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The quest for gold got under way in Beijing on Friday, but some advertising executives think the real marketing medal may be won elsewhere in Asia - in India.\n\nThat country does not have an Olympic story to sell. But the economy is sprinting ahead. The consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said it expected the country's media and entertainment business to generate annual spending growth - from advertising and other sources - of 19 percent through 2012, compared with 15 percent in China.\n\nMost of the big Western agency groups, led by WPP, have been operating in India for years. But they face new competition from smaller agencies that have challenged them elsewhere. At least four so-called hot shops - boutique firms with only a handful of offices, compared with dozens or hundreds for the big agency networks - have recently opened, or announced plans to open, offices in India.\n\nOne of them, Wieden + Kennedy, which is based in Portland, Oregon, hung out its shingle in Delhi last year. Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Naked Communications, both based in London, say they plan to open in Mumbai over the next few months, as does StrawberryFrog, a hot shop based in New York.
Not long ago, manufacturers and retailers were primarily concerned with getting products into stores at prices that consumers could afford. Advertising was often rudimentary; sometimes the big agencies simply adapted bland, international campaigns for the Indian market.\n\nNow, as in other, more developed economies where dozens of similar products jostle for attention, marketers are trying to connect with consumers for the long term rather than just to clear the latest shipments off the shelves. Some of them are even trying to establish their own brands in Western markets - a strategy also being pursued by Chinese brands like Lenovo and Haier.\n\n"The ambitions of young Indian entrepreneurs has changed," Rangaswami said. "They want to start brands afresh."
