MUMBAI: A substantial portion of the high-decibel Rs 100 crore Videocon creative account is on the move again. It is learnt from industry sources that a part of the business — television and home appliances — has already been awarded to Ogilvy & Mather.
The incumbents are Hansa Research and RK Swamy/BBDO respectively. The latter now only handles the corporate account of Videocon. The media business continues to be handled by Videocon’s in-house media agency Confidence.
Videocon could well earn frequent flier points. This is the third time the company has changed its advertising agency in the past two years. The entire account of Videocon moved to Ambience Publicis from SSC&B.
By July 2005 a part of the business was awarded to RK Swamy/BBDO and then the rest of the business was in its booty by September-October 2005, after the acquisition of Thomson by Videocon.
The Videocon group, had made the acquisition through a newly formed entity, Eagle Corporation, which was also involved in the group’s acquisition of the Italian picture tube plant of Thomson.
It is within a year of this development that Videocon is again eyeing another agency. Sources aver that the creative business moved to Ogilvy & Mather in October 2005.
Razor-keen competition and a larger number of rivals in the consumer electronics sector have made the going tough for Videocon.
This could be the key reason why Videocon is looking at fresh communications strategy-and hence agency partner-again to shore up market share.
The entire Videocon group reportedly holds about 25% of the entire home appliances and consumer electronics market, which is worth Rs 35,000-40,000 crore.
According to AC Nielson, Videocon colour TVs saw an 8.6% drop in value terms in sales for January-May 2005, even though volumes grew by 6%.
Also, sales of Videocon refrigerators declined 20.2% in volumes and 21% cent in value.
In washing machines also, Videocon saw a sales decline of 3.4% in volume and 3.7% in value. However this survey does not include rural India.
