The Hindu Business Line : President Kamath

Well, Madhukar Kamath of Mudra pulled a bunny out of the hat at the AGM of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and left the competition gasping.

In a day of fast moving developments (we’ve always wanted to use that line), Colvyn Harris of JWT who was a presidential candidate decided to act very statesmanlike, and withdrew from the race. That made it a straight fight between Madhukar Kamath and Arvind Sharma of Leo Burnett.

After much drama in the counting of the proxies, the managing committee had to be re-convened to iron out procedural issues, much to the chagrin of the members assembled for the AGM (everyone gathers to see a good fight).

Finally it looked like the numbers would not quite add up for Arvind Sharma, who “gracefully” withdrew his candidature.

This paved the way for the “unanimous” election of Kamath as president, and, surprise, surprise, Colvyn Harris as Vice-President. So now, who do you think will bet on a two-year term for Kamath?

Best Wishes

Congratulations, Madhukar Kamath! We have lots of good wishes for you. May you, and the new Committee, support immediate past-president Swamy’s delegation to Korea for the AdAsia in October.

May you reach out to the AdClub and ensure there is harmony in the awards matter. May you prevail upon your members to participate in the Abby awards, in as much as we are sure Bhaskar Das will prevail upon Piyush Pandey to participate in the Goa Fest, and may you both prevail upon Balki to participate in at least one of the awards (we don’t mean the Filmfare awards). That is, if Balki is still high on Lowe then.

May you enforce the AAAI rule on “pitching”. May you at least ensure that Mudra will not participate in any pitch where the client refuses to pay the fee stipulated by your Association.

And, of course, may you find a good replacement for Arvind Sharma to organise the third consecutive Goa Fest awards function.

Well, with all our good wishes, you will certainly have an interesting year. And by the way, can we look forward to the reinstatement of the AAAI Premnarayen Award please? We are told the outgoing committee scrapped it and we have been missing that charming annual function.

Mid-Day broadsheet

We’ve seen advertisers buying up the front pages of our favourite newspapers. Now here’s a new one. UTI Bank, announcing its new avatar as Axis Bank, made the tabloid Mid-Day into a broadsheet for a day. Now that’s innovation for you! And that’s what publishers will do if the price is right.

Mukul Upadhyaya turns 70

Shekhar Bajaj of Bajaj Electricals sent out an invitation to celebrate the 70th birthday of Mukul Upadhayaya and it seems the card mentioned the fact that it was a surprise party. Now for those not in the know, Mukul spent a lifetime at Bajaj Electricals heading the marketing and publicity functions and then after he retired he set up an advertising agency which handles a substantial part of the growing ad spend of his erstwhile employer. Now that in itself was a fine gesture from Shekhar and an acknowledgement of Mukul’s contribution to the Group. This birthday party was really the cherry on the cake. Well, we wish Mukul a century not out. And if Mr Bajaj had not drawn our attention to his age, we would have sworn Mukul was not a day older than 60.

Media Review

Subhash Chandra

The AdClub Bombay combined its prestigious annual Media Review with the road show of the Korean delegation who were here to market the AdAsia 2007 at Jeju Island.

Well, the Koreans seem quite well prepared, the venue looks quite inviting and looks like the AdClub Bombay will mobilise a pretty impressive delegation to Korea.

That brings us to the Media Review. A great turnout at the Taj Land’s End hotel saw veteran and visionary Subhash Chandra of the Zee Group give what we can only very politely call an almighty plug for the Zee group. Totally avoidable. The plug, and the review. The only saving grace was his point that media houses were doing what advertising agencies had failed to do … go out and expand globally. We’ll cheer to that.

Victoria

Victoria invites comments on this column at brandline@thehindu.co.in

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