Maruti Suzuki back in Hakuhodo Percept stable

Hakuhodo Percept, the Delhi Headquartered Indo Japanese agency has won the creative and integrated brand duties for the launch of a new car in the B segment from Maruti Suzuki, India's largest passenger car manufacturer.

The process of awarding the business involved a multi agency pitch, which was initiated around mid November 2014. The agencies that were involved in the pitch comprised Maruti Suzuki's incumbent agencies Lowe, Capital, Dentsu and new entrant Hakuhodo Percept.

The name of the new model is undisclosed as of now, however, its launch is slated for mid May 2015 and a fully integrated campaign is being planned to break around the same time. The size of the business is estimated to be around Rs 100 crores.

Confirming the win, Kosuke Kataoka, Executive Director Hakuhodo Percept, said,"Winning this new brand from Maruti Suzuki gives us all immense pride and marks an important step in our journey together, which we re-initiated in early 2014 with the extremely challenging Delhi Auto Expo. We are looking forward to making this launch a huge success."

Commenting on the decision to award the business to Hakuhodo, Manohar Bhat, Vice-President, Marketing, Maruti Suzuki India said: " ‘We are happy that Hakuhudo has come on board. Hakuhudo is associated with Suzuki Japan on various brands and we do believe that our brand will benefit from that experience.”

Adds Elvis Sequeira, COO, Hakuhodo Percept, "It's an incredible win. The excitement in the agency is unbelievable. We are so happy to welcome this very popular brand back to our agency".

Prior to this, in 2008 Hakuhodo Percept had managed the creative mandate for Maruti Suzuki’s A-Star -- the first global car that was designed by Indian designers for Suzuki Motor Corporation.