What triggered off the launch of the global strategy was the fact that despite a significant presence, the company felt it lacked top-of-the-mind brand awareness. Besides, it also faced fresh competition, with the merger of PricewaterhouseCoopers and the increased and aggressive marketing by competitors like Arthur Anderson and KPMG. The goal of the current campaign thus is: to make Ernst & Young the world's most recognised and preferred global management consultancy brand by 2002.

Says K N Memani, chairman, Ernst & Young: ``Global branding is more expensive, but since competition is so intense, brand building becomes necessary in order to register with our target audience. Earlierefforts had lacked a coherent, coordinated strategy.''

The campaign will include print, broadcast, cable, out-of-home (airport) and Internet advertisements. The first stage will involve print advertising in international publications like Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, and Fortune. In the second stage, international channels like CNN and CNBC, which have a worldwide viewership among top-rung professionals, will be targeted through advertising and sponsoring of programmes, specially seminars and conferences. This would provide a strategic opportunity to strengthen the brand, believes the firm. A beginning has already been made with the sponsorship of the Davos conference last year.``We will be targeting large audience venues, with the presence of CEOs and other top ranking people. We may even sponsor the Olympics,'' says Memani. Globally and nationally the objective is to focus resources on events that meet their strategic brand objectives and enhance the consultancy's image. The brand will alsobe promoted through different media like airport hoardings and the Internet, across the globe.

Besides this, there will be country-specific programmes in local markets to help build a face-to-face relationship with target audiences within a business context. For example, in India the firm is considering an Entreprenuer-of-the-Year award.

Its print ads, which have already begun to appear in the global print media, in black & white, with just a touch of colour, are stark and striking. The campaign represents the essence of the company's brand vision and follows a common line, theme, visual treatment and attitude. Each ad focusses on one of the company's core strengths: team work, speed (in achieving goals), future-oriented and client view of value, with the tag line `from thought to finish,' representing its involvement in providing total solutions, from inception to execution.

E&Y, which claims to have grown by 50 per cent last year, is currently number three in the Indian market, afterPricewaterhouseCoopers and Arthur Anderson. It has a varied bag of clients, including Bata, Intel, Microsoft, CNN and Coca-Cola.