ITV

Tag: Omnicom

  • TBWA acquires India’s digital agency Magnon

    MUMBAI: Omnicom‘s global advertising agency network TBWA has acquired Indian digital entity Magnon Group.

    The acquisition includes the domestic digital agency Magnon Solutions and digital outsourcing agency Magnon International that serves clients across five continents.

    With immediate effect, Magnon will become part of the TBWA Group of companies in India. The digital agency, Magnon Solutions, will join TBWA‘s global Digital Arts Network (DAN) and the digital outsourcing company, Magnon International, will become part of E-Graphics and an accelerator for DAN‘s production offering.

    Magnon was founded in 2000 by Vineet Bajpai and employs nearly 150 professionals between Mumbai and New Delhi. He will continue as founder and CEO of Magnon Group. The group offers clients the full spectrum of digital services, including graphic design for web and mobile; digital marketing; search and social media optimisation; bespoke technology applications development; online brand strategy consulting; eCommerce solutions; and mobile sites and apps development.

    TBWA Worldwide president – international Keith Smith said, “We are delighted to join forces with Magnon Group. We‘ve been extremely impressed with both their digital capabilities and the strength of their management team. Globally, TBWA is building a strong, integrated digital network and we‘re confident that Magnon Group will deliver the expertise and talent we need to deliver innovative work and added value for our clients in India.”

    Bajpai said, “Being a part of TBWA is an ambition fulfilled. TBWA‘s global reach and excellence will provide Magnon with the right platform towards becoming a market-leading digital agency in India and the region. And TBWA‘s empowering culture allows us to retain our adaptability and entrepreneurial fabric.”

    TBWAIndia‘s chief executive officer Shiv Sethuraman said, “I believe this is a game-changing event for the TBWA Group in India. After successfully setting up The Integer Group® India, our retail and shopper marketing company last year, the acquisition of Magnon makes us a uniquely positioned agency in India – one that is ahead of the curve in the disciplines that will matter most in the years to come. Magnon is a solid and proven digital player with great depth and talent. I am delighted to welcome Vineet and his team to the TBWA family.”

    Omnicom president and chief executive officer John Wren commented, “TBWA‘s partnership with Magnon is a reflection of Omnicom‘s continued commitment to building its strengths and capabilities across the Indian subcontinent, in an effort to support the growing needs of our client‘s regional marketing objectives.”

  • Tim Love announces retirement

    MUMBAI: Omnicom Group has announced that its Asia Pacific/India/Middle East/Africa (APIMA) vice chairman and CEO Tim Love resumed his duties at the company‘s corporate headquarters in New York effective 1 January.

    Omnicom also announced Love‘s intention to retire at the end of the first quarter.

    Omnicom president and CEO John Wren said, “Tim has been an important part of our executive team, leading the current phase of our Asia Pacific expansion efforts. While Tim may be retiring from Omnicom, he will undoubtedly bring his passion for making a difference in the world to the next chapter of his life. We wish him well.”

    “Tim leaves the region in excellent health. In the past decade, Omnicom has developed a truly world class management team across Asia Pacific resulting in solid growth, unparalleled creativity and effective marketing on behalf of our clients. This was recently reflected by over 30 Omnicom agencies winning a record number of awards, significantly outpacing the competition, at two of the most prestigious creative award shows in the region – Spikes Advertising Festival and Campaign Asia‘s Agency of the Year awards,” Wren added.

    During his 40-year career in advertising and brand building, Love has held senior client relationships in the US and abroad. Prior to becoming vice chairman of Omnicom in 2006 he was president of Global Clients at Omnicom network TBWA Worldwide.

  • Omnicom Q3 net, revenues flat

    MUMBAI: Global media communications network Omnicom‘s revenues and net profit growth in the third quarter of 2012 was flat.

    The company‘s net profit in the third quarter was $203.9 million compared with $203.7 million a year earlier. Its revenues in the third quarter were $3.41 billion compared with $3.38 billion a year earlier.

    Omnicom‘s operating income increased by 3.72 per cent to $ 987.3 million in the third quarter from $373.4 million a year earlier.

    The major chunk of contribution to the business was from advertising (46.6 per cent), followed by CRM (37.1 per cent), public relations (9.2 per cent) and specialty (7.1 per cent).

    The company‘s revenues from the US for the third quarter of 2012 increased 3.2 per cent to $1.76 billion compared to $1.70 billion in the third quarter of 2011. Its international revenues decreased 1.7 per cent to $1.65 billion compared to $1.68 billion in the third quarter of 2011.

