Campaign India Agency Report Card 2011: Lintas Media Group

Ownership: IPG

Key Personnel: Lynn de Souza, chairman & Group CEO, Sudha Natrajan, deputy CEO, Lintas Media Group, NP Sathyamurthy, CEO, Karishma Initiative, Hemanth Shah, MD, Lintas Initiative OOH, Premjeet Sodhi, president, Collaborative, Himanshu Shah, EVP, Finance

Account won: 3M (Digital Media),  Almond Board of California, Alpari India, Citizen Watches, DSP Blackrock MF, Eveready Industries Ltd., GE Healthcare, Jockey, Lacs Magnum, Matix Fertilisers, Maxrange Retail Private Limited, Medplus Smart Shop, Metro Cash & Carry, National Jute Board, Planet Retail, Ralson Tyres, Samsonite (Retained), Sony Electronics (Retained), SREI Infrastructure, Usha Shriram, Betfair (Digital Media), Woodland (Digital Media), Modi Revlon (Digital Media) 

Account lost: Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Tata Mutual Fund (resigned), Policy Bazaar.com (resigned)

The big stories for Lintas Media Group this year would be retaining the Sony Electronics and Samsonite accounts. Besides these, the agency also got itself the HUL and Nokia outdoor business, by virtue of the completion of its acquisition of Aaren Initiative Outdoor, of which Hemanth Shah continued to be managing director. New people who joined were Raghav Subramanian, COO, Kaacon Sethi, president, LinTV and Limelight, S Muthukumar, SVP, South, Ashish Limaye, VP, Limelight, Patrick Gomes, VP, Biju Menon, VP, Digital, Vivek Bahadur, head (West), Lintas Initiative Outdoor. The jury felt that while it had been a better year than last, the loss of ITC was yet to be compensated for, and we hope to see that correction in 2012.
How Campaign India rates the agency: 7

How Lintas Media Group rates itself: the agency declined to rate itself this year
Highlights of the year:

1. Complete acquisition of 50% stake of JV partner in Aaren Initiative Outdoor, with clients like HUL and Nokia. Agency name changed to Lintas Initiative, management unchanged under MD Hemanth Shah
2. Relaunch of LinTV and launch of Limelight, under Kaacon Sethi. Three serials produced and aired on GEC and news channels in the year.
3. Unprecedented 23 new account wins, including four digital additions.
4. Retention of the Rs 300 crore Sony Electronics in India, which moved to OMD in the rest of Asia.
5. Retention of Samsonite Group in a four way pitch against Madison, Vivaki and Group M.
6. The year has been one of chasing much higher extraction rates than usual, which resulted in a 17 percent revenue growth and 26 percent margin growth. The team has expanded to 286 people with the addition of senior resources across the board.

The agency has remained shy of awards,  however its first foray into the OOH awards space fetched a
killing in gold awards for Campaign of the year for Nokia.