That was a very pleasantly surprising news, when HRT announced the lineup with Pedro De La Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan for the year 2012. I am not going into the specifics of sponsorships especially when even the last year HRT ran with TATA as the main sponsor. A season aborted last year and making a historic appearance during the Indian GP, I remember his exact lines.

Driving in front of the home crowd cheering [me] on is going to be a surreal experience, a once in a lifetime experience and I feel extremely fortunate.

That he could make it irrespective of the competition so hard speaks volume about the confidence in the way he can pull it off. I am not talking about the monetary part, I have had the opportunity to see him at close quarters and let me admit that he has this confidence of pulling it off when people almost have written him off.

I remember even the first season, it was a great debut going by what he has been through, and sponsorship issues which stopped him from racing with the erstwhile Minardi for a couple of races in 2004. It was always his optimistic outlook which saw him in good stead even when the critics wrote him off and that included some of the reporters who were reporting F1 for the first time.

His presence augurs well for F1 in India and most importantly the Indian GP. This will also boost the fortunes of the young drivers especially the likes of Armaan Ebrahim and Aditya Patel and others. Karun ofcourse will be a reserve driver.

In his Q&A on the sidelines of the HRT announcement Narain says F1 is a continued dream…

For me, Formula 1 is a continued dream, it is always ultra-competitive and competing at the pinnacle of the sport is what I love. So I am very happy to have the opportunity to continue living my dream and I have every intention to make the best out of it.

As for the sponsors they will be able to leverage the last year one off sponsorships to a more sustainable year long affair. I am happy to see an Indian on the track who is a cynosure of all eyes in the paddock. In one of my conversations with a F1 driver, he saw Narain as a natural & gifted driver and lets not forget what his team mate at Carlin Motorsports the present day Mc Laren driver Jenson Button had to say. He was in praise of him infact he had beaten Jenson in British F3.

Talking about Carlin Motorsports, I am reminded how close Trevor Carlin was to owning an F1 team and that would have changed Narain’s career in F1 and also the Indian connection would have had far reaching effects. Having said that, lets resign to the fact like what Narain said all’s well that ends well.

With India solidly a part of the F1 calendar we can only hope for the best to happen and wish it had happened a little earlier it would have been far better and more robust Narain with better experience and far better team to contend with.

Lets hope for some real stellar drive from the fastest Indian! This season gives another opportunity for the Indian F1 fan to root for another car apart from the Sahara Force India F1 team.

Now the most important thing which made me blog this post was this part of the Q & A:

Q: How would you define yourself as a driver?

NK: One thing’s for sure – I never give up. I’m here, against all odds and expectations, which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I have worked incredibly hard, I believe in my ability and know that I am as quick as anyone else out there.

Here’s wishing him all the best and salutation to his never say die attitude which  has got him back to where he rightfully belongs.

R Senthilkumar

Now there is a Indianess to the name Junglee, what could it mean and would you be interested to do the trek in there? Looks like they are working around the law especially the one Mamata Didi didn’t want that of the FDI in retail. A visit to Junglee.com was pretty interesting, they had done a good home work and the design was minimalist and clean white space used to the optimum.

They had my attention, there are enough department – oh departmental stores sort of.  They had everything under the sun, not the kind of launch that we normally see when they tell you we are working to get more for you.  So I click on the featured departments thinking it would make my work easy.

It does to a great extent and I could use any of the departments to narrow down and make my purchase. As I concentrate there were these two small font sized line “Starting at ” and “Offers from” which gave the least price and how many people are selling…made me thinking if I had entered a aggregator site. I click on one of my favorite books and get an awesome pricing… but wait, there is Indiaplaza but no Flipkart and no Infibeam… we almost had an aggregator to tell us the best pricing on a title.

Now its also a store for some already existing brands, I got to see the featured sellers on this page during my trek at Junglee.com! A lot of names one of the big south based cellphone retailer Universal Mobiles, Snapdeal etc were present. Now this is a killer idea to get even those on ground to go online and you dont have to think about your branded online store and you get much better credibility than that of an auction site read ebay. Only time will tell how it will work out. It will take long for us to identify with this style of ecommerce model.

The question here is  how will the customer perceive the product will it be just the price factor, will he look at premium products at all, Indian scenario will sure be the lesser the price the higher the hits. Though these are early days, Amazon by virtue of its brand has a big following and now it will be interesting to watch how the existing players read – Flipkart.com and Infibeam.com slug it out with Junglee.com.

