RAJIV VERMA, CEO, HT Media Limited
<p align=justify>“One of the first things that HINDUSTAN TIMES tried to do is to make sure that its brand is more sharply defined in the minds of its readers. For this, in Delhi we did a campaign to communicate the positioning of HT as a brand. One of the strengths of HT is that over several decades, it has been seen as a dominant brand influencing the thoughts and behaviour of people it reaches out to. In certain ways, HT was playing the role of a thought leader, a brand which stimulated thought, thus empowering the reader.”
“One of the first things that HINDUSTAN TIMES tried to do is to make sure that its brand is more sharply defined in the minds of its readers. For this, in Delhi we did a campaign to communicate the positioning of HT as a brand. One of the strengths of HT is that over several decades, it has been seen as a dominant brand influencing the thoughts and behaviour of people it reaches out to. In certain ways, HT was playing the role of a thought leader, a brand which stimulated thought, thus empowering the reader.”
Rajiv Verma, 46, holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering. Prior to joining HT as CEO in September 2004, he was the Managing Director for Whirlpool, South East Asia, for three years. He started his career with Hindustan Lever Limited and has also worked for Nestle for 12 years in various roles involving project management. In a free-wheeling conversation with Kalyan Kar and Asit Ranjan Mishra of exchange4media, Verma talks about future plans of Hindustan Times Group, its Mumbai launch, the brand strategy of HT, and its focus on Hindustan, the Hindi daily from the HT stable. Excerpts: Q. Quite a bit is happening in Hindustan Times these days. As an essentially marketing person by background, how would you characterise brand HT today?
Let me correct this perception -- I am not a marketing person. I am a ‘General Manager’ who has worked in various functions, and not just marketing. I have worked in both front end and back end of businesses, both in India and abroad. So I have a fairly good 360-degree experience of how a business works. But I am gifted with an outstanding marketing team in HT, some of which I have built after coming here. We are very fortunate to have some of the best marketing talents with us which is a strong differentiator for the company vis-à-vis other companies.
One of the first things that HT tried to do is to make sure that its brand is more sharply defined in the minds of its readers. For this, in Delhi we did a campaign to communicate the positioning of HT as a brand. One of the strengths of HT is that over several decades, it has been seen as a dominant brand influencing the thoughts and behaviour of people it reaches out to. In certain ways, HT was playing the role of a thought leader, a brand which stimulated thought, thus empowering the reader. So we communicated that using various means of communication.
The creatives that were made with the help of O&M were absolutely outstanding. It took us almost four to five months of work to very clearly articulate the positioning of the brand. Besides O&M, we got help from Deepak Jain of North Western University, and much of the work was done by our marketing team alongwith the editorial team. Let me tell you, research has shown that the entire effort was highly successful in communicating the message to readers.
Q. How do you react to the statement that even today The Times of India is considered as the thought leader or trendsetter, at least in the Delhi English print media market?
I don’t want to comment on this because it is not fair for me to comment on my competition. I would only like to point out that no research has been done to back such perceptions. The only fact that can’t be denied are the IRS and NRS numbers. That is what determines, in the end, market shares and readership. I don’t think we can go by generalisations of what a certain brand might be perceived as unless there is solid research to back it up.
Q. But both of you doing it at the same time!
No, that was not the idea. The supply chain economics are such that the effort was to make sure that abuses don’t happen. Reactions happen at the same time, but they happen independently. No, I don’t think that the discussion was about raising it on the same day. It was to make sure that product abuse was stopped.
Q. Acquisition apart, how serious is the company’s plans to have a financial paper?
As I said, we are at a very early stage of analysing the market opportunity and studying whether the current offerings meet all the consumer needs and whether it is possible to offer a differentiated product that can fill a market gap, if one exists. But as I said, this is at a very early stage of scanning the market and analysing market information. Only after that can I tell you whether there is any concrete plans to enter the financial newspaper market.
Q. You are already present in the new media space with Hindustantimes.com. Though as a news site it has performed well, it is certainly lagging behind Indiatimes when it comes to shopping and VAS (value added service) offerings. What are you planning for it?
