The Hindu Business Line : SBI and O&M

If newspaper reports are to be believed, SBI parted ways with O&M because the latter handles another bank's advertising and it could lead to a conflict of interest. This is in spite of the so-called effectiveness the agency delivered to the client. Remember, it won an Effie for its SBI campaign.

We will never understand how the public sector works. One the one hand, it will quiz you on what relevant experience you have, and make that a major point of discussion. After all, it could be better served by a specialist. On the other, it is perfectly capable of quoting conflict of interest as the all-important point for consideration if it suits it to do so.

While we can appreciate SBI's concern that O&M might have a conflict of interest (after all, they are re-defining the entire image of Bank of India), why are people telling us that Interpub, the agency that has replaced O&M on the SBI account, is quite a specialist in banking-related advertising as well? It seems it is associated with Union Bank of India and even Bank of Baroda. Well, stranger things than that can happen.

Re-bundling?

We read that Shelly Lazarus CEO of O&M has made it clear that she would like to see Media back at the table. At least the planning part of it. She seems to appreciate that the buying aspect is a volume-driven no-brainer and depends on bundling (her words). Now, if she goes ahead and tries to implement what she has taken a public stance on, it would create a really "interesting" situation in India. All we read about re-bundling would start becoming a reality. And the full service agency would begin to look the way it looked a few years ago.

Talk about coming full circle. Wonder what the heads of the Indian operations would say to this. Actually, if they had nothing to say when they were unbundled, what could they have to say if they are re-bundled?

New identity

The latest on the new-corporate-identity train is HCC. A spate of advertising announced the new name and look. If you don't know what HCC meant, don't worry. They don't want you to know now. They are going the way of HSBC and LG and the like.

We love reading the rationale that the consulting gurus put out to explain the various changes they have proposed. Landor, the international experts are the ones who have done the HCC job. Yes, yes, the same Landor which gave Air-India the new livery that had been rejected by Garuda, and then got rejected by Air-India after a costly and abortive makeover. One point about the rationale for HCC that caught our eye was that the alphabet `H' had a 23-degree cut to indicate their obsession with details. Now which desi consultant could have come up with something as profound as that?

SRK for KBC

In the hot seat

So Sameer Nair has gone and pulled off the casting coup of the year. Shah Rukh Khan will take on the mantle of the quiz master immortalised by the Big B. We have no doubt it will do wonders for the bottom line at Star, at least in the first six months. We wonder what happened to the proposal to cast Shah Rukh that Zee was trying to cobble together some time ago? We always thought that SRK's good friend Pradeep Guha would be the one who would get King Khan to the small screen. Well, Sameer has put paid to all those stories. At a time when Zee was publicising the fact it had actually overtaken Star in some particular time band, this must come as a real shot in the arm for Star, and a real dampener for Zee.

Shom's directorial debut

Shom Shukla's debut as a director of a theatre production saw most of the advertising agency heads and a few filmi types making the arduous journey to Juhu's Prithvi Theatre on a weeknight. So why were the ad head honchos there? Well, for starters, Shom is the wife of Bhaskar Das, Executive President, Bennett Coleman & Co (which publishes The Times of India). The play itself was pretty impressive for a debutant, and the dinner at the Vie Lounge on the Juhu beach saw the advertising fraternity celebrating Shom's success into the Vie, sorry, wee hours of the morning. Thank God it was Friday, said a wag.

Ad Club DVDs

The members of the Advertising Club Bombay have reason to be happy. Apart from the fact that their Club has been in overdrive, hosting a plethora of events and workshops, they have now received a set of three DVDs as a very nice gift. Two discs contain a combination of winning and short-listed TV commercials at the Abby awards for the period 1991to 2006. The third has award-winning radio spots during 2002 and 2006. Kudos to whoever thought of this gesture. We are sure Hutch and Radio Mirchi who sponsored the discs will get very good mileage.

Victoria

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