Dialogue
The intense competition and the trying times both demand better efficiencies. Looking at the current state of the world economy, even organic growth is not going to be easy. Better financial management would be the key to survive. I am looking at strengthening our online division this year. We plan to open an outdoor division as well, besides aiming for a growth of 25-30 per cent in the current year.
While the slowdown has had an impact, we are fortunate that in India we have not felt the hit like other parts of the world. From an overall economy standpoint, we are seeing a very healthy growth. But another truth is that the advertising industry in India is not going to grow this year. I am not pretending there is no pain. But while you do what is necessary to deal with the short term pain, you should not take your eyes off from the long-term objectives. The issue is what shape you will be in when the growth curve starts rising again. Because when that happens, we have to ensure that our growth graph is higher than that of the industry’s graph.
As an industry, we would thrive a lot more if we had one voice when it came to important issues like agency remuneration, pitch fees, even awards. And I am not talking about the ‘fly-by-night’ operators here, but the big guns of advertising. I’m sure everyone has issues. But I’d rather work with the system and address these issues than become a rebel. We also need to be geared to face the digital revolution. We will need people who have different skill sets and aptitude in this context. Mere lip service to this space will not do anymore, we can’t wait for it to hit us, but need to start right now.
We are very much dovetailing into the general macro economic indicators, which is the growth of the general electronic segment, retiling more disposable income and more easily accessible different platforms. India is one of the markets where home entertainment is still a growing segment and we don’t see that change for the next mid- to long-term.
Creativity in advertising is not writing a story with a twist in the end. Real creativity is to crack a problem and give a solution that builds value for the client. Real creativity is all about generating relevant insights, breaking barriers and changing human behaviour.
I don’t think recession is fun at all, far from it. I think they are very painful, I don’t think reducing headcount is fun. It can be described any way but that way. It is a difficult time. The prospects of the industry are strong because of different reasons -- globalisation, over capacity and shortage of human capital, internal communication, distribution importance for retailers, CSR, centralisation, rise of new types of country manager -- this is all good long-term stuff. But the short-term is very painful.
In India, the slowdown has worked for us because we came at a time when the slowdown was just beginning to happen and what it has done is make the clients ask for more accountability and we are the only ones to have the tools that deliver accountability, thus we are actually ahead of our targets and growth is much faster than what we had anticipated.
We are a drama critic – we are going to have good reviews and bad reviews and that is what people like about content. In Forbes US, hardly an issue goes by when we have not offended some company who is a customer but when you have strong audience, they will come back – CEOs change. I used to be involved in US politics, and I have been subject to some very hard, nasty stories, so when someone calls to complain about something we have written in either print or online, I tell them, I can feel your pain but life goes on, you will survive.
During the start up, everyone jumps in everything. But now we have put together functional experts. We started putting structures. We identified areas and levels that we needed to build in, and in essence would strengthen the systems. You will see this pan out in the next few months, and each of the core functions would see people coming in different levels. The thought is that essentially it has to be a system-driven company. If you are talking a league, you cannot be driven by individual decisions, there has to be a system and process in place and people have follow tem with conviction.
Scam ads have became a global phenomenon ever since they were promoted by a few creative directors many years ago. Small countries like Singapore led the charge towards scamming, thanks to some influential creative directors who were placed there. The justification for scam ads was that it pushes the envelope on creativity and keeps creative people happy. Advertising is perhaps the only art that encourages scam for recognition by the profession. You can't win an Oscar with a scam film. It has to be real.
There is a need for quick information in sectors like business, finance or new products, where people will be relying more on the Internet. But there are magazines such as lifestyle or that have aspirational subjects, where people would want to go through the emotional experience of reading a magazine. In special interest or niche segment, the demand for print will still exist. However, even for the Internet, there will be a need to move to paid content, where one can access exclusive news.
As an industry, especially from an Indian perspective, agencies have always been underpaid for their true contribution. Ideas have been our only asset, and for ages, our short-sighted and self-obsessed agency heads have subsidised the cost of our valuable ideas in the fat media commissions that agencies made. Which was all very well till the media companies smelt the opportunity, re-engineered their lives, and scurried away with most of the money that was to be made. Leaving a whole school of gifted yet naïve advertising professionals (both servicing and creative) flopping on barren sands.
The Indian advertising industry needs to acknowledge the role of execution and, therefore, needs to put in a lot of effort in that regard. I have noticed that as an industry in India we put in lesser effort on execution as compared to international agencies. Hence, this could be one of the reasons that India scores lower than normal in the international awards front.
India is a one-trade pony nation when it comes to sports, and that is cricket, as we all know. Cricket is so huge, and the amount of money that it attracts, I feel, there are very few sports in the world that fortunate. It is a big challenge to attract advertising and marketing to any other sport, not just for us, but for everyone in the industry. The sports governing bodies and federations need to think of how to create a voice and share, how to make that sport attractive from a fan point of view, as well as make it commercially viable. That is where we come in.
Creativity is the connective tissue in the world of communication and ideas. We are a creative agency and are focusing all our efforts behind the people and their behaviour, as we all know that creativity has the power to transform human behaviour. So, that’s our focus going forward… We need to be and are being very aggressive in hiring the best talent and study the need of acquisition that makes sense and thus, behave in the way of making the company stronger and be in a better position to grow faster when the recession ends. This would be the future post the recession.
There are too many scam ads! John Hegarty, who had visited India recently for the GoaFest and was also at the AdFest in Thailand, was appalled at the extensive scam work that was entered and what’s more, those entries were being awarded. So, I think that’s a real problem in Asia generally. Because when creative people don’t care about doing real work well, then the real work is never going to be done well enough. If you want to do scam, it is fine, but when you enter in a creative show, the show should have a separate category for it, called ‘Scam’. So, let’s not pretend.
India is one of our focus markets and we are completely focused on growing the dedication to digital. India as an emerging market is the beneficiary of our global network consisting of mature market as well. India has huge potential in terms of growth and in terms of web allocations, too, it has immense opportunity to capitalise on mobile growth. Although mobile population in India is small – around 300 million with rich media capability – but if we can devise a way to effectively communicate to the masses through mobile, then mobile can also be a very effective advertising vehicle in India.
I view the digital media scene in India as ‘early’. There is a certain part of the population that has access to the computer and the phone, but everyone still doesn’t. Computer access needs to be more affordable, and also TV and games more technologically advanced. It needs to become more accessible for everyone and not just part of the population that has access to digital technology, who find it useful.
The quality of magazines in India is the same as international titles. I think the Indian editors, the designs, the production people, the content – all are as good as any other country. The quality of Indian magazines is excellent; I have no doubt that India can have magazines of every kind. The ability of Indian journalists and the design teams is unquestionable. There is nothing to worry about.
The key issue for India, which I feel very strongly about, is that Indian product and services should very largely be seen coming from India. One of the biggest weaknesses that China has (which India does not have) is that although it has a huge manufacturing base, almost all the brands that the Chinese make are not their brands, but are somebody else’s brands. However, the situation in India is different. The best Indian companies in the world – Infosys, Wipro, Tata and a few others – are all known to be Indian. If you associate that brand with the country of origin, it can have a huge beneficial effect.
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