CHENNAI, January 30: In a strategic move to capitalise on the current recessionary trends in the advertising industry, McCann Erickson India has drawn up aggressive plans to acquire other promising agencies. The outfit, a wholly owned agency of the US-based McCann Erickson, has earmarked a whopping Rs 120 crore for such acquisitions.The agency is also on a headhunting exercise through which it hopes to rope in the cream of creative talent available in the country.
It has already enlisted the support of advertising guru, Alyque Padamsee, who is a consultant to McCann.
It has also roped in eminent psychologist Sudhir Kakkar to carry out a study on changes in consumer behaviour as well as communication patterns"Our vision is to shift from a management structure to a creative structure.
We are looking at acquiring agencies who would be in line with our idea.
They should also have a global outlook," McCann Erickson India president and chief executive officer Sorab Mistry told The FinancialExpress. He, however, said they were not talking to any agency at present.Among the creative stars that McCann has pulled over are Vikas Gaitonde and Milind Nabar from Trikaya Grey as creative consultant and vice president, creative, respectively, Ambika Srivastava from HTA as vice president, media, and Clarinda D'Souza from HTA as vice president, creative (copy).
"We would like to be able to develop integrated communication for the client which includes promotion, direct marketing, retail marketing, event sponsoring and book publishing (which was done for clients like Milkmaid)," Mistry said.
McCann was in the news recently when it was in the race with Bates Worldwide for picking up a stake in Clarion. But it was Bates which finally tied up with Clarion. McCann Erickson has been in India for the past eight years, but it was only four years ago that it became a wholly-owned arm of McCann, US. Till then it had a tie up with Tara Sinha Associates. With an annual billing of Rs 208 crore in 1996-97, theagency is hoping to record a 35 per cent growth in the current financial year. Some of its clients are Milkmaid, Dabur, Nestle, Motorola and Nike. In the Advertising & Marketing (A&M) listings, it is ranked eight.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
