Prajjal Saha & Devina Joshi
Advertising

O&M focuses on the three Ps: Projects, Packaging and Planning

The agency has decided to add depth across all its verticals and it will now focus in particular on acquiring project based businesses in addition to regular ones

O&M has quite a few aces up its sleeve for 2006. First of all, the agency has helped the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to present its case before the ICC and bag the hosting rights for the Cricket World Cup in 2011.

Buoyed by this success, O&M is now planning to take up more such special projects.

For another specific project, O&M is partnering with GVK, which recently bagged the contracts for modernising the Mumbai airport. The agency will help GVK to coordinate with various bodies and also in its communication for the project.

O&M is also planning to get aggressive on the specialised designing function, be it packaging or logo designing. The agency is learnt to have hired fresh talent from the National Institute of Design to work on the new initiative.

“It’s not that we weren’t working on packaging or logo designs earlier, it’s just that now we plan to do it more aggressively and probably charge a premium price, which many agencies have been deprived of,” says JC Giri, president, O&M, Mumbai. “The idea is to become a true brand custodian for our clients.”

“We already provide our clientele with true 360-degree solutions, it’s now time to add more depth to our existing services,” Giri continues.

Giri is quite enthused by the progress that O&M has made in this regard. Clients are now more open to using multiple services offered across all verticals, rather than only advertising. When asked to divulge the names of these clients, Giri revealed that the number of clients using more than three of its services has quadrupled in recent years.

So, what else is on the cards for the agency this year? “Channel planning,” Giri responds.

Apart from recruiting more people, O&M’s planning function (currently headed by Madhukar Sabnavis) will be expanded to include the media habits of consumers. “Usually, the planning team in an agency comes up with insights about the marketplace and consumer behaviour,” Giri explains. “We hope to take that a step further and do specialised studies on the media habits of consumers.”

The idea here is to give a greater thrust to the media consumption habits of the general public, which will help dig deeper into the all-too elusive ‘consumer mind-space’.

When asked what specific sectors O&M is looking at in terms of acquiring new businesses this year, Giri responds evasively, “Well, we’re working in a lot of categories, so let’s see.”

“Ogilvy Signscapes is doing in-depth research on consumer behaviour in the retail environment,” he adds almost as an afterthought. Is that a clue?

© 2006 agencyfaqs!

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