Campaign India Agency Report Card: Maxus

Campaign India Team, 15 December, 2009

Mumbai

Type of agency: Media
Company ownership: WPP
Key personnel: Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, Group M, Ajit Varghese, MD, Kartik Sharma, GM West, Mausumi Kar, GM North, Sanchayeeta Verma as GM, South, Priti Murthy, GM Insights,Unny R, Head of Maxus Digital
Accounts won: Nokia, Colors, Red Bull, Rediff.com, ICI Paints
Accounts lost: Britannia, NDTV Imagine, Walt Disney Television International

The year was not so much about what it won but about what it managed to retain. Vodafone,  who handed over its ?800 million media business to OMD globally, decided to continue its association with Maxus in India. Nokia also retained Maxus as its media agency in India despite aligning its account with Aegis’s media arm, Carat, globally.
While it also managed to add on clients such as Colors, Red Bull and rediff.com, it suffered the loss of the Britannia account to Madison Media.
The agency made a raft of senior level appointments including Sanchayeeta Verma, to fill the GM post in the South left vacant by Hariharan Vishwanath. Maxus also appointed Vidyadhar Kale to the post of client leader for Vodafone.. Sidharth Parashar was brought in as national trading head, moving from Group M. Krishna Kumar Revanur joined Maxus Bangalore as client leader.
Maxus had a good showing at Cannes with two Bronze Lions for the ‘20 Million Experiences’  for Tata Sky and ‘Midas Touch’ for Nokia India, respectively. Scoring 70 points, Maxus stood second in the Emvies with two Golds, three Silvers and two Bronzes. Innovative work for Vodafone continued as the agency got all 29 Vodafone Zoozoo commercials aired back to back in a single commercial break across 15 channels.
Whether or not Nokia and Vodafone bring on board globally aligned agencies is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure: for this year, it is a winner.

Campaign Score: 9
 
How MAXUS rates itself: 8

Maxus continued its journey of coming into being and again emerged as one of the top three agencies , both in performance and product. For a second year in a row, Maxus emerged as the No. 2 agency at Emvies and most of all managed two metals at Cannes in 2009, a first for Group M in India. Amongst the biggest coup of the year, Maxus continues to work on Nokia and Vodafone business in India in spite of the business aligning with different agencies globally after a much contested pitch.  With almost no exits at senior level – Maxus in 2009 continued with its less than 10% attrition rate overall. Additionally, Vidyadhar Kale has joined Maxus as Vodafone client leader and Rajendra Dwivedi has joined back as new business development head. Given the slowdown in 2009 and large base, Maxus will end the year with 10%+ growth. Growth engine continues to be increased with 360-degree solutions to clients especially digital and activation/ entertainment and sports tie ups.