Mullen Lowe Lintas 2- agency structure to rope in global brands?

It was just a matter of time before the two-agency structure was announced at Mullen Lowe Lintas Group. And it has happened along with the rebranding from Lowe Lintas + Partners to Mullen Lowe Lintas Group.

While globally rechristened Mullen Lowe Group on 8th May 2015 after the global alignment of Lowe and Partners network with the US agency Mullen, in India it has been rechristened uniquely due to the power of brand Lintas.

Though the group would not want to dilute the equity of Lowe Lintas, it needed to bring global prowess of Mullen to India too – hence the launch of an independent creative agency Mullen Lintas. As reported yesterday, Arun Iyer and Amer Jaleel, currently joint National Creative Directors at Lowe Lintas have been promoted to Chief Creative Officersfor Lowe Lintas and Mullen Lintas respectively. Jaleel has also been designed the Chairman of Mullen Lintas.

R.Balakrishnan (Balki) and Joseph George (Joe) continue as Group Chairman and Group CEO respectively, of Mullen Lowe Lintas Group.

Considering the Mullen Lowe global accounts that the group would be keen to align in India too and their probable clash of interest with Lowe Lintas existing clients, the dual agency structure was the best option. Among Mullen Lowe group’s global accounts are: Unilever, Lenovo, National Geographic Channel, Google, GM, Diageo, Remi Martin, Asos, Mattel, Western Union, UNICEF, Johnson & Johnson and Burger King. Out of these, HUL and Unisex account is already with Lowe Lintas.

While a few of Mullen Lowe brands might not be in India yet, others are and might have competing brands in the massive list of Lowe Lintas brand portfolio.

As Jaleel mentioned in the official communique shared by the group yesterday the group has a ‘large agency’ ambition for this independent venture. We, for one, are waiting for a few global brand realignments.