The IPG media agency won after a four-way pitch with Starcom, Carat and long-time incumbent, Maxus. Fortune pipped Lowe and BBDO to the advertising business for Sampoerna Telekomunikasi Indonesia. Initiative has been tasked to plan and buy across all of Sampoerna’s tobacco brands. The agency’s senior technical advisor Ram Subramaniam said: “We came up with a cohesive strategy to take a single idea across all media to reach markets in Indonesia’s rural areas.”
Sampoerna is Indonesia’s biggest tobacco advertiser, and accounted for nearly a third of total category ad spend in the first quarter of 2007, according to Nielsen Media Research.
STI is one of 10 mobile operators in Indonesia. It was formed when the Sampoerna Group bought a controlling stake in Mandara Sesular Indonesia in 2006, following the sale of its cigarette business to Philip Morris International.
Separately, MEC is engaged in a pitch with ZenithOptimedia to consolidate media for a rival cigarette brand, valued at approximately Rp 25 billion. The account is currently split between the two.
