Campaign India Agency Report Card: MEC

Campaign India Team, 18 December, 2008

Mumbai

Type of agency: Media
Company ownership: WPP
Key personnel: Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, Group M, South Asia, Shubha George, MD, T Gangadhar, MD, Zubin Tatna,national director, communications planning, Geetha Shiv, national director, MEC Media Lab, Rajneesh Chaturvedi, national director, MEC Interactions, Ashish Bhatnagar, GM-Delhi, Anita Bose, general manager - GroupM Team LG, VR Padmanabhan, GM- Chennai
Accounts won: General Insurance (D2C), Tata AIG, Zee Tamil, Nalli Silks, CRI Pumps, Michelin, Chevron,
Auto Desk, Bilcare, LG Interactive
Accounts lost: Times Internet, Diageo, BPCL

This WPP agency is possibly the quietest one, even though they have enough reasons to shout out from the roof tops. MEC, in 2008, has been wooing local marketers and have bagged General Insurance, Tata AIG, Zee Tamil, Nalli Silks and CRI Pumps.

The year saw the agency lure some high-level talent into its fold including T Gangadhar (Gangs) from SET who joined the agency as managing director.

Following the successful global launch of MEC Access in October 2007, MEC India also combined the resources of its sport, entertainment and cause marketing businesses to form a new specialist division, MEC Access India. Rajneesh Chaturvedi joined MEC Access as National Director, moving from Motivator - another GroupM agency.

Besides management and implementation of IPL sponsorships for two of its clients, Citi and Jaypee, MEC Access has been active in the entertainment space. To beef up operations at MEC Interactions, its digital arm, the agency has roped in Vamsi Vanka as National Director. Manas Mishra, MEC Mumbai GM, moved to Mudra Connext as EVP.

The agency rounded off the year with an impressive Tata AIG account and General Insurance account wins. They lost BPCL, Times Internet and Diageo (that they held with Lodestar) in 2008.  It recently bagged a Silver – Best Media Innovation (Cinema) at EMVIES 2008  for Nivea Soft Stay Simply Beautiful.

Campaign Score: 7

How MEC rates itself: 9

MEC is in robust health and continue to have a voracious appetite for aggressive growth - on the back of  best-in-class strategic planning, flawless implementation and seamlessly-integrated specialized services. We believe our philosophy of ‘Active Engagement’ is even more relevant in challenging times like today.  2008 has been the year of diversification and saw the launch of MEC Access and MEC Interaction - Special Units created to provide focused expertise in the areas of sports sponsorship/ activation/ entertainment and digital. Our focus on communications planning and implementation (CP&I) and on MEC Media Lab (for high-end analytics) ensured that we continued to offer a superior and differentiated product to our clients.  We have invested in personnel to be future-proof.