R3 sets up shop in Delhi, soon to be in Mumbai too

R3 has announced its plans to set up an office in India and provide marketers and agencies consulting support on best practices in process and compensation. R3 opened shop in February.

The office will be led by Amita Karwal, currently senior vice-president at Zenith Media, in Delhi. ”Frankly, we’ve been looking for five years for a partner in India, and we’re very confident Amita is that leader – she’s one of those rare candidates with client side experience at Reckitt’s and solid agency experience at Lintas and Zenith,” says Greg Paull, co-founder and principal of R3.

R3 started in Singapore and China six years ago, focusing on helping marketers find, pay and keep the best agencies. Their services include pitch management, compensation analysis, media auditing and ROI measurement. Last year, they led the global pitch for Johnson & Johnson media, which OMD (part of the Omnicom Group) won in India, as well as the Singapore Airlines global review, won by TBWA. ”We think Indian marketers and agencies have the right mindset to improve their collective relationship and create bigger ideas – that type of attitude doesn’t always exist everywhere else in Asia,” says Paull.

R3 plans to replicate its Agency Image research in India, a service it has provided already in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and China. ”We’ve completed over 1,000 face to face interviews with marketers and their agencies – it’s enabled us to learn a lot about local conditions. We can’t wait to compare Indian relationships,” says Paull.

The second wave of the China study, recently completed, is supported by more than 400 marketers and 20 agencies in that market. ”Famous brands such as Coca-Cola, Ogilvy and MindShare rise to the top in China – what will be interesting is to see how the two powerhouse countries of the world are different from a marketing perspective,” adds Paull.

R3 will be based in Delhi initially, but plans to expand to Mumbai within its first year of operation.

For the uninitiated, R3 is an independent marketing consultancy that aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Asia based brands and their agencies. Founded in 2002, it works with seven of the world’s top 20 global marketers. In 2007, R3 managed the largest global review of the year (Johnson & Johnson), the largest review in Asia for the year (Singapore Airlines) and the largest review in China (L’Oreal), in addition to providing consulting advice for Visa, Diageo, Coca-Cola and Lenovo, amongst others.