The much spoken about re-integration of media agencies into the creative agency has been set into motion.
In a significant departure from the norm, MullenLowe Group announced today the entry of MullenLowe Mediahub into the India market with the launch of Lintas Mediahub.
In India, the media agency will operate as a division of MullenLowe Lintas Group’s omnichannel agency, PointNine Lintas. Lintas Mediahub is being launched as a full service media offering for a digitised world, and will offer media strategy, communications planning, media planning and buying across all touch-points, both on and offline. The agency will also include a performance marketing offering and a programmatic buying engine.
The agency's aspirations to compete with standalone media agencies are clear if one goes by the statement of John Moore, the global president, MullenLowe Mediahub. Commenting on the India launch he said, “We are thrilled to launch MullenLowe Mediahub in the India market. Our goal is to take the same successful approach we are using in the US, and other key global markets, leveraging our position as a challenger media shop for challenger brands, and driving an unfair share of attention for those brands. The MullenLowe Lintas Group creative clients have been asking for a media offering for some time and now we can create more powerful and holistic solutions with creative and media under one roof. As a result, our initial strategy is to grow our practice through working with MullenLowe Lintas Group and then eventually winning in media only pitches.”
A company statement said that Lintas Mediahub aims to offer a counterpoint to the current crop of monolithic, volume hungry, singularly data obsessed media agency models. As a part of the omnichannel offering of PointNine Lintas, it is designed to bring creativity and media together.
Speaking of the launch, Vikas Mehta, CEO, PointNine Lintas said, “The separation of creative and media in the past two decades has gradually sucked ideas out of the media business. Media innovations have been largely ‘standardised’ and whilst there are some breakthroughs, they are few and far between. With Lintas Mediahub, we want to bring ideas back to the heart of the media offering. The addition of media capabilities to our service stack brings PointNine Lintas another step closer to our omnichannel vision.”
Lintas Mediahub will be headed by Vidhu Sagar, who joins as National Director – Media, and will be based in Mumbai. Sagar joins from WPP where he was the Business lead at Global Team Blue (GTB) - WPP's integrated agency for Ford Motors. Prior to that he was an EVP at Carat Media India, served as General Manager, FCB‐Ulka Delhi and was also Head of Marketing at India Today Group, amongst other roles.
Sagar said, “It’s a magical combination. Lintas Mediahub will be the perfect amalgam of science and art, seamlessly fusing logic with lateral thinking. We hope to challenge the status quo by adding a layer of imaginative thinking that’s missing from the offering of most media agencies today.”
Lintas Mediahub will offer its services to clients across agencies of MullenLowe Lintas Group in India – Lowe Lintas, Mullen Lintas and PointNine Lintas. The launch in India, marks the expansion of the MullenLowe Mediahub network into 14 cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, London, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai.
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