Campaign India Agency Report Card 2010: Media Direction

Type of agency  Advertising & Marketing Services

Company ownership R K SWAMY HANSA Group

Key personnel Chintamani Rao, president, K Satyanarayana, VP, P R P Nair, senior advisor, Rohini Gauthaman,general manager Delhi, Soumendra Rath, general manager Chennai, Partha Ghosh, general manager /business development director, Bhupesh Upadhye, national buying director, Saurav Chakraborty, general manager, Digital Direction

 Accounts won General: JM Finance, LIC Housing Finance, LIC Nomura Mutual Fund, MTNL Mumbai, Nitta Gelatin India, Rage Mobile (Planning), Raymond AOR, Shriram Capital, Birla Tyres. Digital: Corporation Bank, Eyewatch, Indusind Bank, National Tuberculosis Control Programme, NBC Bearings, Speciality RestaurantsAccounts lost    Abbott Healthcare, Air India, ASK , Mercedes

With the departure of Les Margulis, Chintamani Rao, ex-CEO of Times Global Broadcasting, was brought in as president of Media Direction in July this year. Rohini Gauthaman, Soumendra Rath, Bhupesh Upadhye and Partha Ghosh also joined the agency in various capacities. Media Direction and RK SWAMY BBDO won the media and creative mandates for Rage Mobiles, and the end of the year saw Raymond consolidate media with RK SWAMY Media Group, an assignment which included Raymond, Park Avenue, Parx, ColorPlus, JK Helene Curtis and JK Ansell. According to the agency, this made up for the significant loss of Mercedes in February to MEC as part of an international realignment. Digital Direction also won a Silver at the Internationalist Awards for Innovative Digital Marketing Solutions for its “Dialogue Engagement Campaign” for Siemens (it had won a Bronze for the same client in 2009).  Saurav Chakraborty of Digital Direction and K Satyanarayana of Media Direction were named among the 30 global Agency Innovators in 2010 by The Internationalist, New York.Media Direction continues to be solid and non-flamboyant. Perhaps it will require some flamboyance to take a predictable agency to the next level.

How Campaign India rates the agency: 7

How Media Direction rates itself: 7.5

Media Direction operates from the belief that its business is to connect clients’ messages with their audiences, and in doing so it strives to strike the optimum balance between efficiency and effectiveness, making budgets work harder. The agency believes this makes it the best choice for medium-budget advertisers competing with big-budget spenders or building new markets/categories.Net of all gains and losses, of business and people, the agency is ending the year stronger than it started.