MUMBAI : Group M and Optimystix Entertainment promoted, O4 Digital Media announced a strategic alliance to create India’s first digital video-led Brand Solutions Company – MashUp. MashUp is a content led Brand solutions company with a key focus on ‘video led sustained engagement’ for brands – a first of its kind in the Indian digital industry. Mash Up Brand Solutions will work with brands to connect with consumers on digital & social media platforms using customized and differentiated content to create rich engagement.

With Mash Up, Optimystix Entertainment, India’s leading TV Production Company is now turning its focus to the rapidly growing online video space. Group M, India’s leading media agency network is extending its online offering to include strategic content solutions backed with metric and measurement. With its digital expertise and understanding of online consumers, the launch of MashUp is set to revolutionize the online brand promotion and engagement space.

The Internet video consumption market in India is growing at a tremendous pace, with nearly 80% more video views in 2012 than 2011. The current market size in India is equal to 43 million + monthly unique viewers; 3.3 billion + monthly total video streams and approximately19 billion minutes are spent watching videos online every month*.To harness the potential of this untapped market, MashUp, with its expertise in understanding and engaging viewers will create “rich media video packages” and provide brands with additional effective touch points for sustained consumer engagement on social media platforms.

Commenting on this development, CVL Srinivas, South Asia CEO at Group M, said, “Internet video consumption is expected to further increase 6 fold by 2016*.The Internet audience size is crossing the English-speaking audience size in our country and video has a larger role to play considering the formatcomprises a universal appeal. We see an untapped as well as cost-effective opportunity in this market for leading brands to engage with their consumers on a more personal level. Optimystix Entertainment is the leading premiumcontent creator and we are happy to combine our strengths to form MashUp.”

Speaking about the venture, Sanjiv Sharma, CEO and Executive Chairman at Optimystix Entertainment India Pvt. Ltd. said, “India is the 2nd largest consumer of Online Videos. Having produced TV Commercials for every leading brand in the country and producing highly successful Primetime TV Programming for all leading broadcasters, our DNA as company allows us to understand and service brand needs and create high quality video content at an industrial level. Realizing this opportunity, OptimystixEntertainment started this journey of "Video Led Sustained Engagement" with AIRTEL to create and produce video content for engagement across their social media communities. Our partnering with Group M is a step further in creating a leadership position in this space.”

The key focus for Mash Up will be to understand the brand needs in the social media space and to create a compelling digital engagement strategy using “rich video packages” to create and nourish this relationship with consumers. Mash Up shall also provide other digital services including evaluation of the brand and its competition in the social media space, social media management& Marketing, online media planning and buying, analytics and measurement of brand progress and more. Mash Up shall work with Group M clients as well as other players, and currently some of its clients include established brands such as Airtel, Ford, Mercedez Benz, Shoppers Stop, Streax,Citi Bank, Skoda, Gillette, etc.

MUMBAI: Bipin Pandit needs no introduction; the COO of The Advertising Club is an extraordinary individual with an ocean of knowledge, not only about the lucrative ad world but also about sports, culture and most of all music. His love for music is so intense and his passion to bring alive some of the best numbers from Bollywood movies and albums, so deep that the adman started a property called ‘Khumaar’ seven years back which is an extremely talented group of musicians, singers and composers that perform live shows.

Having performed for 23 years Mr. Pandit comperes and does mimicry acts. ‘Khumaar’, a Hindi word that means intoxication, is Mr. Pandit’s biggest property; the distinctiveness of this property is the segmentation of the programme in the form of solo acts, duets, classical acts, qawalis and sufi performances.

Taking inspiration from music itself Bipin Pandit started writing a book which he has fondly titled ‘Khumaar’, about music, but not only did he write about his favourite musicians, composers, lyricists and vocalists but also requested Industry stalwarts and encouraged his friends to write articles about their favourite artists, composers, singers, etc. to include in his book.

After putting in colossal efforts the book was launched on the same day as his show ‘Khumaar’ on Friday 19th April, 2013 at the Savarkar Hall, Shivaji Park 5.30pm onwards. The melodious evening saw Mr. Pandit in a trance, reminiscing the good old days as his soulful voice and charm was met with thundering applause. On this evening he also paid tribute to romantic legends like Rajesh Khanna, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand and Yash Chopra with his poignant voice. The show was telecasted live on his personal website: www.bipinpandit.com

Prior to the intermission of the festive evening, Mr. Pandit’s book was launched by the Shenshah of Melody the legendary music composer Shri. Pyarelal Sharma and the launch was attended by eminent professionals like Sunil Lulla, Shashi Sinha, M.G. Parameswaran, Bharat Dhabolkar, Paritosh Joshi, CVL Srinivas, Subhash Kamath, Pratap Bose, Ramesh Narayan, Maulik Kotak, Ajay Kakar, Sanjay Tripathi, Priti Nair, Pratap Bose from the Ad, Media and Marketing world and personalities like Chaitanya Padukone, Rajiv Vijayakar and Narendra Kusnur from the world of Journalism. Actor Dilip Tahil and singer Jassi also attended the show.

‘Khumaar’ is an excellent coffee table book that contains articles by well-known head honchos from the Advertising, Media, Marketing and Journalists fraternity some of whom are Piyush Pandey, Pradeep Guha , Bharat Dhabolkar, Ayaz Memon, M.G.Parameswaran, Ajay Chandwani, Charulata, Gokul Krishnamurthy, Narendra Kusnur, Rajiv Vijayakar, Chaitnya Padukone, Nandkishore Desai, Madan Sanglikar, Arjit Ray, Andee Hyderabadi, Dipen Sheth and many more. The book also has a fine blend of never before seen black and white and coloured pictures of yesteryear stalwarts and two interviews with the Music maestro Pyarelalji and Ruhan Kapoor, son of the great singer Mahendra Kapoor. With only limited editions of the book available music buffs must get a copy soon before they run out.

Upon this momentous occasion Bipin Pandit said, “I am thankful to God for having given me this bright concept which is unique and never tried before. I am extremely humbled by the appreciation of my talents along with the talents of the people behind the success of ‘Khumaar’. It is an honour to have worked with such brilliant minds that have humbled me with their contribution towards my book. This book represents the enthusiasm that we possess towards the art of music, being known in the professional world as task-masters it will bring some surprise that we are well acknowledged with the nuances of the subject as well. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that have so graciously contributed valuable content to this book.”

A very special thanks to all the Advertisers who happily supported this project and all my well wishers I must say without their help it would have been difficult to fulfil my dream.

A special thanks is due to Mitrajit Bhatacharya, Jaydeep Gandhi and Chaitanya Padukone for their sterling contribution.