MxMIndia

Category: Ad Agencies

  • This is the network’s second buy in 2019. But there’s more coming, we hear

    Havas on shopping spree. Buys Langoor

    L to R – Venugopal Ganganna, Chief Executive Officer, Langoor, Ruchir Punjabi, Founder & Chair, Langoor, Vishnu Mohan, Chairman & CEO, Havas India & South East Asia, Bobby Pawar, Chairman & CCO, Havas Group India, Girisha Gowda, Chief Operations Officer, Langoor, Kishore Karumbaiah, Chief Creative Officer, Langoor and Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas Group India

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    When the Havas group announced the ‘acquisition’ of two veteran industry persons last year, it was clear that it had huge plans for India. After Rana Barua and later Bobby Pawar joined to helm the group in the country, the message sent out was that the advertising agency-led conglomerate is not going to sit pretty on its existing lines of business.

     

    If it were to match the big girls or boys in the business, it had to broadbase its line of businesses. The Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) experiment in India had been a huge success. Acquire, Grow and Shine.

     

    In May this year, Havas gobbled up Think Design, a strong player in user experience and design advisory in India. And today (September 18), it announced the acquisition of Langoor, an eight-year-old tech-led independent agency with presence across India, the Middle East and Australia. The deal size has not been disclosed.

     

    With a team size of 170 people, Langoor has earned its stripes as an agency that’s not in the mould of a typical digital advertising agency. It’s driven by technology, and it’s hence different from many others.

     

    Langoor will be rebranded Langoor Havas and be led by its co-founder – Venugopal Ganganna – who will take on the newly-created position of Chief Digital Officer, Havas Group India, reporting to Barua who is Group CEO, Havas Group India. Langoor Havas will have three key focus areas – health, business and vernacular – and will expand these services to markets outside of India in the coming months. The deal itself took over a year to fructify and was inked earlier this month.

     

    The agency has been growing 30 per cent and some of its key clients include Unilever, Fossil, Wipro, Emami, Epson, Adobe, Infosys, Moneygram among others.

     

    While an exponential growh new business continues to be something that Havas in India is seeking to fructify, according to industry and Havas insiders, the inorganic DAN-like growth path is clearly on the agenda: there are many domains that are still need Havas’s presence. For instance, activations, public relations/communications and perhaps more in digital. The appetite is to acquire another four to five agencies, an executive told us requesting anonymity.

     

    To a pointed question from MxMIndia, a Havas spokesperson said: “Our acquisition approach is distinctively not a multiplier approach but one of relevant expertise building. You will be hearing from us soon on the acquisition front, in line with this approach.”

     

    A communique was issued by the group bearing the following statements:

    Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and CEO Havas Group: “Digital business is booming in India and bringing Langoor on board is an important new step to further strengthening our digital skills locally. Through their unique blend of data, creativity and technology, Langoor enables brands to engage their customers meaningfully and drive growth. Earlier this year, we acquired the leader in user experience and digital design in India, Think Design, making Langoor our second acquisition in the country in 2019. The combined expertise of Think Design and Langoor boost Havas’ digital offer in the world’s fastest growing ad market. India continues to be a priority for the Group, we aim to triple our presence there by the end of 2019 and have put in place a solid new management team to lead this expansion.”

     

    Vishnu Mohan, Chairman & CEO, Havas Group India & South East Asia: “The acquisition of Langoor complements our aggressive growth strategy that we started last year with the creation of Havas Village India that brought together different disciplines under a unified, client-centric leadership structure. Langoor adds an enviable strength to Havas Group with its distinctive approach of Creative Technologists who challenge marketing every day with their expertise in balancing, data, technology, strategic thinking and the power of creative.”

     

    Rana Barua, CEO, Havas Group India: “The Langoor acquisition also demonstrates Havas Group’s commitment to expand its scale and expertise in India with a focus on exponential growth, new business momentum, and building & leading future-ready teams. The acquisition will reinforce our integrated offering and digital expertise in India and complement our existing capabilities.”

     

    Ruchir Punjabi & Venu Ganganna, co-founders of Langoor: “We pride ourselves in having created an agency focused on digital brand thinking – which is the future. The integration with Havas Group will add scale to the depth of our services and help us to grow even further. This acquisition is an incredible opportunity for Langoor and the team and we are excited to be part of this new journey towards further success.”

     

  • Kataria has led the ISA over the past three years

    Indian Society of Advertisers elects Sunil Kataria as Chairman

    By A Correspondent

     

    The newly elected Executive Council of the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) met on September 18, 2019 and re-elected Sunil Kataria, CEO, India and SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Limited, as Chairman of the ISA. Kataria has led the Society over the past three years.

