Venus Water Heaters, a subsidiary of Venus Home Appliances Private Ltd has appointed OMG (Omnicom Media Group) as its media agency. The creative duties were passed on to Rubecon. The account was passed on to these agencies without any formal pitching process.

Prior to this, the media and creative rights were taken care by Mindshare and JWT.

Confirming the news, Ram Kumar, Director – Marketing, Venus Water Heaters, said, “We looked at various factors, including the ability to deliver the kind of time and attention that we required from our creative and media agency. After looking at different agencies, we felt that these two suited our requirements as they had the necessary expertise and the capability to bring in value addition for us.”

Kumar added, “Most of our advertising happens during the peak selling season, which is the third quarter, and we will be very active during that time during this year as well.”

The new agencies on board will also handle other brands under the Home Appliances range. The campaigns will be 360 degree campaigns utilizing traditional and digital forms of media.

Venus, a 40 year old company that has been a market leader and a pioneer in the water heater industry and is synonymous with water heaters across India.

As part of a global consolidation of its marketing and media accounts, Vodafone-the telecom major company has handed over its media rights to Optimum Media Direction (OMD). Earlier the rights were with Group M’s Maxus.

The account highlights global media-buying across 19 regions, including the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Spain — all regions where they previously held the business — as well as regions in which they weren’t managing the business, such as the U.K., Australia, India, Greece, Ireland and South Africa.
Thus taking care of European, Middle East and Asia-Pacific markets.

The pitch, which was called for three months ago, and the account has been won by Team Vodafone of WPP (for Europe, West Asia and Africa) and Carat (in the UK). Carat won the business in January this year from OMD.

The account transition from Maxus to OMD will happen over the next few months, as per a Vodafone spokesperson. In India, the advertising spends for the brand is pegged at approx Rs 300 crore.