Allied Media aggregates Rs 115 cr during festive season
22 December, 2011

The festive season has brought a tide of cheer for Allied Media this year. The agency has clocked billings worth Rs 115 crore in a period of just six weeks between October and mid-November. Though the top spenders this festive season for Allied have been Future Group, Canon and Panasonic, clients like Toshiba, Toyota, Sahara, Central Park also contributed significantly, spending hugely on promotions during Diwali.This was the first time in five years that the agency had seen such impressive numbers during the festive season, admitted Shripad Kulkarni, CEO, Allied Media. “We have consciously focused on consolidating major wins that happened last year and the year before that in 2011. Most of these clients had big plans during this Diwali and thus, we saw a surge in the billings. We also saw significant additions by Tupperware and Ozone Ayurvedics, who were very active this year during this season,” Shripad informed.Talking about the medium that marketers chose, Shripad told exchange4media that print was still the dominant medium and a preferred choice since campaigns required more detailing on prices and offers, while TV formed just 40 per cent of the total spends. Citing the reasons behind the big surge, he said, “This year, consumer durables contributed the most with major focus on LCD and LED TVs. Japanese brands are also looking at Indian markets very consciously and thus spending huge amounts here.”Apart from clocking impressive billings, Allied has also added brands like Tupperware, FedEx and News Express to its kitty this year. Earlier this year, the agency also announced its strategic alliance with Pointlogic, a world leader in communication planning and channel planning, analytics and modelling, with plans to offer a customised end-to-end M3 study for communication planning based on category specific consumer research. While a pilot has already been concluded for the retail category, both the partners are currently conducting a 10-city consumer research on FMCG, Durables and Financial Products. The M3 study is expected to be out in Q1 of 2012.“This tie-up puts us at par with leading media agencies of the world who have the advantage of world class tools. Our exclusive partnership with Pointlogic straightaway takes us a level above and with that we hope to become top ranked media agency in India in 2012,” affirmed Shripad, concluding that the agency laid strong emphasis on activations on FM radio apart from medium like digital, which undoubtedly drew maximum interest of marketers. .