In a way the launch has now stopped the much often repeated “when is Amazon gonna launch” and lo they are here. By being a platform to start with they wanted to play it safe, you know you need to crack the most important ‘Delivery model’ for this place called India. So I thought I should search for Amazon’s own product Kindle, here too it directed me to Amazon.com, India specific site details where they said they have started shipping to India now. If you are ordering over US$ 100, it doesn’t have extra shipping charges.

So it has now come to India officially, and bet interesting times are ahead. One more doubt linger on will they also have Amazon.in in the near future . But I am sure in all this one person is sure to win, the Indian online consumer who will now be spoilt for choice and the best in customer service will win hands down. As of now, Junglee.com will work only for the comparison part of the pricing and holds no repsonsibility for deliveries, a bit disappointed that we cant experience Amazon delivery.

As I was about to log out, I saw this line in small thin font… “We help you discover over 1.2 crore products. You choose where to buy!” They almost got one product for almost 10% of the our population!  Now that’s a really ambitious target anyday! Or one for every active internet user which ever way you look at it.

Well about the name Junglee,  Indians can easily identify with it for the desi version of Amazon. Our forefathers were living in forests if you go by Darwin, and Amazon would wants you to take a trip except that this is all virtual.

R Senthilkumar

Are you an avid Indian blogger?

Do you know digital marketing like the back of your hand?

Then, this is your chance to leave your mark amongst India’s leading brands, agencies, publishers and service providers.

More details here… http://www.ad-tech.com/newdelhi/adtech_new_delhi_official_blogger.aspx

Check it out and spread the word…

R Senthilkumar

Well I am talking about the big fight between The Hindu and the Times of India with their TVCs, you can see all the The Hindu videos here  & TOI here which have created quite a debate and a following in traditional lines that Hindu reader normally does, take sides and also the TOI reader snaring / laughing off at the portrayal.

Now coming back to why I chose to write on this, well I have been a regular reader of the Hindu ever since I got subscribed  to it say from 1991 or so till the last one year before I came to Delhi. My association with the Hindu has been diverse, a reader, an advertiser – I managed the PSG’s advertising wing then also as a PR when with Narain Karthikeyan I did the rounds for editorial. But my association remains the best as a reader that’s when you get to enjoy all the best the Hindu has to offer.

I read with interest this article which appeared in Forbes blog. Very interesting take on why the ad in question from TOI actually woke up the Hindu. To a great extent, it is true and in fact my being in Delhi has changed the readership routine to Times of India for obvious reasons. I still get a hang of the Hindu online everyday even tweeting some interesting takes on my home town on and off. But to keep up the smell of the coffee I just buy a copy of the Hindu from Saket bookstall on Saturdays and Sundays during my walk.

The Delhi edition or rather the one printed at Allahabad or Mohali is very thin – less number of pages, but you get the Sunday Magazine and the usual Saturday stuff.

My early remembrances of the Hindu include the Saturday Sports special, which I started missing it when they stopped it altogether. They also did away with the last page sports reporting which was my favorite page. I reckon all the tennis reporting these days would not come close to the way they did without the internet and stuff we have today. But today is another different story. Then there was this change of design and all that which made news without dateline and it was fun reading those days when you could actually find same news items twice in the news paper or sometimes churned out the very next day.

And yes it has been a long way and editorially though I wouldn’t approve of it quite a few times, we would necessarily brag about the way its written; that immaculate English and the vocabulary that it imparts, it sheer brilliance and that what the stuff is made of at the Hindu. No doubt they refer the Hindu as a paper of study for the civil services.

Now you know all the questions that were asked were actually a part of the UPSC exams. It had caught the imagination of the ad industry and the people who read the Hindu, but my only hunch is will anyone from the TOI brandwagon jump the ship. True the south doesn’t celebrate the Bollywood or any of the Kollywood or Tollywood or Mollywood in the way the English dailies up north do it. There are no gossip columns there.  There are a number of vernacular magazines which bridge the gap.

I think I am seeing a different newspaper in the Hindu in the sense they are also going commercial and also thinking about marketing, not that they were lame about it. I still think the Sportstar ads by Lintas were one of the best ever.  But now it’s the time to be heard loud and may be this reaction. So welcome aboard the tough seas, the Hindu.

