Campaign India Agency Report Card 2010: Leo Burnett

Type of agency: Advertising

Company ownership: Publicis

Key personnel: Arvind Sharma, chairman of Indian sub-continent, Nitish Mukherjee, MD, K V Sridhar, national creative director, Rajeev Sharma, national planning director, Samir Gangahar, executive director-delhi

Accounts won: Avantha Corporate, Vedanta, United Technologies Corporation, McCain Foods, Kohler, BILT, Tata International, CavinKare Digital - Carrefour India website, Piramal Supractiv, HPCL racer 4, Procter &Gamble Wella India website, Procter & Gamble shiksha, SRF India, RIM Blackberry Activation - IPM India (Philip Morris), HPCL Racer 4 Loyalty programs, Procter & Gamble MDO 

Accounts lost: HomeTown

Notably, the agency worked on the launch campaign for Coca Cola India’s Maaza Milky Delite and Kaun Banega Crorepati – Season 4. Nitin Pradhan was roped in as ECD  and Seema Sood as director for their Events & PR division. 

Leo Burnett left its impression across all the major awards this year for their Tide Magnets campaign. Across categories, the agency collected two silvers and a bronze at the Cannes Lions, a silver at Clio, two gold and one silver at the New York Festivals Awards, and managed two silvers and four bronzes at the Ad fest 2010. The agency managed five bronze awards at Spikes and two silvers at London International awards.Among the Indian awards, Leo Burnett ended their quest at Goafest 2010 with three silvers and eight bronzes.

The judging process at Creative Abby Awards became a sore point with KV Shridhar (Pops) trading punches with Mudra’s Bobby Pawar on Twitter, which resulted the latter’s agency sending a legal notice against Leo Burnett and Pops. Leo Burnett had also released the Gandhiji font in the Devanagari script, based on Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles with the aim of “allowing us to see the world through his eyes”.  

A good run at the awards and most importantly, new business wins has helped Leo Burnett continue its good run this year as well. 

How Campaign India rates the agency: 8 
How Leo Burnett rates itself: 8 

In 2010 at 35% over 2009 Leo Burnett India is set to register its strongest ever growth in the last ten years. This has happened on the back of robust new business acquisition and our ability to convincingly contribute to our clients’ business growth. Digital and Activation gathered steam through the year and significantly increased contribution.

Global endorsed our performance in contributing to brands through our HumanKind approach by doing the formal worldwide launch of the HumanKind book in Mumbai, India. The Creative prowess of the agency brought in International laurels and Campaign rankings rated us as the second most creative agency in India.

Popular campaigns for Uninor and the launch of Kaun Banega Crorepati deserve special mention amongst the host of successful campaigns through the year.  We dedicated ‘Gandhifont’ to the nation on 2nd October. All in all a really good place to ring out a great 2010 and well poised to take on the challenges of 2011!