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The year started well for Carat Media and the agency has continued its winning streak. Carat has just added the businesses of Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), Sahara Computers, Ira Diamonds and 555 Detergents. In all these wins give the agency an addition of Rs 41 crore to its total billings. Given the set of accounts that the agency won in January 2006 and March 2006 - Carat had added business worth Rs 53 crore in the first three months itself. If the international win of Adidas and Reebok were to be added to this list Carat Media has shot well past the Rs 100 crore mark in new businesses in 2006.
The ad spends of MEMG is in the vicinity of Rs 18 crore. Carat will now be the custodian of all the MEMG business in the various international markets that MEMG operates in and is looking at expanding into. MEMG‘s S Madhusudan, Sr. VP, Marketing informed that they did speak to other agencies before handing the business to Carat. The other agency in the fray was Maxus.
Sahara Computers made its mark in India in June 2005 and had then signed INC Communications and Starcom for its advertising responsibilities. Sahara Computers is pegged in the Rs 15 crore ad spend region. Slightly more modest is Ira Diamonds, the ad spends of which is in the vicinity of Rs 8 crore. Rupak Sen, CEO, Ira Diamonds informed that they were in talks with two agencies before moving on to Carat. He restrains from divulging the name of the second agency. The incumbent on the business however was Starcom.
As to why Carat he said, "The agency was thinking on the same lines as we were and they brought in a lot of innovation in the solutions that they brought to the table, which is much required in this category right now, given the increased competition." 555 Detergents, as is known, is one of the oldest brands in the country and is in the process of reviving the brand and its portfolio.
For Carat Media, this is continuation of significant amount of good news. In January, the agency bagged the duties of Pantaloons Retail Home Solutions, Zicom and VRS Foods, which together formed billings worth Rs 25 crore. In March, 2006 Carat Media added the businesses from a cross section of categories comprising Luxottica, 3G and Tulip and Escorts Tractors.
As compared to the Rs 85 crore new business mark that Carat had achieved in 2005, the first six months touching a figure of Rs 100 crore alredy is sure good news for the agency.
Speaking on the overall improvement in the agency‘s performance, Charles Berley Jenarius, Group CEO, Carat Media said, "What is working in favour of the agency is the mixture of strong organic growth coupled with robust new business wins. I think we are bearing the fruits of the seeds that we sowed in 2005. Following the setbacks of 2004, in 2005 we worked very hard on all fronts of our operations. With these results, we are encouraged about the fact that the agency is on the right track."
Jenarius also threw light on the people focus at Carat in the last year. He pointed out, "In 2005, we added a few key people to strengthen the existing management team and they have settled well in their responsibilities." Some of the people who came on board include N P Sathyamurthy (Chief Planning Officer), Naman Sharma (Director Research and Analytics -SPI) and Ramesh Chandran (VP Investments).
In addition, the agency also soft launched Communication Planning agency Deep Blue and the Econometric Modeling offering SPI in India in 2005. As to what the future holds, Jenarius said, "2006 will witness the evolution of Carat from a media agency to a communications agency with media at its heart." At present, he doesn‘t elaborate much on that.
Carat is part of the Aegis Group plc, the world‘s largest media-led marketing services company in the world.
For further information, please contact :
Charles Berley Jenarius
Group CEO
Mobile : 09810009266
Tel: Direct: 91-22-2498 3973 (Mumbai office)
Direct: 91-11-4163 2289 (Delhi office)
Email id: charles.jenarius@carat.com
