Contract Advertising wins Moneycontrol.com creative account

This is the first time that Network18 will hire an advertising agency for the marketing of Moneycontrol.com.

afaqs! has learnt from reliable sources in the industry that Contract Advertising has won the creative duties of financial portal Moneycontrol.com, which is owned by Network18. Sources have revealed that the media company has awarded the duties to Contract, though an official agreement has not been signed yet. The account size is estimated at Rs 20 crore.

About four to five advertising agencies participated in the pitch process. The names of the participating agencies could not be obtained at the time of filing this report.

Contract will handle both traditional and digital creative duties, including social media marketing. Network18 will utilise its media properties to promote the financial portal heavily.

This will be the first time that Network18 will hire an advertising agency for the marketing of Moneycontrol.com, which has been active since 1999. The media company was managing the creative work of the website on its own. Moneycontrol.com receives more than five million unique users per month, worldwide. Of that, 3.5 million users log on to the financial portal from India.

For the record, Contract also handles the creative duties of Firstpost.com, the newly-launched news portal of Network18. Recently, the agency also won the creative duties of Ashok Leyland (the manufacturer of trucks, buses and army vehicles) and telecommunication company Huawei Telecommunications.