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Leo Burnett and Jim Beam

Publicis Groupe-owned Leo Burnett has been appointed as the global agency-of-record (AOR) for Beam Suntory’s Jim Beam, an American brand of bourbon whiskey. The account, which was won following a multi-agency pitch, will see the agency develop a new global positioning and creative platform. This is the second time Leo Burnett has been appointed as the AOR for Jim Beam. 2016 marked the year when the agency was first selected as the AOR for the American brand. Recently, Beam Suntory announced that it would invest $400 million in renewable energy systems while boosting bourbon production. 

Hashtag Orange and Signify India

Digital marketing company Hashtag Orange has won the creative mandate for Signify Innovations India, erstwhile lighting division of Philips Eindhoven of Netherlands. Their responsibility would include ideation, development, and execution of the company’s creative campaigns for both online and offline channels. As per a media report published in June, Signify was looking to grow by 18-20 percent during 2022 in India. Last month, Hashtag Orange appointed Shraddha Iyer as the branch head of its Hyderabad office. Further, the agency bagged mandates across several key accounts. They include GMR Hyderabad International Airport, Monte Carlo, Rock-It, Hype Ryno, EDGE by Pearl Academy, HOUSR co-living and Tulips Hygiene.

Carat India and TimesPro

Marketing agency Carat India has won the integrated media mandate of TimesPro, an edtech initiative of Times Group. The responsibility of the agency would include managing TimesPro's omnichannel media services, and this will be handled by the agency’s Mumbai office. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch.

Bharat Media Group and Newell Brands

Newell Brands has appointed Bharat Media Group, a 360 degree marketing agency to handle its brands - Reynolds and Sharpie's strategic and creative duties. The mandate includes co-creating the growth roadmap for both businesses in the Indian market. Three weeks ago, Bharat Media Group was appointed as the Agency-Of-Record (AOR) for Super4, Indian fantasy sports platform. The role of the agency will include overseeing the integrated strategy and media mandate which includes creative, performance and experiential marketing, media planning and buying (across medium, traditional and digital), OOH, and cinema. Bharat Media Group has recently made key hirings including Unilever’s former head of Trading and Partnerships, Rohin Desai, who joined as national buying head in August. Desai will head the group’s entire media buying activities across India. He will be based out of the Mumbai office and will report to Anand Charles, CEO, Bharat Media Group. In May, Debarghya Mitra joined as national head of planning. Mitra was VP of client services and head of South at WPP-owned Essence.

Option Designs and CFS Vision

Creative and digital marketing agency Option Designs won the creative and digital mandate of CFS Vision, an optical retail chain of Center for Sight Group of Eye Hospitals, which is backed by Mahindra Partners. Their responsibility would include developing creative digital branding strategies for the company. By 2027, CFS Vision aims to create 500 retail locations. In the coming years, the brand will also begin manufacturing frames and lenses under the Make in India initiative.

Compiled by Kashmeera Sambamurthy

Biz Moves: Bharat Media Group gets cracking; Carat India, Hashtag Orange and Option Designs win accounts

Leo Burnett and Niva Bupa

Health insurance company Niva Bupa has roped in advertising agency Leo Burnett as its partner. The win, which comes after a multi-agency pitch, will see Leo Burnett aid the brand in fulfilling its vision of creating ground-breaking work in order to give people more control over their health and well-being.

Grapes and Maharishi Ayurveda

Maharishi Ayurveda has appointed digital marketing agency Grapes as its agency on record (AOR). The agency, which won the mandate following a multi-agency pitch for the German market, will service the account from New Delhi. According to the mandate, Grapes will be responsible for handling the marcom activities for Maharishi Ayurveda. Further, the agency will also look after services such as content planning, digital marketing strategy, social media management and media planning and buying. 

FCB Interface and Max Life Insurance

Insurance company Max Life Insurance has given its integrated creative mandate to FCB Interface after a multi-agency pitch. The account will see the agency responsible for creative strategy, execution, and social media management for the brand across all channels. 