I will be missing the point if I don’t talk about the ads. The ads are well shot and are cute in fact, that’s a ridiculous comment you may say but what do you do when you know that lip sync is so obvious. Isn’t that the cute part. I should also be proud of the fact that I cracked almost 100% in all the ads. Now where is my big prize? Jokes apart it was trying to sell a bit of intellectual pursuit which is fine in a way but would the hurt guy (one mocked at) bite the bullet. They are a happy lot anyways!  But they were entertaining for sure… Well that’s my personal take! It was nice seeing The Hindu take an aggressive stand though will have to wait for the business part of the subscriptions.

A look at the celebrity followers in India especially on twitter will give the reason why Page 3 exists so much than all pages, it’s actually the 10 pages of Page 3 news articles which they call it the city times. You could also blame it on twitter and @Srbachchan for letting the world know that Ash was pregnant on twitter.

Anyways this should be good for the TV Channels, who are making money out of Newspaper fights.

On the other hand it is also noteworthy that they made a viral out of the ads they did. I got to know of the TOI ad after this hit back by The Hindu. That was the best part and it was on my timeline so many times both on FB and twitter. That perhaps is a lesson for all marketers. My take out of the episode: Digital is here, it is here to stay and grow big, now you get to choose whether you want to stay ahead of times or not.

R Senthilkumar

ad:tech New Delhi 2012, the digital marketing, media and advertising event to be held in February, has announced a line-up of its first three panel tracks on Brand Strategy, Performance and Venture Capital.

Sharing his views on the panel discussions announced so far, Rammohan Sundaram, event chairman, ad:tech India and founder, chief executive officer and managing director, Networkplay Media, said, “Panel discussions spur great creative brainstorming and often yield innovative solutions to issues at hand. We have handpicked a roster of industry leaders from India who will add immense value to the ad:tech event brand that matches our global reputation as the world’s leading digital marketing event. We had earlier announced a dazzling preview of some of our keynote speakers from PepsiCo, LinkedIn, comScore, The Times Group and Ogilvy, and will be soon announcing more exciting panels and presentations.”

The ‘Brand Strategy’ track will comprise of two panel discussions featuring speakers from brands including Coca-Cola India, HUL, MAX, LG Electronics India, Google India, Bharti Airtel and MTV India. The first panel discussion in this track will focus on leveraging digital to pushing the industry to invest in ideas. Moderated by Harish Bahl, founder and chairman, Smile Group, this panel will include LK Gupta, chief marketing officer, LG Electronics India, Gaurav Seth, senior vice president, marketing and communications, MAX, and Arun Sharma, vice president, marketing – head, Media and Rural, Bharti Airtel.

With more and more brands doubling up to play the role of publishers, the second panel discussion, moderated by Ravi Kiran, former chief executive officer, South Asia, Starcom MediaVest Group, will explore how branded content can be combined with a killer marketing strategy. Panelists in this session will include Wasim Basir, director, Integrated Marketing Communication, Coca Cola India and South West Asia; Atit Mehta, country media manager, Hindustan Unilever Limited; Nikhil Rungta, country marketing head, Google India; and, Aditya Swamy, executive vice president and business head, MTV India.

Under the track ‘Performance’, the panel session titled, ‘Performance Marketing: Display Matters’ will be moderated by GroupM South Asia’s managing partner, Tushar Vyas, will look at how new display optimisation technologies and next-generation ad exchanges are offering fresh take on display advertising that historically lacked the targeted pricing, placement, and ROI of Search. Insightful views will also be shared by industry stalwarts including Anisha Singh, founder and chief executive officer, mydala.com, Robbie Hills, head of Media Technology – South East Asia and India, Head of Rich Media – Asia Pacific, Google Inc., Gulshan Verma, vice president and country head – India and North America, Komli Media, and Karan Gupta, managing director, Affinity.

The second panel in this track will be themed on ‘Retargeting/Remarketing’ and will feature Siddharth Puri, business head, Tyroo Direct and Gourav Chindlur, co-founder and chief operating officer, Vizury, who will delve into getting the right returns on paid search and SEO through technology with a clear call to action for consumers.

