Span Communications to advertise for India Post

Span Communications wins advertising mandate for India Post

Following a multi-agency pitch, Span Communications has won the creative and media mandates for India Post. The agency will have the account for the next two years. The size of the account is estimated at Rs 50 crore. Ogilvy India is the incumbent agency on the account. Agencies like Adfactors, Crayons, Dentsu, Euro RSCG, Grey Worldwide, Mercantile, Percept, Prabhatam, Pressman and Sobhagya were in the fray for the prestigious account.Naresh Kheterpal, chief executive officer, Span Communications, says the agency will be working towards strengthening the brand identity of India Post. On the media mix, he says, "A suitable mix of traditional and new age media, primarily led by TV and the Internet, along with other below-the-line activities will be used.""To build the brand and promote its various services, the agency will focus on bringing a perceptive change among the target audience by strengthening India Post's image. On the agency front, we have clearly chalked out our expansion and diversification plans with launch of our 'Film Production' and 'corporate gifting' divisions." Kheterpal says.It may be noted that India Post has gone in for a makeover in the same period last year. It had launched its new logo on September 23, 2008; which is displayed across all post offices and postal services in the country. Ogilvy India had done an exceptional work on the new branding of India Post; and management consultant McKinsey was behind the restructuring of the Department of Posts (DoP).The positioning statement, 'Giving Wings to Your Dreams', summarises the philosophy of India Post. With the world moving to faster modes of communication with the Internet, private courier services and mobile telephony, India Post faces stiff competition. Span Communications recognises the crisis and believes that it has its task cut-out.The DoP has decided to launch a service that will offer overnight delivery of parcels and logistics consignments in major metros across the country using its very own dedicated fleet of aircraft. For India Post, running such a service can be cost-effective simply due to the scale of its operations.For the record, with more than 1,55,000 post offices covering the urban and rural populace, the Indian postal network is the largest in the world. On an average, India Post handles 1.9 crore post consignments across India per month. Against this, other couriers are estimated to handle an average 0.5-0.7 crore consignments per month.