Star makes changes to drive channel-specific marketing

Star India has made changes that would integrate and structure its marketing functions in order to drive channel-specific marketing and communication needs while maintaining focus on network synergies. In a letter to the staff, Star India CEO Uday Shankar announced the changes would be "with immediate effect." The key departments that will report into Star India EVP marketing and communications Anupam Vasudev are marketing & brand management, on-air promotions, consumer insights, presentation, brand solutions and PR & corporate communications.

While Hari C will head marketing & brand management for Star Plus, Ravi Luthria will head the division for Star One, Nipa Asharam for Channel [V], Star World & Movies, Yogesh Manwani for regional channels and Soumya for Star Gold. They will all report to Vasudev and will have a dotted line reporting to the respective channel GMs. Additionally, Hari C will also be responsible for on-air promo (OAP) for Star Plus while Ravi Luthria will oversee the OAP for Star One. OAP for Channel [V] and Star Gold will continue to report into Channel [V] GM Prem Kamath and Star Gold VP Hemal Zaveri respectively. Nitin Kalra who looks after CRM will also report into Hari.

Meanwhile, Anand Shiv will be responsible for consumer insights (research) and presentation. Anupama Tatwawadi will lead the network presentation team and will report into Anand Shiv. The consumer insights team will have dedicated resources for each channel whilst the presentation and media buying functions will continue to operate at a network level. Lalit Agrawal now reports to Anand Shiv. Lydia Fernandes will lead brand solutions, which will be responsible for integrating advertiser related revenue streams like product integration, AFPs (advertiser funded programmes) and events for the Star Network. Fernandes will work closely with Sheena Bali from the sales team. Product integration (PI), AFP, events and the business acceleration teams across the network will have a dotted line reporting to Fernandes. The Plus PI team will now report into her. Achyut Parelkar will move from OAP (Star Gold) to Fernandes' team and support her in her role.

-Indiantelevision