Agency Reckoner

There are so many media companies in India. Some of these media agencies have been quite famous over time. The reason behind their popularity is the quality service they provide. The Economic Times recently listed some of the top media agency in its Agency Reckoner 2018-19. So let us discuss these companies:

Mindshare: Let us first look at the authorities of this media agency and then we will move ahead.

MA Parthsarthy is the CEO of the company. The COO of the organization is Amin Lakhani. The senior VPs are Ruchi Mathur, Premjeet Sodhi, and Sriram Sharma. Vinod Thadani is the chief digital officer.

With around 844 employees the key areas of the organization are as PepsiCo, ABG Group, Hindustan Unilever, Idea Cellular, Castrol, Ford, ICICI, Start Network, Kellog’s, United Breweries, Disney and IBM.

Some of the Notable Work of the company are as follows:

They came out with an amazing idea of Kissan ‘Tiffin Time Tables’
In order to leverage the data for predicting and preventing several diseases, the organization brought the idea of ‘Infection Alert System’.
They launched a campaign for Castrol named ‘Truckasana’ where the truck drivers could be encouraged to improve the quality of their life
They brought the idea of ‘Waterfall Targeting’ Aditya Birla Capital. In this, they utilized data intelligence with the technique of storytelling through a video.

According to MA Parthsarthy, “the media and the message have never been more linked.”

In his words, India and the entire world is going through the challenge of bringing out the best creative ideas. The challenges have come into the picture because of the availability of surplus content and the time-slicing done by the audience across different platforms and screens. Due to some factors, Indian creativity has evolved and is in a better place.

The factors are as follows: languages, the huge disparity in audiences, access to media and market clusters.

Despite this, there are some old golden rules that are still relevant and beneficial. These rules are:

Understanding the requirements of the consumers,
Analyzing their behavior and feedbacks,
The factors that can influence consumers.

Perhaps that’s why this media and advertising agency won the following awards:

They have won across their 7 offices over the 50 new businesses
They have been reckoned as the largest digital mandate for Hindustan Unilever.
Their key wins are Times Internet, General Mills, Hindware, Tourism New Zealand, and SBI Life Insurance.

Madison: Sam Balsara is the Chairman and the MD of the company. Vikram Sakhuja is the partner and the group CEO of the company. Lara Balsara Vajidar holds the executive director post in the company with Chetan Borkar holding the designation of the CFO.

With 722 employees, the key accounts of the company are: Titan, Domino’s, Godrej, Lodha, Asian Paints, Bajaj Electricals, Marico, McDonald’s, BJP, Crompton, Raymond, Viacom 18, Ceat, TVS, Max Life Insurance, Pidilite, Piramal Healthcare, Snapdeal, Tata Chemicals, Uber, Shaadi.com, Glenmark, Indiabulls Personal Loans, Blue Star, Honda Motors, SBI General Insurance, Indian Oil, gaana.com, Fortis, magicbricks.com, and Café Coffee Day.

According to Vikram Sakhuja, “Yes, a new reality has emerged but whilst clients want us to recognize the new reality they don’t want us to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Here he is emphasizing on ‘for doing something to avoid an error one must not eliminate the good things’.

He further adds, “Lower media rates, high reach, optimization, and market prioritization still exist. We have to weave this into our media planning, advertising and buying strategies whilst recognizing the new environment of big data, technology, digitization, and content.”

He says the company is trying to do the same thing and have succeeded to some extent. He further added that at Madison, their focus has expanded from rates to CPRPs and Optimization. They look forward to referring to the media outputs as the brand outcomes.

They have developed their own well-planned framework that will help them their planners for going beyond the traditional media advertising parameters and analyze the impact of their parameters on their desired Brand Outcomes.

Some of the notable works of this media agency are:

This media agency did a great work in the election campaign of BJP. The media and advertising agency negotiated with around 225 TV channels, 150 publications, and 1400 cable channels. Around 2 lakh spots with 248 different creative units were set across these channels.
It is well known that Marico sets very high standards for companies. Madison set a team of 38 members in just 30 days. Within those days, plans were executed and the annual plans for brand promotion and advertising of Marico were formulated.

Some of the business won by the Madison are following:

Aakash Institute
Marico
Ganesh Grains
Balaji Wafers
Marvel Tea
BJP 2019 elections
BBC Media Action
Bajaj Electricals
Urban Ladder Digital
Domino’s Digital
Etihad Airways
L&T Realty Digital
Snapdeal Digital
Alphacorp Digital
Continental Coffee
MobiKwik Digital
Huawei Digital
Radiant Lifecare Hospitals
FlyDubai Digital

Dentsu X: The CEO of this company is Divya Karani with Roopam Garg and Takashi Koyanagi as the COOs. There are around 115+ employees in the organization. The key accounts of the company are Maruti Suzuki, Suzuki Motorcycles, Honda Cars, Honda Motorcycles and scooters, Toyota, APIS India, OPPO, Dairy Classic, Big Basket, McCain, and Air New Zealand.

According to Divya Karani, the recipe of the organization is quite simple and that is engaging and having relevant communication with the consumers. For them identifying the needs and motivation of consumers rather than analyzing their profile. This is the one thing that makes their bond relevant and worthy with the consumers.

According to her, “We have the opportunity, as never before, of listening, responding, conversing with our prospects. Provided we manage to hold our own in this conversation, manage to resonate and earn our prospects’ respect, we stand the chance to co-opt them in our narrative as our brand ambassadors.” Though it might seem easy, it is tough as well. She further adds, “The tenacity to wade through now ubiquitous data, be focused, not get distracted by the multiple, at times confusing and contradictory findings, to finally glean real insights is critical. To have meaningful, near personalized, relevant conversations at scale requires arduous homework.’’

Some of the notable works of this media agency are:

The created the ‘experience beyond exposure’ design theme for Maruti Suzuki India Limited.
They also launched an education campaign for the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI)

Below are the business won by the company:

OnePlus
Maruti Suzuki Regional Office Business
APIS India
OPPO
McCain
Big Basket
Essilor
Dairy Classic
Honda Cars etc
Air New Zealand India

Lodestar UM 4: Hema Malik is the COO of the company at the Gurugram office. The company is the part of the IPG Mediabrands network. It has achieved the media mandate of the worldwide online restaurant evaluation and the food delivery platform Zomato. This has made a competitive pitch.

This means the Lodestar UM will be now managing the Zomato’s integrated media mandate such as traditional forms of advertising, print media advertising and other forms of marketing. This will also include the including planning and buying. Sandeep Anand, CMO Online Ordering, Zomato, said, “We are delighted to partner with Lodestar UM and look forward to working them as we continue to build more experiences around food for our users. We are confident that Lodestar UM’s bold and innovative thinking and deep consumer insight will help us deliver our brand message and drive our business forward.” [2].

Whereas Hema Malik said, “I am really excited and my personal love for food also makes this victory uniquely special. Zomato is a dynamic consumer-centric brand that thrives on agility and innovation. We integrated this thinking in our strategy for the brand. I am delighted that Zomato has chosen to partner with us in their brand journey.” [2]

Top 10 Media Agencies in India

Mindshare
Madison
dentsu X
Lodestar UM 4
Starcom Mediavest
MediaCom
Wavemaker
OMD
Havas
Carat