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| Aegis Group's media agency leaves downturn behind |
| Viveat Susan Pinto / Mumbai May 10, 2010, 00:27 IST |
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Thirteen years ago, when Carat, a media agency promoted by the $2.25-billion Aegis Group Plc, launched operations in India along with the Percept group, little did it know that its growth trajectory would be cut short with the exit of clients and businesses. Consequently, its joint venture with Percept was disbanded.
Carat has since put the past behind it. It is now breathing life into its India operations again. It has a new team in place and 24 clients, mostly blue-chip companies such as Adidas, Reebok, Philips, Air Asia, BMW, Mattel and Google.
The responsibility of driving operations in India and eight other countries in the region rests with Ashish Bhasin, a former Lintas hand. He was the former head of Initiative, the media arm of ad agency Lowe Lintas, and was associated with the group for over 20 years. “The last 20 months have been eventful. We moved fast because there was need to do that. Don’t forget, we’ve bounced back at a time when the others have already established themselves here,” says Bhasin. Competing media agencies such as GroupM of WPP, Lodestar Universal of IPG, OMD of Omnicom, Starcom MediaVest and ZenithOptimedia of Publicis, for the record, are already established names in the country.
Bhasin joined Aegis in the middle of 2008 as Chairman, India & CEO, South East Asia. He has been quick to get the agency back on its feet, besides reviving allied units such as Posterscope, the outdoor specialist of Aegis. Posterscope India now has some 50 clients, including key ones such as the Future Group, Colgate, Nestle, Blue Star and GoAir. It undertakes outdoor advertising work for these clients. Bhasin has also brought Isobar, Aegis’s digital agency, into the country. Besides launching Aegis’s second media agency brand, Vizeum, and absorbing a local agency called Fresh into the network.
“Our woes are clearly a thing of the past,” corroborates Nick Waters, chief executive officer of the Asia-Pacific region for Aegis Media, the media arm of Aegis under which Carat and three other companies fall, including Isobar, Postercope and Vizeum. “We are serious about the Indian market, besides China and Australia,” he says, adding: “These are the three growth drivers in the region. Anybody wanting a meangingful presence here cannot ignore these markets.” The Aegis group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is one of the largest marketing communication networks in Europe.
“We have five units now under the Aegis umbrella in India, so our hands are full at the moment,” says Waters, who was earlier with WPP’s Mindshare. He is one of the founding members of Mindshare.
Waters does not rule out the inorganic route for growth, but says Carat will buy companies either “to fill skill-set gaps or to scale up”.
Adding: “In India, as you can see, we have already put the organisation in place, so there is no immediate requirement as of now. Our task will be to grow the existing units. Acquisitions, if at all, will happen in the digital space.”
Aegis, like most marketing communication groups in recent years, has been focusing its attention on the digital media arena for acquisitions. The group’s Isobar digital agency is an agglomeration of acquired entities.
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