    Omnicom‘s net income for the nine months ended 30 September increased 1.5 per cent to $691.2 million from $680.7 million in the same period in 2011. Worldwide revenue for the nine months increased 2.5 per cent to $10.28 billion from $10.02 billion in the same period in 2011. Domestic revenue for the nine months ended 30 September increased 4.2 per cent to $5.34 billion from $5.12 billion in the same period in 2011. International revenue for the nine months increased 0.8 per cent to $4.94 billion from $4.90 billion in the same period in 2011.

  • Johan Boserup named Global CEO GroupM Trading

    MUMBAI: WPP‘s media agency network GroupM has brought on board Omnicom‘s Johan Boserup to lead the Global Trading discipline as GroupM Trading global CEO. He will join in the first half of 2013, and will be based in London.

    Boresup will report into Juergen Blomenkamp, a member of the global executive committee, and global president Dominic Proctor.

    Blomenkamp said, “I am thrilled that Johan is joining GroupM. We will work together to strengthen the existing strategy and direction for GroupM Trading, and to build on our current success to create even better results for our clients in the future.”

    Boserup has spent 17 years with Omnicom Media Group and was serving as the worldwide chief trading and accountability officer for the past five years. He was responsible for media buying across the group. Alongside his trading experience, he also has a background in digital media.

    “Over the last couple of years we have successfully established robust global trading organizations in each of the agencies. In his new role Johan will be tasked with bringing the media trading discipline even closer together across the group,”Blomenkamp added.

    Boserup will be responsible for accelerating the leverage of GroupM‘s market leading scale to create opportunities across the four agency networks within the group. He will continue to drive new media trading models to generate even more value for our clients.

    Boserup said, “In media trading, scale will always be important and in that respect GroupM can offer its clients something that other agency groups can‘t. As a competitor I have seen GroupM prove again and again to be capable of great things and I am thoroughly looking forward to becoming part of that success. I remain humble to the challenge, but I have already identified areas that I will be working on with the teams and I am confident we will be able to deliver significant incremental value to GroupM‘s clients.”

  • Water Interbrand to become Interbrand India from 1 January

    MUMBAI: Months after Omnicom‘s buyout of DDB Mudra Group, brand consultancy Water Interbrand will be renamed Interbrand India from 1 January 2013.

    Interbrand India will come out with Most Valuable Indian Brands list in the first quarter of next year. This will be in line with what Interbrand does for naming the best global brands list.

    Interbrand London CEO Graham Hales was in India to make this significant announcement. After ringing the bell at the Bombay Stock Exchange, he said that Interbrand India would use the same methodology and analytics that the Best Global Brands report uses.

    Talking about the Best Global Brands 2012 report, Hales noted that Samsung broke into the top 10 and had used the Olympics effectively as a marketing tool. Toyota was back in the top 10, while Amazon’s value rose by 46 per cent. Coca-Cola has been at the top of the Global Brand list for a long time.

    Hales singled out Apple’s products which have huge anticipation and loyalty. “The iphone 5 launch saw people camping outside stores for three days so that they could be the first users. On the flip side, companies like Nokia and Blackberry are struggling and need to get innovation out there. Yahoo! does not have the presence that it did earlier. Facebook is a new entrant but the coming year will be more interesting to see what it comes out with and where its share price is at,” he added.

    Hales noted that it is important that a company’s employees feel engaged and believe in the brand. Otherwise the repercussions could be negative which is what happened with Goldman Sachs when a former employee vented out his frustration and wrote a letter.

    Godrej has used Interbrand when it decided to make the brand central to its business strategy. Godrej head Strategic Marketing Group (SMG) Shireesh Josh said that the aim was to articulate what the brand stood for. The focus rested on four pillars which were progression in terms of making better products, empathy in terms of understanding consumers, expression in terms of letting consumers express themselves and experience in terms of not just being a physical product. One of the things done was creating a design architecture which involved a younger looking logo. Godrej’s employees were also engaged in terms of which were the leader product categories within the group and which categories had a smaller role to play.

    An important part of what Godrej does in engaging consumers through activities like ‘Live Out Your Dreams’ which is for students. “The result is that share performance has been ahead of share investment. Buyers of one category of our products are increasingly buying other categories. The journey of brand Godrej though is not over. It has started.”

    Water Interbrand is headed by chief strategist and head Asish Mishra. “The team in India has been working extensively with the Interbrand professionals to learn its processes and about brand creation and brand management. The toolkits used by Interbrand are strategic. Apart from this, we will be doing seminars for the corporate to educate them about brand building,” said Mishra.

