New Delhi: Advertising firm Dentsu Creative Impact Pvt. Ltd has been awarded a contract to do the creatives for as many as 13 brands of the country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
The firm, part of the Indian business of Japanese advertisement firm Dentsu, will also be responsible for corporate brand communications, the company said in response to a questionnaire. Dentsu will start working on these brands from mid-year.
Led by Suzuki Worldwide, Maruti had called for a pitch to revamp its creatives where it wanted to limit the number of agencies that it hires to two. From time to time, depending upon the model, Maruti has hired various agencies such as Publicis Capital Advertising (which worked on Celerio hatchback), Lowe Lintas (multi purpose vehicle Ertiga), Dentsu, etc.
Dentsu has always had the most Maruti brands. Before this deal, it has worked on hatchbacks such as the Ritz, the WagonR, the Stingray, the Eeco MPV and a soon-to-be launched light commercial vehicle.
Two people who are familiar with the development pegged the Dentsu deal at Rs.250 crore. In January, Hakuhodu Percept signed a Rs.100 crore deal with Maruti to promote its new small car, expected to be launched later this year. The car will be positioned above Maruti’s Swift and will compete with Hyundai Motor India Ltd’s i20 and Honda Cars India Ltd’s forthcoming new-generation Jazz.
Hakuhodo Percept is an equally owned joint venture between Hakuhodo Inc. of Japan and Indian media conglomerate Percept. Hakuhodo has been associated with Maruti’s Japanese parent Suzuki Motor Corp. Hakuhodo Percept worked with four Maruti Suzuki brands between 2002 and 2010—the Maruti 800, the WagonR, the A Star and the Grand Vitara—but eventually lost all.
Dentsu did not disclose the deal size.
“We take several initiatives to communicate with our customers about our values and products... We cannot comment on details,” a Maruti spokesperson said in an email response.
“Maruti Suzuki India Ltd has now decided to align the company’s entire portfolio of mass segment brands as well as commercial segment brands with Dentsu Creative Impact,” Dentsu said.
The assignment now adds the Swift, the Swift Dzire, the Alto 800, the Alto K10, the Celerio, the Ertiga and the Omni to Dentsu Creative Impact’s existing portfolio of Maruti Suzuki brands. Dentsu has been associated with Maruti since 2007.
Maruti is India’s largest car maker by volume. It sold 1,170,702 units during the fiscal ended 31 march, posting a growth of 11.11% over a year ago. Its market share in the world’s second fastest growing passenger vehicle market grew 300 basis points during 2014-15 to 45%. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
According to Prathap Suthan, managing partner and chief creative officer at advertising firm Bang in the Middle, Maruti’s decision to align its mass and commercial portfolio to a single agency may have advantages as well as disadvantages.
“Aligning the entire slew of your stable with one agency gets the agency to invest right. (It) gets a team or even a micro-agency in place to run the whole account. It gets them great value and talent and great economies of scale. Usually, a large account like Maruti would also help drive down business and media costs,” Suthan said.
On the other hand, there is the risk of the creatives looking alike. “It’s not easy to build something that has lasting impact in a market that is driven by aspiration. And every car is possibly more appealing than a Maruti. Of course you can argue it’s the great Indian car brand, but seriously? Besides, every car category will cannibalize into each other, and unless you have airtight teams working, you really can’t keep work non-competitive,” Suthan said.
Vidhi Choudhary contributed to this story.
