Prakash Pendharkar

Handling marketing for complete spices category (National role) along with media planning & buying as per brand requirement.Negiotating with broadcasters and publications. Handling external partners such as Media agency,OOH etc. Detailed annual budgeting, monitoring monthly spends and scheduling of ads. ATL & BTL. Additional responsibility of Packaging

My chief roles included: productively develop media buying strategies, handle negotiations, develop integrated marketing campaigns, managed external partners and handle detailed annual budgeting.  The company had signed huge media deals with major publications. I rationalised the investments after studying the overall market along with advertised brand’s penetration, which helped in correcting the deal size with publications. In the whole process sizeable money was saved, thus resulting in better ROI on media investments with minimum spends. Only the significant deals were closed. Generated a good brand recall and sales with minimum spends.  The Company wished to launch of new hair colour. I personally took the initiative to launch the product in salons at Indore, for which I singlehandedly visited over 1000 salons. After the successfully test with the Indore market, the same was implemented at Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Chandigarh. This new revenue stream initiated cross-selling and went viral.  I appointed a skilled and professional advertising agency to launch a new television commercial, saving us time and money.  Successfully planned and launched 3 national campaigns namely for crème hair colour, powder hair colour, hair removing cream along with several regional campaigns.  Re-launched powder hair colour with new packaging.

Efficiently managed brands. Handled the business development team, account servicing, media buying and planning for mandated brands and conceptualization and execution of events and sponsorships. Managed media spends >INR INR 3 Crore annually.  As the Head, I was to sell stalls to real estate players in Indore for the annual event CREDAI Real Estate Fair. I successfully sold 15 stalls and roped in sponsors.  A competitor’s agency struck a deal with one of the largest real estate clients of Indore. By offering cheaper rates (at times squeezing margins) with a long-standing healthy relationship and a proven insight-driven approach with transparency, we retained the account for 3 consecutive years.

Fruitfully managed brands including India bulls Real Estate and Orbit Corporation. Handled product launches through ATL and BTL activities and sales support collaterals. Actively participated in Pitches.  Handled the launch of India Bulls Sky (a premium residential project by India Bulls Real-Estate in Mumbai). It was one of the most successful launches with a confirmed booking of 250% in the 1st Month, followed by more conversions.

 Managed Bajaj RE (3 Wheeler), Top N Town (Ice-creams) and SOM Distilleries (Hunter Beer).  Handled product launches schemes through ATL and BTL activities, implementation of a brand marketing strategies in line with brand portfolio objectives, communications to cover all essential mediums like press, outdoor, collaterals and events and competition tracking to suggest proactive strategic inputs to clients.  Gained considerable experience of managing various events, auditions and road shows as a member of the team that successfully executed Volvo Eicher Annual Dealer Meet and Road shows for Bajaj RE along with auditions for Star Plus

Managed Axis Bank (Home & Auto Loans). Launched new products under assigned portfolio. Co-ordinated and handled operations of day-to-day activities. Managed competition tracking.  Mentos (the popular candy brand) desired to interact with the youth to solve their problems in a quirky and fun way. We designed an interactive website, which was actually a spoof call centre that uses a flash-based video to interact with users and offer quirky responses to their grievances. The online portal (www.mentoshelpline.com) made us win the Abby silver Award in the interactive category in 2007.

Managed Kirloskar Group of Companies. Handled account Servicing.  Successfully Pitched for Kirloskar Brothers Ltd. (KBL) as an additional revenue source of INR 18 lakhs per annum. With the print production jobs, revenue increased >INR 75 lakhs per annum.

Brand Managed: Exide Industries, ICICI Bank and BSNL Responsibilities: •Client Servicing & Business Development

Bearer has been tested on best practices in applying an Inbound Social Media Strategy.