IBLOG SPACE

Maggi Noodles completed 25 years in India last year, and the response to the 'Me and Meri Maggi' campaign generated a whole new line of thought, and in turn, three new flavours. Shivani Hegde, general manager-Foods, Nestle India, explained, "Consumer feedback plays a critical role in  our  marketing strategy and we continuously keep  listening to the consumer and  getting into their lives, to identify the 'Moment of truth'. We had earlier launched an innovative advertising campaign ‘Me and Meri Maggi’ to celebrate the emotional relationship Maggi has with consumers where we allowed the consumer to own the brand and talk about their unique experiences with Maggi. The inspiration for the new 'Me and Meri Maggi' range came from the consumers, and from their overwhelming response to this campaign." In the story for "Thrillin' Curry", three girls lost in Ladakh find some help with the help of Maggi. In "Tricky Tomato&qu

Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) India has announced that Kaushik Chakravorty, currently the Group COO of Navia and Vector has taken overall charge of the outdoor business in addition to his role as executive director – Enhance. Sanjay Shah, who served as CEO – Navia and Vector has moved on from the organisation. Chakravorty has take charge with effect from January 1, 2011, and will report to the SMG India CEO. On the development, Srikant Sastri, country chair, VivaKi India (the holding entity of which Starcom MediaVest Group is a part) said, “Sanjay has been a part of our Out Of Home business - Navia and Vector for over six years. He is a respected professional and we are grateful to him for building a robust business for us in the OOH space. He joined us to start what was then called StarSight which was later branded Navia. We wish him well in his future endeavours.” “Kaushik Chakravorty who has been managing operations for the retail branding, am

2010 was no different than any other year when it came to quantum of flops at the box office. In fact if at one has to look at a record, it was a dubious one created with far greater number of multi crore box office disasters that one has seen in the past. No wonder, Bollywood bled and how with crores going down the drain. Yet again… Kites 'Kites' opened great and garnered close to 30 crores over the weekend. The film failed to hold on though as it proved to be a totally notched up affair with hardly anyone stating much positive about the film. The pace at which the negative word of mouth spread for the film was unbelievable as never before in the history of Bollywood cinema has a movie seen such widespread reactions from people in such less time period. In fact it was quite apparent that even Roshans had given up. Result? This hugely priced film folded up just under 50 crores, hence proving to be the first ever huge flop that had actually netted such a huge total

Maverick movie maker Ram Gopal Varma whose Rakhta Charitra-I and II were superhits recently, expressed shock over the murder of Maddelacheruvu Suri in Hyderabad on Monday. Varma's Rakhta Charitra was based on real life conflict between Paritala Ravi and Suri families in Anantapur. The movie is still in theatres in several parts of the state and in the meanwhile Suri was murdered in the city. Varma was baffled by the news and tweeted, "By the time I finished Raktacharitra, the reality became a film for me and now the incident jolted me back into reality. It is shocking to see a person with whom I was interacting for over an year for research of RC, just lying there still and lifeless."

Akshay Kumar the B-town Khiladi is learning from his past mistakes. After having an entertaining time with comedies, Akshay goes serious this year with his forthcoming ‘Patiala House’ where he plays a Sikh cricketer. Akshay’s Sardar act in ‘Singh is Kinng’ came under scanner from some Sikh fraternity for incorrectly portraying a Sardar. As a learner he is, Akshay along with his producer Vipul Shah has decided not to take any chances and hurt any ones feelings. In ‘Patiala House’ Akshay Kumar will be playing a Mona Sardar, which means a Sardar without a turban. Akshay’s character Gattu, is shown to belong to a Sardar family but is not a Sardar. This time around to avoid any such undue conflict, Akshay requested director Nikhil Advani to change the script, and show his character as a Mona Sardar. The script originally had Akshay’s character as a Sardar, however Akshay explained his predicament to Nikhil. Says a close hand, “Akshay did not want to hurt any community’s r

Bollywood prince charming Imran is demanding extra efforts from B-town lovelies. The B-town cool dude who has finally decided to take the plunge with his long time sweet heart Avantika Malik is making our tinsel town lovelies fight their busy schedules and even boyfriends so that they can attend Imran’s mehendi bash. Imran has invited all his co-actresses amongst others and guess what? The women are really going out of their way to be a part of it. Imran Khan and Avantika Malik are getting married on 10th of this month and Imran is planning to host the wedding party on January 8. Kareena Kapoor is cutting her vacation to be part of the bash. Kareena has taken a break from her work schedule to be with Saif but she is cutting short her vacation to be a part of Imran's bash. Kareena and Imran will be seen in ‘Short Term Shaadi’. Deepika Padukone, is on a backpacking tour in the UK right now and she too will cut short her vacation to attend his party in Mumbai. Gene

B-town macho hunk the ‘Dabangg’ Khan Salman Khan is a favourite amongst perfectionist Aamir’s near and dear ones. The emotional Bollywood muscle man never objects to any references made to him by Aamir in his films and takes it very sportingly… Why….? The reason is Aamir’s beloved wife Kiran is a fan of Salman and she just loves the superstar. She revealed this yesterday at the press meet of her debut flick as director ‘Dhobi Ghat’ and agreed that Pratik’s character in the film wear’s Sallu’s trademark bracelet, he loves working out to build a body like Salman’s and he wants to become an actor like him. And that’s not all, in the movie Prateik has pin ups of Katrina and pictures of Aishwarya eyes… Kiran even confessed that initially during the first draft of ‘Dhobi Ghat’, she was actually thinking of casting Salman in a cameo for the film where Prateik becomes a star and meets his idol. Anyway that didn’t happen for some creative reasons but it added more concrete to the w

Not one or two, but three out of the six films nominated for the Best Film Category’ at the prestigious Star Screen Awards are from the UTV stable. The movies nominated in this category are ‘Raajneeti’, ‘Udaan’ and ‘Peepli [Live]’. ‘Raajneeti’, the multi-starrer blockbuster of 2010, directed by Prakash Jha and co-produced by Prakash Jha, Walkwater media and UTV Motion Pictures is the 5th biggest Hindi film of all times. ‘Udaan’, directed by Vikram Aditya Motwane, and produced by Sanjay Singh, Anurag Kashyap and UTV Motion Pictures, was a fantastic example of a small film which received overwhelming recognition worldwide. The film competed in the Un-Certain Regard category at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and was first Indian film to be part of this section in seven years. Directed by Anusha Rizvi and produced by Aamir Khan Productions and UTV Motion Pictures, ‘Peepli [Live]’ was another critically acclaimed film and classic example of how a small film was made big. A bri