We recently started rebuilding our dotcom team. Because we believe that in the next couple of years, Internet penetration is going to accelerate at a very fast pace. With a view to that we recently hired SN Bhaduri as head of our Internet operations. There are other competencies which are being added to make sure that our dotcom business also starts to perform at a level where it is the market leader of the future.
Q. A few months back, in Delhi, both The Times of India and Hindustan Times raised their prices from Rs 1.50 to Rs 2 on the same day. Was their any synergy and behind the door talk?
We all know newspapers in certain markets are sold at prices that lead to wrong trade practices. Not that everybody does that, but some practices are not good, like, for instance, product going into scrap because it is operating below scrap value. It is therefore important that we keep the economics of supply chain such that product abuse does not happen. That is what was attempted in the market of Delhi.
Q. Mumbai is an interesting market today after the launch of HT and DNA. Who really is No. 2 in Mumbai today?
Both these newspapers were launched only around 100 days ago. It is too early to start drawing such conclusions. Readership is not built overnight. It takes a very stairway kind of approach towards building readership, step-by-step improving your performance in every single segment of the business. So, I would rather suggest that we wait for at least a year before we try to draw conclusions as to who is No. 2 or who is No, 3. But I am very happy with the accomplishments in our first 100 days. Things have gone exactly the way they had been planned.
Q. For quite some time, we have been hearing about HT’s plans to have a pink newspaper. There is also talk in the market that the HT management is talking to Business Standard to buy it out. Where do things stand and what really is the plan?
We are always open to any synergies as a company and we have created a separate business unit for this. But I can tell you that there has been no discussion for any acquisition at this point of time. We are studying the scope for offering a business newspaper in the market, but this is all in rather early stages of market research and analysing the opportunity. But if there are any synergistic offerings available in the market, we would never say no to it since value can be created for the company through acquisitions.
Q. In this context, how do you see brand HT vis-à-vis brand TOI which are considered arch rivals?
One of the first things that I tried to do was to focus on our readers and advertisers -- and not be competition-focussed. I would like to say only one thing, that both HT and TOI are good products. But then, readers make the choice, advertisers make the choice as to which product meets their needs. However, HT as a brand stands for some promises that it makes to its readers and strives every day to meet those promises -- of being a thought-stimulator and making the reader a thought leader in his sphere.
Q. Everybody was surprised when both Hindustan Times and The Times of India came together and used each other’s resources in Mumbai. What sort of strategy was it that two competitors joined hands?
I firmly believe that overcapacity is a social ill. In a free market, all companies work in isolation. And the danger is when you end up creating overcapacity. Overcapacity is possibly the biggest destroyer of industry resources. We were open minded enough to see that us printing for others will not be a competitive disadvantage for us. On the other hand, I felt that by doing away with overcapacity, we will be able to protect the economics of our industry. We were very open to printing for others. In fact, we had offered our capacity to everyone, since we were in the initial period of our Mumbai start-up and there was bound to be some spare capacity. There is no point in idling excess capacity because there is a social cost of the idle capacity.
Other than that, our advertisements were carried in The Times of India, but there was a clear understanding that we would carry their advertisements too should there be any, in a market like Delhi, some day. Successful businesses are built when you keep consumers as the focus -- not competition as the focus.
Q. But don’t you think your other competitors may accuse the two largest media houses forming a price cartel?
Not really. As far as we know, the product is highly subsidised. Fifty paise is not the kind of price increase that amounts to price extraction from the market. It is still the cheapest product available in the entire country. And don’t forget, the price was hiked almost after 15 years.
Q. When exactly are you entering Madhya Pradesh market?
Currently we are trying to study the overall landscape in terms of the various offerings available, the behaviour of readers and their expectations because, while they may be all Hindi speaking states, people living in different states have different requirements, different expectations. We always start with the readers first by trying to understand their requirements. I can only say at this stage that the entry will be very soon.
