Indiantelevision.com Team

(14 December 2006 6:40 pm)

MUMBAI: Percept Holdings is bringing all its existing media services - Posterscope, PDM, Web Percept, P9 Integrated, Tiger Sports and Percept Activa - under the newly structured Percept Media "to complete and create a 360° media offering".

All independent companies and divisions under Percept Media will work together and also independently in their respective business domains.

Additionally, Percept Holdings has aquired Shripad Kulkarni's Allied Media.

The company claims that Percept Media is set to cross a capitalized billing of $ 150 million in Year 1 (2007) itself, aiming for a top five industry slot. The integrated offering will initially be offered through Percept Media's infrastructure in Mumbai and Delhi and subsequently extended to over 23 locations across India, an official release states.

The announcement comes on the back of an 'all cash' deal to buy back all of Aegis Group plc shareholdings in PDM India and Posterscope India. Percept has now formally exited its relationship with Aegis. Percept has bought back all of its media business, which was earlier committed to Carat India under the joint venture agreement with Aegis and will now handle it in-house.

Percept Media currently has a team strength of 300 and this will further increase to about 350 by mid 2007.

The media buying and execution benchmarks / metrics will be mutually agreed between Percept Media and its clients, with the post campaign audits tracked by one of the Big Four audit firms, the release adds.

Percept Holdings Jt managing director Shailendra Singh said, "In just the first year of operations of Percept Media, it will rank amongst the top 5 media service businesses in India. Percept Media is also India's first true 360 degree media service."

The purpose of the aquisition is to bring in an arm that will supply expertise in the domain of conventinal media under the umbrella of Percept Media. This was previously serviced by Carat.

Allied Media CEO Shripad Kulkarni will continue to lead Allied Media as a key stakeholder. He said, "I am happy that Percept chose us to partner in their new media initiative as our vision and views on "media ethics" match. We will set a norm in the media business, by ushering in an era of ethical media buying and transparency."

"Percept Media will have a dedicated 23 city intranet network in place soon which will facilitate the centralized planning and buying with the capability to 'execute and activate' at a localized level. The strong IT network will enable a bottom up planning approach instead of the traditional top down models," adds Kulkarni.