India’s largest advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather is chalking out an aggressive growth strategy, despite the economic slowdown. In the next three months they will extend operations to five new cities across the country .
After setting up a creative hub for its client Lenovo in Bangalore, the agency is currently in talks with two other global clients to outsource its creative work. Meanwhile, Lowe India is drawing up a fresh growth plan as well. They also are aiming at extentending operations and foray into new sectors such as business content creation, shopper marketing, digital marketing and content creation for Bollywood movies. O&M and Lowe India are competitors.
Lowe India, currently, is implementing a fundamental shift in its business from being an advertising agency to a communication company. In essence, O&M and Lowe India are gearing up to gain a competitive edge in the Rs 19,000 crore Indian advertising industry.
Talking about the strategy Piyush Pandey, executive chairman & national creative director, South Asia, O&M said, “We are assessing the possibility of expanding our operations to smaller cities to meet the growing needs of clients. Currently, we are present in six major metros in India.”
He also went on to add, “Our first global client was Perfetti. The merit of Indian creativity is now recognised in the international markets.”
Lowe India on the other hand is getting ready to change its name to ‘Lowe Lintas’ in the next three months. On the reason behind the move, Charles Cadell, CEO, Lowe India said, “All our clients know the agency as Lintas in India. To keep the familiarity factor intact, we opted for this move.”
As for its growth strategy, Lowe India is planning to foray into new segments, including gaming content creation and branded entrainment. “We have just introduced a new concept ‘channel planning’ in India. We already have six channel planners who have come from overseas to evaluate and recommend the best media-mix to our clients,” explained Cadell.
Like O&M, Lowe India is planning to extend its operations to four new cites in the next few months. “Currently, we are present in five major metros and six tier-II cities across the country. We are now creating contents for Bollywood movies. In fact, we have two projects underway in this sector,” Cadel concluded.