 L&K Saatchi & Saatchi and Act Fibernet

L&K Saatchi & Saatchi won the creative mandate for Atria Convergence Technologies (ACT) Fibernet, a telecommunications company. The responsibility of the agency would include managing the full-service responsibilities for the brand including advertising, brand activation, digital and public relations (PR). Few weeks ago, newly launched airline Akasa Air gave its creative mandate to L&K Saatchi & Saatchi. The agency will manage strategic and creative initiatives for the airline. This would include developing the brand and tactical communication for above-the-line and below-the-line elements. Last month, the agency announced Shitu Patil as the head of art and executive creative director. In April, the agency had announced Avinash Jakhalekar as the group creative director. 

Digital Tribe and WorkStore

The digital arm of communications agency PROSE Integrated – Digital Tribe has won the digital mandate for WorkStore, an office products company. The responsibility of the agency would include the end-to-end digital duties which include positioning, brand awareness via social and digital media platforms to target B2B enterprise clients, and further leverage business-building conversations to generate leads. The account, which was won following a multi-agency pitch, will see the agency manage the brand from its Mumbai office.

Compiled by Kashmeera Sambamurthy

Biz Moves: Leo Burnett, Grapes, FCB Interface, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi bag new business

Publicis Groupe has launched a Creative Council for South Asia. This Council will channelise capabilities across creative, data, media, and technology to create progressive, modern, purposeful work for the network.

Rajdeepak Das, CEO and CCO of Leo Burnett South Asia, in addition to his current role will be the Chairman of this Creative Council, South Asia. Das will lead the overall creative direction, product, and thinking for the Groupe. 

Commenting on the development, Anupriya Acharya, South Asia CEO, Publicis Groupe said, “At Publicis Groupe, we have a tremendous roster of brands, scaled capabilities across design, experience, data and technology, the finest talent pool and the Power of One. There is no better time than now to bring all these together and partner our clients in building truly Epic Work and Epic Brands. Rajdeepak who apart from being a dynamic and gifted Creative Leader, has been the force behind many famous, iconic campaigns for leading brands and has pivoted Leo Burnett India to top position among creative agencies in the country today;  he was but a natural choice for this role.”

Das added, “It’s an honour to lead The Creative Council for Publicis Groupe South Asia. The Council will use the power of brand purpose and new-age creativity to bring positive impact to people’s lives. The Council will help pedigreed brands to collaborate closely with the world-class talent of the Groupe. I can’t wait to get started and look forward to leading a power-packed Council that is going to create next-generation solutions.”
 
Das has led some of the most interesting creative projects and brand campaigns in India, from saving India’s biggest national treasure, the INS Vikrant warship with the help of Bajaj,  to being part of  ‘Roads That Honk’, the world’s first anti-collusion road management system for Hindustan Petroleum, to creating India’s first micro-financing system. More recently, Das’s work for Whisper ‘Keep Girls In School’ won Leo Burnett India & P&G a Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Sustainable Development Goals. The agency also won the title of ‘Creative Agency Of The Year’ at The One Show Abby Awards, Goafest ’22. 

Das has more than 100 international awards to his name such as The One Show, D&AD and Spikes. He was the only creative head featured in the popular Netflix series ‘The Creative Indians Season 4.’

In his words, Das’s biggest creation till date is Apollo 11, a specialised division of Leo Burnett India or what he refers to as ‘The Mutant Creatives.’ This is a team of hugely talented young people in their 20’s with backgrounds such as aerospace engineers, product designers, data analytics and environmental scientists, who solve brand and human problems with him. His focus is on new-age brand solutions, and he believes “Only way to predict the future is to build it yourself.”




Rajdeepak Das to spearhead Publicis Groupe's new Creative Council for South Asia

June 2022, almost three months into an intense multi-agency pitch process, Publicis Groupe-owned creative agency Leo Burnett scooped the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) account of PepsiCo India from Wunderman Thompson.

This was a big win and an equally intriguing one, given that PepsiCo has chosen to end its three-decade-long partnership with WPP Group-owned agencies including Mindshare and Wunderman Thompson, after competitor brand Coca-Cola has signed the network as its partner globally.

"PepsiCo India follows a re-pitching cycle every few years for agencies and partners working on our brand mandates. This year Wunderman Thompson and Mindshare will not be participating in the process. We value our partnership and thank them for what we have achieved together over the years,” said PepsiCo India spokesperson in a statement.