Q. What about HT’s less talked about Hindi brand, Hindustan -- where does it stand in your overall corporate focus?
Hindustan has been an under-performing workhorse in our stable. It’s a brand that we are very proud of. It has the fourth largest readership. In Bihar, it’s more like a lifestyle product, the day is not complete if people have not read Hindustan. However, as a company we did not focus sufficiently on it. Hindi markets were not very well evolved. Therefore, in some markets in the Hindi-speaking belt where this brand could have performed very well, for lack of adequate focus, the opportunity for Hindustan eluded us.
However, this is something that we are going to fix. One of the markets that I have recently been to with my team is Madhya Pradesh. It is a very attractive market, very well evolved now, and continuing to evolve. We met several readers there, and they were unanimous that there is a need for a quality offering there. There are a few offerings already there, but there is a gap for a product that is thought-provoking with content that meets the needs of the reader. Hindustan is going to meet those needs soon. Madhya Pradesh is a market that we are going to be focusing on seriously and make an entry there.
Currently, we are studying our entry strategy as well as consumer expectations and the needs that consumers have expressed to us, and are in the process of creating an offering which meets those needs. We will also meet our advertisers to find out what are their expectations, because a wholesome product should meet the needs of both the advertising customers as well as readers.
In addition to that, we are in the process of improving the quality of Hindustan even in markets we currently operate in like Delhi, Bihar, UP. But MP is a very attractive market and we will make sure that a good quality product is made available to readers there.
Q. But you have already mentioned in the red-herring prospectus submitted to SEBI that you have definite plans to launch a financial daily.
You are absolutely right. Entry into the business newspaper domain is something that has been our inherent strategy because a print media company’s overall offerings are not complete till such time you have a business newspaper. So, if we find that the current offerings are meeting the needs, then we will have to think about an alternative product strategy for entering that segment.
Q. Coming back to the Hindi front, there are quite a few strong established brands in the market. What is the product differentiator you are thinking of to push Hindustan?
Currently, that’s the work we are doing with Deepak Jain from Kellogs Business School – to find the true differentiators which will differentiate us from our competition. We have currently a very loyal base of readers in the Bihar marketr. There is also a segment in Delhi which is very loyal to our brand. What we are trying to do is to find out the points of differentiation for Madhya Pradesh which will set our brand apart from the current offerings available there. And this is currently the work in progress. You will also see that in Delhi, as we refresh the brand and differentiate it still further from our current set of competitors and refresh the brand to take it to the next level.
Q. Sometime last year, Hindustan Times had announced its plans to enter the Radio space. You had even announced your tie-up with Virgin Radio. What is the latest on your FM plans, especially since the government has announced the second phase of bidding?
As we have said earlier, we see Radio as an integral part of our overall media landscape. That’s one category we would be entering. And our relationship with Virgin has become a kind of very strong relationship wherein they are working with us very closely because they have the specialisation and expertise which is required for this space. Virgin understands the category very well. They have worked in some other Asian countries with great success. With their partnership we are very confident that we will be able to offer radio listeners a listening experience which they will find absolutely unforgettable.
Q. Just a little before your Mumbai launch, the TOI Group launched Mumbai Mirror. Worldwide, too, broadsheets have started moving towards tabloidism. Is there any plan of HT also looking at complementing its brand with a tabloid product?
I would never say no to any innovation. As an actively consumer-focussed company, we don’t want to miss out trends in consumer expectations. We are not a company that is so filled with orthodoxy that it will insist on staying with its current footprint and not like to change. But I would like to add here that the changes have happened in the Western world, mostly in Europe and now in the US, and the trend continued in Malaysia for instance, where broadsheets became commodity tabloids. That’s a very significant trend, but these happened in very mature markets.
However, in India, though newspaper reading has been a strong habit, the market here is semi-matured. This is unlike in the US or the UK where newspapers are very thick with lots of content, and demographics are such that young readers are moving on to newer ways of acquiring news. Those markets have a different reader profile than India, and I am not entirely sure whether Indian readers are ready to migrate to a tabloid footprint. But that is something we will study very closely. If consumers want it, then we shouldn’t shy away from giving it.