     

    On his election for fourth consecutive term as the Chairman of the ISA, Kataria said: “In our journey towards creating further value proposition for the ISA in the industry, the focus will be to make this unique body future-ready. We will work to support the advertisers in navigating the fast-evolving digital environment. Our endeavour this year would be take forward our efforts in the arena of digital measurement. We profusely acknowledge the support by fraternity organizations and endeavour to take such collaboration to newer heights in the industry in ultimate benefit for the ISA members. I look forward to having continuous support of all members towards adding value from all relevant perspectives”.

     

    Other members of the Executive Council are: Atul Agrawal, Senior Vice President – Corporate Brand and Marketing, Tata Services Limited; Abraham Mathew Alapatt, President & Group Head – Marketing, Service Quality, Value Added Services & Innovation, Thomas Cook (India) Limited; Narendra Ambwani, Director, Agro Tech Foods Limited; JC Chopra, Advisor, Anant Healthcare Technology Solutions (P) Ltd; Ravi A. Desai, Director, Mass & Brand Marketing International, Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd; Paulomi Dhawan, Strategic Adviser, Raymond Limited; Abhishek Desai, Director Marketing, Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Limited; Chandru Kalro, Managing Director, TTK Prestige Limited; Sandeep Kaul, Divisional Chief Executive – India Tobacco Division, ITC Limited; Sandeep Kohli, Executive Director – Beauty & Personal Care, Hindustan Unilever Limited; Bharat V. Patel, Independent Director, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd.; Anil Viswanathan, Director Marketing Chocolate, India, Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd.; Ramakrishnan Ramamurthi, Chief Executive, Polycab India Ltd, Amit Tiwari, Vice President – Marketing, Havells India Ltd.; Subhadip Dutta Choudhury, Vice Chairman & CEO, Hawkins Cookers Limited; Shashwat Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel Limited; Anuj Poddar, Executive Director, Bajaj Electricals Limited and Koshy George, Chief Marketing Officer, Marico Limited.

  • Announced two new ECDs and 5 new AECDs to boost the national creative firepower

    Leo Burnett India strengthens creative team with new appointments

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leo Burnett has strengthened its creative team by bringing on board Mayuresh Dubhashi and Sonal Chhajerh as Executive Creative Directors. They will both be based out of Mumbai. In addition to this, Leo Burnett India has also elevated and announced five new Associate Executive Creative Directors – Archit Gadiyar (Mumbai), Vikrant Yadav (Mumbai), Pradeep Kumar (Mumbai), Ashish Sharma (Bengaluru) and Sudhir Das (Delhi).

     

    Dubhashi’s last stint was with Grey Worldwide where he was ECD whereas Chhajerh was with Publicis Singapore prior to Leo Burnett.

     

    Speaking on the appointments, Rajdeepak Das, Managing Director India and Chief Creative Officer Leo Burnett South Asia said: “Both Mayuresh and Sonal bring with them not only diverse experience but also a great creative vision which is new age and in line with the Leo Burnett’s Wave 3 philosophy. I am confident that they will help us create world class   creative work which will be impactful for businesses.”

     

    He further adds “The new team of the AECD’s are young, home-grown talents and since the past few years have contributed in producing some of the best works of the agency.  At Leo Burnett we believe in empowering our teams and giving them a platform to grow and we are confident they have the potential to become future leaders who will carry our Wave 3 vision forward.”

     

     

  • He will report to Kapil Arora, Co-Chairman & CEO

    Rishabha Nayyar appointed National Strategy Lead of 82.5 Communications India

    By A Correspondent

     

    Rishabha Nayyar

    82.5 Communications has announced the appointment of Rishabha Nayyar as National Strategy Lead. Nayyar will have planning teams across Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi reporting to him. He will report to Kapil Arora, Co-Chairman & CEO.

     

    Said Kapil Arora, Co-Chairman & CEO: “Rishabha brings a depth of strategic thinking and grounded-ness that is rare to find today.  His experience and great work across big and small brands, legacy and new age businesses alike, will add not just the requisite strategic firepower for our clients, but also act as a force multiplier to our creative product.   Having been an entrepreneur early on in his career, Rishabha also shares the 82.5 gene of passion for the new.  We’re stoked to have him on board at this exciting phase of our growth journey.”

     

    Added Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer: “With much of our senior management schooled at Ogilvy, I welcome the fresh perspective Rishabha brings in as an ‘outsider’.”

     

    Nayyar was Executive Director of Brand Strategy at Lowe Lintas, before moving over to 82.5 Communications.

