OMD to handle media AOR for Intel in India

Intel has awarded its global media duties worth an estimated $ 300 million to OMD after a multi agency pitch, which included incumbent Universal McCann and Starcom. The global realignment implies that OMD India will be handling the account in India, which market sources say is close to Rs 50 crores. This further consolidates OMD India’s position in the industry, after it won the Johnson & Johnson business in July 2007 as well as the media AOR for Parle Agro and Ambuja Cements. Lodestar Universal was the incumbent agency for Intel in India.

Speaking to Campaign India in Bali at Media Spikes 2008, before they won the pitch, Barry Cupples, CEO, Asia Pacific, Omnicom Media Group had revealed that although they had presented the global idea for Intel, they had to tweak the positioning for the Indian market because the country warranted a unique localized approach. He added, at the time, “During the pitch, we made a point to say that it (the global idea) wouldn’t work verbatim in India. We said it would be very different to the rest, although the idea is, in essence, still linked umbilically to the global idea.”

When contacted, Jasmin Sohrabji, MD, OMD India said she would not be able to comment on the account movement. However sources close to the development have told Campaign India that while there was one overall global brief, five different countries, which included India, China, Brazil, France and USA, were part of the pitch process and India was an important part of the procedure. “During the pitch process, what seemed to have worked in OMD’s favour was its strength in business science and analytics,” added the source.  

Globally, Intel has indicated that they would be looking at diverting a significant part of their media spends from traditional media towards digital.