Future Group will acquire a 60 per cent stake in Dhar & Hoon. Three years ago the Group snapped up advertising executive Santosh Desai, it is now further strengthening its ties with advertising.
The acquisition will be made by group company Future Brands, which is headed by Santosh Desai. The acquisition would enable the agency to work extensively in new media like the retail, mobile and the internet space.
While speaking about the deal, Desai said, “The acquisition is in line with the objective of Future Brands to offer a full range of branding services to group companies as well as business partners. The new entity will be branded D&H Blurb Communications.”
“The objective is to build a brand that comes from Indian reality and to build our overall service offering for our brands and clients. We are looking at aligning some brands with Dhar & Hoon as the creative custodian for those brands. I personally feel that the agency has a potential to grow as an independent agency.” Desai added.
Ajit Hoon, Co-founder, Dhar & Hoon, explains reasons behind the move, “Mergers happen to move up the value chain. As India started becoming a part of the global set-up, alignments were kicking – companies beginning to award their businesses to agencies through global alignments. Accounts were becoming inaccessible and so we realised that mergers could be a way out.”
Founded in 1994 by Ajit Hoon, a former Mudra executive, and Abhinav Dhar, a creative director from JWT, Dhar & Hoon went on to create campaigns like BPL’s Believe In The Best and also handled top brands like Dabur and Godfrey Philips in its roster of clients.
Future Group founder Kishore Biyani was among the first clients of Dhar & Hoon and the agency partnered with the company to launch shirt brands like John Miller and also worked closely with the group to launch retail formats.
Dhar & Hoon has walked away from 3 marriages in the past. It had first tied up with Bangalore-based Dharen Chadha’s Momentum in 1999. The relationship lasted for three years.