Campaign India Agency Report Card: Euro RSCG

Type of agency: Advertising

Company ownership: Havas

Key personnel: Suman Srivastava, CEO, Satbir Singh, NCD, Sushant Panda, Rajan Patel, Sanjoy Gupta, directors,Rajesh Bhatia, Ashok Lalla, skill leaders, Sandeep Gupta, CFO

Accounts won: Café Coffee Day (new project), Bank of Baroda, BSNL, Lemon Tree, Red Fox Hotels, RR Kabels, Lavasa, Google India, IDFC, IBM (digital duties)

Accounts lost: Volvo, Secret Temptation

With the global realignment of one of its key clients, Volvo, that moved its account to Pickle, the going has not been so smooth. The agency did win a Bronze Spike for its campaign for HDFC Bank. A round of modest wins that included Caf? Coffee Day (new project), Bank of Baroda, BSNL, Lemon Tree, Red Fox Hotels, RR Kabels, Lavassa, Google India and IDFC kept the year from becoming an absolute write-off. Also, IBM aligning its global digital business with this Havas agency should keep Euro RSCG 4D and Euro RSCG 24X7 busy .While last year Euro RSCG raised its creative profile considerably by releasing distinctive work for  Dainik Bhaskar and Max New York Life Insurance, this year has been low-key.Dhiren Amin, who led Euro RSCG’s planning function, joined BBH, which was a setback. Tara Kapur, who headed the agency’s PR department, quit to join as VP and head of Grey Public Relations. Also, Ashok Lalla was brought on board from Taj Hotels & Resorts as president, digital.

2009 has been a challenging year for this Havas-owned agency which has definitely seen better days.

Campaign Score: 5

How EURO RSCG rates itself: 6

We had a great start to the year and actually did better in the Jan-March quarter than the same period in 2008.  This made us bullish on the rest of the year and we went to Goafest with a spring in our step.  However, the next two quarters were totally flat and this led the overall year to be a forgettable one.  But the year is ending well with a lot of work on existing clients and also a lot of new business pitches (including a couple of wins that haven’t been announced yet). The good news for the year is that we didn’t lose any major clients.  Some clients spent less and hence our earning dropped, but we managed to retain almost all our clients.  This puts us in a good position as we enter a new year.  Also we won several clients during the year who will help us perform well next year.