‘Vivo’s pitch brief was comprehensive & in-depth’

Last week, OOH specialist agencies Posterscope India & Laqshya Solutions proved their mettle by bagging one of the biggest OOH mandates – from Vivo India. As per the mandate, both agencies will jointly handle the OOH media planning and buying; however the segregation of the account duties is yet to be announced by the brand.

Being a big ticket account that is close to Rs 150-200 crore, almost every outdoor agency went the extra mile to acquire this account. All the more, this pitch stood significance for agencies as primarily OOH has been a star medium in the brand’s strategy of capturing the market. And secondly, in the last couple of years, this China based mobile handset brand, for the first time, planned to partner with an OOH specialist agency, moving away from their direct buying strategy. This month-long pitch definitely caused stir in the Indian OOH industry.

“It is always a pleasure to handle large corporate accounts and we are proud to own an account which is present in 28 states. Therefore, the entire planning and buying is going to be challenging yet exciting”, expressed Atul Shrivastava, Executive Director & CEO, Laqshya Solutions.

Adding to this, Fabian Cowan, President , Posterscope India, said, “Vivo is one of the largest brands in its category and one of the mature clients in the OOH segment. They have an agenda and growth plans designed for their brand and our OOH initiative will also be in sync with those plans.”

Explaining about the pitch brief, both outdoor specialists in unison expressed that it was the most comprehensive and in-depth pitch shared by any brand lately. While Atul said that the brief was designed as per the international standard which was clear in nature. Quoting the reason behind it, Fabian said that the brand is very well acquainted with the ecosystem of this industry and with the role of each concessionaire involved. Therefore, they complied a challenging brief which gave the agencies the opportunity to deep dive into their own expertise.

While the brand had preferred direct buying in the past, the AOR will help them in shining bright even more with proper planning, strategy and execution on OOH. “Due to the fragmented nature of this business, it becomes a cumbersome task for a national client to connect with each and every vendor and overlook the nitty-gritty aspect of an OOH campaign. Therefore, this will help them in planning and executing the nation-wide campaign with more detailing, accurate to the strategy and fool-proof execution,” said Atul.

On the same note Fabian explained that having an agency like Posterscope India will help them with various significant data & researches such as customer understanding, audience insights, geotargeting, etc. All this information provides an effective ecosystem, measurability and transparency which can be leveraged by the client. Moreover, having an AOR gives a long-term commitment and drive to the brand & its strategy with better innovation concepts as well as brings continuous investment to the industry.

Since it is a joint OOH account, both agencies are absolutely fine with this aspect of the contract. As Fabian explained, this has been a common practice in the industry where one client appoints two outdoor specialist agencies. Moreover, it seems like a practice to be followed in the future as well by brands. Adding to this Atul said, this will provide competitive briefs with added benefits to the client wherein it will keep both agencies on their toes in order to offer the best strategy and execution.

The brand's upcoming campaign is slated to be out in a couple of weeks.