The Hindu Business Line : Lowe's strategy division to be brand marketing consultant

Christening its strategic planning division as `The Strategy Division', the agency is appointing eight senior brand strategists with years of experience in advertising, marketing research and marketing.

In addition, a team of 20 strategy planners will assist the brand strategists across the agency.

Mr Pranesh Misra, President and COO, Lowe India, told Business Line, "We are now redefining the planner as a strategist and are looking at ways to add value. We are now telling our clients what is going to be the next big idea for their brand."

Strategists at Lowe will thus go beyond formulation of brand communication strategies and will also influence and add value to brand marketing strategies for its clients.

Explains Mr Misra, "Even before the communication task is given to us, we would be looking at the business of the client in terms of the competitive scenario and the client's portfolio. We would like to become strategy consultants to our clients."

Keeping in mind the new consultancy-based services the agency has decided to offer, Lowe has shed the business responsibilities handled by its strategic planners in the past.

Considering that senior planners were also doubling up as unit heads within the agency, there has been a segregation of responsibilities whereby the business managers will not be expected to look into the planning functions of the agency.

"We are now taking the business responsibilities of the agency and placing it with a business leader and taking the strategic planning functions to the planner," stresses Mr Misra, to highlight the distinction between the two function heads of his agency.

Hoping that clients will embrace its new brand marketing services, Lowe claims that the idea has already been endorsed by its big-ticket accounts such as Hindustan Lever, Maruti and Britannia. "In fact our clients want somebody to challenge them and give them a different point of view," claims Mr Misra.

Besides, `The Strategy Division' will embark upon a number of knowledge projects focussing on the changing consumer and market trends in the overall area of marketing and communication.

It has recently released the results of `Lowe Faces of Asia' - an Asia Pacific Regional Study.

The Indian `Faces' focuses on housewives in urban areas and pictures their values, lifestyles, media habits and product consumption behaviour.

Expecting the agency to record growth rates of 12-15 per cent this year, Mr Misra says, "We have always believed in an outstanding creative product and will continue to do so. The strategy division will add another significant dimension to our service offering and hope build another point of difference for the agency."

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