Q. We were talking about communication a little earlier, the communication of brand HT. How was the response to the ‘Let there be light’ campaign?
The positioning is that HT as a brand is a thought-stimulating product. I think it is about the whole proposition that brand HT brings, the brand persona and brand attributes, and also in terms of the concept which backs the entire proposition. The entire campaign ‘Let there be light’ was based on that insight. It has been a very clutter-cutting creative. We received a very encouraging feedback from our target group. I think it was the first time that a media brand has gone on TV to build an image for the brand.
I think both the product and the communication are in sync with each other. It’s not that we just put an advertisement with certain claims and nothing to back it up. We have started a good printing factory which is one of the best in Asia. And we improved the quality of the product -- both the way it is projected, the way content is captured, quality of pictures and the communication. So there was no gap between the claim we were making and the product. Some of the new features that we added like Weekend and Brunch, all that led to a package which was highly appreciated by the reader. Therefore, the results are there for all to see.
Q. What about the plans to launch Hindustan Times in Bangalore?
I would want Mumbai to stabilise before we start expanding further because Mumbai is a large market and we want to give it a little time to stabilise. But, of course, we will want our geographical footprint to expand. It is a question of with what velocity we do that.
Q. Do you also have plans to enter the television space?
We are not averse to entering it. But, at this stage, we have enough on our plate with print and radio and the pink paper that we spoke about.
Q. There is also talk that HT too now has a its own ‘Medianet’…
We don’t do these things. Absolutely not! That is not the strategy of our company.
Q. How many stations are you planning to have?
At this point, we are analysing the market and working out the economics. It is too premature for me to say how many stations are planned, the bidding strategy, etc. That should unfurl itself in the next 60 days.
Q. But where do you exactly see the opportunity for a fifth financial daily?
I would be making broad assumptions in that case because we just don’t know at this point whether the space is too congested or not, whether readers’ needs are being met by the current offerings, etc. That’s the kind of work which we are trying to find out at this stage.
Q. What are the reasons driving growth in the Hindi market?
One of the reasons is improving literacy. With literacy improving, these markets are becoming larger and larger. The second factor is that the entry of more consumer brands, both durables and FMCG, and financial and educational products, etc., has increased the relevance of second-tier markets. A combination of these factors has made these markets very attractive at this point of time. So, these markets are evolving and maturing, though they are still far from reaching a maturity level that is possible when the per capita GDP reaches the ballpark of $600-$800. Once these numbers are achieved in some of the Hindi speaking states, the markets would be very attractive. I have no doubt that as India continues to improve its economic performance, some of these markets are going to have increasing buying power and that will make the Hindi markets very attractive.
Q. Why is that the mainline media houses, primarily the English media, also have a Hindi product, and yet the focus has always been lacking on their Hindi offerings? This is true of the Times group, your group, so also the Express group.
I can’t speak about other groups, but for our group, we are the fourth largest read Hindi newspaper in the country. And it’s not a mean achievement. We never shied from staying a Hindi focussed company. We also have two Hindi magazines -- Nandan and Kadambini. However, what I would certainly agree upon is that an opportunity that existed for us was not fully tapped. As far as the Hindi market is concerned, we could have done much better. And going forward, that is what we are now trying to do, and one of the first steps in that direction is our entry into Madhya Pradesh.
But I do agree that the synergy between Hindi and English publications was not very well exploited. Possibly one of the reasons for that could have been the domineering position that the English market enjoyed as far as media spends were concerned compared to Hindi. But those equations, those dynamics, are likely to change for reasons we discussed a little earlier, about economic prosperity reaching the Hindi belt. This does not mean that the English speaking market will become less important, just that Hindi will also become very important.
Q. On the subject of the Hindi market, you are up against two formidable players in the MP market -- the Jagran group and the Bhaskar group -- who seem to be all over with their carpet-bombing strategy by having an edition in a metro centre with five sub-editions in the districts. Is that the route that Hindustan will take? How would you meet the saturation coverage tactic of these two Hindi dailies?
