MullenLowe Lintas Group launches third independent agency, PointNine Lintas

MullenLowe Lintas Group has announced the launch of its third independent full-service agency in India, PointNine Lintas. It would offer omni-channel marketing capabilities including creative (on and offline), PR, activation, experiential, social, media and digital transformation; all under one roof. PointNine Lintas will commence operations on August 1, 2017. Vikas Mehta, currently Group CMO and President, Marketing Services for MullenLowe Lintas Group, has been named CEO of PointNine Lintas.

Along with Lowe Lintas and Mullen Lintas, PointNine Lintas would be the third independent agency of the MullenLowe Lintas Group in India.

The existing marketing services of the Group will be aggregated under this new agency and will operate as its divisions. These include GolinOpinion – PR, reputation management; LinTeractive – digital marketing and transformation and LinEngage – activation, experiential and shopper. These divisions will come together to offer full-service horizontal offerings to clients of PointNine Lintas, while continuing to retain their vertical offerings for existing clients. The new agency has a roadmap to further expand its capabilities by adding new offerings to its service stack, including creative, media, technology and platforms.

Announcing the new agency, Joseph George (Joe), Group Chairman and CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group, said, “We made our intentions to go full-service clear four years ago. While the list of companies and industries pursuing full-service (under different labels) has grown tremendously in this time, the approach to it remains more or less the same. PointNine Lintas is a fresh take at an agency model that’s multifaceted at its core. So far, only holding companies have seen some success with this approach, but it’s restricted to a handful of very large global clients. An agency network doing this would be a first, and we believe it could broaden the base of clients who can tap into it.”

Mehta has been with the MullenLowe Group for over a decade in various local and regional roles in the APAC region including Managing Director – Lowe Viet Nam and Regional Growth Officer – Lowe Asia-Pacific. He moved to MullenLowe Lintas Group India in 2013 as the country’s first agency-CMO. In 2014, he took an additional mandate to rebuild the group’s digital business by relaunching LinTeractive. Since 2015, he’s also been President of the Group’s Marketing Services divisions. Prior to his management stints, Vikas was a planner and he authored strategies, papers and case-studies that have won over 50 international awards for marketing effectiveness. Major ones include Effie (India, Singapore and APAC), Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards, APAC Tambuli Awards, WARC Asia Prize for Strategy, 4A’s Jay Chiat Awards, among others.

Speaking of the appointment, George said, “I have worked closely with Mehta for the past four years and I am absolutely certain that he is most qualified to deliver on this ambition. Not just because of his subject matter competencies required for a multi-service agency, but also for his passionate, stubborn and informed belief in ‘full service’ being the only way to go!”

Mehta said, “We have gone from the age of communication to the age of experiences. While the market has evolved at a furious pace, the agency models haven’t. The opportunity to take the Lintas pedigree and build an agency for the experiential economy is an inspiring one. Hyper-bundling is our biggest priority as a network and I’m grateful for the challenge to build a new agency that’s hyper-bundled from day zero”.

PointNine Lintas will work on an operating model that’s designed to evolve, much like the OS of ones preferred device, to reflect the accelerated pace at which the marketing landscape is shifting. In fact, the name PointNine reflects exactly that; a philosophy of ‘forever beta’, by choice

MullenLowe Group (IPG), MullenLowe Lintas Group (India) has three independent agencies. Lowe Lintas, Mullen Lintas and the newly launched PointNine Lintas. Housed within these agencies, the group has several specialist offerings that operate as their divisions, offering a robust stack of marketing solutions. Lowe Lintas offers – design services (dCell), brand consulting (LinConsult) and video content (LinProductions). PointNine Lintas offers PR, reputation-management (GolinOpinion); activation, experiential & shopper marketing (LinEngage) and digital marketing & transformation (LinTeractive). The group manages ~300 brands across multiples categories with a talent pool of 900+ people and 11 offices across seven cities.

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