MUMBAI: Dilip Keshu, CEO of Group FMG, today announced that American Media Inc. (AMI), the leading U.S. print and digital celebrity, health and fitness media brands, has entered into a long-term $10 million partnership with one of its key holdings, FMG, an international media production agency. FMG will work with American Media to implement the agency‘s cutting-edge automated technologies to reduce costs, manage content, and optimize the media firm‘s products and services across digital platforms.

The production services provided by FMG will allow AMI to realize significant savings by streamlining its production process, managing cross-media content between print and digital platforms, widening the process to deploy this content across emerging media platforms.

AMI intends to offer these services to its publishing services clients, as well.

"Every publisher today is looking to reduce their costs," added David Pecker, Chairman, President and CEO of American Media, "And being able to provide them with the production efficiencies we developed for AMI‘s publishing services business unit allows us to build on this new revenue stream for the our company."

Mike Esposito, Senior Vice President of Operations and Digital Production commented, "FMG is the ideal partner to help AMI continue to optimize its internal production processes as well as its migration to distribute content across digital platforms. This is the next step in a series of enhancements that AMI began earlier this year."

Anish Nanavaty who leads Group FMG‘s Americas business said, "This deal builds on FMG‘s 30+ years of experience providing the publishing industry with innovative media production solutions. Our partnership with AMI on print and digital production processes is a new paradigm for publishers coping with the need to deliver content across multiple channels in a cost efficient manner."

MUMBAI: Madison Communication Group‘s rural division, Anugrah Madison Advertising has launched a rural marketing education service called Anugrah Madison Rural Academy (AMRA) to teach the basics of rural marketing to management students.

This initiative has been taken to commemorate the 25th anniversary celebration.

Anugrah Madison Advertising chairman RV Rajan said, "With the growing importance of rural markets there is a growing demand for skilled / trained human resources willing to work in the rural areas. Many management institutes across the country have started offering rural marketing as an elective course to the students. But there is a dearth of good faculty who have hands-on experience to provide practical knowledge for teaching the subject. AMRA hopes to fill this gap".

Madison World business development and diversification manager, Lara Balsara hoped that one day AMRA will become an important institution, imparting Rural Marketing knowledge service to any one interested in knowing more about rural marketing or wanting to take up rural marketing as a career!

The faculty from AMRA will be the top management of Anugrah Madison and a few others with years experience in dealing with rural marketing initiatives. AMRA will conduct the classes at the premises of the Management Institutes over week ends or according to the convenience of the Institute. It will be responsible for course content, faculty and evaluation of students based on assignments to be given to them.

Initially AMRA will offer certificate courses of one / two / three credits. If the management institutes are interested in giving an idea of the basics of rural marketing to all their students, it can also conduct a one day / two day seminar on rural marketing at the Management Institute‘s premises.

MUMBAI: Sananda TV, the entertainment channel from ABP group, is making fast inroads into the Bengali GEC market. As per the latest TAM data for the Mid Week 48, Sananda TV is now at the third position leaving ETV Bangla behind proving that it is moving up on the viewer‘s preference list.

Sananda TV was launched on July 25 of this year with a bouquet of six ground breaking fiction shows. In last four months it has spread its wings and today it has a basket of nine exciting programmes aimed at the entertainment of the entire family. The new shows launched in recent past viz a game show named Selaam Memshaheb and fiction shows Aami Shei Meye, Naayika have already carved out a space of their own in the Bengali entertainment genre.

Naayika, the latest in the kitty, is being produced by Raj Chakraborty - a name to reckon with in the Bengali film industry. The story traces the journey of Katha - a Plain Jane who becomes a DIVA under the arc lights. However destiny has something else in store for her. A scandal brings her back to where she had started from... In this short period of time since its launch on November 14, Naayika has made its own mark and is fast becoming a talk of the town.

This is not the end... Another fiction show named Josh is poised for launch in the month of December. The subject of this show, a first of its kind in Bengali entertainment space, is going to speak of youth energy. It will show the power of Gen Y and the difference it can make to life around...

MUMBAI: What could have started as an innovation almost a year ago is now a new means to the medium. Aurora Comms, or A Comms as it is largely called, has been successfully running campaigns after campaigns across electronic stores connecting premium brands with technology climbers. The latest campaign to spread across the stores is CNBC TV18 Prime HD channel.

