Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired a majority stake in Mumbai-based out-of-home (OOH) specialist agency Milestone Brandcom for an undisclosed amount, as per a company statement.
Post deal, Milestone Brandcom will retain its identity and branding and will share its knowledge in creative and OOH planning with the group.
Founded in Oct 2009, Milestone Brandcom is led by founder and director Nabendu Bhattacharyya and is one of the largest OOH companies in the country based on billings.
Bhattacharyya will continue to serve as CEO and MD of Milestone Brandcom, reporting to Ashish Bhasin, chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia.
"This acquisition marks another significant step as we build a high quality and scaled group in India," said Nick Waters, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific.
"This investment now establishes clear leadership for us in this very important medium, making us the leader in the OOH and OOH Retail space in India. We believe that OOH will play an increasingly important role for clients in years to come; so we are delighted to be able to offer clients a market leading service," said Ashish Bhasin, chairman and CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia.
Milestone Brandcom employs around 175 people, has more than 100 active clients and provides a full service OOH offering which includes an event promotion activation division, rural OOH activation, retail and digital OOH division.
The firm recently launched the Milestone Optimizer, a tool which optimises OOH media plans by tracking 25,000 sites across India and providing gross impression points of an OOH campaign.
Dentsu Aegis Network, a part of Dentsu Inc, provides marketing and communications strategies through digital creative execution, media planning and buying, mobile applications, SEO, content creation, brand tracking and marketing analytics.
The firm is headquartered in London and operates in 110 countries worldwide with over 23,000 specialists.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
