Campaign India Agency Report Card: Cheil Worldwide

Type of agency: Advertising
Company ownership: Independent
Key personnel:  S Ryu, president, Alok Agarwal, COO, Prathap Suthan, NCD, SW Asia, Bikramjeet Ghosh, ECD
Accounts won: Samsung
Accounts lost: None

While the network undoubtedly remains Samsung’s in-house agency, there were murmurs that Cheil India like Cheil Worldwide may take steps to pitch for some outside significant businesses and evolve into something larger. However, as we go into print, there were no confirmations made by Cheil India’s COO, Alok Agrawal regarding any new significant wins.
It’s been business as usual for the agency in 2009, with the creative team led by Prathap Suthan, churning out work for various new Samsung launches. It rolled out its new ‘water, shock and dust-proof phone’, Samsung Marine B2100.
The agency is in the process of beefing up its BTL team including looking out for someone to lead it, a spot left vacant by Krishan Kant who quit the agency recently.
For an agency that is able to bank upon such an assured chunk of business, Cheil has not made as much of a headway in bagging non-Samsung business as one would have expected the agency to make.

Campaign Score: 5
 
How CHEIL WORLDWIDE rates itself: 7

In  2009, Cheil had a very sharp focus on meticulous planning for every brand launched and backed it with a comprehensive communication solution. Today the brand is the undisputed leader in six of the consumer durable categories. And is also the biggest challenger brand to the big daddy of mobile. Cheil completely ramped-up its retail and activation team. That gave its client the much needed thrust at the ground level and the shop floors. A new initiative by Cheil in ‘09 is in the area of sports. With the first Champions League, Cheil has made its formal entry in sports association. Today the agency has become the  most sought after agency for creative solutions. It’s evident from the quality of talents that it has been able to attract and the performance of its brands.