A person familiar with the developments told Storyboard18 that Coca-Cola, being the account juggernaut, handing over the lion’s share of its $4 billion business to WPP, has essentially led its aligned agencies to resign from Pepsi's account in India. Even if WPP agencies were invited to the PepsiCo pitch they couldn't have participated because Coke wouldn't allow it, said the ad executive familiar with the matter.

"Essentially, all the aligned WPP agencies in India (Wunderman Thompson and Mindshare) had to resign the account," says the person quoted above.

WPP's departure created a massive opportunity for agencies in India to work with the global FMCG giant that spends close to Rs 350 crore worth of advertising money in promoting a bouquet of brands including Pepsi, 7UP and Kurkure among others.

The pressure was inevitable and so was the competition.

“On such a huge pitch one could be pressured to be somebody else but we chose to be our authentic self. On such a huge business and the interaction which will go on for months over 5-6 meetings you cannot say that this is what Pepsi wants and this is what we will project,” tells Dheeraj Sinha, CEO and chief strategy officer, South Asia at Leo Burnett and chairman, BBH India.

To take the competition head-on, Leo Burnett put together a 100-odd people strong team across its offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to work on the PepsiCo pitch. For a pitch of this scale the agency brought resources from all functions including creative, strategy, art, animation, research and technology. It was a young team that went deep into it and started grappling with the problem that Pepsi had given the agency to solve. To be sure, Leo Burnett worked on briefs around two PepsiCo brands.

“In the Pepsi briefing we took the young blood from the agency. Planners, creative executives who actually know Pepsi's core TG comprising Gen Z and millennials. They understand their language. More importantly, when we were in the pitch, we had some really young creative and strategists making the presentation and Raj (Rajdeepak Das, chief creative officer and CEO, Leo Burnett, SouthAsia) and I were backing them and we were having fun,” Sinha adds.

PepsiCo India and its former creative partner Wunderman Thompson (earlier JWT India) has been credited with some of Indian advertising's most iconic campaigns. JWT India had put together a team called the Power of One (Po1) that worked exclusively on the 15 PepsiCo brands that the agency handled. During its tenure, it created memorable campaigns such as “Dil maange more”, “Nothing official about it" and “Oye bubbly” for cola brand Pepsi.

It is interesting to note that Coke has been a part of JWT portfolio in certain international markets including Brazil in different ways through different companies. However, Coca-Cola in India was always aligned to IPG Group owned creative agency McCann. But McCann Worldwide India no longer handles the Coke account.

Storyboard18 earlier reported that big global reviews and account movements tend to have different levels of impact on the local operations of networked agencies. At times, as big accounts move agencies, network companies have to deal with the “firefighting” as big-scale money is involved.

An email sent to WPP India on how its global deal with Coke impacted the India market remains unanswered. JWT India did not comment on the loss of PepsiCo account and possible restructuring at the agency.

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JWT and PepsiCo marriage

While BBDO was the global agency for PepsiCo, in India HTA (later rebranded to JWT then to Wunderman Thompson) worked on the PepsiCo account in the India market.

Coke was always aligned to McCann, so we (JWT) have become the non-aligned agency of the brand in India, says former JWT South Asia CEO Colvyn Harris who now runs his independent venture Harris-Mint.

"If the Coke alignment is the reason for the change, then does it mean Coke is moving to its alignment? In my opinion, the area of conflict comes up occasionally in an agency when global alignments and local clients have competing brands. An instance was when JWT was the only agency that gave up Google in India for Microsoft just before the latter fired us in New York. So, we ended up with nothing and that’s the challenging bit about managing conflict and competing brands,” he adds.

Harris notes that big accounts pulling out of agencies bring multiple issues including loss of reputation and image. According to him Leo Burnett must have pulled a rabbit out of the hat to bag the PepsiCo account.

“It’s a big loss when you work with big brands then it seems almost like losing a number six or seven agency that’s the scale and size sometimes of their operations and revenue. It’s seismic for an agency to let go of Coke or Pepsi or even win them. There is an impact on your people who might have to go when you lose accounts,” he adds.

