The year started off with a digital unit being set up in its Mumbai office on the back of the agency bagging the global media mandate for Volkswagen in 2016. The team comprised of new hires that included data scientists and talent from the tech, luxury marketing, and brand communications backgrounds. The agency claims that over 50 per cent of its hires came from non-traditional media roles.
PHD launched four new specialised business units to diversify its business - PHD Studios (content solutions), PHD Analytics (data and analytics offering), PHD Programmatic and PHD e-commerce.
New business came in the form of ABinBev (media planning and buying), HP (search), Cipla (media planning and buying) and Kazo (media planning and buying) among others.
Young talent was put at the forefront in 2017, and that resulted in two youngsters (Ronnie Thomas and Tejas Shah) travel to the Cannes as the winners of the Young Lions competition for media.
PHD also won Gold in the India Media Agency of the Year category at Campaign’s Agency of the Year South Asia leg. Among other wins was a Bronze and Silver at the Campaign India Digital Crest Awards. PHD’s Mumbai office was ranked 32nd among the top media agencies globally according to WARC.
PHD's Tinder
A global platform called Source Mobile was launched last year. This allowed staff to collaborate on global campaigns and ideas on the go. A proposal could be discarded or added to by a Tinder like swipe.
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