Biprorshee Das
Advertising

Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals awards creative mandate to Percept H

The agency won the account after a multi-agency pitch that involved about six agencies; TBWA India and Xebec Communications are the incumbent agencies on the business.

Percept H has won the creative duties for Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals Corporation following a multi-agency pitch that was called a couple of months ago. The business will be handled by the Pune branch of the agency.

About six agencies were invited to pitch for the business before two agencies were shortlisted for the final round, including Percept H. The creative duties were earlier shared by TBWA India and Xebec Communications.

Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals awards creative mandate to Percept H
The agency will take care of the creative strategy of Pune based Deepak Fertilizers across its interests in chemicals, agribusiness and speciality retail, which the company recently forayed into with Ishanya, a design centre and specialty mall for interiors and exteriors in Pune.
Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals awards creative mandate to Percept H
Confirming the development to afaqs!, Jacob Zachariah, vice-president and branch head, Pune, Percept H, says, "If you look at the client's presence, it is spread across the rural and urban markets. Our expertise in both segments helps us to come with a strong strategy that we converted into creative to present to the client."

"We were essentially impressed by the simplicity of the agency's strategy, which was overall best suited to meet our current needs," says Vivek Kher, senior vice-president, strategic communication, Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals Corporation.

"We are completely geared to grow at a much faster pace than we have in the past. With Percept, we will be able to use our communication to further enhance our brand value as it helps contribute to our marketing push," Kher adds.

By and large, the company has been rather conservative and low key with communication in the past, with limited media presence. Going forward, it sees advertising and brand communication as a strategic marketing tool and plans greater media visibility in the next few months.

While both Zachariah and Kher did not comment on the ad spends, sources peg it at about Rs 12 crore.

The fertiliser industry has been a rather regulated sector so far. However, with the recent part de-regularisation and talks of further relaxations in the future, fertiliser companies are likely to get more aggressive in terms of pricing and marketing going forward.

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