Last year ending on March 31, 2008, the capitalised billings of Dentsu India had crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark.
So this year Dentsu India is quite bullish about 2009. Dentsu Creative Impact aims to be a significant player in FY10, while sports would be a major focus in the year ahead.
Sandeep Goyal, Chairman, Dentsu India, said, “We are really happy over about Dentsu’s performance in 2008. Dentsu India’s capitalised billings crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark at the end of last fiscal, March 31, 2008. We acquired the entire creative business of Aircel. In 2009, Aircel is poised to become a large and visible telecom player. Hence, this win is very significant. One of our agencies started to work with Maruti-Suzuki. That is a big breakthrough. We work with ICICI Direct, again a significant gain. We got in as the sole creative agency for AIDS agency NACO. That is a big win. There have, of course, been many more gains across the country. The pipeline is healthy and new business is an area where we remain strong.”
Speaking further, he said, “Dentsu Creative Impact is proud to be on the roster of Maruti Suzuki. We currently handle the Zen-Estillo account. We hope we will be able to get more business in the days to come. Dentsu Creative Impact is also working with FedEx and ICICI Direct. So, this agency is taking shape and will be a significant player in 2009-10.”
“We are currently planning and plotting our growth plans for the next five years. Dentsu is a global leader in many businesses that still do not exist in India. Take large format design, for example. Dentsu’s space design arm, Dentsu Tec, has worked on projects that involve millions of square feet at expos and exhibitions. We recently did a 20,000 square feet anchor showroom for an automobile giant. There are very few competitors in that space for us. In fact, no agency is capable of that scale of work in India. We now have two expatriate Japanese designers based here as the core team of ‘iki’, our design outfit. We have outstanding talent that is coming together under that banner. In fact, we are currently engaged with at least two global clients where we are doing brand showrooms of 2,000-5,000 square feet at a dozen locations across the country. And this is expertise in design-to-delivery. I think there is big growth scope here,” Goyal added.
He further said, “Dentsu is also a global leader in sports. We are looking at a lot of opportunities in this space. Already, our team is exploring some interesting options with football and golf. We’ve had some major successes, which I cannot talk of right now, but suffice it to know that Dentsu is capable of ‘deep-dive’ investments and has a long history of investing its own monies to promote large sports properties. So, sports will surely be an area of focus in the days to come.”
Dentsu has also been building up its media arsenal. Goyal is confident that in 2009 and beyond, Dentsu Media would emerge as a strong force in the media space. “We are looking at different paradigms, hopefully, some interesting outcomes will result,” he added.