Campaign India Agency Report Card 2010: JWT

Type of agency: Advertising

Company ownership: WPP

Key personnel: Colvyn Harris, CEO; Rohit Ohri, SVP and managing partner, JWT Delhi; Adrian Miller, chief creative officer, Delhi; Atika Malik, SVP, executive planningdirector; Tarun Chauhan, SVP and managing partner, JWTMumbai; Tista Sen, SVP and ECD – creative head, Mumbai;Shaziya  Khan, VP and strategic planning director; Senthil Kumar, ECD South; Rajesh Gangwani, SVP JWT South; Navonil Chatterjee, VP and executive planning director;Rajeev Sharma, VP and head digital solutions; Raji Ramaswamy, SVP

Accounts won: Airtel, Dalmia Cement, LIC (empanelment), Google, Dicitex Décor Exports, Fedex, Brand H&A, Nissan, Union KBC Asset Management Company, AMS Sports and gaming, Ankur Drugs and Pharma, Insurance Institute of India, Seamless Distribution, Taragon Capital Advisors, Tata Housing, Loyalty One, Unicef  - Routine Immunisation, Unicef – HIV and Youth, Polio Project, Urban Health Initiatives – Johns Hopkins, BRG Iron and Steel Company Pvt. Ltd., United Spirits Limited, Surya Nepal Tobacco, Amoha Education (P) Ltd., T S R & Co Madras, Sri City Pvt. Ltd., Karnataka Udyog Mitra Green Valley Industries, LaOpala 

Accounts lost: Asmi (Gitanjali Group), Columbia Asia, Venus Water heater, Cleartrip, Monte Carlo, DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund, Legrand (Digital)

Airtel has to be JWT’s sweetest haul this year and rightly so. The telecom account’s movement to this WPP owned agency implied considerable restructuring of resources, including hiring expat talent for the newly created role of chief creative officer (only for the delhi office) in the form of Adrian Miller. A shake-up ensued with the departure of executive creative director Anuja Chauhan. Elvis Sequeira left, too. Talent that came on board this year included Priti Kapur and Jaideep Mahajan. Mumbai saw the exit of Dhunji Wadia and his replacement in Tarun Chauhan. The Chennai office has seen Anita Gupta’s departure. Add to that industry talk about Ford shifting their business from JWT Chennai to their Delhi office, and the question that remains to be answered is what that implies for the agency’s south office since Ford is one of the most substantial accounts that it handles.  

There was the interesting story of the collaboration that wasn’t-namely Pepsi’s Cricket World Cup mandate which eventually went to Taproot. Dias’ agency poses a significant challenge to this WPP agency, which is evident from the amount of small but substantial piece of business that this independent shop has been able to wean away from a large network like JWT. Bennett & Coleman and Pepsi are already two large existing JWT clients that have chosen to park some part of their business with Taproot.

The agency kept itself busy with award shows, hauling in 19 metals at the Asia Pacific Adfest, 13 at Goafest, three at One Show, four at AME, three metals at Cannes and eight at Spikes Asia. JWT Mumbai was the only India office that won a metal (a Bronze) at the IPA Effectiveness Awards in London for their work on World Gold Council. JWT did reasonably well at Effies too. There’s reason for cheer with Miller on the scene. The curious fact of hiring a chief creative officer for just the Delhi office notwithstanding, Michael Maedel has high hopes from his expat find and time will tell whether those expectations bear fruit. From what we hear of Miller’s past credentials, we sense glad tidings for this WPP agency. 

How Campaign India rates the agency: 8

How JWT rated itself: 9

JWT has continued with its extraordinary run the whole of last year; something. In fact the performance has been stellar on all fronts with a sustained improvement on all benchmarks, be they creative, planning, new business successes, global award recognition, key hiring, so on and so forth. JWT has managed a huge number of new business wins, while maintaining 99% retention rate with existing clients.It has also spruced up its key personnel with the hiring of almost 20 very senior heads in all departments (VP, ECD and above) starting with Adrian Miller and Tarun Chauhan and many more. The agency’s success in the International award circuit continues unabated in prestigious award shows. In fact, it was even crowned the Agency of the Year at Adfest. 

In a major strategic reorientation, JWT Digital has emerged as a full service strategy-led Digital agency offering solutions across the digital spectrum.  

Currently being retained by three large clients for their Digital needs – LIC, Seamless and Godrej, this digital arm is also engaged with building the Saregama website considered to be one of the largest b2c music portal from scratch. In fact, 2010 has been a great year for Digital with some serious account gains (Seamless, Godrej, United Healthcare, LIC, Oracle, Saregama, Nissan and Shubh Edifice) across the spectrum.Colvyn Harris, was even nominated to the Summit on the Global Agenda, WEF, a rare honour. At the World Expo Pavilion in Shanghai, JWT’s India Pavilion won the most coveted People’s Choice Award.