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| Sunday, 24 February 2002 |
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'Lankan advertising industry doing very well' Head of Leo Burnett India, visits Sri Lanka Managing Director of Leo Burnett India, Arvind Sharma was recently in Sri Lanka to review the advertising standards in the country. Mr. Sharma is also a member of the directorate of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc., the Sri Lankan arm of Leo Burnett Worldwide. "Sri Lankan advertising standards have grown at an extremely fast pace during the past couple of years" said Mr. Sharma. "Advertising messages are more focused and to the point" he further added. "Sri Lanka has a good collection of strong advertising players in the market today," Mr. Sharma said. "It is essential that we have strong players as then, the industry itself can grow as a whole. Thsi is why the Sri Lankan advertising industry has performed and developed exceedingly well." Sharma is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and spent his first couple of years in marketing at Voltas. He joined advertising in 1979 at Clarion McCann. In 1993 he joined Chaitra Advertising in India and rose rapidly in the agency. In 1992, Leo Burnett's equity participation in Chaitra was accompanied by his appointment as the Deputy Managing Director. In August 1995, Mr. Sharma took over as the Managing Director of Chaitra Leo Burnett with additional responsibilities of looking after Burnett's interests in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. He helped establish affiliates for Burnett in Bangladesh - Bitopi Advertising and Sri Lanka - Leo Burnett Solutions Inc., the agency's second network in India in association with Dentsu - Orchard Advertising and the agency's media and Starcom. In 2000, the agency changed its name to leo Burnett India. Under Sharmal's leadership the Indian agency transformed itself rapidly, acquiring industry stature and adding global accounts such as Coca-Cola, Fiat, Heinz, Kellogg, Pillsbury, Hallmark and Toyota and local accounts such as Bajaj, Dabur, Godrej. Leo Burnett is one of two agencies to have a Cannes lion. The 44-year old Sharma has a passion for innovative planning techniques that help unearth powerful consumer insights for creation of advertising. His paper on innovative techniques for unearthing consumer insights received an award from the Market Research Society of India. He has also served on the executive committees of Advertising Club of Bombay, National Readership Survey Council, Advertising Agencies Association of India and Media Research Users Council. With 25 office in 15 countries in Asia and Pacific, Leo Burnett enjoys billings in excess of US 1.2 billion in the region and handles many of the world's top brands. The most creative agency network in the world according to the Gunn Report 2001, and winner of Media Magazine's coveted Asia Agency of the Year 2001 award. Leo Burnett currently handles seven of the world's 25 most valuable global brands as ranked by Interbrand: McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Marlboro, Kelloggs, Tampaz and Nintendo. It also handles 22 other brands in the top 100. Founded in Chicago in 1935 with eight employees and three clients, today Leo Burnett Worldwide Inc., operates a global network of over 200 operating units across 81 markets, including 92 full-service advertising agencies and a variety of speciality marketing services including direct, database and interactive marketing, sales promotion and brand consulting. Leo Burnett, with worldwide billings of $8.278 billion in 2000, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago-based Bcom3 Group, Inc., a large global marketing communications holding company. Leo Burnett Solutions Inc., the local representative of Leo Burnett Worldwide, was established in Sri Lanka in June 1999, and is headed by Ranil de Silva. |
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