New Delhi, Feb 19: Rediffusion-Dentsu Young & Rubicam has chalked out a major diversification plan to foray into direct marketing, product designing and media buying which will later be spun-off into independent entities.Rediffusion, one of the fastest growing agencies in the country, has also announced a new corporate identity for itself along with an organisational restructuring and regeneration.
Rediffusion DY&R chairman-cum-managing director Arun Nanda told "The Financial Express" last week that the agency plans to add a slew of new offices across the country to beef up its present infrastructure. At present, it has offices in five cities.
``The Indian market is now ready for integrated communication services outside just advertising and we see for ourselves a new role in this context,'' said Nanda.
The agency will launch in India the world famous strategic tool for brand management, the Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) in June 1998. BAV India study includes 1,427 brands (580 global brands, 390regional brands and 457 Indian brands). The study began in June 1997 and the field work was completed in January 1998.
BAV is one of the biggest brand science tool in the communication business worldwide. Since BAV will be exclusive to Rediffusion DY&R, its clients stand to gain an edge over others. All the offices of the agency will have trained brand scientists or analysts to help clients with this new tool.
The agency has already entered the direct marketing (DM) business, having started the first branch of Wunderman Cato Johnson (WCJ) in Chennai with Citibank as its first client. WCJ, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Y&R Far East Holdings Inc, is one of the best recognised DM agencies in the world.
Indian operations of WCJ are to be headed by a chief operating officer, Ajay Row, vice-president, who was till recently the agency's Bangalore head of Rediffusion DY&R, according to Nanda.
The agency is also slated to bring another Y&R brand, Landor Associates, into India. The San Francisco-based designhouse is a world-known name in product designing. Later, Rediffusion DY&R plans to turn its external media buying operations into a full-fledged unit, Nanda informed.
In fact, Rediffusion DY&R aims to carve all its businesses into fully-independent units once the restructuring and expansion is completeThe agency has major plans to beef up and expand the operations of its existing advertising and public relations (PR) wings too and will hire a lot of new staff.
In keeping with its new thrust, Rediffusion DY&R has also adopted a new corporate identity signified by a new logo, the Tiger. Besides, the agency will now be known as Rediffusion DY&R Brand Communications, thus clearly indicating where the new focus of the agency will lie, taking it right into the new millennium.
Such changes are in sync with the business regeneration plans of Dentsu Inc, particularly across its ventures in Asia. Keeping in mind these changes, the agency has already hired foreign professionals from Singapore, Australia and the USfor its creative and client servicing departments based at Mumbai.
The US-based Y&R and Japan-based Dentsu Inc hold 20 per cent stake each in the Indian agency. Nanda denied that there was any move for fresh infusion of equity into the venture, but it is not clear how the agency will fund the expansion and new ventures.
As part of executives' reshuffle, Sandeep Goyal, senior executive vice-president and head of Delhi operations, has been promoted as president and is tipped to move over to Mumbai by May. Current incumbent Ashoke Bijapurkar will henceforth become the group president and will execute all new business plans of the agency.
Karthik Kumar, vice-president and the present head of Calcutta operations, is likely to take charge of the Delhi office.
Goyal, who will now look after the entire advertising operations of Rediffusion DY&R, will be one of the youngest executives to head an Indian advertising agency. He had moved to Rediffusion nearly four years back from Interact Vision.
During thisperiod, the Delhi branch of the agency bagged many big clients, particularly in the last one year. These include Bharti Telecom, Steel Authority of India Limited, Maruti Udyog, Canon, United Airlines, Piaget Watches and Fuji Photo Films.
In fiscal 1997-98, Rediffusion registered a 42.6 per cent growth and improved its ranking to seventh from tenth in 1996-97, as per the eighth A&M agency report. The capitalised billings of the company rose from Rs 120.2 crore to Rs 171.5 crore in the same period.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
