Etihad Airways Partners airlines appoint Starcom as global media agency
It is another round of good news for Starcom Mediavest Group in India. After winning the media mandate of Dabur India last month, in a global move, Etihad Airways Partner (EAP) airlines that includes Etihad Airways and India’s Jet Airways, has appointed Starcom as its global media agency. The move comes in the wake of a competitive pitch process.
Starcom was selected by EAP to deliver scaled benefits by aligning media spending power across key markets and to provide added value and centralised strategic advice and planning to meet the unique commercial needs of the airline grouping.
Shane O’Hare, Etihad Airways’ Senior Vice President Marketing, said, “Starcom demonstrated that they fully understand the emerging media scene which has digital media at its core. Their highly experienced team, resources, planning tools and buying clout in all the key EAP markets gave them a clear edge in the tender.”
“The depth of the relationships within the EAP allows us to go even further with our joint media strategy alignment, and will allow Starcom to maximise returns on our collective investment and to ensure that each unique brand experience is brought to life with optimum exposure on a global scale,” Mr O’Hare added.
The appointment of Starcom will allow the EAP to benefit from a superior knowledge and skill base within one agency to service all partners with market and industry insights and to provide access to leading edge global thinking and proprietary technology with consistency across all partners.
Matt Blackborn, President, Investment and Diversification at Starcom Mediavest Group, said, “We are the foremost innovators in the precision media space and very much welcome this exciting challenge of working with the Etihad Airways Partner airlines across all their communications platforms.”
“This is a unique client brief and relationship as it brings together multiple brands from the same industry and is ground-breaking in the agency world. We look forward to servicing Etihad Airways Partners through a unified approach that integrates connections, content, data and technology,” Mr Blackborn added.
Starcom will service the EAP airlines in key hubs in the United Arab Emirates and India.
Gaurang Shetty, Senior Vice-President Commercial at Jet Airways said, “Starcom showed their ability to add value to our media investments and demonstrated their thorough understanding of the evolving media scenario. Starcom’s solution was backed with data, insights and relevance to the brand’s core values. We look forward to partnering with Starcom to develop synergies along with other Eithad Airways Partner airlines.”
