MAM
MMA India announces new categories, calls for entries to 2020 SMARTIES awards
MUMBAI: The Mobile Marketing Association has announced new categories for the ninth edition of SMARTIES India Awards 2020, scheduled for September in Mumbai, India. The SMARTIES are the world’s only global mobile marketing awards programme honouring innovation, creativity and success, and MMA is calling for entries to SMARTIES 2020, encouraging agencies, brands, and marketers who have secured outstanding achievements across the mobile marketing ecosystem.
“Technology has become a greater, more integral part of mobile marketing in the past year and continues to be a disruptive force across India. We are pleased to introduce new categories for this year’s SMARTIES Awards. These categories will help expand our reach to new, modern marketing initiatives being undertaken across the country,” said MMA India country head Moneka Khurana. “We are looking forward to receiving this year’s entries and celebrating the excellence of mobile marketing at the annual SMARTIES Awards.”
New categories
On top of existing categories spanning four themes that include marketing objective, media, technology and creative awards, there are four new categories added to this year’s edition. They are:
Data/Insights (Technology): The use of consumer data plays an integral role in the development and execution of a campaign to target, engage or develop a meaningful relationship with a specific audience or community. Entrants need to detail the role that data had within the campaign strategy in achieving the brand and business goals.
Banners and Rich Media (Technology): Driving business goals while being respectful of user experience. This category is relevant to campaigns using mobile platforms and/or devices that encourage customer interaction and engagement and drive strong business ROI. The campaigns also actively seek to be respectful of user experience from the ad choices made.
Best Use of UGC (Creative Awards): User-generated content (UGC) consists of any form of content that’s created by users and consumers about a brand or product. UGC in turn enables authenticity and makes the user the brand ambassador. This is suitable for entrants who have creatively enabled UGC and crowdsourcing to build consumer collaborative ads, yielding great results and metrics.
Best Data-driven Creatives (Creative Awards): Intelligent use of data insights for scaled personalisation of creatives to drive campaign and business objectives. Data insights could be based on audiences, context or from offline input (e.g. pollution API).
Eligibility and deadline
To be eligible for the awards, campaigns need to be active in the marketplace between January 2019 to July 2020. The on-time deadline for all entries is 15 July, while the extended deadline is 24 July. With an extended deadline, there are changes to entry fees as well.
More details about pricing information and entry submission for the 2020 SMARTIES India can be found in the official submission kit here
New programme
Aside from new categories, MMA has also introduced SMARTIES Thailand as a new country programme. There are now six country programmes for the 2020 Asia Pacific SMARTIES. These include SMARTIES India, SMARTIES APAC, SMARTIES Vietnam, SMARTIES China, SMARTIES Indonesia and SMARTIES Thailand.
Brands
Boeing appoints Barun as head of FP&A for global engineering function
Seasoned finance leader to steer budgets and strategy across global centres
BENGALURU: Boeing’s finance cockpit has a new pilot, and he is no stranger to turbulence or transformation. Boeing has appointed Barun as head of FP&A for global engineering, placing him at the centre of financial strategy for its worldwide engineering and technology operations.
Based in Bengaluru, Barun steps into a role that is as expansive as it is critical. He will serve as the primary finance lead for Boeing’s Engineering and Technology Centers globally, working closely with executive leadership to shape financial decisions, manage complex budgets, and design scalable finance processes that support the company’s growing engineering footprint.
In a note announcing his move Barun said, “I’m excited to share that I’ve joined Boeing Global Engineering. This opportunity is incredibly meaningful to me not just from a professional standpoint, but also for what Boeing represents globally.” He added that he looks forward to contributing to an organisation that continues to shape the future of aerospace and innovation.
Barun’s mandate spans strategic financial leadership, operational oversight, and stakeholder engagement. From directing large-scale budgets and schedules to influencing long-term organisational goals, the role blends financial discipline with business foresight. He will also lead cross-functional teams and partner with finance colleagues worldwide to support engineering programmes across geographies, including India.
The appointment caps a long stint at Juniper Networks, where Barun spent over a decade, most recently as finance senior manager. There, he led FP&A for global product business units and G&A functions, driving budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning. He also played a key role in enterprise-wide transformation, including spearheading an Oracle to SAP ERP migration and building advanced analytics capabilities using tools such as Tableau and SAP Analytics Cloud.
His earlier career includes finance leadership roles at Sony India Software Centre, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Mphasis, where he focused on financial planning, governance frameworks, and operational efficiency across global delivery centres.
A chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Barun brings nearly two decades of experience across financial planning, digital transformation, and analytics-led decision making.
His appointment comes at a time when global engineering operations are becoming increasingly complex and distributed, requiring sharper financial oversight and agile planning. With Barun at the helm of FP&A for engineering, Boeing appears to be tightening its financial playbook as it looks to scale innovation with discipline.
