Campaign India Agency Report Card: Madison Media

Type of agency: Media
Company ownership: Independent
Key personnel: Sam Balsara, Chairman and MD, Madison World; Punitha Arumugam, CEO – Madison Media Group; Basabdatta Choudhury, CEO – Madison Media Plus, CEO -  Designate Platinum Media; Neelkamal Sharma, COO – Madison Media Alpha, Sr. VP – International; Vanita Keswani, COO – Madison Media Sigma; C R Mallikarjundas, COO – Madison Media Infinity, Mumbai and director – MMRC; Praveen Sharma, COO – Madison Media Plus; Rajiv Gopinath, COO – Madison Media Infinity, Delhi and Bangalore; Harsha Joshi, COO – media buying & content
Accounts won: Britannia, Spice Mobiles, NDTV Imagine, NACO (National Aids Control Orgn), WSG (Wigan & Leigh)
Accounts lost: None

A sedate year for Madison, with the high point being the win at Britannia. The year saw a slew of new divisions and competencies being launched, with MMRC becoming a seperate ‘brand’ and winning awards. Work on the BBC World Service televison account brought accolades at Cannes, a significant milestone for the agency.
This year seems to have been one of consolidation, with not much effort going into pitches.
Strong foundation, but the Britannia win remains the only big win.
Sam Balsara’s being selected as the awardee of the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award will certainly reinforce the Madison brand.

Campaign Score: 8
 
How MADISON MEDIA rates itself: 8

2009 – a year plagued with negative economic sentiment and dropping ad spends, saw Madison Media emerge a stronger brand than ever. We strengthened our presence in the Bangalore market by winning the Britannia AOR. With Britannia and the existing businesses of Tata Tea, TVS, Levis, Acer, Bharti Axa, Caf? Coffee Day etc, we now have a formidable presence in Bangalore. Our second media brand, Platinum Media was launched and fledged its wings, winning the NDTV Imagine AOR  in Mumbai and Spice Mobiles and WSG in Delhi.
MMRC, our research centre came into its own with  3 of the 4 shortlisted entries in media research in the  Emvies and with two of them winning. We got rewarded for our “communication” expertise, by getting international recognition at Cannes and Festival of Media for the work on BBC WST. We continued to establish our dominance in new media by continuing to win awards. Our existing client partnerships emerged stronger with our clients continuing to re-affirm their faith  in us and not looking beyond us, especially in a year that can be termed the “year of pitches” for most agencies.  So overall 2009 has been a year of consistency, consolidation and expansion for Madison Media.