Underdog
Underdog won the all-round creative duties for T Bhimjyani Realty this week. Previously part of Neelkanth Group, the Indian firm has been in the realty business for over 40 years and has successfully executed over 550 residential & commercial buildings. After parting with the Neelkanth Group, Mr. Tulsi Bhimjyani along with his family commenced the rebranding exercise and launched a new identity under the umbrella of T Bhimjyani Group. Underdog will initiate the communications for Neelkanth Woods, a flagship luxury project in Thane, and will also work on all of the company's upcoming projects of. The account was bagged by the agency after a tough multi-agency face-off. For Vistasp Hodiwala and Vikram Gaikwad, the co-founders of Underdog, this news has been particularly pleasing, arriving in the wake of the agency’s first anniversary early last month.
Underdog won the all-round creative duties for T. Bhimjyani Realty this week
Naresh Parmar, head of marketing at T Bhimjyani Realty, confirmed the development and added; “We are happy to have Underdog on board; the team came-up with interesting & engaging ideas in this cluttered category. At T Bhimjyani Realty, as a company and a brand we are very clear about the direction we intend to take. We have been in the business for over 40 years, and we are here for the long run. We believe great brands are built over a period of time: with great products, services, transparency and an intense consumer engagement. We have a vision of creating an iconic brand in the category and I am sure, Underdog will play a key role going forward.” Gaikwad adds; “This win, coming in the wake of Underdog’s first anniversary, has been a truly sweet, hard-fought affair for us and what makes it most heartening is the evolved nature of engagement the client seeks from the agency at all levels, be it in terms of vision, channel partner initiatives or communication needs. When you have someone who is so proactive and instep with the challenges of this tough category, the partnership becomes even more treasured and interesting.”
Publicis Kaplan Thaler
Hilton Worldwide will follow the lead of other large companies such as Verizon and Kraft in consolidating its agency work without a formal creative review. This means that Publicis Kaplan Thaler will no longer be the agency of record for its Homewood Suites business. PKT won the account, which had been with FCB for a decade, in 2011, and proceeded to create work such as “No Place Like Homewood Suites,” last year’s Olympic campaign, and “Slam Dunk.” What’s not clear at the moment is how the move will affect Hilton’s other agencies of record. FCB lost its last piece of the business in 2012 when Y&R won AOR duties for the Hampton lodging chain, and that win came just over a year after Cramer-Krasselt beat out Y&R for the Hilton Hotels work.
BFG Communications
Full-service marketing agency BFG Communications announced this week that it has been tapped by the American Marketing Association (AMA) to aid in the development of its new brand positioning. The agency was selected without a review by the AMA’s new CEO, Russ Klein. BFG will begin work with the AMA, effective immediately. The AMA is expected to launch the resulting work as early as this summer in what Klein calls the “Next AMA,” further describing it as “A personalised community focused on the inherent tension between so-called best and next practices necessary for outperformance in marketing.” BFG’s chief strategy officer Richard Leslie will lead the agency team in fielding ethnographic research designed to aid in refining and updating the value proposition for the AMA. With more than 30,000 members and reaching over 300,000 marketers and academics, the AMA brings marketing professionals and academics together to share techniques and ideas; and it has 76 professional and 350 collegiate chapters across the country.
BFG Communications announced this week that it has been tapped by the American Marketing Association to aid in the development of its new brand positioning
“BFG has a proprietary and powerful take on consumer insight combined with an impressive background in branding and research, and we anticipate that being put to effective use for an iconic brand such as the AMA to communicate its service to member and value offering in a contemporary light,” said Klein, adding that “BFG sees things others don’t.” Kevin Meany, president and CEO of BFG, adds that “The AMA is the foremost repository of marketing knowledge and learning association in the world. We are humbled to be selected to help this magnificent and storied institution continue to lead the charge on best-practices marketing in the 21st century.” This AMA project is the latest win for BFG whose client roster includes The Coca-Cola Company, Campari USA. The agency recently won Church’s Chicken, Virgil Kaine Lowcountry Whiskey Co. and Lemonic Liqueur.
Ogilvy & Mather
XRBIA Developers, the Indian housing brand focused on building world-class cities and sustainable housing solutions, has awarded their creative mandate to Ogilvy and Mather. Confirming the news, Rahul Nahar, chairman and managing director at XRBIA, said, “Constant innovation and creative thinking have been the cornerstones of our value offerings and we found a perfect partner with Ogilvy & Mather as the extension of our creative team.” Kunal Jeswani, Ogilvy & Mather CEO, said, “What excited me was the idea that they are bringing future ready homes to India. Looking forward to this partnership.” Pradeep Lyengar, chief marketing officer at XRRBIA, said, “We are delighted to partner with Ogilvy & Mather and are looking forward to the trademark creative differentiation that they can bring, which sits perfectly with what XRBIA is all about.”