     

     

  • Jaiswal will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Lalit Bhagia, CEO, DAN Consult

    DAN Consult ropes in Rahul Jaiswal as Principal – Ecommerce

    By A Correspondent

     

    Rahul Jaiswal

    DAN Consult has roped in Rahul Jaiswal as Principal – E-commerce. Jaiswal will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Lalit Bhagia, CEO, DAN Consult. His chief mandate will be to help build a client-facing e-commerce consulting practice.

     

    Before joining DAN Consult, Rahul has driven growth for Myntra as Deputy Director – Category Marketing, Strategy & Operations, where he led brand solutions, category marketing and monetisation, and helped scale ad revenues over two years.

     

    Lalit Bhagia

    Said Bhagia: “Rahul’s rich experience in E-commerce will be invaluable to us. With Rahul coming on board, we look forward to helping brands, retailers and e-commerce platforms help scale their business. We already have some large clients where we are leading E-commerce strategy and growth, Rahul’s expertise here would be deeply valued. Rahul has been building brand partnerships via ad-sales and marketing, growing category revenues by multi-channel marketing interventions, and leading strategy and operations to build and monitor effective ad inventory (supply) that drives demand for ad monetization, and conversion and ROI for brands and categories.”

     

     

  • The new office will house DAN brands

    Dentsu Aegis moves into new office in Kochi

    By A Correspondent

     

    Dentsu Aegis Network has expanded its footprint in Kochi with a new office in Jawahar Nagar. The new office will house DAN brands like Dentsu India, Carat, Posterscope, Perfect Relations, Vizeum, Fountainhead MKTG and Milestone.

     

    Commenting on the move, Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network India said: “This is a great move for us considering we are rapidly growing our client roster in southern markets. The advertising potential in Southern markets has seen exponential growth over the last few years. This move is in line with our strategy of collocating our brands and employees in a single premises. With various DAN brands now in the same office space in Kochi as well, we are ready to offer holistic solutions to our existing and prospective clients.”

     

     

  • The account was won via a multi-agency pitch

    Wunderman Thompson bags mandate for Alcove Realty

    By A Correspondent

     

    Alcove Realty has handed its creative duties to Wunderman Thompson, Kolkata.

     

    Said Aakriti Shroff, Director Branding and Communication, Alcove Realty: “We were seeking to partner with an agency that would not only be responsible for communication development but also walk alongside us with strategic inputs on the brand. Wunderman Thompson came across as the best fit in the city.”

     

    Added Vijay Jacob Parakkal, Senior VP and Managing Partner, Wunderman Thompson Kolkata: “Alcove Realty is one of the leading players in the country with several unique and exciting projects. We are looking forward to partnering them and creating some good work that these projects truly deserve.”

     

     

  • Dentsu X India is the only agency from India to appear in the list of Top 100 global agencies

    Dentsu X India recognised in ‘Adweek Top 100 Fastest Growing Agencies’ globally

    By A Correspondent

     

    Dentsu X India has been recognised in the Top 100 Fastest Growing Agencies’ global rankings by Adweek. The agency, notes a communique, has recorded good business growth over the past few years. Dentsu X India is the only agency from India to appear in the list of Top 100 global agencies.

     

    Speaking on the occasion Divya Karani, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu X India said, “We are simply delighted! This growth, these accolades bear testimony to our differential design thinking and the good work delivered to our clients. They also reflect our culture of partnering our clients every step of the way. This recognition is both gratifying and motivating for us to stay the course.”

     

    According to the communique received, Dentsu X India has also been recognised as the ‘No.1 agency on the New Business Barometer 2018’ by COMvergence, an independent international report and RECMA.

     

     

  • Geometry Encompass also won a Bronze Dragon for itscampaign, ‘The Mirror Image’

    Geometry encompass wins Agency of the Year at Dragons of Asia

    By A Correspondent

     

    Geometry Encompass secured five ‘Dragons’ under various categories at Dragons of Asia 2019. Its campaign, ‘Beginning of Togetherness’ for Brooke Bond Red Label dominated the awards by winning the best in India title – the Blue Dragon, along with a gold, silver and black Dragon.

     

    Geometry Encompass also won a Bronze Dragon for their campaign, ‘The Mirror Image’. The winners were announced on 7th October 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

     

    Said Ranjit Raina, Chief Executive Officer, Geometry Encompass: “We’re thrilled to see that our hard work has been recognizsd by a body as prestigious as the Dragons of Asia. Arpan and his team have consistently delivered great work for our clients and it is this commitment that has shone through for us. This body of work is especially important as it demonstrates our creative strength across categories for HUL. The intense spirit of competition pushes us to perfection and keeps the industry dynamic and creative.”

