Campaign India Agency Report Card: O&M

Type of agency Advertising
Company ownership      WPP
 Key personnel  Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, Madhukar Sabnavis, country head - Discovery and Planning and regional director, Thought Leadership, SN Rane, Co-executive chairman and COO, India and South Asia
Accounts won   Tata Sky, IPL, Star Union Dai-Chi Life Insurance, Future Generali, Raisina Residency,
PVR, IDBI Bank,  RPG Cellucom, VETA, Emirates Airlines
Accounts lost     HT Media, Nalli Silk 
 
When some of O&M's senior management left, it seemed to be the first signs of trouble for the WPP agency. Old hands JC Giri, Pratap Bose and Anurag Gupta left in the space of a few months. Promotions were announced and a restructuring took place in the Mumbai office. So even if the top management left the ship, business has serenely stayed put. The IPL business was a prestigious chunk of business, while Tata Sky consolidated its considerable business with O&M, now including Tata Sky and Tata Sky Plus. The agency was judged as the twentieth most awarded agency by the Gunn Report this year and while its performance at Cannes was not as good as previous years, consistency of track record and creative product remains a strong point for the agency.  
The trouble with O&M is that the considerable reputation precedes it. Which is why one expected more from the agency, even if Piyush Pandey is happy that the awards they win are for regualr advertising -- advertising that sells products and services for their clients.
Campaign Score: 8
 
How O&M rates itself: 8
The biggest win for us this year was the IPL. The Sumo commercial created by Lenovo's global hub in Bangalore was a big achievement for us internationally. The other significant event that occurred was when recently Vodafone India was named the best operating office in the world by Vodafone. At their creative awards, we won four golds, which is more than anyone else. If our clients are doing well, we have succeeded.
We had very ambitious plans for this year and we believe we have achieved them. Creatively, it has been a very satisfying year.
Being rated joint twentieth agency by the Gunn report is fantastic. The youngsters are finding their place in the sun. Kunal Jeswani won the Account/Business Development Person of the year during the Media Agency of the Year awards, while Nabendu Bhattacharya and Vikram Menon were runners up in that category.
There is good work happening within which is allowing people the space to grow.  Ogilvy's strength is not in one-offs, it lies in the width of its work.
We would never give our own agency a score of 10 because there is always scope for improvement.  A score of eight is only to say there is tomorrow and we can do better tomorrow. There is life beyond what we are doing.