Encyclomedia Networks increases its international spread with new offices

The Mumbai-based creative out-of-home agency, Encyclomedia Networks continues to spread its wings overseas. Over the past couple of months, the agency has entered into new JVs and set up offices in Ukraine, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Guatemala. Last year, Encyclomedia had opened offices in Argentina and Australia.

The Mexico office has begun operations with two people. Mukesh Manik, man-in-charge, Encyclomedia Networks, says, "We first visited Mexico in November 2009, and that generated business. But officially, the local office is open since April. The reason for opening here is that it is one of the largest in America; and it has important regional headquarters of brands, which generates business in other Latam countries."

He shares that in Mexico, companies are going all out to differentiate themselves from the competition, especially in OOH. Moreover, since the landscape is cluttered with a huge number of billboards, Encylomedia's creative offerings are well received.

On the other hand, Encyclomedia Ukraine has begun operations with 17 people in the team. It is already working with Money Gram, Castrol, Avon Cosmetics and Maxima Communication, which has clients like MTS (the biggest mobile operator), Lvivskoe Beer, Comfy (electronic supermarkets) and Chumak (food producer).

Val says, "Ukraine is very open for creativity; and Encyclomedia is a big opportunity for us to make our ad market more colourful and attractive."

The team in Central America consists of two people, Scott Meadow and Carlos Lara.

Meadow says, "Here and in many other Latin American locations, there is a growing clutter of communications; and consumers have more product choices. We recognize that this is an opportunity for brands to differentiate their communications and create more stopping power at the moment of purchase."

He adds, "A growing number of brands are recognizing that the concept of making a bigger impact (visually) on consumers can mean advertising less, from a frequency perspective. This is core to the principle of Encyclomedia."

Also, while the Encyclomedia Latam office is based in Argentina with Federico Hirshberg as the president as afaqs! had earlier reported, each country is lead by its own head and Encyclomedia Argentina is headed by Matias Taylor.

Encyclomedia ME, headed by Binladin started its operations in mid-February. This is a JV between Encyclomedia Networks (India) and Tamm Communications.

Binladin says, "In most parts of the Middle East, OOH media is still is in a nascent stage; and creativity with the present spaces is still much to be developed. Taking cue and understanding the gap, I am sure we at Tamm with our new partners, Encyclomedia India would be able to fill that gap with the new entity, Encyclomedia Middle East."

He adds, "Since being exposed to the magic Mukesh and his team creates for brands, whether through high-impact billboards, innovative retail graphics or the realistic fleet graphics they create, I have longed to share their work with the entire ME market. I believe their work would really enhance the local brands' message and elevate the current state of our OOH space."

Binladin feels that the OOH space in the Middle East needs a commercial break; and it makes sense to spend a larger proportion of the advertising budget on OOH, when one has the best possible creative to paste on the media.

Encyclomedia is taking its out-of-the box offerings, such as jump-out billboards, building wraps, vehicle graphics, and several pop formats such as floor, table and window graphics, to these countries.