Axis Bank ropes in MediaVest & Digitas

MediaVest will handle media buying, while Digitas India will be responsible for digital and social media duties.

Axis Bank has shifted its media business to MediaVest Worldwide, an agency belonging to the Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG). MediaVest will handle the business from its Mumbai office. The account was earlier with Madison Media. The size of the business is estimated at Rs 70 crore.

The business moved to MediaVest Worldwide without a pitch.

The mandate covers media planning and buying for all Axis Bank campaigns and is effective August 1. Confirming the development, Manisha Lath Gupta, chief marketing officer, Axis Bank, says, "While evaluating, we realised SMG has robust planning tools which will help us integrate across different media. With its human experience strategy and approach, we believe that it is well poised to handle the media challenges lying in front of Axis Bank for the future."

Malli C R, chief executive officer, SMG India, says, "Axis Bank is a blue chip client and we are honoured and delighted to have it on board. It has an exciting brand vision and we look forward to delivering its goals with SMG's future-focused media product that is predicated on insights and analytics, digital and content."

Axis Bank has also appointed digital marketing agency Digitas as its digital AOR (agency of record). The win for the agency comes on the back of a multi-agency pitch held in Mumbai a couple of months ago. This is the first time that the brand has formally brought on board a specialist agency to handle digital and social media duties.

Digitas will conceptualise, design and manage Axis Bank's online presence across the bank's verticals and practices. The agency's mandate includes creating a strategic digital roadmap for the brand. The brand is reportedly spending close to Rs 8-10 crore on digital media, including digital media buying.

Commenting on the new win, Kanika Mathur, president, Digitas India says, "We will be using some of our worldwide learning�s and best practices to create and implement best in class strategies and consumer experiences for Axis bank. These will include helping position new and current services online as well as in social media."

Axis Bank offers the entire spectrum of services to customer segments covering large and mid-corporates, SME, agriculture and retail businesses. With its 1,622 branches (including extension counters) and over 10,000 ATMs across the country, the network of Axis Bank spreads across 1,050 cities and towns, enabling it to reach out to a large cross-section of customers with an array of products and services. The bank also has overseas offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Colombo, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.