     

    Commenting on the victory, Roshan Abbas, Managing Director, Geometry Encompass, said: “This is a great achievement for us as we have won across a wide range of categories. This was made possible thanks to our hard-working team and our brave client partners. These awards are a testament to our dedication to create meaningful work that has an impact and pushes the envelope of creativity and effectiveness.”

     

     

  • The campaign highlights how Ellementry products blend form and functionality

    Ellementry rolls out festive ad campaign

    By A Correspondent

     

    Network Advertising has launched a campaign for homegrown lifestyle brand, Ellementry.

    Said Shayondeep Pal – Chief Creative Officer, Network Advertising: “Ellementry gives you the opportunity to build a brand through good old days of print. With a core proposition of form marrying function, it creates a design genre that’s new to us. Never before we had mundane products that take aesthetics seriously. And that’s how we arrived at the idea of ‘everyday beautiful.’ To find beauty in everyday things. Like a rolling pin or a tea rest. From a creative point of view, there’s immense satisfaction in reviving the dying art of soft persuasion through headlines in the mad days of cluttered television.”

     

    Added Ayush Baid, Founder, Ellementry.com: “Since our inception, we have focussed on creating products that are a balance of form and function. So much is our focus on this core proposition that if a product satisfies one but not the other we don’t launch it. When it comes to gifting, our research indicated that people often give beautiful useless gifts which just get passed on from one person to the other. To break this cycle, we created a range for gifting during this festive season. Our products are not only beautiful to look at but also thoughtfully designed. We strongly believe that consumers will want to keep and use our products rather than passing them forward. Our ‘Thoughtful and Beautiful gifts’ campaign is a natural progression of our previous campaign of ‘Everyday beautiful’.’

     

     

  • The campaign help bring about attention to large scale incidence of anaemia among urban women in India

    FCB Ulka gets Project Streedhan to raise awareness on anaemia among women

    By A Correspondent

     

    A campaign that emanates out of the fact that India ranks the highest in world for prevalence of anaemia among its women, has been launched to capture a more startling fact – that more than 50 per cent of women in urban India are also anaemic.

     

    Creative agency FCB Ulka has conceptualised Project Streedhan equates the importance of purity of gold – a precious metal – with that of the iron count in a woman’s body – another precious metal, as it were. The launch of Project Streedhan has been strategically timed to coincide with the Dhanteras 2019 and exhorts women to invest in Iron and not only gold.

     

    Shedding light on the idea and premise of the campaign, Swati Bhattacharya, CCO, FCB Ulka said: “Iron deficiency has seen many awareness campaigns. Still 1 out of every 2 women suffer from iron deficiency. Sometimes it not what you say but how and where you say it, that creates the bigger impact. This Dhanteras, when women are thinking of investing in gold, the Streedhan campaign gets them to think of investing in another metal. Something that turns to gold inside them – iron. The real Streedhan is iron. Also, what’s so heartening is that so many jewellers across the country have come forward to support this message!”

     

    Discussing the digital footprint of this campaign, Chandni Shah, COO, Kinnect added: “Iron deficiency is more common than anyone might think, but a woman’s inclination to do something about it is not half as common. The power of using digital icons to drive awareness cannot be underestimated, and we are so proud to associate with socially-conscious celebrities like Radhika Apte and Soha Ali Khan to reach millions of women across India. Through digital, we have inspired women with an extremely relevant message and urged them to take a crucial step towards their health this festive season”.

     

     

  • The campaign stems from a study that studied the amount of smoke released by a cigarette

    Ogilvy & Mission Green India raise awareness on pollution

    By A Correspondent

     

    Ogilvy Mumbai in association with Mission Green India attempted to create an awareness about pollution this Diwali.

     

    Said Talha Bin Mohsin and Mahesh Parab, Group Creative Directors, Ogilvy Mumbai: “Mission Green India approached us with a challenge to help make Diwali greener. We came across this study comparing firecrackers and cigarettes, and the numbers in it really scared us. We knew it was something a lot of people don’t really know about, and they should. We realized the best way to achieve this is to have a warning on every pack. With the support of netizens everywhere, we can make mandatory warnings on firecracker packs a reality.”

     

    Added Shubhajit Mukherjee from Mission Green India:  “More than food, air is the primary need of citizens which needs to be treated with the utmost care and responsibility. Firec rackers are an international problem where standards are not followed which leads to poisoning of the air. I’m glad Ogilvy has come up with a unique way to inform people about this.”