Mumbai-based integrated communications and marketing agency Mogae Media has acquired 48-year-old local advertising agency Rediffusion India. As part of the deal, four agency brands – Rediffusion, Everest Advertising, Rediff Health and Rediff Direct – are being purchased by Mogae Media, which is owned by advertising veteran and former Rediffusion employee Sandeep Goyal. Rediffusion was founded by Diwan Arun Nanda, Ajit Balakrishnan and Mohammed Khan in 1973. Khan left Rediffusion to start his own agency, Enterprise, in 1983.
The four brands will operate as independent agencies. According to executives familiar with the development, the entire buyout is estimated at Rs 75-100 crore, which will be executed in two to three years.
Nanda and Balakrishnan have decided to retire from the day-to-day running of their business. However, Nanda will continue to oversee the agency and remain president. Balakrishnan will also step back from all day-to-day operations but will focus his attention on the Rediff.com content platform.
Sandeep Goyal, who was also president of Rediffusion (1997-2001) before embarking on the entrepreneurial adventure, will return as managing director of the agencies.
Over the years, Rediffusion has created some of India’s most iconic and memorable advertising campaigns for brands such as Jenson & Nicholson, Eveready, Parle, Garden Vareli, Godfrey Phillips, Tata Tea, Lakmé, Telco (Tata Motors) , Colgate Palmolive, Citibank, and Maruti Suzuki. Rediffusion also launched the Airtel brand in 1995.
The agency currently works with Tata Sons, Parle, Tata Trusts, Tata Motors, State Bank of India, Liebherr, Larsen & Toubro, Brookfield, Orra, Eveready, Dey’s Medical, Sulekha, Danone, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s and Audi India. , among others.
In 1994, Rediffusion forged a partnership with Young & Rubicam to become Rediffusion Y&R. In 2018, founders Nanda and Balakrishnan bought out WPP’s 40% stake in Rediffusion and continue to run it as an independent advertising company.
“Rediffusion has been known for years for ‘advertising that became famous and became part of people’s language and culture’, and helped brands build long-term, sustainable equity with consumers,” said said Diwan Arun Nanda, president of Rediffusion.
“‘Whenever you see color, think of us’, for Jenson & Nicholson was a groundbreaking campaign. Much like ‘Hum Red & White peene walon ki baat hi kuchh aur hai’ for red and white cigarettes, ‘Annu taazgi de’ for Tata Tea, “Gimme Red!” for Eveready and the recent “Isko laga dala, toh life jhingalala” for Tata Sky. Rediffusion was also responsible for creating the cult commercial starring AR Rahman, with the very memorable tune from the Airtel brand which had the most downloads in history,” he added.
In 2012 Goyal launched Mogae Media with offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2017 Mogae Media acquired a 10% stake in ad tech company Sync Media and later in 2020 the company entered into a joint venture with Australian voice and digital agency VERSA which helps brands create conversational artificial intelligence solutions.
