Lowe Lintas and LMG bag Daimler's BharatBenz business

Media spends pegged at more than Rs 10 crore.

German auto giant Daimler has finally concluded its creative and media pitch processes for its truck portfolio BharatBenz. The creative duties have been awarded to Lowe Lintas Chennai, while the media mandate will be handled by Lintas Media Group (LMG).

Highly placed market sources have confirmed the news to afaqs!. The brand's annual media spends are estimated to be upwards of Rs 10 crore.

The development comes on the back of a long-drawn evaluation process. It may be recalled that the brand initiated a creative and media pitch in November, 2011. The brand team was keen to consolidate the creative and media duties with the same parent agency.

Amongst the agencies that participated in the creative pitch, Lowe Lintas, JWT and McCann Erickson made it to the final shortlist.

Earlier this year, JWT was awarded a project for BharatBenz. Lowe, however, has managed to walk away with the overall creative mandate for the brand.

It may be noted that Elephant Strategy + Design has worked on the brand identity for BharatBenz.

Currently, R K Swamy BBDO handles the mainline creative mandate for Mercedes-Benz India. While MEC looks after the mainstream media planning and buying duties for the account, R K Swamy Interactive was recently brought on board to handle the digital media buying duties for Mercedes-Benz India.

Currently, Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors dominate the Indian truck market. With BharatBenz, Daimler is poised to infiltrate the Indian market for commercial vehicles. The light, medium-duty and heavy-duty range of BharatBenz commercial vehicles will be manufactured by DICV (Daimler India Commercial Vehicles) at the new plant in Oragadam near Chennai.

In January, at the Auto Expo in Delhi, Daimler revealed its first truck that was positioned as a 'Made in India' truck.