MAM
PointNine Lintas launched, Vikas Mehta named CEO
MUMBAI: MullenLowe Lintas Group has announced the launch of its new independent full-service agency in India, PointNine Lintas. It would offer omni-channel marketing capabilities including creative (on and offline), PR, activation, experiential, social, media and digital transformation; all under one roof.
PointNine Lintas will commence operations on 1 August, 2017.
The existing marketing services of the Group will be aggregated under this new agency and will operate as its divisions. These include GolinOpinion – PR, reputation management; LinTeractive – digital marketing & transformation and LinEngage – activation, experiential & shopper. These divisions will come together to offer full-service horizontal offerings to clients of PointNine Lintas, while continuing to retain their vertical offerings for existing clients. The new agency has a roadmap to further expand its capabilities by adding new offerings to its service stack, including creative, media, technology and platforms.
Announcing the new agency, Joseph George (Joe), Group Chairman and CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group said, “We made our intentions to go full-service clear four years ago. While the list of companies and industries pursuing full-service (under different labels) has grown tremendously in this time, the approach to it remains more or less the same. PointNine Lintas is a fresh take at an agency model that’s multi-faceted at its core. So far, only holding companies have seen some success with this approach, but it’s restricted to a handful of very large global clients. An agency network doing this would be a first, and we believe it could broaden the base of clients who can tap into it.”
Along with Lowe Lintas and Mullen Lintas, PointNine Lintas would be the third independent agency of the MullenLowe Lintas Group in India. Vikas Mehta, currently Group CMO and President, Marketing Services for MullenLowe Lintas Group, has been named CEO of PointNine Lintas.
Vikas has been with the MullenLowe Group for over a decade in various local and regional roles in the APAC region including Managing Director – Lowe Viet Nam and Regional Growth Officer – Lowe Asia-Pacific. He moved to MullenLowe Lintas Group India in 2013 as the country’s first agency-CMO. In 2014, he took an additional mandate to rebuild the group’s digital business by relaunching LinTeractive. Since 2015, he’s also been President of the Group’s Marketing Services divisions. Prior to his management stints, Vikas was a planner and he authored strategies, papers and case-studies that have won over 50 international awards for marketing effectiveness. Major ones include Effie (India, Singapore and APAC), Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards, APAC Tambuli Awards, WARC Asia Prize for Strategy, 4A’s Jay Chiat Awards, among others.
Speaking of the appointment, Joes said, “I have worked closely with Vikas the past four years and I am absolutely certain that he is most qualified to deliver on this ambition. Not just because of his subject matter competencies required for a multi-service agency, but also for his passionate, stubborn and informed belief in ‘full service’ being the only way to go!”
Vikas said, “We have gone from the age of communication to the age of experiences. While the market has evolved at a furious pace, the agency models haven’t. The opportunity to take the Lintas pedigree and build an agency for the experiential economy is an inspiring one. Hyper-bundling is our biggest priority as a network and I’m grateful for the challenge to build a new agency that’s hyper-bundled from day zero”.
PointNine Lintas will work on an operating model that’s designed to evolve, much like the OS of your preferred device, to reflect the accelerated pace at which the marketing landscape is shifting. In fact, the name PointNine reflects exactly that; a philosophy of ‘forever beta’, by choice.
Brands
Hardik Jhaveri named senior director marketing at Colgate-Palmolive Asean hub
Former Hill’s Pet Nutrition general manager returns to the company to steer marketing for South Asean from Kuala Lumpur
KUALA LUMPUR: Hardik Jhaveri has been appointed senior director marketing for the South Asean hub at Colgate-Palmolive, marking a return to the consumer goods major after a three year stint with Hill’s Pet Nutrition. He will be based in Kuala Lumpur and will lead marketing strategy for the region.
Jhaveri joins the role after serving as general manager at Hill’s Pet Nutrition in Taipei, where he led a cross functional team and oversaw the business with full profit and loss responsibility. The role placed him at the helm of operations in Taiwan, managing growth in what he described as a start-up style environment within a global multinational.
Before that, Jhaveri spent over a decade with Colgate-Palmolive across several marketing and innovation roles in Asia. As associate director innovation for Apac excluding China, based in Hong Kong, he led new product development and launches across multiple markets.
His portfolio ranged from developing specialised oral care products such as a diabetes focused toothpaste for the Indian market to launching premium oral care experiences under the Colgate Total brand in Australia. Alongside innovation, he also worked on launch planning, brand strategy and communications for the company’s oral care portfolio.
Earlier in his Colgate-Palmolive journey, Jhaveri held roles including marketing manager innovation, senior brand manager and brand manager. His work spanned urban and rural markets in Mumbai and customer development responsibilities in the Greater Kolkata Area.
Prior to his long association with Colgate-Palmolive, Jhaveri worked as brand officer home care at Unilever, where he helped drive marketing initiatives for the Rin detergent brand, including nationwide relaunch and on ground activation campaigns.
He began his career in advertising with Bates David Enterprise, working on brands such as IDBI Bank, The Leela Hotels and The Times of India.
Jhaveri holds a post graduate programme in management from the Indian School of Business and has also completed a level 4 diploma in wine from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.
Announcing the move, Jhaveri said he is excited to begin his new chapter at Colgate-Palmolive’s South Asean hub and thanked colleagues and mentors who supported his journey at Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
