Nestle moves infant nutrition business to McCann

In a strategic move, Nestle has moved the creative duties of its infant nutrition product range to McCann Healthcare, the two-year-old healthcare advertising division of McCann-Erickson India. The account moves from Mudra Communications, Delhi. Incidentally, the media duties of the Nestle products remain with Universal McCann.

While neither the company nor the agency executives could be contacted for details, agencyfaqs! has learnt that McCann won the business in a two-shop shootout that also included Ogilvy Healthcare. Observers peg the size of the business at Rs 16-17 crore. The three Nestle brands active in the infant healthcare category in India are Cerelac, Lactogen and Nestum.

Since Nestle executives didn't comment on the move, the reasons for this realignment could not be ascertained. However, what is known is that worldwide Nestle is one of the top three clients of McCann-Erickson's parent company Interpublic (which is the holding company for three flagship advertising groups McCann Erickson, Lowe, and Octagon Group, which promotes sporting events. The company also owns numerous other standalone local agencies globally.) "Since Mudra is not an aligned agency the account was expected to move sooner or later," said an industry veteran.

Till now in India, Nestle depended heavily on print to showcase its expertise in infant healthcare globally. What would be interesting to watch is how the new agency alignment changes the company's communication strategy in India. © 2003 agencyfaqs!