Interestingly, there is only one brand which enjoys a domineering position in Madhya Pradesh. While there are several other offerings which are available there, they are very small. I think, as we saw in Mumbai, there is place for not just one but several offerings to coexist in a market because readers want choice. And different readers want different choices. Readers in MP have expressed a need for a quality offering that is national in context, enjoys national stature, and is a product that they can believe in. And also be stimulated and feel that they are with the thought leader. That’s the kind of need the Hindustan brand is trying to meet. Currently that is an unmet need in that market.
Q. Three and half months ago, HT launched its Mumbai edition. It was a very talked about occasion in the print media industry. Hundred days down the line, how do you see the Mumbai experiment working out?
First of all, Mumbai was not an experiment for us. It was a strategic entry because unless Delhi was complemented by Mumbai, the entire business platform of HT as a brand would have been vulnerable. We would not have been able to meet in an efficient way the requirements of our advertising customers. Therefore, it was very important that we make a quality entry into Mumbai. What is extremely comforting is that everything has gone according to our plans
All this became possible because the strength of HT as a company is its marketing. Our marketing team is very well equipped to articulate the needs of the customers and what should be the defined criteria. Of course, it was solidly backed up by an excellent product, because that is the strength of our company, that we have an outstanding editorial department. The two departments were able to come out with a great offering and that’s what made it possible.
Q. Very soon means two months, three months…
We are looking at four months to five months by which time we can make our product available.
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Rob Norman, Global Chief Digital Officer, GroupM
<b>We need to create advertising assets that are not just compelling but "thumb-stopping" creative: Rob Norman, GroupM</b><br><br>
Addressing delegates at the International Advertising Association (IAA) Cabana, during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2016 in a special session held by Hindustan Times, GroupM’s Global Chief Digital Officer Rob Norman stressed upon significant issues in managing supply chain in digital media.
“Everything boils down to an interesting notion - what presents an authentic opportunity? Every advertiser, when he spends money on an impression or on any other unit of advertising has the legitimate expectation that the publisher will be one in which the advertisement is seen by a human being for at least a feasible amount of time, and not by a robot or a fraudster,” he said.
What is a legitimate opportunity is not entirely a consistent notion, the speaker said, “because if you are looking at something and it is static on the screen for a given time, it is easy but if you are scrolling with your thumb at 500 pixels per second, which is often the case in feed-based environments, the mere fact that something passes through a viewable window may or may not be determined as legitimate opportunity. So working on the forward regulation and the commercial agreements around viewablility on a platform-specific basis is a huge priority for us.”
In his view, everyone in the supply chain has their own set of responsibilities. While the publisher has the responsibility of providing authentic opportunities, the advertiser has the responsibility to grow the propositions around the products and services that are of relevant value to the consumer. The creative partner, in all of this, has the responsibility of taking that proposition and making it compelling and sufficiently arresting to consume and the media agency has the responsibility of placing it in an environment that is fit for the target that it offers value. These are the fundamentals for digital advertising.
Does that require a different set of behaviour in the ecosystem between the stakeholders? While in some cases it does, he feels there are cases where it is in fairly perfect harmony. "Only by briefing (stakeholders) together can there be a harmonious implementation of the plan, and an equally harmonious attribution plan that allows you in setting an objective, defining a fit-for-purpose media placement," he said.
Touching upon the subject of ad-blocking, Norman explains that there has always been a covert contract between the publishers and users of the content - if the user does not want to pay directly for the content then he has to tolerate the amount of advertising for which he may or may not pay attention to. However, with the rise of the ad blocking software, the covert contract gets broken and the user of the ad blocking software chooses not to participate in that contract by blocking the monetization mechanism of the publisher.
In order to resolve this problem, the publisher either has to create content of sufficient value, which people will accept, with the ad blocker turned off or build a greater value by turning into a monetization model from advertisement-driven to subscriber-driven. Norman further stressed upon the need to create advertising assets that are not just compelling but “thumb-stopping” creative.
