Leo Burnett wins Bajaj Wave account, loses Eliminator to Lowe

There's an old adage in business: You win some and you lose some. And, nobody knows it better than Leo Burnett. On Thursday, the agency won Bajaj Wave, the newly launched automatic scooter brand from the 2-wheeler major, and also lost Bajaj Eliminator to Lowe.

The Wave win came following a three-way pitch involving club agencies, Lowe and O&M, apart from Leo Burnett India. This is the first scooter brand of Leo Burnett.

Anurag Tandon, Leo Burnett's man for the Bajaj business, declines to divulge the size of the account, saying, "This is one of the instances where the size of the business is not important, the work is.” He assures that the communication is going to be "incredible and be based on a scientific approach towards the product”.

Thursday's developments is in continuation of the recent spate of brand re-alignment at Bajaj. In October, Lowe won the Bajaj CT 100 account from Leo Burnett, while Leo Burnett bagged the Pulsar business from O&M.

A snapshot of the Bajaj brands and the servicing agencies: CT 100 :: Lowe (the incumbent was Leo Burnett), Eliminator :: Lowe (Leo Burnett), Pulsar :: Leo Burnett (O&M), Wave :: Leo Burnett and Discover :: O&M

Tandon says the brand shuffling is not without any reason. "Bajaj only changes its agencies when the product undergoes some technical changes. For example, Pulsar came to us when it was relaunched with the DTSi technology,” he explains.

In fact, that's the same reason why the Bajaj Eliminator account has moved to Lowe. The account size of the new upgraded Bajaj Eliminator DTSi is Rs 10 crore. Apart from the incumbent Leo Burnett and eventual winner Lowe, O&M was the other agency in the fray. The campaign is likely to be kicked off in mid-February but that will depend on the production schedule of Eliminator.

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