Twelve agencies short-listed for final round of Indian pitch

Indian, earlier known as Indian Airlines, has short-listed 12 agencies for its final presentation round scheduled for December 15, 2006. As agencyfaqs! had reported earlier, Indian was on the lookout for full service ad agencies for its recently renamed avatar. The ad spends are pegged at over Rs 20 crore.

The 12 short-listed agencies are Everest Brand Solutions, FCB-Ulka, Bates Enterprise, JWT, Lowe, Leo Burnett, Adfactors Advertising, Interpublicity, Mudra, Rediffusion DY&R, RK Swamy/BBDO and Triton.

Currently, four agencies are on the panel for Indian, RK Swamy/BBDO, Adfactors Advertising, Bates Enterprise and Mode Advertising. As can be observed, all the incumbents, except Mode, have been short-listed. Since the two-year contract with these agencies was about to expire, Indian decided to call for a pitch. A total of 50 applications (including concept notes) were received and evaluated, and 12 of them finally short-listed.

Indian does not have a separate media AOR because the media departments of its ad agencies used to do the job. This rule will apply now as well, so no separate media agencies have been invited.

Indian is looking for agencies that have national operations with offices in Mumbai and New Delhi and with the appropriate creative and media functions to handle campaigns for both India and abroad. They should also have had billings in excess of Rs 30 crore per year for the last three years. Further, the agencies should have worked for more than five years for a client in the aviation or service industry.

It is likely that Indian, which is known for having around four agencies on its panel, will stick to the same number this time, too. For the record, RK Swamy/BBDO played a key role in the recent rebranding of Indian Airlines to Indian, including drafting the strategy and designing its logo.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!