The third track is titled ‘Spotlight’ and features an array of speakers on venture capital. Since digital marketing is still in its early years in India, angel investors play a crucial role in giving the right launch pad to enterprising start-ups. This panel discussion will explore the importance of angels for developing strong businesses that make great venture capital investments. It will showcase views from Alok Mittal, managing director, Canaan India, Samir Kumar, managing director, Inventus, Sarbvir Singh, managing director, Capital18, Vinay Sanghi, promoter and chief executive officer, MXC Solutions and Sateesh Andra, venture partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ).

At the inaugural Indian edition, we saw some of the best technology in practice being displayed and some of the innovations showcased on internet and mobile and digital as a whole. India with its ever increasing internet population which at presently an estimated 120 Million active users and fast growing into the largest medium to which advertisers can target their marketing communication. The challenge it proposes is the interactivity and the closeness, in social media front has been a steep learning curve. Brands will have to go social and be in the midst of the mind space with more time spent on the Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. The content has become the king and for brands the first time it has given them an opportunity to own the content as media itself.

The event also brought into light how technologists are turning creative directors with creative and engaging mobile applications and augmented reality making its presence in the traditional domain. A great amount of exposure and learning is in store at ad:tech New Delhi where the best of technology brands and marketing case studies are shared with the audience. Thus making it possible for others in the digital space to embrace the technical knowhow and exploit it to engage with the consumer, be it on social, search or mobile.

It’s a new era where marketing meets technology is the buzzword and ad:tech is poised to take it to the next level in India. Mobile with its penetration and mass reach will also be a challenge for brands to engage effectively. The smart phones which are growing fast with the prices going south and features being loaded by the minute will soon become the most important medium. Mobile applications fondly called apps are changing the way people use their phones from being a simple communication device to an engaging branding console. Getting to make the best use of the technology and the latest in location based services which is making a lot of advancement in making a connect to the user at a particular location making him glocally available for brands to communicate.

So the game is on the most empowered consumer today because of his being connected and  internet being available on multiple platforms the desktop, his laptop, the mobile and the all new internet powered TV. Following him wherever he goes and that too without being seen as intrusive, a marketing miracle which will be a success to replicate.

So, while the reach of the digital has removed the concept of “distance” with a keystroke or a touch, it’s never been more important to physically connect with friends, colleagues, business associates, trade journalists and the growing base of marketing experts that have come to represent ad:tech’s expanding network.

With such a background, ad:tech New Delhi’s 2nd edition in February 2012 will be a platform for all stakeholders to get updated, share, network and do business.

R Senthilkumar

(Thats Me with Daniel Ricciardio at RBR Speed Street in Delhi!)

I am keeping a promise that I made to myself and this is a beginning of writing about the F1 Teams and the drivers regularly. This year the F1 circus is going to be really huge and we can start imagining that there will be a real contest on the cards. Unless of course that the guys at McLaren and Ferrari don’t take themselves seriously.

The way the seats got filled so early is a good pointer, there are at least a couple of seats undecided as I write this, nevertheless its a heave of sigh for quite a young set of people and of course quite an old set of people – read Pedro La Rosa it is now a settled affair.

The most important point here would be that its is becoming a sort of champions round akin to what we have in our National Racing Championship. All the champions are there when you have Kimi also joining in, it will be fun to watch. I am only sad that Adrian has not been confirmed yet and would be forced to comment if they came together at a corner or if any of them were to be racing together at some point in a race. I wish Webber and Massa also had a chance to be champions so almost half of the grid would be champions.

Now lets see how they stack up, Red Bull  remains the same team, and we should only be looking at their style and they can be a great team in the making, I am talking long term. If one team which has the potential to be a threat to Ferrari fan base in the long run without being in the motorsports business, trust me it could be only Red Bull. Not because I was the official blogger, but you should know the branding that Red Bull is capable of and how they were on top in both the forms of racing today – the circuit and the forests, I mean the racing and the rallying they have been there. They are building a loyal fan base, if you have doubt check out their Facebook page with 25 million likes and almost a million people talking about it.

Just check out this article which underlined how Red Bull has now really become the content and media in a way that they are doing a great job of most importantly selling the energy drink. I have been associated with the brand up close, and some of the branding association and the branding on ground is pretty close to the energy drink literally. Take the case of the Red Bull Racing Cans, the students get to make cars out of Red Bull cans and get to do a race like event with trials, qualifying and the race. For the first time when I watched, I didnt know they had a final with all the cars on the grid! In a way as one participant pointed out you had to control the remote very well and aerodynamics can wait, still it was fun to see the cars going all over and you know how they get stuck in a corner and et all. And there are appeals to the Marshals and Chief stewards after the results are announced.

