed Akkare further.
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