Harris says that usually loss of big accounts is triggered by bad work and the brand not doing well in the market place and they need a fresh look. Brands also change agencies when they fear that they are losing relevance amongst the consumer.

“When the brand loses its mojo, so to say, the pressure is on the client because he/she is running a business. At this point, the client has gone through two to three last chances to try and get a better communication piece out of its agency and when that continues to not delight them that’s when they decide to move. It’s a big change because it's already like a marriage where you carry the secrets and insights with you,” he explains.

He also points out that such changes happen when the brand or the category is losing relevance. In this particular case, for instance, growing consumers' perception of carbonated drinks being unhealthy.

“These are extremely complex issues for somebody to grapple with so if it is a category issue, then how do you make the category relevant again? If the category is shrinking and a brand’s market share is also shrinking then it is a cause of worry - market share becomes the critical game then. First is category and expansion, then it moves to market share so if the market is going to drop anyway then in a particular category if you are losing market share that means the competition is gaining that market share that’s when the alarm bells start ringing. There is always a trigger when clients would think that perhaps their advertising is not working; that's when they get into a firefighting mode to find a solution,” Harris explains.

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Way forward for Pepsi

As more young consumers demand meaningful advertising from brands, Leo Burnett is looking to create more human solutions for PepsiCo India owned brands. Pepsi's portfolio is vastly stretched between mass market to premium top-end brands. It cuts across beverages, healthy beverages and food as well.

“It’s a wide spectrum of mandate. In terms of business, they are doing absolutely fantastic growing leaps and bounds therefore our job is to push that momentum further and ahead. Some of the brands are iconic. Look at Pepsi, Kurkure and 7Up - they are absolutely fantastic iconic brands and our job would be to get a degree of heroism and iconicity. Other than that, there are some other brands that are still building the category and it is yet to mature there our job will be to take a leadership stance and build those categories," says Leo Burnett's Sinha.

Leo Burnett has handled brands such as ThumsUp and Gen Z focused brands such as Spotify, so neither the beverage category nor the consumer segment is not new for them. It would be interesting to see if they would be able to hold the attention of the new-age consumer whose unquenchable thirst for meaningful brands and powerful messaging is stronger than ever.

Behind Leo Burnett’s PepsiCo scoop

It’s a solid start for Indian agencies at the 2022 edition of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. India has managed to get a total of 17 shortlists across categories like Glass, Titanium, Innovation, Health and Wellness Lions, Radio, and Audio. As the offline edition of the festival kicked off today, Indian agencies added 20 more shortlists to take its tally to 37. This year Indian agencies and brands sent a total of 921 entries to Cannes Lions.

Dentsu Webchutney picked four shortlists in Digital Craft Lions. The agency’s work 'The Unfiltered History Tour' for Vice Media is India’s top shortlisted work, so far. A total of 82 entries are competing in this category.

India picked a total of eight shortlists in Film Craft Lions. Edtech giant Byju's received two shortlists for its 'MasterJi' campaign. Offroad Films got three shortlists in this category for Whisper's 'The Missing Chapter'. Leo Burnett India is the agency behind the campaign.

Early Man Film has a shortlist for 'Machine-Gun Mouth' for Battlegrounds Mobile India. DDB Mudra has conceptualised the campaign. Memesys Culture Lab's work 'Care Lives on #TouchOfCare' for Vicks India has two of them. Publicis India is the creative agency of the campaign. 165 entries have made it to the final round.

Six Indian entries are shortlisted in Design Lions. Landor &amp; Fitch India has got two shortlists for its 'Polly the Polar Bear' for Montessori Schools India. Leo Burnett India also got two shortlists for P&amp;G Whisper's 'The Missing Chapter'. DDB Mudra's 'A Silent Frown' for Charlie Chaplin Foundation picked a shortlist in this category. FCB India's work 'Unbox Me UNAIDS' for UNAIDS is also shortlisted.

Byju's is the only Indian company that got shortlisted in Entertainment Lions for its 'Masterji' campaign. DDB Mudra gave India its only Industry Craft Lions shortlist for its entry titled 'A Silent Frown' for the Charlie Chaplin Foundation.

No Indian work made the cut in Entertainment Lions for Sport and Entertainment Lions for Music shortlists.

LEO BURNETT