WPP Media is Asia's Media Agency of the Year

WPP Media, India's largest media specialist company, won the Best Agency Office of the Year Award at media Magazine's annual Asia Pacific agency awards ceremony last Thursday (December 12) in Hong Kong.

WPP Media India won the Asia Pacific Best Agency Office of the Year award on the back of its "business performance, media innovation and new business record". Out of the five finalists for this award, four were creative agencies - including DD Needham HongKong and Leo Burnett - with WPP Media being the only media specialist agency.

WPP Media is India's largest media investment management group with billings in excess of Rs 1,500 crores. It has three three operating units - MindShare India, MindShare Fulcrum and Maximize - that provide media planning, buying and research services. WPP Media provides other specialist services through its Advanced Techniques Group (which is into econometric modeling), M Digital (into online and mobile media planning and buying), Media Consumer Insights Group (consumer insight and research), BroadMind (handles non-traditional channels like events etc) and WPP Outdoor (outdoor media).

Since its launch in India 11 months ago, WPP Media's different operating and specialist units have won 43 of the 53 businesses it pitched for, 40 per cent of all EMVIE awards and also the Unilever Worldwide Communication Channel Planning Gold. "Clearly its ability to leverage its huge volume and resources across its network of six locations have persuaded clients to award business its way," said Ashutosh Srivastava, managing director, MindShare India.

Srivastava added, "Its philosophy of driving quality and not just pricing, is beginning to find many takers among the advertisers - in a market fixated just by rates and deals. Its parent company WPP's backing from the beginning enabled the company to get its business model right. Its investment in large-scale research for consumer insights, tracking results and econometric modeling to determine RoI (return on investment) on advertisers' media investments has begun to change market practices." © 2002 agencyfaqs!