The Hindu Business Line : Mudra plans trade marketing foray

Chennai April 9 Mudra Communications, the largest Indian-owned and managed ad agency and part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, plans to expand the services it offers. While it is working on several potential "growth engines", Mr Madhukar Kamath, MD & CEO, Mudra, confirms that the agency is on the verge of launching a division for trade marketing.

Mr Kamath told Business Line that Mudra is working on many fronts in areas such as design, public affairs, rural consulting and retail.

"Three other ventures are in various stages of completion," he said, adding that one of these could follow in the footsteps of trade marketing.

While Mudra wound down the public relations outfit it had earlier, Mr Kamath said that the agency could either look to acquire one or enter into a strategic tie-up to take this planned venture forward. For rural, the agency is looking at a consulting and activation unit and in design, its focus will be on identity and packaging.

As Mr Kamath points out, the agency will do its homework and due diligence on each potential growth engine and grow it to fruition before launch. However, it will benchmark it against two criteria - if it is not scaleable or not best in class, it will not take it forward.

Network expansion

Asked whether Mudra had any plans to expand its agency network through acquisitions, Mr Kamath said that it had two other agencies in its network through Interact Vision and Canvas and three brands were enough for the moment. "We will use these brands to grow businesses. The second agency has to have a distinctive offering and for me the second agency is Mudra Marketing Services (MMS)," he said, referring to the Mudra group's portfolio of specialised communication services such as out-of-home, interactive, promotions marketing, direct and healthcare.

Given that globally below-the-line investments account for over 50 per cent of marketing budgets, Mr Kamath said that the target for MMS is for it to contribute 40 per cent to revenues and 50 per cent of the bottomline.

MMS brands

Mudra, with a capitalised billing of Rs 1,000 crore, has several brands under the MMS umbrella such as Tribal DDB, an interactive agency dealing with new media, PrimeSite for outdoors, Brand Therapist for healthcare communications, Rapp Collins for direct response and Kidstuff promos for promotional marketing.

Commenting on the appointment of Mr Bobby Pawar as Mudra's National Creative Director, who took charge of that position recently, Mr Kamath said that was an unfulfilled task. While the agency, he said, did good work, the objective was to be in the top three for creative work. Now, he said the agency had an NCD who brought international experience blended with homegrown expertise. Mr Pawar returned to India after a stint with BBDO in the US.