O&M, Bangalore, on a roll

O&M, Bangalore, is on a roll. It has recently bagged the Rs 3-crore advertising account of Prestige Builders from Orchard Advertising. More importantly, it has managed to find a place in the recently released Gunn Report of AdAge magazine as one of the two star offices of the O&M network in India; the other being O&M, Mumbai. This makes O&M, Bangalore, and O&M, Mumbai, the only agency offices from India to find a mention in the Gunn Report 2001. The Report also identifies Singapore and Bangkok as the two other star offices in the O&M network.

Interestingly, the Gunn Report has identified Leo Burnett (globally) as the top agency network for 2001, where 23 of its offices together won 130 points, beating traditional favourites like BBDO and DDB. Unfortunately, Leo Burnett India hasn't been able to make it to the Gunn Report.

"This recognition is not the sole pointer to what O&M Bangalore has been up to. The work from our office has been consistently hitting a high note at various forums," says an obviously proud Prateek Srivastava, vice-president and branch head, O&M, Bangalore. Check this out: The Birla 3M Post It campaign was perhaps the most awarded print campaign in Asia last year. At the Asian AdFest, it won four golds including the Grand Prix for the best campaign. While none of the campaigns from India won any award at Cannes last year, some Indian campaigns did feature as finalists at Cannes. And O&M, Bangalore, had the maximum number of finalist nominations from India. "We had three finalists including Post It, Cibavision and Weekender Kids," adds Srivastava.

Alongside, Srivastava indicated, the Bangalore office has been pitching rather aggressively for new businesses. Prestige Builders, the latest addition to O&M, Bangalore's client list, is a Bangalore-based company, which is in the business of real estate development. Srivastava claims that it was the result of ‘a proactive pitch'. The only other contender was the incumbent agency.

"We won the business by demonstrating clear consumer understanding with regard to property buying, people's wants, needs and buying parameters. We presented campaigns for two residential projects Prestige Monte Carlo and Prestige Lang Leigh, which are very different from the existing real estate advertising. The campaign was supported with guerrilla advertising ideas, direct marketing and innovative messaging," he said.

O&M, Bangalore's clients have also given the agency a lot to cheer about. In a nationwide consumer survey conducted by IMAGES and ORG-Marg to identify the most popular fashion brands in the country, two brands handled by O&M won the award in their respective categories: Allen Solly for Menswear and Weekender Kids for Kidswear.

And all its hard work is showing too. O&M's Bangalore branch happens to be the largest advertising agency in Bangalore with a capitalised billing of over Rs 140 crore. Some of the major long-standing clients of the branch include Titan, HLL (Taaza, A1 Tea, Bru, Delux Green Label Coffee), Madura Garments (Allen Solly and Louis Philippe), IBM, SAP, Weekender Kids and Deepam Silks. © 2002 agencyfaqs!