Campaign India Agency Report Card: Lintas Media Group

Type of agency: Media
Company ownership: IPG
Key personnel: Lynn De Souza chairman and CEO, N P Sathyamurthy president and COO, Sudha Natarajan president and COO, Premjeet Sodhi chief planning officer
Accounts won Etisalat, Win Medicare OTC, Hind Sanitaryware, Mannapuram Finance, Oman Airways, Bank of Maharashtra (empanelment), Add Gel
Accounts lost Idea Cellular, PVR Cinemas, Luxor Parker

Lintas Media Group invested in senior talent this year. Himanshu Shah joined as finance head and senior VP in the beginning of the year. This was followed by Amit Ray who got on-board in February to head the ITC collective and the Kolkata office as president and COO. Later in the year, LMG set up another agency, Karishma Initiative and hired Amita Karwal to head its Delhi operations as executive vice-president. Meanwhile Sudha Natrajan moved to Delhi, and N P Sathyamurthy took charge of Karishma Initiative nationally. Soon after, Bosco D’Mello joined the group from Reliance Capital to take charge of LMG’s Mumbai office as executive vice president. Besides these, the agency recruited digital specialists and senior planners at every office.

From the business standpoint, it lost the Idea Cellular account.

The Etisalat win is yet to translate into noticeable revenues. It also lost Luxor Parker and PVR Cinemas, but won Add Gel writing instruments. It retained Samsonite in India (globally re-aligned to other networks), the Canara Bank empanelment and the Fortis account (formerly Wockhardt). Despite the wins, the Idea loss will hurt.

Campaign Score: 7

 

How LINTAS MEDIA GROUP rates itself: 9

We’ve been fit as a fiddle :-) and nicely in the black, thank you very much. Once again, I would give us a rating of 9, even though you reduced it to 8 last year :-). It hasn’t been an easy year. Financially, we did well and will meet our targets comfortably. We won new business to make up for the slight dent made by losing Idea Cellular. Even in this slowdown year, all our large clients, including in Auto, FMCG and telecom rewarded us with healthy bonuses, which reiterates my faith in our ‘performance’  platform. We continue to deliver where it matters most - on the client’s balance sheet. R3 ranked us the best performing agency, and RECMA classifies LMG as a market leader. However, emotionally, the Idea loss did hurt, since the process lacked integrity and transparency (even as the leading incumbent, no one at ABG did the courtesy of meeting us or allowing us to pitch). But our people bounced back very quickly and with even greater resolve, and I believe this is a true indication of ‘real wealth’.