TBWA bags Meow FM and Mail Today

India - TBWA has won the creative businesses for Meow FM, the radio channel and Mail Today, the compact daily owned by the India Today Group.

The win follows a multi-agency pitch which included Pickle Advertising and Mail Today's incumbent agency, Capital Advertising. The business will be handled by the Delhi branch of TBWA.

The news was confirmed by Devesh Rai G, marketing head on both the brands and Nirmalya Sen, chief operating officer TBWA India North. Though this is the first time the agency is laying its hands on a radio business, it is not its first tryst with the creative duties for a daily.

The creative duties for Meow FM have been handled by two agencies in the past. Fortune Communications, the second agency of JWT, came on board in March 2007 and handled the account for about eight months. Subsequently, V&S, a Delhi based creative agency, handled it for another eight months.

The creative duties for Mail Today, since the very beginning, have been with Capital Advertising. The latter's positioning for the brand - The Stimulating Newspaper - inaugurated the brand through an outdoor campaign spread across Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.

ZenithOptimedia was the custodian of the media duties for the brands. Now, the media will be handled in-house.

The advertising and media spends for both the brands combined will be Rs 10-15 crore. The two brands have mainly communicated through print and OOH media.

Devesh Rai G of Mail Today bets on the agency's route of disruption and views it as an element which will help take the brands forward from the creative aspect.

"TBWA's disruptive thinking and creative solutions will give our brands the edge they deserve in their respective categories," he said.

Nirmalya Sen, chief operating officer, North, TBWA India, said: "We are delighted Mail Today and Meow FM picked us. Both are challenger brands and TBWA is best placed with its philosophy, disruption, to partner them in their quest for thought leadership."

Both Meow FM and Mail Today were launched in 2007. Meow FM, the radio channel by Radio Today Broadcasting, has become the talk of the town as the first talk-based women-centric radio channel, which has worked well for it in the niche radio business.

Mail Today is a compact newspaper published through a joint venture with the UK based Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail. The brand has been fighting against gigantic daily brands such as the Times of India and Hindustan Times.

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