Neha Kalra
Media

MPG picks up businesses worth Rs 30 crore

MPG ends the year with two new businesses, Ibibo.com and Marc Sanitaryware

The Havas Group’s media arm, MPG, is ending the year on a high note. It has just added two new businesses to its kitty, Ibibo.com and Marc Sanitaryware. The two businesses together account for Rs 30 crore.

MPG picks up businesses worth Rs 30 crore
Anita Nayyar
Anita Nayyar, CEO, MPG India, says, “What could have been a better way to end the year than this! We are looking at consolidating our business for the year ending.”

MPG will be in charge of the media duties for MIH India’s projects, one of which is Ibibo.com; the other two are OneFamily.com and Dwaar.com. MIH India is part of the South African media group, Naspers. The creative agency on the account is Draft-FCB-Ulka.

Ibibo.com functions on the core proposition of finding and discovering new people across India. OneFamily.com enables extended families to connect and manage their family network. Dwaar.com is a collection of verticals that enables users to search and compare across various categories.

Ibibo.com was founded in August 2006, and the product had a limited release in January 2007. During its beta release, the website garnered a registered base of more than one million people for its various social applications. Currently, Ibibo.com has more than four million blog posts, 250,000 questions and 500,000 answers, 130,000 polls and 15,000 opinions.

In a short span of time, Ibibo.com has become one of the fastest growing Internet based social media businesses in India. Ibibo.com’s unique visitor rank for the period ending November 2007, as per Comscore, was 16; it is ranked the No. 3 conversational media site (social networking), after legacy global sites such as Orkut and Blogger.

MPG picks up businesses worth Rs 30 crore
Vivek Bahl
Vivek Bahl, general manager, community marketing, Ibibo.com, says, “From amongst the agencies that we scrutinised for the media duties, MPG was able to offer us solutions to utilise our resources optimally.”

The television commercial (TVC) for Ibibo.com is currently being screened in movie halls and on Hindi and English news channels, STAR Movies, STAR World and HBO; in 2008, the TVC will be seen across regional, music and Hindi cinema channels, reveals Bahl. He adds that the multimedia campaign will unfold gradually, over a period of time, across various media.

Marc Sanitaryware competes against brands such as Jaguar, Parryware, Ess Ess, Crabtree (from the Havells Group) and Nova. Marc has a turnover of Rs 200 crore in the Rs 2,000 crore sanitary fittings market, where the organised players have an average turnover of Rs 800-900 crore. Marc holds a total market share of 9-10 per cent and an organised market share of around 35 per cent.

MPG picks up businesses worth Rs 30 crore
Sanjay Khanna
Sanjay Khanna, chairman, Marc Sanitaryware, says, “This is the first time we are appointing a formal media agency to look after our media needs – we needed a more professional approach towards our media planning and buying.”

Various local agencies have handled the media duties for Marc until now. The creative is looked after in-house. Till date, the company has been advertising mainly in print, with a bit of television. With MPG on board, the media mix for the brand will not undergo a major change. The first three months will be limited to print advertising, and only then will television be considered, says Khanna.

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