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Madison Media bags Kinetic Group AOR

Madison Media has picked up the Rs 30-crore AOR account of the Kinetic Group. The account was earlier split between Mudra, Grey Worldwide and Euro RSCG

agencyfaqs! News Bureau

MUMBAI

The Kinetic Group has appointed Madison Media to handle the media planning and buying functions for all the Kinetic brands.

The agency was intimated about the shift on Wednesday, June 7. According to industry sources, the Kinetic Group didn't call for a full-fledged media pitch before taking this decision. "It was an internal decision taken by the group. But it had to be that way sooner or later - most big brands are doing that today to get the maximum benefit out of media consolidation," said this source. The AOR account is estimated at Rs 30 crore.

The two major companies of the Kinetic Group are Kinetic Motor Company, which manufactures scooters and scooterettes (ZX, Y2K and Style), and Kinetic Engineering Ltd, which manufactures bikes (Kinetic Challenger) and mopeds (K480).

Till now, while media buying for the two-wheeler group was handled by Madison Media, media planning was handled by the creative agencies for the various Kinetic brands. These were Mudra for scooters, Grey Worldwide for motorbikes and Euro RSCG for mopeds.

Post this development, media planning will be divorced from the creative agencies and consolidated with the media buying function already handled by Madison Media.

According to Punitha Arumugam, chief operating officer, Madison Media (West), "As part of the media planning assignment Madison Media will advise Kinetic on target audience definition, market prioritisation, budget setting, objective setting and media mix decisions." Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison, added, "Media agencies with substantial resources and intellectual capital are able to attract specialist talent to tackle these subjects. Kinetic's decision to consolidate media planning with the buying agency is indeed wise and logical and I expect them to gain substantially from this decision. The reason is obvious. When media planning is divorced from buying, there is always the fear of some functions falling between the two stools, say, for example, the media mix decision. And that's a very crucial decision for the client."

The Kinetic win represents a big gain for Madison Media, whose clientele includes Godrej Soaps, Godrej Sara Lee, Godrej Foods, Coca-Cola, BPL, Perfetti (for all of whom Madison is the single media partner) and Procter & Gamble, Maruti (TV only) and Tata Tea, all of which together contribute over Rs 350 crore to Madison Media's billings.

Madison had a year ago launched its own software called M:Cube (Madison Media Maximiser) that helps direct media investment to those markets where return on media investment is the highest.

Kinetic's effort to consolidate the media function comes at a time when the group is working overtime on its expansion plans. Kinetic Engineering plans to introduce three new motorcycles in the 125-cc segment in the second quarter of this year and two in the 150-cc segment, in alliance with Hyosung of Korea. The company will also roll out a four-stroke scooter in the third quarter of 2001 in the 100-125-cc segment, and a low-end 60-cc scooterette later. The company plans to add an economy variant of the Challenger for the rural markets. The Challenger was launched in the southern and western markets late last year. The company expects to sell over one lakh motorcycles by the end of the first year of launch.

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