The Hindu Business Line : Ambience Publicis plans expansion

Its newly appointed Chief Operating Officer, Mr Rajiv Sabnis, who has moved from Contract, has prepared a blueprint on how to take the agency forward both in geographical terms as well as in new areas of advertising.

"Bangalore has been on our radar for a while and should ideally be our next stop," he said. Besides, the Publicis Group would also like to explore new areas such as that of design, healthcare, direct marketing and events and promotions.

"We are looking at other areas of communication and design is one of them," Mr Sabnis said. Considering the agency has done work in the field of design for clients such as Lakme, floating a separate division to service the needs of more clients in this area is an imminent possibility.

But the agency is still deciding whether it will import some of the Publicis brands worldwide into these areas or float its indigenous ones. "At the moment we are still leveraging the processes, systems and client relationships to make the best use of them in India and make the agency function like a network. In fact, our main challenge is to make the agency a part of the global network," Mr Sabnis said.

Currently the agency continues to outsource certain services such as events and promotions to local companies such as Live One.

The agency, which has been limiting itself to mainly Mumbai and Delhi, intends ramping up the growth rates in the Capital. "We are in the process of consolidating our operations in Delhi. The agency has the potential to grow more rapidly," added Mr Sabnis, expecting its Delhi branch to pick up more business in future.

In fact, compared to Delhi, its Mumbai office continues to service its big-ticket clients such as Procter & Gamble (Vicks), Marico (Parachute, Hair & Care, Silk & Shine), Lakme and Videocon (consumer electronics), which it recently bagged.

"Apart from going in for some business diversification, we are looking at growing in size and stature," added Mr Sabnis.

Without disclosing its billings turnover, Sabnis says he would be happy to see his agency growing at 20 per cent this year.

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