Campaign India Agency Report Card: BBH India

Type of agency: Advertising
Company ownership: 49% stake owned by Publicis Groupe
Key personnel: Priti Nair; Partha Sinha; Subhash Kamath, managing partners, Rishit Mehta,finance director
Accounts won: Marico, Rediff.com, TVS Motors (new brands), VAT 69, L&T, World Gold Council, Star CJ, Vaseline
Accounts lost: None

It was a positive first year for BBH.  Marico was the first to align some of its key brands with the agency. rediff.com, TVS, Mediker and Star CJ followed. As did Vaseline, from a global re-alignment. Significant hires included Leo Burnett’s Arvind Krishnan,  Publicis Ambience’s Sanjay Sharma,  O&M’s  Rajshekar Patil, Grey’s Siddesh Sapte and O&M’s Shonali Shetty.  Euro RSCG’s Dhiren Amin also joined BBH.
Other than rediff.com,  all the other business wins are work in progress so these are not available in the public domain, yet. BBH has rolled out its three-year-old engagement planning discipline in India and Disney’s Chandrashekhar was roped in to head the arm. Given that this is BBH India’s first year, the key objective for the top management would have been to get the right infrastructure and key talent in place, besides ensuring that the agency had a steady stream of business wins. From those three standpoints alone, it’s been a good first year for the agency.

Campaign Score: 7
 
How BBH INDIA rates itself: 6

One of the most respected agencies in the world, the launch of its India operations on November 19, 2008 was a high profile one. As Nigel Bogle, group chairman and co-founder said, “You are what you start”.   Since then, it’s been an exciting year for us at BBH India. Starting from scratch, forming the company, setting up a new office, hiring talent, pitching for new business and overall, creating a solid organisation in a very short period of time has been a fantastic challenge.  The results are evident. Seven prestigious clients signed on, two brand consulting projects already underway, a 100% pitch winning rate, induction of Engagement Planning as a core function, and some exciting talent across functions already on board. Financially, we’re on track with our business plans, and all our investments (in people, processes and systems) have borne fruit. We’re extremely happy with the way things have turned out. We believe we have some of the best people in the business and we’re proud of all the clients who have reposed their faith in us. However, we believe it’s all about creating great work, and we’re now focused on consolidating our brands to achieve that.