MAM
WPP to acquire minority stake in OTT TV service FlowNetwork
MUMBAI: WPP has agreed to acquire a minority stake in FlowNetwork. FlowNetwork is a new, Swedish, over-the-top television service, delivering its programmes via the internet, which supplies Sweden’s regional newspapers with technology and content.
Newspapers served by FlowNetwork include Norrköpings tidningar, Folkbladet, Motala Vadstena Tidning, Norrländska Socialdemokraten, Östgöta Correspondenten, Norrbottens-Kuriren, Västervik-Tidningen, Hela Gotland and UNT. FlowNetwork is co-producer of the new Swedish drama series G?smamman.
This investment continues WPP’s strategy of developing its integrated services in fast-growing and important markets and sectors and strengthening its capabilities including digital media. WPP’s digital revenues (including associates) were $6.9 billion in 2014, representing 36 per cent of the Group’s total revenues of nearly $19 billion. WPP has set a target of 40-45 per cent of revenue to be derived from digital in the next five years.
In Scandinavia, WPP companies (including associates) generate revenues of over US$500 million and employ over 2,500 people. In Sweden alone, WPP businesses generate revenues of over $180 million and employ over 800 people.
AD Agencies
Fevicol releases its last ad campaign by the late Piyush Pandey
The adhesive brand’s last campaign by the late advertising legend Piyush Pandey turns an everyday Indian obsession into a quietly powerful metaphor
MUMBAI: Fevicol has never needed much of a plot. A sticky bond, a wry observation, a truth that every Indian instantly recognises — that has always been enough. “Kursi Pe Nazar,” the brand’s latest television commercial, is no different. And yet it carries a weight that no previous Fevicol film has had to bear: it is the last one its creator, the advertising legend Piyush Pandey, will ever make.
The film, released on Tuesday by Pidilite Industries, fixes its gaze on the kursi — the chair — and what it means in Indian life. Not just as a piece of furniture, but as a currency of ambition, a vessel of authority, and a source of quiet social drama that plays out in every home, office and institution across the country. Who sits in the chair, who waits for it, and who eyes it hungrily from across the room: the film transforms this sharply observed cultural truth into a narrative that is, in the best Fevicol tradition, funny, warm and instantly familiar.
The campaign was Pandey’s idea. He discussed it in detail with the team before his death, but did not live to see it shot. Prasoon Pandey, director at Corcoise Films who helmed the commercial, said the team needed five months to find its footing before they felt ready to shoot. “This was the toughest film ever for all of us,” he said. “It was Piyush’s idea, magical as always.”
The emotional weight of that responsibility was not lost on the team at Ogilvy India, which created the campaign. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, group chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, described the process as “a pilgrimage of sorts, on the path that Piyush created not just for Ogilvy, but for our entire profession.”
Sudhanshu Vats, managing director of Pidilite Industries, said the film was rooted in a distinctly Indian insight. “The ‘kursi’ symbolises aspiration, transition, and ambition,” he said. “Piyush Pandey had an extraordinary ability to elevate such everyday observations into iconic storytelling for Fevicol. This film carries that legacy forward.”
That legacy is considerable. Over several decades, Pandey’s partnership with Fevicol produced some of the most beloved advertising in Indian history, building the brand into something rare: a household name that people actively enjoy watching sell to them.
“Kursi Pe Nazar” does not try to be a tribute. It simply tries to be a great Fevicol film. By most measures, it succeeds — which is, in the end, the most fitting send-off of all.
