WOC Advertising bags creative duties for Megamart

Megamart, the value retail chain of Arvind Brands, has brought Chennai-based WOC Advertising onboard as its creative agency. The agency will handle the creative business for the state of Tamil Nadu.

Meridian has been handling the creative duties for the chain across India, for the past two years. With WOC in the picture, Meridian will continue to handle the creative duties at all other places, except Tamil Nadu.

Talking about the win, CS Amudhan, managing director, WOC Advertising, tells afaqs! that the chain's communication was so far restricted to promotion-driven print advertising. “However, the brand is now looking at positioning itself and reaching out to the consumers in a better way, for which they needed a partner, who could cater to their local needs. That's where we stepped in,” he says.

Ganesh Raman, marketing head, Megamart India, reveals that the most important thing they were looking for was a local agency that was familiar with the retail business in the state. WOC currently works with retail chains such as Textile India, Jainsons and Studio Gessato, a designer wear brand. In the past, it has handled the creative duties for Highstyle, Chennai Silks and Jewellery Mahal.

Though the agency has worked and continues to create work for retail chains, Amudhan understands that Megamart is a totally different brand.

“Retail is undergoing a lot of change, and so is the advertising for retail. Though garment retail is not as badly hit as consumer durables, overall, it is a challenging mode right now; budgets are shrinking too,” confesses Amudhan.

Arvind Brands has an ad budget of Rs 5- 10 crore for this year, of which approximately Rs 2 crore would be allotted for Megamart.

The media duties for Megamart are handled by Maxus -- the agency won the account last year. Prior to that, The Media Edge, Rediffusion Y&R's media arm, handled the media duties for about five years.

Talking about Tamil Nadu as a market for Megamart, Raman says that the state is an important market and is on the priority list. Approximately 17 stores are located in Chennai, and 10 more across the state.

Megamart has 125 stores in India, in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. Karnataka is the most important market for Megamart; the chain has about 40 stores in the state.

WOC has presented its creative for television, print and below-the-line media, which will be released across Tamil Nadu around mid-April.