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O&M and Group M’s global outdoor unit, Kinetic, launches in India

Pratap Bose, president, Ogilvy Activation, will be the managing director of the new outfit in India

So what if Ogilvy and Group M parted ways with the closure of mOne? The duo has come together once again in India with the launch of Kinetic. Pratap Bose, president, Ogilvy Activation, will be the managing director of this new outfit in India.

In January 2005, the WPP Group and Group M merged the buying operations of Poster Publicity and Portland in the UK. With this merger was born the WPP Group and Group M’s global outdoor unit, Kinetic, to serve the out of home (OOH) requirements for both Group M and O&M clients. Subsequently, Kinetic commenced its operations in North America, Germany, Hungary, France and Spain, among other countries, and now India, after a year of its launch.

Eric Newnham, global CEO, Kinetic, explains, “For us, the first six months of Kinetic were focused on completing the merger and putting together the renaming and ownership details. It’s only in the past six months that we have actually started operations. So, to launch operations in India now seems to be reasonable, considering some of the complexities of the Indian market.”

In India, the four brands of the WPP Group that will work independently under the Kinetic umbrella include Ogilvy Landscapes, Portland Outdoor, Wall Street David and Poster Publicity International.

Newnham remarks that the concept behind Kinetic is reaching people on the move. But one would think outdoor was on the decline, with the primary focus of advertisers still lingering on television.

“You will be surprised to know,” clarifies Newnham, “that in mature markets, the popularity of television is on a decline. In India, too, digital services and mobile technology is catching on in a major way. One can, after studying the consumer and his demographics, give more focused solutions via OOH.”

Ashutosh Srivastava, CEO, Group M, South Asia, says, “We will bring in technologies such as ‘Tagit’ to India, which can be used to customise offerings, measure effectiveness, and make the outdoor site more interactive We also plan to use Bluetooth in a major way.”

Kinetic will have a total of six tools/ functions. These include Hi Resolution (handling the print and production part), Transzformer (specialising in ambient media and innovative techniques), One Zero One (dealing with digital services such as touch screens and interactive media), Spank (the one to one interactivity function), Immediate Intelligence (the planning unit of Kinetic) and the Worldwide Group (WWG), which will serve the global needs of the company’s various clients. WWG aims to service media savvy clients who are looking at launching global as well as regional campaigns.

“This will help Indian clients who wish to go global,” remarks Bose on WWG. Bose also claims that creativity will be the hallmark of Kinetic in India. “We will use every way of connecting with the consumer, be it guerrilla advertising or using the space on the staircases in malls.”

In the next 18-24 months, Kinetic aims to obtain 70 per cent of the market share of the total outdoor business in India.

Some of the clientele that Kinetic serves globally include British Airways, BBC, Visa, Tommy Hilfiger and Estee Lauder.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!

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