Indiantelevision.com Team

(20 February 2007 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Beefing up their media buying clout in India, Publicis Group Media has announced the launch of India Media Exchange (IMX), a consolidated media negotiation unit that combines the strengths of its existing Indian media companies Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia.

While making the announcement, Publicis Group Media chairman Jack Klues higlighted the importance for a collaborative media negotiation environment that touts 'scale in context' as the need of the hour.

Spearheadig the initiative is Shyam Shanker, who has been roped in as president. Coincidently, he is backed with experience from the client side of the business. The core team will comprise of buying experts from both sides of the two Publicis' media houses in India and will be based in Mumbai. Its offices will also extend to Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai.

IMX has been created primarily to manage the combined buying functions of Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia, while media planning will continue to remain within the respective agency brands and their separate identities.

Backed by the size factor of a multiple client portfolio, the agency is looking to draw the attention of media owners. The aspiring 'disruptive media powerhouse' is targeting an annual billing of Rs 15 billion, so as to emerge as the second largest media buying entity in the Indian market place.

Klues said, "At a time and environment where media agencies are not merely buying space and time, but creating opportunities that did not exist before, or buying something that was not previously available for sale, we realized that opportunities for collaboration are immense and is really unexploited.

"Today is all about specific solutions for specific contexts that take into account the needs of a client and brand, the mindsets and habits of consumers, and the vast panoply of content made available in media. IMX will do exactly that… customize the services and solutions that are context specific, leverage to create scale and convert it to create a unique viable advantage for our client's businesses.

"This context driven scale will bring about a paradigm shift in the industry and we found someone in Shyam Shanker to bring about this change, with his credentials and experience in procurement, with the curiosity and creativity to help us materialize this vision."

Shanker said, "IMX will primarily operate on the principles of scale… scale that delivers solutions which are textured, differentiated and context specific.

"Solutions that fit the needs of individual clients - not cookie cutter savings across the same set of media driven by the application of sheer size based negotiations, but solutions that emerge by engaging the best energies of media owners and agencies, that take into account the needs and capabilities of all parties and deliver a lasting, meaningful competitive advantage. IMX will guarantee transparency to clients as its way of working."

The India unit is a mirror of an approach that was implemeted in China last year known as the China Media Exchange. Klues says that 'scale' is important and will continue to nurture business, and though this is a relatively new concept it has been adopted in "some of our most important markets like China and India."