Sign up for afaqs! Newsletters
Rama Harish has been appointed as director, strategic planning, and head of Delhi operations. Also on board is Pooja Bassi as manager, analytics
ATG-MCI, a unit of WPP Media providing econometric, sales modeling and consumer insights relating to media, is looking to expand base. "Bangalore was our global hub and between four people we were operating in Bangalore and Mumbai. Now we have set foot in Delhi by appointing two additional people," V Balasubramanium, national director, ATG-MCI, told agencyfaqs!.
ATG-MCI functions as a ‘Global Analytics Centre' for WPP Media providing backend analytics and database mining and management services to all WPP offices around the world. It also provides econometric modeling and consultancy services to various clients around the world and in India.
Rama Harish has been appointed as director, strategic planning, and head of Delhi operations. Also on board is Pooja Bassi as manager, analytics. Both come with strong media and research backgrounds. For instance, Harish was with HTA (now JWT) in media planning between 1989-97 and then moved to academics. She is an IIM-A alumni and was with ASCI in an earlier stint. Bassi is an ex-IMRB and AC Nielsen hand. "We started a year ago when MindShare and Maximize were set up and now it's time to expand our scale of operations," added Balasubramanium. For the record, ATG-MCI has recently signed on a couple of clients, including The Hindu Group, Hindustan Times, the Eenadu group and Vijay Karnataka.
In a parallel move, RK Girish Menon, who was earlier general manager, Chennai (with additional charge for Hyderabad), MindShare, has taken over as general manager, south, with the responsibility of overseeing Bangalore as well. Shubha George, general manager (Bangalore), MindShare, will move to Mumbai.
Confirming this to agencyfaqs!, Ashutosh Srivastava, managing director, MindShare India, said, "This is not part of some larger structural change, but triggered off by Shubha's move to Mumbai for personal reasons - where she will oversee strategic planning on some key MindShare accounts, and continue her role as the central training person for our ASPIRE programme."
To give a small background, Menon joined JWT, Chennai, in the media dept way back in 1993. During his stint at the agency he has worked on a wide range of brands - including those in services (Citibank), personal care (Ponds), and IT-related fields such as Sify (called Satyam Infoway at that time) and SSI Education. He took over as head of JWT's media services in Chennai in January 2000, and with the entry of MindShare into India in end 2001, became general manager, Chennai with additional charge of the Hyderabad operations.
On her part, George was unwilling to discuss the move with agencyfaqs!.
Commenting on the southern operations Srivastava said, "Our southern offices are run very efficiently, and we are the only media agency to provide a full range of media services at each location, due to our huge client base of over 90 advertisers. The business growth there is very healthy, especially in the non-traditional communication channels. We are looking to expand our presence there." The roster of MindShare and Maximize down south boast of clients such as the UB Group, IBM, Himalaya, Murugappa Group, Ford, Hutch, Funskool etc. The Fulcrum unit manages media for HLL Foods and beverages. © 2003 agencyfaqs!