Rediffusion nets ING Vysya's corporate account

Rediffusion | DYR's Bangalore office has won the ‘corporate advertising' account of financial services company ING Vysya, following two rounds of competitive presentations held in Bangalore over the last fortnight. Replying to a query from agencyfaqs! late last night, Mahesh Chauhan, vice-president, Rediffusion | DYR confirmed the news of the win, adding that the agency had received a "formal intimation" from the client yesterday evening.

agencyfaqs! regulars may recall that roughly a week ago, this website had reported that six Bangalore agencies had made the first round of presentations for the newly-constituted business, estimated to be worth Rs 5-6 crore, in annualized billing. Apart from Rediffusion, the agencies that had participated in round one were McCann-Erickson India, Saatchi & Saatchi India, JWT India, Grey Worldwide and Dentsu. Subsequently, three agencies - Saatchi, Rediff and McCann - were shortlisted for round two, which was held on the day before (Monday). Interestingly, agencyfaqs! has learnt that O&M was also present in round two (!), making it a four-way presentation.

Having come out on top, Rediff's Bangalore office is, naturally, cock-a-hoop. "As we are the only visible agency on ING (Rediff also handles the ING Vysya Life Insurance account), this win feels great as, for us, it is a move towards consolidating the business and growing with the ING Vysya brand," smiles Chauhan. However, despite having handled the life insurance business for the past two years, Chauhan clarifies that this latest verdict in Rediff's favour was "independent, and based specifically on our recommendations on this particular assignment. Of course, it also serves as a reaffirmation of the client's trust in us and our capabilities."

From what agencyfaqs! has gathered, ‘this particular assignment' pertains to the financial company presenting a consolidated ‘ING Vysya face' to potential investors. Although the company operates in a variety of financial sectors, the ING Vysya entity isn't very clearly defined as far as investors are concerned. In the run-up to our last story on the ING pitch, an agency professional familiar with the financial sector had read the situation thus: "ING Vysya has not promoted itself aggressively beyond the life insurance arena, so the need of the hour is a corporate branding exercise that demonstrates the companies diverse business interests to investors." We bounced this off Chauhan for ratification, but he declined from commenting.

What he does talk about is the significance of the win. "This is a huge achievement for the Bangalore office, and, in particular, for Minakshi Achan (group creative director) and her team," he says. "Ultimately, what swayed the decision in our favour was a brilliant idea, executed brilliantly. We knew we had a big idea, so we were fairly confident when we went into the pitch." What this idea is, Chauhan will not say, urging us to wait for the work to happen. The campaign, he assures, will break "fairly soon". © 2003 agencyfaqs!