Maa Communications, earlier known as MAA Bozell will soon look at offering complete branding and marketing solutions. The company had recently launched the experiential marketing division Turn On, Sabre Digital (digital) and Masala Tea (branded entertainment) for this same reason. In keeping with its goal, the agency is now gearing to launch its rural marketing division by September 2009, and a public relations division by the year end. These new verticals will be under Turn On.
Akshar Peerbhoy, Branch Manager, Maa Communications, said, “Advertising in its traditional form is a dying business, and there is a need to offer the actual marketing and branding solutions to clients to help them get their ROIs . We are looking at giving our clients that edge, which would help them in achieving this with our entire range of new age marketing and branding solutions. We launched Turn On in the beginning of this year but because of the slowdown, we were not making much noise upfront. With the economic gloom beginning to recover, these talks are fructifying so that we can let the consumers experience the brand in its real sense.”
The young Peerbhoy is extremely confident and sold-out on the concept of experiential marketing, which he believes is a way out to break the mould of the prosaic advertising, as it would get customers involved and interact with the brand, leading to higher conversions.
In addition to these initiatives, Turn On is also launching a property called The Million Dollar Arm with JB Bernstein who is the brain behind this concept and MD, Seven Figure Management, LLC. The idea is to find the best pitcher, and give a boost to another game – baseball. The winners get to go to the US, and learn the game with the best talent available in the world.
As Peerbhoy puts it, the initiative has no monetary aim but an act of philanthropy in recognising talent and fulfilling a dream. Though he didn’t rule out that once the concept becomes popular, Turn On might think of roping in brands to be part of it. Peerbhoy concluded, “Right now the focus is not to make money out of this concept, but to popularise it and aid a talented person in fulfilling his dream.”