Finance News

'Indian media arena is the most dynamic'

Lowe Worldwide, an interconnected global community of agencies on Wednesday announced the promotion of Lynn de Souza, director, media services, Lintas India, as chairperson and chief executive officer of Lintas Media Group (LMG). With capitalised billings of Rs 1600 crore, Lintas Media Group units are exclusive media partners for the ITC Group, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto, Idea Cellular, Unit Trust of India, and Tata Mutual Fund among others.

Announcing the news, Stephen Gatfield, CEO of Lowe Worldwide and executive vice-president of IPG, said: "The Indian media arena is one of the most dynamic in the world. Under Lynn's leadership the LMG has been equipped to be at the forefront of the market to capitalize on the drivers of change and opportunities for innovation on behalf of LMG's clients." According to Gatfield, De Souza's promotion is doubly important because it reflects the central role of Lintas India and its key talent in building the group's operations at Lowe and IPG in India and across Asia.

On LMG's growth strategy, De Souza told FE: "Our goal is to register a 40% growth this year. In fact, LMG has trebled its billings in the last two years to touch Rs 1,600 crore. We are chalking out an aggressive expansion plan in India."To add muscle to its manpower, LMG is also on a recruitment spree. Recently, LMG has expanded it presence in Kolkata by opening a new office to augment the services of its existing office in the same city. The agency has just recruited over 20 professionals to run its new office in Kolkata.

On her key priorities, De Souza said:" The collectives we have formed will be further strengthened with a set of five functional collaboratives. These will be the nodal think-tanks created to ensure that all our teams are well equipped with the requisite knowledge requirements for effective service delivery specifically in tools and technology, buying analytics, planning sciences, emerging media and consumer understanding, acquired from the Lowe, Universal and Initiative Worldwide networks in the Interpublic family".

Recently, De Souza had announced a new structure and leadership team for LMG in line with the new vision for the company. The teams have been reorganised in a set of collectives and collaboratives, each aligned to enable better focus on key clients and regional growth. LMG has also recently entered into a significant non-equity partnership with Pinstorm, the largest independent digital advertising firm in South East Asia. The alliance estimates that they will be able to drive an incremental Rs. 100 crore of advertising to move over from traditional models to a performance-driven model in the next 12 months.

Currently, De Souaza oversees seven specialised media divisions namely Initiative Media, Insight, Interactions, Intellect, Digital Initiatives, Media Futures and Second Opinion, which provide media planning, buying and review services to both advertisers and media houses, as well as provide strategic consultancy based on proprietary tools and databases.