Lowe Lintas bags creative duties for Karvy Group

The account will be headed by executive director Anaheeta Goenka; the incumbent agency is RK Swamy BBDO

Following a multi agency pitch, Lowe Lintas has won the creative duties for the Karvy Group. The account will be headed by Anaheeta Goenka, executive director, Lowe Lintas Mumbai. The incumbent agency on the account was RK Swamy BBDO; the agency handled the creative as well as media duties for the account. Sources inform that Grey, Rediffusion Y&R, Ogilvy India, JWT and Concept Communications were also in the fray for the account.

It is learnt that there were three primary reasons for the brand seeking a new creative partner. Karvy, which was never aggressively into image building, branding and advertising, woke up to the reality that this is, in fact, a necessity, given today's competitive scenario; the upcoming campaign is thus slated to be a rather 'bold' one. Secondly, the company wishes to go ahead and rectify certain incorrect perceptions that prevail in the market. Lastly, the brand now wishes to guide certain online and offline business units through advertising.

Interestingly, back in the early 2000s, Lowe Lintas worked on a few projects for the Karvy group; the Hyderabad branch of the agency had worked on these projects. The agency, however, has never officially handled the entire gamut of creative duties for the account. The creative mandate now stretches from generating awareness about the brand to developing strategies to facilitate interaction and engagement with Karvy's large clientele. The account has not brought a media agency on board as yet; a media pitch is on the cards, though.

Armed with 575 offices over 375 locations across India and representative offices at Dubai and New York, with more than 9000 employees, the Karvy group offers services in the arenas of stock broking, insurance, realty and mutual funds, amongst several others. The organisation was formed in 1983 at Hyderabad and currently distributes investment products such as insurance, IPOs, bonds and fixed deposits. The company's new business initiatives include non-banking financial corporation (NBFC), wealth management and data management services.

When quizzed regarding the creative strategy that helped the agency clinch this win, Charles Cadell, chief operating officer, Lowe Lintas, tells afaqs!, "I think it was our good consumer insight and understanding of the category that aided this win. We do have some past experience in this category."

The agency is yet to determine the media mix for the upcoming campaign for the account and is currently in the process of deciding between a TV-led campaign and a print-led one. Digital and retail level channels will certainly be exploited and will add to the fully integrated, 360 degree effort involving most media channels.

Cadell adds that the agency is extremely proud to be associated with the Karvy group. "It is known to have set benchmarks in the financial services category. Lowe's philosophy of 'High Value Ideas' promises a new take on driving visibility for the group and this is an exciting category that has the team at the agency all charged up to make the most of it," says Cadell.

J Ramaswamy, group head, corporate affairs, Karvy Group, echoes the sentiment. He says, "We are extremely happy to partner with Lowe Lintas. It was a natural choice to implement our creative and strategic planning activities because of its understanding of the group and the energy that it brings to the table."

For the record, Karvy Computershare is India's largest registrar and transfer agent with a client base of more than 400 corporate and more than two crore investor accounts. It is a member of NSE and BSE and ranks amongst the top 10 stock brokers and top five depository participants in India.

Karvy Comtrade, member of NCDEX and MCX, ranks among the top three commodity brokers in the country. Registered with AMFI as a corporate agent, Karvy is also among the top mutual fund mobilisers, with more than Rs 5000 crore under management.