Havas Media Wins The Policybazaar Media Mandate From WPP Media

Havas Media appointed agency on record for Policybazaar's media business

Havas Media has been appointed agency on record for Policybazaar's media business, following a competitive pitch, according to media reports.

Agency: Havas Media
Client: PB Fintech, covering both Policybazaar and Paisabazaar
Scope: integrated media planning and buying
Size: estimated at more than Rs 300 crore, according to industry sources
Ends an association with WPP Media that has run since 2011
The review began earlier this year and reportedly drew several major network agencies

Fourteen Years Is The Number That Matters

WPP Media has held this business since 2011. Relationships of that length are rarely lost on price or on a single bad quarter; they end when the client concludes the category has changed and the incumbent has not changed with it.

Insurance and lending aggregators are among the heaviest performance advertisers in India. The media problem is unusual: extremely high-consideration purchases, long research windows, and a customer who compares across four sites before converting. That is neither a pure brand build nor a pure performance buy, and the plan has to hold both.

Havas Media Is Buying A Business In Good Health

The timing is worth noting. PB Fintech's latest quarterly results showed profit after tax up 92% year on year to Rs 163 crore, operating revenue up 40% to Rs 1,888 crore, and insurance premium up 41%.

An agency inheriting an account on that trajectory starts with room to work and a client with budget. It also starts with a hard comparison: the outgoing numbers are good, so the new agency's first year gets measured against a rising line rather than a recovery.

What A Rs 300 Crore Win Does For A Network

At the reported size this is one of the larger media accounts to move in India this year, and it lands with Havas rather than one of the two networks that dominate the top of the market.

Two caveats worth stating. The figure is an industry estimate rather than a disclosed number, and billings estimates in Indian media routinely run ahead of what is actually committed. And an AOR appointment covering two brands says nothing yet about how the work is split internally or which capabilities the client bought. What it does confirm is that a long incumbency was reviewed and lost, which is the part the rest of the market will read closely.