Zenith wins new accounts

agencyfaqs! News Bureau

MUMBAI

Zenith Media India is on a new high. In the past one month, the Mumbai-headquartered media specialist has won seven new accounts. While the Delhi branch has walked away with LML (a new brand), Maxima Quartz (from PA Time Industries), and Ozone Ayurvedic, the Mumbai branch has picked up Tata AIG and International Coffee. Kolkata, in the meanwhile, has added Jindal Industries and Shalimar Paints.

Company officials say that while Tata AIG is purely a planning based client, coming from Bates, all the other clients have signed on Zenith for planning, buying and analysis services. Apart from these, in the last quarter, Zenith has won Hatsun Ice-Creams in Chennai, Kurlon in Bangalore, Dr Morepen in Delhi and BPCL in Mumbai. Terming the developments as "extremely exciting", Tapan Pal, president and CEO, Zenith, says, "We have demonstrated visible results in our buying abilities that have showed the clients actual savings in terms of their costs. However, mere buying is just not enough. We believe that the ratio of planning and buying is 1:1. Good planning can actually result in savings of as much as 35 to 40 per cent by making the buys not only efficient, but more effective for the clients."

Officials at the agency say Zenith has "incorporated the needs of the client and that of the rapidly changing market conditions" in its media planning. Zenith has also invested heavily in infrastructure, in databases, hardware and teamwork. Headquartered in the UK, Zenith Media is among the Top 10 media buying agencies in the world, and the largest media agency in the Asia Pacific region. Zenith is a joint venture between CCG Plc and Saatchi & Saatchi Holdings, a subsidiary of Publicis Group SA. In the year 2000, Zenith Media handled $9.8 billion worth of media buying the world over. It has 88 offices in 45 countries, including five full-fledged offices in India, currently handling nearly Rs 300 crore of media planning and buying.

In December 1994, Zenith Media launched its first Asia Pacific office in Hong Kong and became the first media specialist to launch in the region. Zenith Media now has 25 offices in the Asia Pacific region. Total Asia Pacific billing in the year 2000 was $2.5 billion. Based on the estimated billings for the year 2000, Zenith Media's Indian office is ranked seventh.

Most of Zenith's accounts are usually bid through a "multi-stage testing process", in which the company presents clients with a presentation that stresses the company's buying skills, planning expertise, market knowledge, and harps on Zenith's infrastructure that includes five national offices, and its international network. "It was only after our clients had evaluated us and were satisfied that we got their accounts," says Pal about winning the current accounts, which were pitched for using this multi-stage process.

In 1998, Zenith Media won Asia's inaugural "Media Agency of the Year" award and in a recent survey of over 500 advertising executives was voted ahead of its peers in the industry as "the agency you'd most like to work for". Its earlier successes include winning the two highest profile media AOR accounts in the region in recent years - the Coca-Cola business in China and Hong Kong Telecom, Hong Kong's largest media advertiser.

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