Then the best one happened when I was with Team Red Bull Racing at Khardung La, running an F1 car at 18,380 feet above MSL to be precise is not everyone’s idea of owning an F1 team. Here’s how they make themselves heard and they are loud about that when they do it.

To top it all they had their Kart Fight this season in India. Its a nice way to be there, and I know for sure what they are capable of, setting the trend as they did a few weeks before the Inaugural GP blazing the road at the India Gate.

Once Yohann Setna in a conversation long ago had said, ‘You wont be surprised if you can see Red Bull on anything that moves, motorsports in particular, and most important they have only one product!’

If you can add up all these, they are slowly building up the momentum to be the franchise that everyone would want to associate with. And you can easily do it with so much of action on the ground and off the ground, at the races, rallies and even in the Himalayas!

On the other hand they have a formidable Young Drivers Program, and that’s getting really into the mode. Daniel Ricciardio who will drive for STR is a Red Bull prodigy in their terminology. You get to be the best under Red Bull.

Now back to the teams, Mc Laren and Ferrari  have so much at stake atleast start pretneding to be guys, and make a match, while 2011 was boring except a couple of races, we need to see some down to the last race happening this year in 2012. Would be interesting to see someone fail me in that aspect.

Button will continue in his form and Lewis will try a resurrection from the bad times he has had on track and his personal life. Fernando and Massa will be watched eagerly by all the F1 fans and that eventually means Ferrari fans at large.

Then there is Mercedes, with Schumi and Nico they are trying hard and probably they were the ones who tried hard last year. Lotus Renault, we can call them with full honours with the other Renault becoming Caterham, will love to see them challenge the guys on top. Will wait to see  how Kimi a part owner too, will play his part and make it happen, we are for sure in for some real fast entertainment. The Iceman is back as an owner/driver at Lotus Renault.

Down the order we have, Force India – Sahara Force India to be honest, only wondering if the Kingfisher’s problem should not rub off on to the team, its been an excellent progress to date for the team. Though I would have loved this team to have an Indian driver in Narain or Karun, I am sceptical of Mallya approving my idea. On that front, I think the erstwhile Lotus Renault did make us look bad when they didnt put Karun in for Indian race giving Mallya a big boost for his idea of Indian drivers not being upto the mark.

Then there is Williams, where are the glorious days Mr. SFW? But I have the highest regards for such an independent team on the grid, lets hope they get some pace and make themselves heard.

Sauber, our Amul’s Brand car if I may call it and then HRT, STR and Marussia to complete the list.

Personally sad to see Sir Richard Branson leave, he is my entrepreneurial hero away from the tech world.

Will write about the teams and the drivers in details in the posts to come.

Till then signing off!

R Senthilkumar

(Indian F1 fan)

The first Indian Grand Prix had so much in stake for itself. The advertisement or the bad PR of Common Wealth has not been erased from the memory of the public. As the preparations were going on at a racy speed came the Supreme Court order that they move  25% of the ticket sales to a separate bank account till they decided if the sporting event needed a tax cut.

Cut to the party after the successful hosting of the Indian Grand Prix which was attended by the most venerated person Sachin Tendulkar, in a country where Cricket is a religion and God decided to witness the race, it was only fitting that he waived the chequered flag.

One of the most interesting takeaways of this whole exercise is that it has been able to showcase India as a wonderful tourist destination. !ncredible India was bang on as one driver after another went gaga about the Taj, the roads, the food, the pretty Indian women and ofcourse the rickshaw or the tuk-tuk.  Sebastian Vettel has vowed to learn the most important words in Hindi so that he would be able to impress a few charming godess as he put it the next time he is in Delhi.

It opened vistas for a lot of event management people albeit only for the month still it did give rise to hope for better days in the near future. The people who had sold their land in the meanwhile had made a killing and are living a luxurious life thanks to this F1 venture of Jaypee.

The success had its effect and it was not without reason. It was a show case par excellence in terms of private party holding an event of this magnitude. For all of us having to tend to disagree with what government working can be like this event with such mass gathering of over 1 lakh plus apart from the volunteers and the men working around the clock to ensure a great event was like raising hope over something’s that we normally don’t take for granted.

