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For its television business, Toonz has appointed Sumith Dutta as
National marketing head. While Jayakumar and Christine will be based
in Trivandrum, Dutta will be based in Mumbai.
Jayakumar, who joined the organisation in 1999, was previously working
as director-operations with the same studio. On his new role, Jayakumar
said, “My focus would be primarily on two areas – increasing business
from India and development of training centres. We had recently
signed a memorandum of understanding with the West Bengal government
for opening an academy in Kolkata and we intend to open this by
early next year.” The academy in Kolkata will offer one-year courses.
Jayakumar oversees operations in the Toonz' studios located in Trivandrum
and Mumbai, apart from the Toonz Academy in Trivandrum.
Dutta, who was previously working as head of marketing with BBC,
has been in the industry for more than 12 years. He started his
career with HTA before moving on to Trikaya Grey. After that he
moved on to BBC.
“I would be looking after the marketing and sales of television
content. We are not only targeting channels such as Cartoon Network
but also regional ones like ETV and Lashkara to reach out to the
length and the breadth of the country. The studio is looking at
understanding television content as a brand, so that it can be positioned
to prospective clients in an appropriate manner,” said Dutta.
On the opportunities for animation studio in advertising, Dutta
said, “The advertising business from animation perspective is quite
erratic and it mainly done on ad-hoc basis. It depends on the choice
of the creative director, which of late seems to be more inclined
towards usage of celebrities.” Toonz Animation has worked with brands
such as Maggi, Sandoz and Hajmola in the recent past.
Christine, who has been working with Toonz for the last two years,
had earlier worked with Disney-MGM studios and Turner Broadcasting
for several years. She was involved as producer in The Adventures
of Tenali Raman and is also the director of the studio's international
animation festival, 'Week with the Masters’ to be held in November.
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