McCann Erickson walks away with Yatra.com

The agency won the business following a multi-agency pitch.

McCann Erickson has won the creative duties of the online travel portal Yatra.com. The agency won the business following a multi-agency pitch. The other agencies in the fray were TBWA/India and Ogilvy India.

The incumbent agency on this account was TBWA/India, which handled the business for close to one-and-a-half years. Prior to TBWA, the creative duties were handled by Rediffusion-Y&R.

Confirming the development to afaqs!, a senior executive at Yatra.com, on conditions of anonymity, says, "TBWA was brought on board to reposition the brand from being a domestic ticket seller, to a complete travel solutions brand. But, with the portal witnessing a growth, we felt we needed a larger agency to carry forward the thought process, 'Creating Happy Travellers'."

Meanwhile, the online portal is also scouting for a media agency. The multi-agency media pitch is currently going on in Delhi. Currently, the Group M promoted media agency Motivator handles the account.

For the record, the online travel portal Yatra.com is backed by several investors including Promod Haque's Silicon Valley-based Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group's Reliance Venture Asset Management, the Raghav Bahl-promoted Television 18 Group, and Intel Capital, the strategic investment arm of Intel. The travel portal claims to provide reservation facility for more than 3,800 hotels across 336 cities in India, and over 90,000 hotels around the world.