WHEN US advertising giant Omnicom bought a 41% stake in homegrown advertising network Mudra Group last October, it signalled that the Anil Ambani-founded advertising company was destined for bigger things. As the ad network rechristened itself as DDB Mudra Group indicating its alignment with Omnicom agency DDB Worldwide, hectic behind-the-scene preparations began to take it into the top league. A month later came the news that Bobby Pawar, its chief creative officer who played a critical role in the transformation of the agency, had decided to call it quits and lead
JWT India.
That was perhaps the first indication that the winds of change had started sweeping through ‘Mudra House’, the group’s headquarters in Mumbai. Almost 100 days to the acquisition by Omnicom, came a slew of announcements in February ? the two big ones being the restructuring of its senior management team and agencies and Sonal Dabral being appointed as the chief creative officer and chairman of the group.
DDB Mudra Group has been one of the biggest integrated communication networks in the country. The last few years have been quite eventful for the group which saw itself gradually transforming into a creative powerhouse and scooping up all the big awards in the business. At Goafest 2011, Mudra Group’s final tally was 42 metals, at Cannes Advertising Festival, it got eight Lions and nine shortlists. It was ranked the third creative agency at Spikes Asia and it also bagged numerous awards at Campaign Agency of the Year awards. Its ‘Silent National Anthem’ campaign for Big Cinemas was the third most viraled campaign in the world, according to the Creative Review UK. There were other popular campaigns such as ‘Your dreams are not yours alone’ for Union Bank of India and ‘The All New Jetta’ for Volkswagen.
Says Madhukar Kamath, group CEO and managing director, DDB Mudra Group, ?Over a period of five years, Mudra had transformed itself from a mere advertising agency into India’s leading integrated marketing services and communications group. When Mudra turned 30 in 2010, the architecture of the Mudra Group, the four-agency structure and the identity system was rolled out. This was in line with the specific growth agenda for the Mudra Group which at that point in time, was essentially an Indian owned and managed entity.?
Clients have long reposed their faith on Mudra. Says A.B Godrej, chairman, Godrej Industries, ?I attribute a large part of the success of Godrej Consumer Products as one of the fastest growing Indian consumer products company to Mudra’s excellent understanding of our consumers and of our brands.?
At the same time, though Mudra has ranked amongst the top five agencies in India, the halo that top agencies such as Ogilvy India and JWT sported, has continued to elude it. This time round, with Omnicom as the parent, it hopes to achieve that. The latest restructuring is, therefore, perhaps a natural corollary. As per the new organisational structure, DDB Mudra Group will now comprise eight branded agencies ? DDB Mudra, DDB MudraMax, Mudra, DDB Health & Lifestyle, RAPP, Tribal DDB India, Water and Maatra.
?The DDB Mudra Group, operating under the Omnicom umbrella, is now a blend of the unmatched DDB Worldwide expertise and resources, its global creative leadership and the unique Bernbach legacy with the entrepreneurial spirit, home grown expertise and the enormously rich Mudra heritage. With the stated agenda of being the most influential and admired communications group in the country in the near future, the DDB Mudra Group has now adopted a new architecture and identity system,? says Kamath.