India online focus for Publicis?

Further to the earlier post on China, it appears that the ad agencies believe that marketing spending is moving quickly online in India too. Contentsutra reports that French mega agency Publicis is possibly thinking of launching its just acquired Digitas subsidiary in India.

Looking at the sources, it seems that the talk is fairly speculative at this stage and has led to another round of breathless speculation in Mumbai about who will be acquired and for how much. The story comes from DNAIndia which quotes Arvind Sharma, head of Leo Burnett India, saying “Digital communications accounts for business worth Rs.450-500 crore in India. Push for this area comes mainly from travel and tourism players and financial players. Both Arc and Starcom Digital cater to the digital communications space, but we are sure that Digitas would be able to bring in proprietary knowledge, much of which is not available in India.”