    After Omnicom‘s buyout of the Indian advertising agency through its network agency DDB, the entity was renamed The DDB Mudra Group and an extensive restructuring took place. As part of this exercise, the strategic branding and design consultancy Water became the representative of Omnicom‘s brand consultancy Interbrand in India.

    In its first three months of operations, Water Interbrand expanded its client base and the scope of its operations. It added new projects like PepsiCo GNG brands Quaker and Tropicana, Asian Paints PPG‘s corporate branding and environment design, XLRI rebranding, MoneyGram brand expression, and EMMBI‘s brand strategy, identity and engagement assignment.

    Mishra said that the aim is to have three clientele tiers. They are MNCs that Interbrand already works with on a global basis like Samsung. The second is Indian companies. The third are entrepreneurs. “The challenge is that most Indian companies only think of brands as a name and a logo. We have to change that mindset and dispel that notion. Our aim will be to create an organisational role for brands. Our aim is to see that a company’s brand strategy overlaps with their business strategy. This means that the brand impacts various departments like HR, R&D. There should be engagement of brands with organisations. This is how brands create value for organisations.”

    “Our aim is to create brand centric organisations that create immediate business value. For this to happen companies will have to change investments and internal budget allocations.”

    He conceded that during a slowdown companies focus on the short term and forget about brand building for the long term. “The focus tends to be on cutting costs and better pricing. The challenge is that this should not affect drivers that have built a brand. Otherwise consumers could see a brand negatively,” he added.

  • Publicis beats Omnicom in race for LBi

    MUMBAI: Paris-based global media communications network, the Publicis Groupe and independent digital communications agency LBi International have reached an agreement where the former will acquire LBi for €416m (?333m).

    This is Publicis‘ fourth major acquisition in the digital playground this year following Digitas, Razorfish and Rosetta.

    It was reported earlier in June this year that another global giant Omnicom was the forerunner in the race to acquire the agency following WPP‘s acquisition of AKQA, but the French communications player has finally sealed the deal.

    With a global footprint, LBi is headquartered and listed in Amsterdam. LBi currently employs approximately 2,200 people in 16 countries (of which 630 are based in the UK) and has 32 offices around the world. The agency is active in digital marketing and has expanded its offering to a wide suite of digital media services, ranging from communication, e-commerce services to brand strategy, content, social media and mobile. Some of LBi‘s clients include Lloyds TSB, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, Carlsberg and Ikea.

    Led by CEO Luke Taylor, the agency has implemented successive strategic transformations with the acquisitions of Bigmouthmedia and Mr. Youth in 2010 and 2011 respectively and the creation of hubs in key markets to strengthen the company‘s worldwide presence. In 2011, LBi reported net revenue of €196.6 million, up 12 per cent from 2010. In the first half of 2012, LBi reported net revenue of €119.4 million, up 18.2 per cent from the equivalent period in 2011.

    The proposed acquisition of LBi will enable Publicis Groupe to increase its share of revenue derived from digital operations to over 35%, in line with its strategic goals, and to capitalise on the complementarity with its existing global digital businesses.

    Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy said, “The acquisition of LBi is another step forward in further strengthening our digital operations. Within the global advertising landscape, LBi is a well known partner for extraordinary digital customer experiences, based on a blend of creativity and expertise in technology, strategy and social media. The integration of LBi will further enhance our capabilities and, through a wider pool of resources and talent, help deliver innovative and best-in-class services to our clients, which is our relentless focus. Furthermore, this acquisition has a positive impact on our EPS in the first year post acquisition.”

    Taylor said, “We are convinced that this transaction not only provides highly attractive value to our shareholders, but equally to our clients, staff and partners. Publicis Groupe has consistently demonstrated a clear and emphatic belief in the importance of digital media and is recognised for grooming and managing its talent worldwide. Our entire strategy to date is built on a commitment to relentlessly drive and optimise value for our clients. There is now a unique opportunity to pace set the market and collaborate across new geographies and marketing services so that we can accelerate our strategic plans aimed at providing clients with a globally integrated offering.”

  • Omnicom Q2 net up 2.8% to $282.7 mn

    MUMBAI: Global media communications group Omnicom has posted a net profit of $282.7 million for the second-quarter of fiscal 2012. The net profit has rose 2.8 per cent as compared to $275.1 million it witnessed in the year ago period.

    The company saw a 5.4 per cent revenue growth ($1.86 billion) in the domestic market, while its international revenues fell by 1.3 per cent ($1.72 billion) during the quarter. Overall revenue during the quarter increased 2.1 per cent to $3.56 billion (from $3.49 billion in the year ago).

