The Mudra Group under Madhukar Kamath has undergone a major transformation. With a new brand identity, the group today is in the running to become one of India’s top communications hotshops, boasting of global clients, and ready to venture into areas such as shopper marketing, sports marketing and public affair communications.

Hen Madhukar Kamath, the group CEO and managing director of Mudra Group, unveiled the group’s new brand identity this September, it marked the final leg of a one-account ad agency’s arduous journey (and effort) to become one of India’s top most independent communication networks. For Kamath himself, it was the culmination of a dream that began in 2003 when he came back to lead Mudra.

?Challenges were there in terms of building the leadership, setting up the teams, changing the mindset,? says Kamath.

Mudra had all along thrived on traditional advertising. Thirty years ago when Mudra started its journey, because of its shareholding pattern?90% held by Anil Ambani and 10% by DDB?Mudra was perceived as a Reliance agency though it was quick to pick up some prestigious accounts including Godrej, Rasna and Dabur. But over the years, it has successfully shed that image. So besides working on the Reliance accounts (it created the ?Only Vimal? tagline for the company?s apparel brand), Mudra was also behind some iconic taglines such as ?I love you Rasna?, ?The Mint with the hole?, ?Humko Binny’s Mangta? and ?My daddy strongest?. The dominance of the agency continued as it helped global fast food chain McDonalds launch its business in India in 1996.

But the winds of change had started blowing. In the year 2003 when the agency started beefing up its service offerings, the creative side of the agency started faltering. Industry watchers say that the primary reason behind this was that many of its creative geniuses?R Balakrishnan, Prathap Suthan, D Ramakrishna, Santosh Desai, Rensil D?Silva, Ryan Menezes, Sonal Dabral, Anup Chitnis and others ? exited around this time. This was followed by two big-ticket accounts?Reliance Communica-tions and Samsung?moving out.

Also, despite its association with international communication network DDB, the agency could not capitalise on this. An industry veteran, who has closely watched Mudra’s rise, but did not want to be named, says, ?The focus was always to grow the traditional advertising business. So while we all realised the importance of the DDB partnership, nothing much was done about it.?

At the same time, the Indian advertising industry was buoyant with opportunities as new Indian and foreign brands emerged. Since Mudra was known for its expertise in traditional advertising and not so much for other marketing services, the agency faced competition from rivals including Ogilvy & Mather, Lowe Lintas, McCann Ercikson, JWT and others. The global holding companies of these agencies, who had already consolidated their traditional advertising business, were aggressive on building their non-traditional advertising services. So when the agency’s founder AG Krishnamurty retired in 2003, Kamath was brought in to steer the company out of the doldrums.

Kamath realised that the group had to move fast to fill the gaps. His agenda was to be present in every consumer touchpoint including media buying and planning, healthcare, rural marketing, out-of-home, research, public relations, online advertising and others.

?My first task was to set a new agenda for the future because we already had a tremendous set of clients,? said Kamath.

A former employee of Mudra who did not want to be named says, ?Mudra always had big clients and since 2003 it had the vigour to become a topnotch communication network. It did not succeed because of lack of coordination amongst the various businesses.?

Mudra first floated a healthcare unit called Brand Therapist as it already had pharma clients such as Cadila Healthca-re, Core Pharmaceuticals, Paras Phar-maceuticals, Sun Pharma and Torrent. In 2004, Mudra, in association with Rapp Collins Worldwide, formed a direct mark-eting agency Rapp Collins India. DBS, which was Mudra’s digital solutions arm became a part of Tribal DDB Worldwide.

The real growth of the agency started in 2005. That year it acquired Delhi-based Kidstuff Promos and Events. It also floated a new agency called Canvas Com-munications to handle the creative duties of Johnson & Johnson’s skincare brands. In 2007, Mudra launched a new agency called DDB Mudra that was mandated to handle global DDB accounts coming into the country, including Unilever’s Lipton range and also the conflicting businesses of the mother agency. Canvas was then merged with DDB Mudra.

However, amidst all this, the creative quotient of Mudra was being challenged. And in 2007, Bobby Pawar moved back from Chicago and was named the national creative director of Mudra. He says, ?When I joined Mudra there were two tasks at hand. When someone talked about the top creative work done out of India, no one mentioned Mudra. So, task number one was to change that.? The second task was to change the vision about creative solutions and create more media neutral or broad ideas.

