Indiantelevision.com Team

(24 March 2008 7:30 pm)

MUMBAI: Following an Asia-level pitch for Sony Corp, Lintas Media Group (LMG) has managed to retain the business in India. The size of the business is valued at over Rs 1 billion.

LMG was the only exception to winning the India business as the rest of the mandate was won by Mediaedge:cia for the rest of the region.

LMG joint president Sudha Natrajan said, "In a sense, LMG coming on board a second time, since our first win in 2006, is like history repeating itself. In fact, Sony Corp did not want LMG to be part of the Asia pitch. But pressure from its Japanese counterparts compelled a pitch process in India as well. LMG managed to retain this account purely based on our performance over these two years. Sony has aggressive plans for India and China, and we look forward to partnering its continued positive impact in the Indian region."

The campaign kicked off with the launch of the first Hindi business newspaper in the country, with a multimedia campaign last month.

With substantial investments planned across media, the Lintas team is actively working along with the Business Standard team to hasten the success of this launch, says an official release.

Confirming the development, LMG joint president NP Sathyamurthy said, "Increased social mobility, hunger for information and demanding social justice to grab economic opportunity are the new markers of the changes in consumer India. These rapid changes have created the demand for business dailies in different languages, targeting mid strata of readers in metros and top strata of readers beyond Metros. This product innovation coupled with the pedigree of crisp and relevant reporting of business news will make sure that Business Standard succeeds in this new endeavour. We are delighted to partner them in this exciting project."

Lowe has been given the mandate of creative duties.

Currently Hindi Business Standard has a print run of 1,20,000 copies.