MAM
Something out of nothing: Rob Middleton
MUMBAI: Speaking at the PromaxBDA 2012 held in Mumbai on 23 and 24 May, Astro creative director Rob Middleton enthralled the audience with a stimulating presentation on the topic ‘Something out of nothing‘. The session focused on creating good quality engaging creative on tight budgets.
According to Middleton, “There are four pre-requisites to a good television promo. Content, communication, chop (the editing) and copyright. The biggest television taboo would be a lack of belief in self.” He firmly supports the belief that whatever a channel or brand does, if done properly, can be used a tool for mini-positioning. This helps create brand presence and map it in the consumer‘s psyche over a period of time.
What a brand‘s logo stands for, bear more importance than how it looks. A brand‘s manner of communication is as important as its ‘look‘ in the market space in order to leave an impression on the consumer‘s mind. In this case, the communication objective should be to leave an impression through effective expression.
In case the budgets do not permit the extravagance one would want, one may use techniques like type face and simple graphics to make interesting promos. The use of animation takes the production to a different level while maintaining the budget limits.
Music is another element that can be used to enhance a promo. Experts believe that nearly 80 per cent the audience‘s reaction on a promo is through its music. More than music, it is the sound that it used. A clever assortment of everyday sounds can make for a very good audio piece. The trick is to synchronies the audio with the video and the context of the communication. A seamless integration of the four elements makes for a good promo.
Humour always sells, he added. Infusing humour in the promos not only makes for a good viewing, but also helps brand recall. It is common knowledge that commercial with a humourous twist are faster in catching the audiences‘ fancy and may even be the topic for discussion. All this contributes to establishing a brand in the consumer‘s life.
Lastly, he said that investing in technology makes sense as it helps reduce cost in the long run. With technology emerging as an ally, the avenues of creativity are ever increasing.
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
