Reliance Communications meets creative agencies

The account is currently with Grey.

Reliance Communications, telecommunications arm of the Reliance Group, has initiated a creative pitch.

The process began a few weeks back and is currently underway in Mumbai, where the company is headquartered. A few leading creative agencies (both, networked and home-grown) are currently in conversation with the brand team.

Grey, the incumbent creative agency, has been handling this business (specifically, Reliance Communications' GSM and CDMA services) since August 2010, which it won after a closely fought multi-agency pitch. Prior to Grey, Cartwheel Creative worked on the business.

Sources close to the development have confirmed the news to afaqs!.

Around April 2012, there market was rife with talks about the Reliance Communications business moving from Grey to an Omnicom-owned agency. This was a few months after the Omnicom Group acquired majority stake in Mudra, which was then re-named DDB Mudra. As was reported by afaqs! at the time, Anil Ambani, head of Reliance ADAG (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group), continued to hold remaining stake in the DDB Mudra Group and became part of Omnicom's International Advisory Committee.

Grey, however, continued working on the account. Now, the brand team has started meeting other creative agencies in the market.

Popular Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma endorses the brand. She was roped in as ambassador around September 2011. Grey has created some memorable advertising featuring Sharma, including a popular four-film campaign (2011) in which Sharma and actor Ranvijay Singh (of MTV Roadies fame) play a bickering couple.

The effort at the time was to demonstrate the superiority and reliability of the brand's network (including specific propositions like superior coverage, better call connect, long-lasting talk time and a facility to make a call despite having zero balance) as compared to that of other service providers in the market.

It may be recalled that around April last year, Reliance Broadcast Network (RBNL) awarded the creative duties of its TV channels Big Magic, Big CBS Spark, Big CBS Love, Big CBS Prime, Big RTL Thrill and radio brand 92.7 Big FM, to Grey (Delhi and Mumbai).

Founded in 2004, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications has more than 150 million customers/subscribers. Reliance Mobile (formerly known as Reliance India Mobile), launched in 2002, was among the initial initiatives of Reliance Communications.

According to the company's website, Reliance Communications (which is also known as RCom) offers a complete range of telecom services covering mobile and fixed line telephony, broadband, national and international long distance services, data services, and a range of value-added services and applications.

Reliance Communications competes with brands like Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Tata Docomo, among several others.

For the record, the news about Reliance Communications' creative pitch comes soon after Grey's co-NCD Amit Akali's decision to quit the agency went public.