Aurora Comms uses multiple television panels displayed in electronic stores to create an experiential zone for brands. While some of the brands use the medium as pure-play display medium, for some it also works as experiential or sampling. As in the case of the latest HD channel launch on the block, CNBC TV18 Prime HD reaches out to premium consumers of the electronic stores Croma through streaming of HD channel across multiple LCD panels displayed in the store, creating an ambience of High Definition broadcast. The business news channel is being broadcast live across various Croma Stores across multiple cities.

Commenting on the medium, Samir Vithlani, Director- Key Accounts, Aurora Comms said, ‘it is our endeavor to deliver targeted consumers in contextual manner. Croma attracts intellectual consumers and therefore we worked on offering branding and showcasing the channel across these stores.‘ The channel has also taken some fa?ades for branding as a part of their out of home campaign.

MUMBAI: The 1st STAR News Brand Excellence Awards were an independent brand recognition exercise initiated to give recognition to those brands and marketers who have achieved extraordinary success from innovative and effective marketing practices. 26 Awards were presented accross

Mr Ashok Venkatramani CEO STAR News welcomed over over 200 CEO?s/CMO?s who had gathered there. In his opening remarks Mr Venkatramani said "Star News stands for Transperency, Credibility and Truthfulness. You watch a News Channel because of its credibility but would follow Entertainment Programmes like KBC regardless on which Channel they are televised on. Star News is about People which is why we started with Building People through the 1st Star Anchor Hunt. Star News is about Leadership which is why we did 1st Star Brand Excellence Awards and the Star HR and Leadership Awards. Star News is about Social Responsibility which is why we are launching World CSR Awards and creating a World Corporate Social Responsibility Day in February 2012."

Mr. Nitin Paranjpe, CEO & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Ltd was the Chief Guest and shared some thoughts on "Living in a World of abundance choice where Consumers are getting promiscious.There are changes in media too not only because of prolifiteration but also on how consumers are consuming Media. Today they decide on what they want and when they want to consume. In less than 10 seconds 1 lac people would have done a google search for Information. We are seeking a lack of Trust in Institutions so how do you build relationships. When you buy a brand you buy into its philosophy so can brands be issues of Social Change. When Brands stand for issues Consumers feel empowered".

The Keynote Address was delivered by Prof. Rohit Deshpande while Mr Sebastian S Kresge, Professor of Marketing, Harvard Business School will delivered a talk on ?Country-of-Origin Branding.?

The Special Invitee was Mr Shane Gibson, International Speaker and Author of ?Guerrilla Social Media Marketing? who spoke on Social marketing.

Mrs Smeeta Parekh received the Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of Mr Deepak Parekh saying " He represents a Brand and made it sustainable"

Mumbai: The most awaited sequel of the year is here, this time with a lot more intensity than before. Be on high alert as the suave, charismatic, playboy villain is back, portraying his devious role as the leader of the underworld. This is what Shahrukh Khan fans all across the world have been waiting for; a true blockbuster way of ending the year, with none other than DON 2. And in the true Hungama style of celebrating the arrival of the DON, download the soundtrack of DON 2 from Hungama.com on your mobile phone or PC.

The excitement doesn?t end here. Apart from the smashing soundtrack, Hungama Mobile has also created a voice game based on the movie, which offers a chance to 10 players who could get lucky and meet the DON himself! The game ?DON KA GANG? is based on the movie DON 2. It has a set of challenges that the players have to go through in order to complete the levels and thus be included in the final 10, who stand a chance to meet the DON himself. The player has 5 levels to complete and each level gets even harder than the first, but closer to the reward- a chance to be recruited into the DON?s gang and meet Shahrukh Khan.

The soundtrack for DON 2 is also live on Hungama.com. Get hold of some of the finest tunes composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Javed Akhtar. The album begins with a monologue by SRK signaling the comeback of the Don. This is followed by the title song ?Zaraa Dil Ko Thaam Lo? which takes off from ?Aaj Ki Raat? and brings back the sound of the early 80s in a fresh new presentation. Shaan?s version of ?Main Hoon Don? from Don - The Chase Begins Again, is presented by KK in Don 2 as ?Mujhko Pehchaanlo. The fun element however is provided by ?The King Is Back - Theme? - a four minute long piece that takes forward the anthem of ?Don? with Sunitha Sarathi providing a fitting tribute to the song. The soundtracks of Don 2 gives the listeners a grand feel - just like the Don himself.

Don 2 is all set to bring back the memories of the prequel along with giving it a whole new twist.