T.A.G. wins creative duties for NewsX

This is the second win for T.A.G., the second agency of McCann Worldgroup

According to highly placed sources, the English news channel NewsX has awarded its creative duties to McCann Worldgroup's (MWG) second agency, T.A.G. The account has been won by the Delhi wing of the agency.

T.A.G. has been on a winning spree since its entry into India in November 2008. It won the Videocon consumer electronics and appliances account a month ago. NewsX is its second account.

The incumbent agency was Euro RSCG, which won the account in October 2008. The present ad spends couldn't be ascertained at the time of filing this report but back then, the account was estimated to be worth Rs 12 crore.

Informed sources claim that NewsX is looking for a fresh perspective for its communication strategies, which drove it to review the account within such a short span of time. A revamp and a fresh look for the channel are also possible.

There was also a change in hand at NewsX, recently. NewsX was bought over by the newly formed Indi Media in January 2009. The entity had been formed by two media veterans, Vinay Chhajlani, one of the promoters of NaiDunia, the Indore based Hindi daily; and Jehangir Pocha, former editor of Businessworld magazine.

Earlier, NewsX was a part of the INX Network, which was made up of two divisions, INX Media (9X, the general entertainment channel and 9XM, the music channel) and INX News (NewsX, the news channel).

NewsX had rolled out a 360 degree marketing campaign, titled Clarity in a Complex World, in May, following the soft launch of the news channel in March 2008. Meridian Communications was handling the account then, along with INX's in-house team.

The agency lost the account to Euro RSCG in October 2008. Euro RSCG was also asked to roll out marketing campaigns to highlight the channel's positioning of 'Clarity in a Complex World'.

For the record, McCann Worldgroup announced the entry of T.A.G. into India in November 2008. This is the third country where the full service agency has a presence. It also has operations in San Francisco and Tokyo. In India, the agency will initially have offices in Delhi and Mumbai and was supposed to kick-start its activities by February 2009.