The Hindu Business Line : MAA Bozell to revamp operations in South

AFTER making profits last year following losses for four consecutive years, the Bangalore-based advertising agency, MAA Bozell, is now all set to revamp its operations in Chennai and other southern cities.

The agency has recently bagged the account of the Chennai-based Spartek Ceramics Ltd, for which it would be doing a total branding exercise for its tiles and its sanitary ware brand, Neycer.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Bunty Peerbhoy, Chairman of the Rs 170-crore MAA Group, said that the agency would be handling complete marketing and communication activities of Spartek.

Apart from Spartek, the agency is also in talks with a number of other Chennai-based companies and hopes to bag a few more accounts in the near future.

Mr Peerbhoy said that the agency is targeting a four-fold increase in profits in the coming years. "The agency took a lot of bad hits, we were under severe debt as a number of our clients didn't pay us. But now we have successfully come out of it and have even managed to clear the media debts. The business now looks exceedingly good."

Talking about the agency's strategy for the future, Mr Peerbhoy said that it would look at creating more specialised verticals. "We have been working on this module since 1997 and we already have a number of specialised verticals such as healthcare and one which is dedicated for IT. The latest addition being Dakshin, which focuses on the advertising needs for the southern markets."

Mr Peerbhoy said that Dakshin has been immensely successful. This vertical currently has two clients, Hero Honda and Tata Motors and is shortly going to sign on a few consumer durable companies. "Our specialised resources at Dakshin have complete understanding of the local idioms and metaphors of the southern markets and are therefore able to connect better with the target audience," he said.

Mr Peerbhoy said that the agency is also looking at off-shoring its advertising skills in a big way. It is already doing content management for some US-based publishing houses, where it helps them convert traditional books into e-books.