TBWA India wins creative duties of Samsonite and American Tourister

Both brands will be serviced by the Mumbai office of the agency. Contract Advertising was handling both the brands so far.

Luggage accessories brand Samsonite South Asia has awarded the creative mandate for its brands Samsonite and American Tourister to TBWA in India. Both the brands will be serviced by the Mumbai office of the agency.

Contract Advertising, which won the businesses in 2009, was handling both brands so far. Samsonite is now looking at an integrated campaign across media channels including TV, print and outdoor.

According to TBWA, it won the business without a pitch, on the back of its work on Lavie, a brand of handbags for women from BagZone, Samsonite's related concern in India. BagZone had assigned its creative mandate to TBWA India's Mumbai office in September, 2010. The mandate covered BagZone, the retail brand and Lavie, a new brand of women's handbags. The account size was pegged at Rs 12 crore.

Following this, Lavie had launched its first television commercial in October, 2011 starring its brand ambassador, actor Kareena Kapoor. Kapoor was shown confusing a salesman at a store by asking for a 'black' bag. As the salesman continued to show her more black bags, an orange bag caught her fancy, along with others, leaving a perplexed salesman and Kapoor, a spoilt for choice customer.

Speaking about why the brand chose TBWA India as its creative partner, Suresh Menon, CEO, Samsonite South Asia, says, "The work done by TBWA India on Lavie has contributed significantly to the brand achieving success in very little time. I am confident TBWA will bring the same hunger and quality to brands Samsonite and American Tourister, too."

Commenting on the new win, Nirmalya Sen, managing director, TBWA India, says, "There is great joy in winning new clients. But, it is even more heartening when existing clients reaffirm their faith in the agency in the form of new brands. We are elated to get this opportunity to help co-create in India, two of the world's best-known brands. The category is increasingly getting crowded with some well-known and some new brands jostling for consumer attention. We look forward to the challenge of bringing disruptive thinking and work to the category."

India has a significant market for luggage, which is dominated by mostly unbranded local players. In the organised luggage market, Samsonite and VIP are among the lead players. Launched in India in 1996, about 30 per cent of the company's sales in India come from the brand American Tourister.

In January 2013, TBWA acquired Indian digital agency Magnon Group and made it a part of TBWA's global Digital Arts Network (DAN). In February, Nissan appointed TBWA as global marketing agency for Datsun and during the same month, the agency roped in Parixit Bhattacharya as group chief creative officer from JWT Singapore, where he was working as creative director.