Rediff plucks Zen from Lowe Lintas

Here's some respite for Rediffusion, Delhi. After losing the Rs 20-crore Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) corporate account to Capital and with Maruti 800 up for review, Rediffusion remained on tenterhooks for the past few months. Last weekend, it broke the jinx when it bagged the Zen account, which was with Lowe Lintas & Partners earlier. With this, the agency would now hog nearly 75 per cent of MUL's ad spend with Maruti 800, Omni, Gypsy and Zen under its belt.

While agencyfaqs! sources in both Rediffusion and Lintas confirmed that the Zen account has now gone to Rediffusion, no official comment from either of the agencies or from the company was available. However, sources at MUL pointed out that the imminent task of Rediffusion is to reposition Zen, which has been steadily losing shares.

The agency officials did not give details of the new marketing strategy or MUL's brief on the Zen.

To put things into perspective, MUL managing director Jagdish Khattar had recently gone on record earlier saying that the company plans to reshuffle its products with its four advertising agencies - Rediffusion, Lintas and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Rohtash Mal, chief general manager, marketing and sales, had told agencyfaqs!, "This decision follows the increase in the company's scope of business and its focus areas over the last couple of years."

He had said that "most of the Maruti brands are up for review as the company was looking for a fresh approach in its brand marketing and new advertising strategies" since its current strategies "may not have been adequate to stall competition".

As things stand now, MUL accounts are distributed between Rediffusion, Lintas, Capital and Saatchi & Saatchi. While Lintas handles ad campaigns for three Maruti products - Alto, Esteem, and Baleno, Saatchi & Saatchi is the custodian of the latest MUL sibling, the WagonR.

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