The Hindu Business Line : O&M relaunches Meridian with new biz

Mumbai, July 17 Strengthening the operations of its second agency Meridian, Ogilvy & Mather is planning to kick-start its Mumbai operations with plans of extending a branch office to New Delhi in the future.

Currently, Meridian is a mid-sized operation based in Bangalore and has accounts such as Arvind Mills, Dockers and Himalaya Drug Company, among others.

Besides, it has recently roped in the fledgling media company INX Media and INX News Private Ltd as one of its key accounts here.

Meridian has appointed Mr Rensil D’silva as Executive Creative Director and Mr Kumar Subramaniam as President, Meridian Communications Pvt Ltd.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & National Creative Director, O&M (India & South Asia), said, “We are re-launching and re-charging Meridian with the Ogilvy values and Ogilvy thinking. The purpose is to build everlasting brands and create solutions for clients and give a thrust to the business.”

Having merged its other agency David with Bates recently , O&M is now going to be focusing on its Indian initiative with Meridian, a full-fledged agency which has been in existence for the past three years in Bangalore.

Mr Miles Young, Chairman, O&M, Asia Pacific, said, “Meridian is an existing name, quite an old name with the Ogilvy family. Meridian is of Ogilvy and by Ogilvy. It is imputed with all the values of Ogilvy. Meridian will provide growth for our business and also personal and professional growth for our people and group of clients.”

Like it has with the newly-appointed President and Executive Creative Director, Meridian is expected to rope in more people from O&M.

As Mr Pandey said, “We would be creating roles for people within O&M to join Meridian. Rather than lose out people to competition, we expect our own people to be with Meridian.”

Brand identity

In spite of O&M helping in reviving its second agency, both are expected to pitch against each other for business. Having bagged the INX Media & News account, Merdian is expected to create a logo and brand identity for its channels.

Mr Vir Sanghvi, CEO, INX News, said, “There were five pitches made for the business and we have assigned a marketing budget for the channels.” Meridian in Mumbai would be operating within the O&M office premises at Trade Centre in Central Mumbai.

Meanwhile, a press release from O&M said that the agency was ranked number three in the worldwide WPP ranking.

The ranking is a combined tally of the offices of Ogilvy in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata.

Ogilvy Mumbai alone is No. 7 in the worldwide ranking. This ranking, said the release, has been done on the basis of the performance of the last 10 months and up to Cannes 2007, of all WPP agencies from around the world.

There is no Indian WPP company in the top 19 other than Ogilvy & Mather India, said the release.