Essar ropes in London firm for brand revamp

The steel-to-telecom conglomerate Essar group has roped in London-based creative and consultancy firm, Start Creative, to create a new brand identity.

The group intends to emerge as a consumer-oriented group, shedding its existing heavy industries tag.

This move is important as the group intends to acquire the GSM operator, Hutch-Essar, and emerge as a major player in the Indian mobile telephony segment. Moreover, the company is also looking at capitalising on the burgeoning consumer market in India.

"The new branding strategy would be unveiled in the next couple of weeks," a source close to the development said today. The appointment of a global agency is to bring in a global touch to the group companies.

This would make the company compete with international players in all the sectors it has presence in, starting from steel to oil and gas and telecom, he said.

The financial terms of the contract were, however, not disclosed. An Essar spokesperson said, "We keep revisiting our branding strategy. We have no specific comment to offer".

According to an industry analyst, Essar's plans to bid for the 67 per cent stake in telecom sector would propel it to become a customer-oriented group.

Essar had floated a three-way creative pitch, and Indian firm Cogito and Italian group Milani took part in ii. Start Creative, which is famous for its Virgin Group branding, won the pitch.

BBC, Hertz and COI Communications are other accounts handled by the group.

Essar officials were also in talks with global branding majors such as Wolff Olins and FutureBrand, but were dropped as they were "too expensive" for the Indian market.