Ambience Publicis bags Spinach retail stores

Following a multi-agency pitch, Ambience Publicis has bagged the creative duties for Spinach, the retail venture of Vadhawan Food Retail. The other agencies in the fray were Bates Enterprise and Mudra.

Confirming this development to agencyfaqs!, Partha Sinha, chief strategic officer, Ambience Publicis, says, “Spinach is a retail food outlet which has the best of both worlds – the neighbourhood ‘kirana’ store as well as an international food outlet.”

Currently, Spinach has around seven outlets in Mumbai, but by the end of 2006, the company plans to have around 60 such outlets in the metropolis.

Dippankar S Halder, CEO, Spinach, says the company plans to have 1,500 stores in 93 cities across the country with a turnover of around Rs 7,000 crore.

The size of the business is estimated to be Rs 8 crore for the initial year. According to Halder, the company plans to spend around 0.75 per cent of its total turnover on advertising communication, but the spends for the first year will be slightly higher.

Elaborating on the reasons for selecting Ambience as its creative agency, Halder says, “We were impressed with the agency’s consumer insights and its excellence in creativity.”

He adds, “Unlike other sectors such as FMCG, retail doesn’t have a set history of communication strategy. Innovation is the main key and Ambience certainly has shown its expertise in that.”

Talking about the communication needs for the brand, Halder says, “The first challenge is to have a definition to the brand, and then to promote it to increase footfalls at the stores.”

The company hasn’t decided on a media agency yet, but as Halder says, the business might move to one of the Publicis group media agencies as and when required.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!