Cheil India unveils strategy for 2007; enhances senior management

New additions to the agency include Sulina Menon, Varinder Kant, Nitin Makdani, Vivek Bahl, Mrinal Dasgupta, Tarvinder Singh and Geetu Kashyap

As part of its larger plans to strengthen its competencies for 2007, Cheil India has undergone some changes in its management. The agency, appointed as ‘Samsung’s full vendor’ last year, has brought on board senior professionals from various fields to add muscle to its market standing.

Sulina Menon has joined Cheil as its strategic media advisor. Menon has had an impressive career stint, having worked for Interface, O&M, McCann-Erickson, Contract, Zee TV and, more recently, Carat, as the head of its North and East operations.

“We want to improve our strategic offering substantially and strengthen our processes. This is where Sulina’s experience, combined with our ambitious team led by Bhavana Mittal, is a potent combination,” says Vineet Singh Hukmani, COO, Cheil India.

Further, in order to strengthen local/ regional level support, a separate retail and regional team has been set up to ensure that Samsung’s foray into exclusive brand stores is well on target. Cheil has roped in Varinder Kant as the head of this division. Kant’s last assignment was as the Delhi branch head of Madison Creative. Kant’s responsibilities, apart from handling exclusive brand stores, include setting up regional infrastructure in the South, starting with Chennai, and then extending the service to the Western region at a later date.

To strengthen the servicing infrastructure, Cheil has hired Nitin Makdani, director, client services, JWT, who will now head the client servicing function at Cheil for Samsung India Electronics. He will be in charge of the CTV, home appliances, IT and other consumer electronics businesses. The planning department, too, will see some changes with the hiring of a strategic planning head, though this is yet to fructify.

There are new additions in the creative department as well. They will work under Syed Usman. Mrinal Dasgupta, creative director at Cheil’s headquarters in Korea, has relocated to Cheil India in the same post.

Besides, Vivek Bahl, Tarvinder Singh and Geetu Kashyap had joined the Cheil creative team early this year. Bahl had moved in from Dentsu Marcom as creative director. Singh had joined as copy supervisor while Kashyap joined as senior art director.

In 2006, the BTL team at Cheil handled various events, road shows, outdoor and ground activation for Samsung. The team, led by Nitin Alawadhi, has done over 100 large and medium scale consumer and trade interface activities for all the Samsung divisions. “We hope to strengthen this team even further so as to get closer to the consumer in the year 2007,” Hukmani says.

Cheil India also plans to expand into key categories of new business such as automobiles, telecom services and real estate. “This will keep our creative teams charged up, thereby ensuring great ideas on all our brands,” adds Hukmani.

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