Ogilvy and Mindshare on top in India

NEW DELHI: Ogilvy, Mindshare and Webchutney are regarded as being the top agencies in their fields in India, a survey of senior executives has found.

The Economic Times, the newspaper, and IMRB, the research firm, polled 617 business leaders representing both clients and agencies, and all with over five years industry experience.

Ogilvy, owned by WPP Group, was named as the best creative agency, a role it has occupied since 2005. JWT, a unit of the same holding company, similarly took second for the third year in a row.

Lowe Lintas, part of Interpublic Group, retained third, as has been the case from 2008. Fourth placed Mudra India, an Omnicom shop, swapped positions with McCann Erickson, another IPG network, compared with last year.

There were two new entries in the creative top ten, in the guise of Taproot, an independent, and Dentsu, part of a Japanese-owned global advertising conglomerate.

"We're still very much mid-sized, in terms of revenue. But in terms of capabilities, network, vision and people, we're among the biggest," Rohit Orhi, the local CEO of Dentsu, said. "We're turning opportunities into pitches, pitches into wins [and] sceptics into believers."

Looking to media agencies, Mindshare, another division of WPP, led the charts. Madison World, which also has offices in Sri Lanka and Thailand, was second in this area.

Lodestar Universal and Lintas Media Group claimed third and fourth in turn. Both agencies belong to IPG, and are now, where possible, taking advantage of their joint scale under the Mediabrands banner.

"We have had two agencies here, who worked separately all this while. We needed to bring them together," said Matt Seiler, the worldwide chief executive of Mediabrands.

Webchutney was the pre-eminent digital agency, and won accounts for MasterCard, the financial services group, Bajaj Auto, the motorcycle manufacturer, and Airtel, the mobile brand, in 2011.

Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, took second place, and was earlier this month awarded official status as a "preferred marketing developer" for Facebook in India.

"Being among the few companies worldwide to earn Preferred Marketing Developer badge underlines our ongoing investment in providing cross-channel interactive solutions to clients across various verticals," said Siddhartha Roy, Hungama's COO.

Data sourced from Economic Times; additional content by Warc staff, 17 May 2012

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