Dr Batra’s and Dentsu Marcom in the blame game

It seems to be the season of controversies. After the STAR India-India TV fallout, here comes another one, this time from the ad world.

On February 2, agencyfaqs! carried a report on Euro RSCG bagging the Dr Batra’s Positive Health Clinic account, taking it away from the incumbent agency, Dentsu Marcom. From the client’s end, Rekha Rao, head, corporate communications, Dr Batra’s Positive Health Clinic, said that they were ‘dissatisfied’ with the way Dentsu Marcom was handling the brand. “So, we had to tell the agency that we could not continue with them,” she said.

But Aashish Dabral, vice-president, Dentsu Marcom, has something else to say: “We didn’t lose the business; we walked out on our own. Two things led to that. Firstly, we had a vision for the brand that the client refused to understand. For such a brand, it is not only crucial to get footfalls, it is also important to position the brand in a way that is different from the regular ‘before-after’ approach. And this is extremely necessary for, otherwise, the brand will stagnate. But the client wasn’t too open to trying out alternate media and ideas.”

“Secondly, we were also burdened with the fact that our payments had not been cleared and financials were mounting up,” explains Dabral. “We thought things would improve, but over a period of time, they didn’t. So, we were left with no option but to part ways.”

However, Rao from Dr Batra’s Clinic says that her organisation is being falsely accused of being bad paymasters. “We have been very fair at our end,” she says. “We gave the agency around seven months to take our brand forward. When we were disappointed with their performance, we were the ones to ask them to part ways with us. In fact, I have proof of some e-mails that I sent to them, mentioning their termination.”

For the record, Dentsu was the agency for Dr Batra’s Clinic from July 1, 2005, to January 31, 2006.

Rao adds, “I really wish things had gone better. As far as the payments are concerned, the bills for the month of December were presented to us around January 12, 2006. We have a 30-day credit period to make the payment, which hasn’t expired yet. So, how can we be outstanding in their dues? We have issued post-dated cheques for the January payment. The entire figure for the two months amounts to around Rs 2.85 crore.”

Rao also claims that Dentsu Marcom tried to patch things up after it came to know that Dr Batra’s Clinic was planning to shift its account elsewhere. “But later, due to the payment issue, they even told us they would file a complaint with the Advertising Agencies Association of India if we didn’t cough up the money.”

Dabral of Dentsu Marcom clarifies, “It’s a matter of ethics. It is the natural thing for any client to clear pending dues before taking on another agency. It’s as basic as that. And when the financial amount kept mounting, it became so high that telling the client that we are considering filing a complaint with the Advertising Agencies Association of India was the natural course of action for any agency in our position.”

Dabral maintains that his agency had kept quiet about the whole issue, until Rao spoke openly about it to agencyfaqs! in the February 2 report.

He claims that it was Dentsu Marcom that fired the final shot. He says, “We weren’t convinced about or satisfied with the way things were going. When there was lack of mutual confidence, we felt it was best to part ways.”

And so the debate goes on. The one thing both sides probably agree on is in wishing that things hadn’t turned out this way.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!