Publicis Media to bring two brands to India within a year

MUMBAI: French media buying and planning agency Publicis Media plans to bring two of its brands — Optimedia|Blue449 and Mediavest|Spark — to India within a year as part of its recent restructuring.

These two brands were formed last month after parent Publicis Groupe consolidated its six agencies — Starcom, Mediavest, Spark, Zenith, Optimedia and Blue 449 — into four brands, with Starcom and Zenith remaining standalone businesses.

"With these two brands, we will be able to give our clients more choice, more powerful and more differentiated brand options they never had before," Gerry Boyle, CEO of Publicis Media Asia Pacific told ETin an exclusive interaction.

Blue 449 has a "unique opensource" positioning and Spark combines the resources of a large network with the agility of a high touch agency, he said.

While China contributes the most to the company’s business in the Asia-Pacific region, India ranks third, accounting for nearly a fifth, with a growth rate of 30%. "India has absolutely been an engine of growth for us in the last two years and we are looking to accelerate that growth. India is going to be our growth engine in both Asia-Pacific and globally over the coming five years," Boyle said. The company, which counts Dabur, Nestle, Visa and Toyota among its clients, expects India to become a net exporter of products, talent and business.

India’s media and entertainment industry is expected to grow at 14% CAGR to Rs 2.2 lakh crore by 2020, according to a FICCI-KPMG 2016 report. The growth is expected to be led by advertising revenue, which is slated to account for nearly half of the expansion.

Digital advertising market is likely to scale up to Rs 25,500 crore or nearly a fourth of the total advertising revenues, the report said.

Almost half of Publicis Media’s India business is in the digital sector, as per the company. "We have a very strong presence in data technology and performance marketing, some of it because of our global practices and some due to acquisitions. On the digital and performance marketing part, we are the leaders in the market. And all of this leads to a datadriven strategy and planning, which is where the market is moving and we are at the frontier of that," said Anupriya Acharya, who was named India CEO of Publicis Media last week.