O&M, McCann sweeten the pitch for Perfetti Ven Melle

After Chinese computing giant Lenovo made the country its global headquarters for marketing and advertising, Italian confectionery major Perfetti Ven Melle India has now outsourced a major part of its worldwide advertising portfolio to Indian agencies Ogilvy & Mather and McCann Erickson.

Perfetti has an ad budget in excess of Rs 40 crore in India, which is its second largest market after China.

Commercials for Mentos, Happydent and Center Shock in India made audiences sit up and pop the mints. They also won awards at such popular ad shows as Cannes.

Sameer Suneja, head marketing, Perfetti India, said, "A lot of communications for brands which are not available in India are also created in India."

McCann India is creating the communication strategy for Perfetti's global brands, Daygum and Hingolia, which are not sold here.

Some successful commercials made for the Indian market, like the Mentos commercial, have also been exported to Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

"The Indian television commercial (TVC) of Alpenliebe and Big Babol, have also been very popular in Europe," company executives said.

Suneja said, "When a communication is prepared for any of our product, it gets circulated across all our offices and then the country heads choose the communication that suits the respective countries."

O&M has handled the advertising for Center Shock and Center Fresh chewing gum. McCann looks after Big Babol bubble gum, Cofitos coffee-centred candy and Alpenliebe.

Prasoon Joshi, chairman, McCann Erickson India, said, "Be it television commercials, or the print and the outdoor medium, we are conceptualising and producing work on Happydent for the European market. So, we are taking care of the complete advertising solutions for the brand."

Besides Perfetti, McCann has also devised a worldwide pitch for Intel.

A significant amount of work is being done in India, agency executives said.