MAM
Pepsi bags two awards at All India Promo Power 2003
NEW DELHI: Pepsi bagged two major awards at the 3rd annual All India Promo Power awards ceremony namely the Best Promotion (Gold) for the “World Cup Ke Shikari” campaign and Best Product Launch for the introduction of Mountain Dew in India.
The awards were presented at a ceremony in the capital yesterday and was attended by the who’s who of marketing and advertising fraternity in the country. Pepsi Cola North America Director Marketing Russell Weiner who was present on the occasion spoke at the seminar on “Breaking through the clutter: Thinking Big and Winning Big with Marketing Promotions.”
The awards recognise outstanding efforts in the field of Best Promotion (Gold), Best Product Launch, Best Promotion (Silver), Wackiest Promotion, Best Event, Best Direct Mail Effort and Best Trade Promotion.
Pepsi Foods Pvt Ltd Executive Director (Marketing) Shashi Kalathil said, “We have been talking about the Cricket World Cup and the introduction of Mountain Dew as the two big wins this year. It is indeed very nice that this has now been recognised formally at a forum such as promo power.”
Pepsi’s hugely successful World Cup promotions, under the “World Cup Ke Shikari” theme included the “Pepsi Bada Shikari Hunt Contest”, “Pepsi Predikta Jackpot Contest”, World Cup Commemorative bottles, and a specially commissioned music video by Adnan Sami.
The award-winning launch of Mountain Dew added a new dimension to the very lifestyle of youngsters in the country. Mountain Dew’s unique association with adventure sports helped establish a brand proposition of “exhilarating rush” and a daring, high-energy, high-intensity, active lifestyle, and put Dew on an unprecedented growth trajectory.
The launch of Dew was further sustained by a 16-city tour of the specially designed Dewmobile, coupled with a slogan contest on Dew’s popular baseline “Cheetah Bhi Peeta Hai”, with the Dewmobile as the top prize.
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.
