Godrej appoints Madison Media as its single media partner

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NEW DELHI

In a path breaking step that is likely to impact how advertisers will deal with advertising agencies in future, Godrej Soaps and its associate companies, Godrej Sara Lee and Godrej Foods, appointed Madison Media as a single agency for media planning for all brands and service of these companies. This means that Godrej will be divorcing the media planning function from creative agencies and consolidating it with the media buying function, already handled by Madison Media.

In the race to win the Godrej planning AOR (agency of records) were Starcom (Chaitra Leo Burnett's media division), Mudra and Madison Media. Andersen Consulting advised Godrej and supervised the entire process of evaluation and final selection. Commenting on Godrej's move, Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison Communications, said, "I expect more clients to follow suit since the benefits to clients are obvious."

Agencies that will see a part of their commission fly away to Madison Media are Mudra, Ambience D'Arcy, Bates, HTA, Creative Unit and Madison Creative because of this consolidation. Madison will earn 1 per cent for media planning plus an incentive that could go up to 0.75 per cent depending on performance, in addition to the 2.5 per cent for media buying.

As part of the media planning assignment Madison Media will advice Godrej on target audience definition, market prioritisation, budget setting, goal setting and media mix decisions. According to Balsara, "Media agencies with substantial resources and intellectual capital are able to attract specialist talent to tackle these subjects."

In India, Coca-Cola had led the charge early last year by consolidating the planning and buying functions with Madison. Among Madison Media's other clients besides Godrej and Coca-Cola are Procter & Gamble, BPL, Maruti, Perfetti and Tata Tea who together contribute over Rs 350 crore to Madison Media's billings.

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