NEWS: Worldwide Partners seeks more allies

Ed: News from India...

Worldwide Partners seeks more allies

The US-based network of mid-sized advertising agencies, Worldwide Partners (WPI), is looking for more partners in India.

With requests for market research and advertising work for the Indian market going up by 50 per cent in the past year, WPI plans to partner with more agencies here to do specialised work. Mumbai-based Pressman Advertising and Marketing, with annual billings of about $63 million, had tied up with WPI in December last. Termed as "Reverse Omnicom", the WPI network follows a unique partnership policy. Each advertising agency it partners with gets a share in WPI. In this way, every member agency becomes a part-owner of the network unlike in other organisations where network owns its member agencies. WPI, formed in 1938, has strongest presence in the US, where it has 38 member agencies. It has only two partner agencies in India but its clients are increasingly seeking more work to be done from India. Its total capitalised billings globally for last year was $4.1 billion...