Indiantelevision.com Team

(3 June 2010 3:55 pm)

MUMBAI: Automaker Maruti Suzuki has reshuffled the ad agencies that handle its brands. In the process, it has terminated the services of Hakuhodo Percept, which recently spearheaded its WagonR "Blue eyed boy" campaign. The agency was handling four Maruti brands - WagonR, A Star, Grand Vitara and Maruti 800.

Earlier, Maruti's 13 brands were handled by four creative agencies, but now with Hakuhodo Percept no longer in the picture, the four brands it was handling will be distributed amongst its three other creative agencies Dentsu India, Lowe Lintas and Capital Advertising.

Dentsu will handle the WagonR account, while the Grand Vitara and A Star accounts will go to Capital Advertising. Maruti 800 will be looked after by Lowe Lintas.

"We had to drop one of the agencies from our roster as we wanted to consolidate our position and confine ourselves to only three agencies. The fact that this move comes in just after the WagonR launch is only coincidental and has nothing to with that or any particular campaign. The decision was made based on our internal assessments and valuations," Maruti Suzuki chief general manager, marketing Shashank Srivastava told Indiantelevision.com.

Estimates are that each of the brands would be billing Rs 100-400 million annually. All put together, it is estimated the Martui advertising business that Hakuhodo Percept handled could be anywhere between Rs 400 million to Rs 1.2 billion a year.

Speaking about the brand communication planned in the near term Srivastava said: "The Ritz and K series campaigns are currently running well. Next in the pipeline is a 'total cost of acquisition TVC' which looks at the overall cost of running a car, the cost of fuel efficiency, running etc. This TVC will not be for any one of our brands but for the Maruti Suzuki group as a whole."