Sign up for afaqs! Newsletters
Media marketers in Bangalore launch Media Association
This is perhaps the first time that a ‘serious’ association of ad-sales professionals has been formed in the country
There are 400 dailies, 100 weeklies, 150-odd fortnightly/monthlies, 60-plus major television channels, 10 radio stations in India which also cater to the city of Bangalore, besides some 325 media marketing professionals. But no organised body to represent their interest.
So, in December last year, a group of industry hands - among them, Suresh Selvaraj (general manager, Outlook), Pratap Kumar (PK Associates), Joy George (BBC World) and Sampath Kumar (ex-Statesman) - decided that this vast community of media marketing professionals in the city needed to be brought under one roof. Several meetings and brainstorming sessions later the Media Association of Bangalore (MAB) was launched on February 16.
This is perhaps the first time that a ‘serious' association of ad-sales professionals has been formed in the country. Says Selvaraj, "The sheer spread of media is mind-boggling. Thus relationships have become important even at the grass-roots level. Media marketing people are a homogenous crowd and the playing field is almost similar for any media marketing person - whether she is from print or television or radio. There has been a long felt need to bring the entire media marketing fraternity under one umbrella for our common benefit."
The association has been successful in roping in 200 professionals in the span of a few weeks. The membership fee is Rs 750 a year. While the membership fee may fund part of the activities MAB plans undertake, the association is also on the look out for corporate funding. "The media marketing people do not have a place of their own unlike journalists who have their Press Club," adds Selvaraj.
Selvaraj is optimistic about the fructification of the association's plans. "It took the Ad Club 10 years to get organised. We are hopeful things would take the intended course for us too," he says.
The association members have bounced off the idea of doing something similar with their counterparts in Delhi and Mumbai; Selvaraj is waiting for someone to take the baton and run. © 2004 agencyfaqs!