Four-Day Week: Can the Indian ad industry adopt a 4-day work week?

The country's Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, has expressed concern about the potential negative impact on prosperity, particularly in context with the fears of a recession and hiring issues until 2024. (Representative Image: Tungsten Rising via Unsplash)

With a larger shift in view, the four-day work week starts making a lot of sense. But agencies and clients, it seems, are not ready to go from 5-6 to 4 days.

EssenceMediacom global CEO Nick Lawson: We are pretty close to being the largest global media agency

"We are pretty close to being the largest global agency. But I am not obsessed with size. Scale is important in media companies for capability reasons. But, for me now, it is really positioning ourselves as crucial to clients' needs. What I want be is the most recommended agency in the world," Nick Lawson tells Storyboard18. (Image via Twitter - @jasperrosa)

Nick Lawson, global CEO of newly merged EssenceMediacom, on the vision for the new entity, the India market, and how media agencies have changed.

Did you know that Malayalam film Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is inspired by a Greenply ad?

The ad, which is made by advertising agency Lowe Lintas, the Greenply ad features a Sikh family (mother, father and son) travelling on a bus in South India. Suddenly, the boy, speaking in Tamil, asks the bus driver to stop and barges into an ancestral home.(Stills from the Greenply ad)

The movie, available on Netflix, credits the Greenply ad stating “To the old advertisement that gave the seed of thought.”

How Jaaved Jaaferi wrote and danced his way into Indian advertising history

Jaaved Jaaferi highlighted, "Television had entered the scene and Doordarshan was the first channel. Then, came private channels. Zee TV was launched in 1992, and Sony Entertainment Television was launched in 1995. Earlier, the modes of communication were cinema screens and Doordarshan where popular shows would be screened. In the early 1990s, television advertising became much bigger." (Stills from the ads)

Actor Jaaved Jaaferi on how he entered the ad world, his take on advertising and how the Indian ad scene has changed and more.

Wavemaker India introduces a new unit to provide solutions for D2C brands

Wavemaker’s modular approach will also allow brands to only pick specific solutions that they wish to optimise for. Additionally, Wavemaker will also launch a separate program that will work with D2C start-ups to help scale demand and operations. (Representative Image: Jonathan Kemper via Unsplash)

As a part of the mandate, Wavemaker will consult and implement its end-to-end solution toolkit for brands to simplify strategy and deployment for the many moving parts of a D2C channel.

Zoo Media adds The Starter Labs to its network

It's All About the Customer Experience: Remember, the customer is king (or queen!). They expect consistency – the same brand story, product information, and stellar customer service, no matter where they interact with you (Representative Image: Olav Ahrens Røtne via Unsplash)

The strategic acquisition is expected to strengthen Zoo Media’s D2C capabilities amongst consumer brands in India. This is also aligned with Zoo Media’s accelerated global growth strategy, set to be announced later this year.

How small and mid-sized Indian ad agencies find their mojo, and grow

Agency executives believe that these days pitches are not worth it. As a result, many small and mid-size agencies are refusing to participate in a pitch if they aren’t paid for the time and effort they put into creating ideas and strategies. (Representative image by Craig McLachlan via Unsplash)

Independent creative shops stay away from pitches if they do not get paid for the time and effort they put into developing strategies and creatives.