    Omnicom owns BBDO Worldwide and DDB Worldwide agencies. It also acquired a number of firms involved in public relations, licensing or market research to spur growth.

    It made two acquisitions during acquisitions in the second quarter. It took charge of London based communications, public affairs and international affairs consultancy Portland along with another London based agency adam&eve.

  • Water Interbrand makes a steady start

    MUMBAI: DDB Mudra Group‘s strategic branding outfit Water Consulting, a merged entity of Omnicom‘s Interbrand and erstwhile Mudra‘s strategic branding and design consultancy Water, has posted an encouraging start in the quarter ended June.

    In its first three months of operations, the agency has not only expanded its client base but also the scope of its operations. It added new projects like PepsiCo GNG brands Quaker and Tropicana, Asian Paints PPG‘s corporate branding and environment design, XLRI rebranding, MoneyGram brand expression, and EMMBI‘s brand strategy, identity and engagement assignment.

    With the new assignment, the agency now has a total of three overseas clients – Etisalat, PepsiCo and MoneyGram.

    Interbrand London CEO Graham Hales said, “The emphasis on all assignments being carried out now is in line with Interbrand‘s commitment to creating and managing brand value in a benchmark way.”

    Water Interbrand business head and head of strategy Ashish Mishra said, “Significantly, Water‘s central philosophy of creating brand‘s that resolve socio cultural conflicts has found great resonance with Interbrand‘s inspirational belief that brands have the power to change the world.”

    Hales added, “Being a pioneer and a leading global brand consulting network, we would like to create a clearer understanding of how brands are living business assets which when managed well across touch points, create identification, differentiation and value.”

    The agency also expressed its intent to grow the Indian market as well by providing an approach that demonstrates the measurable value of brands.

    Water joined the global Interbrand network when Omnicom acquired majority stake of 51 per cent in Mudra last October. The global brand consultancy is represented in India through Water.

  • Omnicom in talks to buy LBi for $575 mn

    MUMBAI: Close on the heels of rival media communication house WPP buying out digital agency AKQA for $540 million, rival advertising giant Omnicom Media Group is said to be in talks to buy LBi, the independent full-service digital marketing agency, for an estimated $575 million (?368 million).

    LBi said it is in ‘ongoing discussions’ with third parties about a possible sale, but did not state whether Omnicom was among them.

    LBi International is Europe‘s largest independent marketing and technology agency having 30 operations in 16 countries and employing 2,120. The company’s turnover in 2011 was $250 million (?160 million) and net profit stood at ?22 million.

    The digital agency’s birth can be traced back to 2001 when Swedish internet consultancy Icon Medialab merged with rival Dutch web company Lost Boys to form Lb Icon. At the time, the operations were handled out of Amsterdam. Later in 2006, Lb Icon merged with Framfab and was renamed LBi. The newly formed entity then went on to acquire agencies Syrup and Special Ops in 2008 and BigMouthMedia in 2010. In November last year, the conglomerate bought youth marketing and social media agency, Mr Youth, in a deal valued at around $45m.

    With digital being touted as the medium of the future, the leading communication giants have been on an acquisition spree since the year began. Recently, WPP’s JWT bought 51 per cent equity stake in India agency Hungama Digital.

  • Levi’s moves creative account to W+K

    MUMBAI: Ending its association with WPP owned creative agency JWT, apparel brand Levi‘s has handed over its creative duties to Weiden + Kennedy (W+K) as part of its global realignment plan.

    JWT had been handling the account since 2002. It will continue to be associated with Levi Strauss & Co. as the global creative agency on record for the dENiZEN brand.

    Levis had called for a global review of its creative and media agencies way back in September 2010. At the time, the brand had nearly 20 agencies on its roster around the world. The idea of calling the pitch was to consolidate the business with one agency to provide seamless communication all over the globe.

    In January 2011, Levi‘s announced that it will be consolidating its media business with Omnicom‘s media agency OMD while it‘s global creative mandate was assigned to independent agency W+K. the agency was already handling the denim brand‘s creative business in America since 2008.

    Levi‘s India director marketing Vishal Bhalla told indiantelevision.com, “W+K is the global creative agency on record for the Levi‘s brand, and are now also responsible for the Levi‘s brand in India. JWT has played an extremely significant and absolutely stellar role in developing the Levi‘s brand and jeanswear culture in India.”

    Wunderman is the brand‘s digital agency AoR globally.