The Hindu Business Line : Zoom anniversary

The Hilton Hotel's three halls were chock-a-block with the small-screen glitterati and the hot air chatterati. Yes, specifically small screen, because not many Bollywood stars were sighted.

Closer home the advertising industry turned up in fairly good numbers. Piyush Pandey, Colvyn Harris, Madhukar Kamath, Pranesh Mishra, Ameen Sayani and a host of others, including Sandeep Goyal, Noshir Desai, the evergreen Ranjan Kapur, Mike Khanna and Alyque Padamsee.

It seems the theme was something about `wild,' so our little bird was disappointed to note that none of the advertising crowd looked anywhere near `wild,' notwithstanding the leopard-spot shirt Sandeep Goyal bravely sported. In fact, the wildlife seems to have been restricted to the three scarcely-clad foreign girls who danced inside a cage and the mini-skirted blondes who went around offering vodka shots to the adventurous few. One admired the bonhomie between the media groups in Mumbai, what with Ayaz Memon of DNA partying late into the night at the Zoom party. We are told that Arun Arora, from whom the letters and invites went out, was almost invisible as the host. Now isn't that carrying the low-profile bit a bit too far?

Ignorant ad people

We are told an interesting anecdote. At a recently organised seminar on rural markets in Mumbai, the delegates were mainly from the marketing community. Badri, the Client Services Director of AC Nielsen, apparently stood up not once but twice (once from the audience and the other on stage as a speaker) and said that the ad guys he interacts with do not know a single thing about rural markets. That they sit in Mumbai and Delhi and draw up strategies about rural markets. Considering that the NRSC is probably one of Nielsen's biggest clients, and the fact that his presentation was all about the NRS (an activity funded by the advertising and publishing community) which he plugged, and no doubt hopes to sell to the marketers, it seemed a blow way below the belt. One would be interested in knowing if he would adopt the same tone at the next NRSC meeting.

Partying in Mumbai

In Mumbai the party never ends. And the parties never end. We'll tell you all about the Bombay Times party if we get some interesting nuggets from our little birds who will join the cruise on the Star ship Libra.

Meanwhile, we hear that DNA (Pradeep Guha) and Variety magazine are planning to hold a very exclusive, very formal, black tie sit-down dinner for a lucky few at the Taj Hotel on October 8. Then, of course, many will be looking forward to the awards ceremony of a large media house and the big bash they throw every year.

It must be the only party where they celebrate exclusivity by publishing the names of the approximately 350 invitees who "made it" to their event. Well, to each their own.

Bharat Patel - ISA

The elections at the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) yielded very predictable results. Bharat Patel, Chairman, P&G, whom we featured in this column as the leader of the Indian delegation to the AdAsia 2005 was re-elected as President for another term. All the best, Mr Patel.

And we hope you lead a very large delegation to Singapore. By the way, initial reports about the response to the AdAsia indicate fairly large groups being assigned from the media houses. The advertising agencies have evidently gotten into the `eleventh-hour syndrome' in every sphere of activity, including registering for the AdAsia.

AAAI seminar

The Advertising Agencies' Association of India (AAAI) is evidently going ahead with its proposed international seminar in November (before the AdAsia). Not much news is trickling in from our sources (we hope they are planning to surprise us) but we hear that they seem to have roped in big names such as Tony Wright, the Worldwide CEO of Lowe, and Irwin Gotlieb, the heaviest media weight anyone could hope to have. Not bad at all.

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