McCann sets up production unit Craft, starts India operations

McCann Worldgroup has brought together its production assets under a single business unit called Craft Worldwide. The unit will be led by Fred Schuster, chief executive officer.

The unit has been launched in 23 markets including India, Singapore, Australia, China, Japan and Malaysia, and is led in the Asia-Pacific by regional managing director Rob Doswell.

The India unit will be setup in Mumbai and led by Chetan Sachdev, regional director, Craft Worldwide India.

Prior to this, Sachdev was working as managing director at independent global design and production agency network Tag Worldwide, and was involved in starting and building the network's India operations.

The current team size for Craft Worldwide India would be around 80 across New Delhi and Mumbai, but Sachdev plans ramp up the number by early 2013.

He added, "A large number of new hires have joined us over the last three months with experience is managing large global and regional businesses. We have also hired transition and work flow management and production specialists."

Globally, Craft Worldwide intends to be agency agnostic and would work with agencies outside the IPG network as well.

On this, Sachdev commented, "The centralised Craft model has exciting possibilities. We are making significant investments in technology, facilities and work flow tools. We are happy to work with any agency as partners or white labeled as needed. Creative and boutique agencies who would like to stay at the core of the creative product can benefit from the industry’s best workflow tools, pool of talent and network for reach and distribution both within the country and to the outside world."

To start with, Craft Worldwide will run the adaptation business across digital, TV, outdoor, retail and print, for Chevrolet in the APAC region.

"Market-specific requests from the different countries are being localised and fulfilled from the Mumbai Craft hub," said Sachdev. 

Harris Diamond, chairman and chief executive officer, McCann Worldgroup, said, “Craft is the perfect example of how we can leverage our talent, our global footprint and our ability to work quickly and cost-efficiently to drive our clients’ businesses forward."

Prasoon Joshi, chairman and chief executive officer, McCann WorldGroup, South East Asia, added, "The launch of Craft is a very important step in expanding the McCann WorldGroup offer in India. Craft allows us to provide a higher value to our global and Indian clients and helps increase our ability to provide the advantage of scale, speed and cost efficiency to the seamless delivery of creative ideas across multiple touch points."