It also underlined that the public private partnerships, thought the government was  not directly involved, can work wonders for the sports. With the unveiling of the track we have already seen Mercedes open a training academy that’s the first here and third after Germany and China. So it would only spur the motorsports fraternity to test waters and make it a global hub.

It was also nice to see two support races in MRF Championship and JK Tyre Asia Series where all the future racers gave a shot to their dreams not withstanding the machinery they had was not that great, but the spirit was there for all to see. The next year the machine will be all the more bigger and better.

It has also opened up the newly christened iSeries on the lines of the IPL, which has already got enough of media attention and has lined up more almost all the franchise as I write this, the reason is very clear – the series has two of its races at Buddh International Circuit.

Also be rest assured that there will be a lot of Karting races happening and you can actually scout for some new venues which will come up in the days to come since that is the basic breeding ground for kids to enter racing early in their life. Force India already ran a One in a Billion in 7 cities and now Red Bull is doing a Kart Fight in 4 cities.

On a large level the economic benefits of this is yet to be realized to its full potential, while the racing weekend can rake in a lot of tourist and makes for a good tourist festival, the motorsports as an industry will only thrive with so many brand getting into the sponsorship arena.

Take the case of Amul, which partnered Sauber for a one off race sponsorship, gives ample scope for the brands to think global starting with such associations. The other brands like Vodafone and Renault already having tasted the success of being a part of F1 circus will increase their spend to better it the next time. But if you ask me the one brand which walked laughing all the way to the branding bank was Airtel. It made a kill with a branding by being the presenting  sponsor – Airtel Indian grand Prix and the rest was history. And I like it when you have two of the most competitive brands in Airtel and Vodafone vying for your  mindspace.

So the race has already got cracking with the calendar for next year. With such economic benefits the brands will only be ready not to miss the ship this time.

Announces two more industry heavy weights as keynote speakers along with the global execs from PepsiCo and comScore

ad:tech, world’s No.1 Digital Marketing, Media and Advertising event, has announced that the upcoming event in February next year will live up to its promise of being bigger and better. The first Indian edition of ad:tech held earlier this year was hugely oversubscribed with as many as 2500 delegates attending the event. With the promise of getting bigger, better, and bolder, the second edition will feature more number of tracks and sessions in the conference, a larger exposition area, and will be held over three days instead of two days. ad:tech New Delhi 2012 will also showcase more than 80 industry stalwarts as speakers, including 7 ground breaking keynotes.

ad:tech New Delhi has announced a lineup of  global thought leaders as keynotes for the 2012 edition including Shiv Singh, Global Head of Digital, PepsiCo Beverages and Gian M. Fulgoni, Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, comScore, Inc. Arvind Rajan,  Managing Director & Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, LinkedIn, and Kent Wertime, Chief Operating Office, Ogilvy Asia Pacific and also President and Representative Director, Ogilvy & Mather (Japan) K. K.

Commenting on ad:tech New Delhi 2012 Rammohan Sundaram, Event Chairman, ad:tech India and Founder, CEO & Managing Director, Networkplay Media Pvt Ltd. said “Just like the last edition, we promise to make ad:tech New Delhi 2012 a confluence of leading global digital marketing experts. The event will cater to the best in marketing, advertising, digital, media and communications industries to empower organizations with knowledge to adapt to the ever changing digital marketing ecosystem. With continued growth in technology and use of social media, the event will present an interactive platform for marketers to discuss and share strategies that will shape the digital landscape of tomorrow.”

The agenda for ad:tech New Delhi 2012 includes two parallel tracks of insightful panel discussions with 18 sessions conducted by experts from the advertising, media and marketing industry. “It is ad:tech New Delhi’s earnest attempt to provide an ideal networking platform for like-minded professionals to facilitate meaningful conversations to explore new avenues in the digital advertising arena,” adds Ram.

The last edition in April 2011 included presentations by global experts like Babs Rangaiah, VP Global Communications Planning Unilever, Yahoo’s CMO, Elisa Steele, Google’s India MD, Rajan Anandan, among several others. It was at ad:tech New Delhi 2011 that David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations officially announced that the social networking site Facebook had crossed 25 million users in India.