And it was finally in 2009, Kamath did a reconnaissance and restructured the group into four agencies?Mudra India, Mudra Max, DDB Mudra and Ignite India. Today, Mudra Group is one of the largest home-grown communication networks with over 26 offices in India and is valued at more than Rs 2000 crore.

?The revamp or the relaunch was required. This is simply to say we understand consumers better. But the real story is about the new structure of Mudra, the four agencies, the integration, and I believe this is our strength. Also each business is anchored by a board member. Therefore, besides growing my business, I also need to safeguard the shareholder interest,? said Jude Fernandes, CEO of Mudra India, the creative agency that accounts for nearly 40% of the group’s revenues.

However, the largest grosser is the group?s media business ? Mudra Max? which contributes 42-45% of the annual turnover. It was in 2008 that Mudra Max, with two independent agencies under it, Mudra Connext and Mudra Radar, was created. ?The first year was all about building the teams and launching new units,? says Pratap Bose, CEO, Mudra Max and COO, Mudra Group.

Bose also heads Ignite India, which caters to the brand building needs of entrepreneurs. ?The agency was kicked off about a year ago. When we looked at our clients’ entrepreneurial ventures, we saw a huge need for us to look at clients in smaller centres, clients who were untouched by bigger agencies in non metros.? However, when it ventured into small towns and cities, the agency realized that the clients were more worried about issues such as raising capital, packaging, distribution, pricing, and advertising was the last thing on their minds. ?We realized that if we help them in these issues then advertising would automatically fall on our laps.?

The fourth, and the one of the most important businesses of the group, is DDB India, which is headed by Sandip Vij. It has four specialist units under it including DDB India, Tribal DDB, Rapp, DDB Health & Lifestyle. ? We are making significant investments in all DDB Mudra units,? says Vij.

Akshay Mehrotra, head ? marketing and corporate communications, Bajaj Allianz Insurance says, ?In DDB India, we see people and partners who have a deep understanding and capability to provide integrated communication solutions that connect with customers across the country.?

Although handling Indian clients has been one of Mudra?s biggest strengths, this year it has proved that it is equally competent to launch international iconic brands in India. In 2010, the agency helped German auto major Volkswagen launch its cars in India. Lutz Kothe, chief general manager marketing and PR, Volkswagen India says, ?The strength lies in DDB Mudra’s creative perform-ance and the capability to understand the brand while transforming it to the cus-tomer?s needs. As India is certainly a market of its own Volkswagen mixed the DNA of the brand with the needs of the market and its customers in a distinctive strategy. DDB Mudra transformed it into a creative strategy which matched the market needs.?

Clients have certainly appreciated the new strategy at Mudra. Says Pranay Dhabhai, managing director, Akai India, ?Partnering with Mudra is a vital and integral part of our overall business strategy and correctly fits with our goal to reinstate our position in India. Their strategic thinking with an overall media perspective, an extremely passionate and enthusiastic team, made us choose them as our media partners.?

However, not everyone is sure whether the latest restructuring will work. ?To my estimation this entire process of restruc-turing followed by the repositioning and new logo is an effort to put forward a united front. To some extent I feel the repositioning is really shallow. Why was it required is not clear. The agency is known for some iconic advertising which got lost somewhere. Will this new initiative help Mudra create new brand stories? We will have to wait and watch.? says the former Mudra employee, who did not want to be identified.

To be sure, the group is not sitting easy. ?Going forward, the growth will come in three ways, through partnerships, collaborations and acquisitions,? says Kamath, readying for new challenges.

For Mudra India, there are two challenges, says CEO Fernandes. ?One, to do better work, although the quality of print and television work has improved over the years.? Second is to generate ideas which are media neutral. ?It is also important to renew our relationship with existing clients including Godrej, Dabur, Paras, Future Group and help them improve their market share,? he adds.

Despite its spectacular growth, Mudra Max lost its biggest account this year, when the Rs 400-crore media business of Reliance Communications went to rivals Optimum Media Direction (OMD) and MEC. But the agency sees a silver lining in this. Pratap Bose, CEO, Mudra Max, says, ?We reduced our dependency on one big client and aggressively went out to sign more. Also, I keep saying we have nothing to lose and everything to win.?

Mudra is now looking to enter new businesses like shopper marketing, sports marketing, public affair communications. Last year it signed a joint venture with Clear Channel in the out-of-home segment and with UK-based retail design specialist Portland. The endeavour is clearly to make the Mudra Group a cutting-edge, sophisticated four-agency network that can take on global rivals.