Campaign India Agency Report Card 2010: Euro RSCG

Type of agency: Advertising

Company ownership: Havas

Key personnel: Suman Srivastava, CEO, Satbir Singh, CCO, Sandeep Gupta, CFO, Sushant Panda, Shavon Barua, Sanjoy Gupta, directors, Rajesh Bhatia, Ashok Lalla, Narayan Devanathan, skill leaders

Accounts won: IBM – digital, INQ Mobile - advertising, activation, digital, Bharat Petroleum MAK lubricants - advertising, activation, India Times – advertising, Govt of Gabon - SEZ promotion – advertising, Max New York Life - Digital, CRM and activation, Sanofi Aventis new brands - Amaryl, Daonil, Cetapin, Milkana - advertising, Baskin Robbins - advertising

Accounts lost: Dainik Bhaskar

Euro RSCG started the year with a development on the global level, when the agency found itself on the Unilever digital roster. It was in the news for campaigns for HDFC Bank’s ‘My Favourite’ offering, Geojit BNP Paribas, Max New York Life ‘Shiksha Plus’, Bharat Petroleum corporate campaign, MAK lubricants, and INQ Mobile. Narayan Devanathan was promoted to chief strategy officer, and Sid Bindra returned as executive creative director at Euro RSCG Delhi. Rajan Patel, director for Mumbai, left the agency and was replaced by Shavon Barua. Havas acquired a majority stake in digital services company Acmic Interactive, which was renamed Euro RSCG Matrix. And that was it. There was no major development out of the agency post September, and no awards news through the year. The agency hopes to be “back with a bang” in the awards scene in 2011.

How Campaign India rates the agency: 6 

How Euro RSCG rates itself: 8

This year we acquired a digital agency called Acmic Interactive which was renamed as Euro RSCG 4D Matrix. This added significant new capabilities to the agency in the area of search, digital media and digital marketing. We expect Euro RSCG 4D Matrix to add 20% to our top line over the next 3 years. We also grew our digital production business called Euro RSCG 24x7. Overall our business grew organically by more than 20% on the top line and much more on the bottom line. This is not including the new acquisition.This has been a good year for us. Of particular satisfaction to us has been the growth of our non advertising business. Max New York Life showed a great deal of confidence in us by making us their digital agency, their CRM agency and their activation agency. We have been their advertising agency for over two years already. This was a vindication of our “Power of One” strategy. Similarly, INQ mobile gave us their integrated business. . Of equal satisfaction has been the growth in our current clients. Bharat Petroleum gave us their MAK lubricants business in addition to their corporate business. Similarly Reckitt Benckiser added two more brands to our portfolio - Dr. Scholls and Durex. HDFC Bank increased its level of business through us. And Sanofi Aventis assigned more brands to us. We also did well in the area of thought leadership. We published a global study on social media and on youth that included India. Locally we did a study on attitudes of Bharat vs India that has been well received by our clients.