MAM
Maxus wins Manappuram Gold Loan’s print mandate
MUMBAI: Media agency Maxus has won the print mandate for Manappuram Gold Loans.
Maxus’s Bangalore office will get to service the account from June.
The mandate was earlier being handled by Lintas.
Maxus already handles the non-print media mandate for Manappuram since May 2010.
A player in the non-financial banking service (gold loans) category, Manappuram as a brand has adopted a strategy revolving around brand ambassadors with a strong regional appeal, who talk to the masses in their own language and educate them about gold loans.
Mohanlal and Akshay Kumar are some of the celebs on board.
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.