Responding to a point regarding video consumption patterns on mobiles, Norman pointed out that the lag in adoption of 4G technology has affected video consumption in various parts of the world, particularly India. Giving the context of the Indian market, Norman explained that the only app that works on the 2G platform is Facebook since it has been built fit-for-purpose by downgrading many of its features that could mar speed. Issues such as buffering of video content existed on 3G platforms as well and that 4G has been introduced only in some parts of the country.
Q.
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ShareArun Iyer, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas
“Go to a pitch with your point of view, not necessarily what the client wants, because at the end of the day they come to you because they want your thinking,” believes Arun Iyer, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas.
“We don’t carry options for pitches we go with a point of view, we strongly feel about, which is also why about 80 per cent of the pitch work is actually the first piece of work that we do for a client,” he shares.
Iyer, who took on the mantle of CCO last year, was earlier joint NCD with Amer Jaleel. As CCO, he believes one of his jobs is to make sure that while today is good, the next six months are lined up well.
The agency has consistently been in the news be it for kick-starting the year with its winning performance at the Effies or its recent work on Google’s photo feature that is being widely shared.
“I would like Lowe Lintas to be seen as an agency that a client would want to go to because they want a good idea on their brand which is medium agnostic,” adds Iyer. The world is headed towards ‘hyper-bundling’ (with clients are getting tired of handling multiple agencies) he believes, even as lays emphasis on getting mainstream teams to think digitally.
A candid Iyer shares his views on correcting the perception about Lowe just being a TV agency, why the move from NCD to CCO was not a dramatic one, what prompts ‘Ghar wapasi’ at Lowe, why he thinks there is a lot of ‘gas’ around ‘digital’ and more …………
Edited Excerpts-
Q. What are your expectations from Cannes for Lowe Lintas? We don’t enter from India so some of our work maybe entered from our global offices. My guess is that Lifebuoy Chamki entered by our Columbia office will do well at the awards.
Q. When you say ‘well’, it translates to Gold, Silver, Grand Prix? To be honest, I don’t understand that game too well, but I have feeling that it will be Gold.
Q. What are the changes that have been on your agenda as CCO? I am personally working very consciously towards correcting the perception about Lowe just being a TV agency. Chamki is a step in that direction, what we did for Paper Boat with ‘Hum Honge Kamyaab’ is a piece of content. Again what we have just done for Google Photos is actually content, there are many more things in the pipeline.
TV is still important and we do a lot of TV but somewhere, the world needs to start recognising that we are an agency that comes up with big ideas and that they sometimes happen to be led by TV. Even if you take for instance Tata Tea’s Power of 49, it’s actually a far bigger idea than the television commercial we created. But somehow the world still considers us only a television agency. That’s been the big shift that I have been working consciously on over the last one year.
I am not trying to change Lowe Lintas; I am trying to reach out to the world and actually tell them what we do, which is that we come up with ideas that are beyond television.
If you take Kissanpur, it is an idea that was born in our agency and the fact of the matter is that Kissanpur manifested itself in one TV commercial, and a whole bunch of forms like a huge activation idea, we have, in fact, created a great platform for the brand, and on the back of which we won global effectiveness awards.
Q. What are the challenges you face currently? The biggest challenge is to drive consistently good work. I think it’s a huge challenge because the only way to do that is to empower your people, align with the kind of stuff we need to be doing, and communicate clearly that this is the level at which we need to operate. Set a base level and let nothing drop below that - which is a continuous challenge. The only thing I worry about, fuss about and I keep telling my teams is; what’s coming up? What can we do better?
The challenge is also to continue the great creative culture that we have. To be honest, I have been really lucky, I have got really great people a really great team - the creative heads including the creative team.
Q. Do you think there is an over-emphasis on digital these days? Yes, 100 per cent, whilst digital is important because the mobile phone is transforming our country, and we cannot run away from that, but the noise around it in our industry is a lot of gas around this word ‘digital’.
Somebody needs to cut through it and get to the point of what is it that needs to be done. And that is what we are attempting to do with Linteractive’s new framework Deep Digitisation, which we have been working on since the last eight months.
We are trying to not let the clutter get to us and see how we can genuinely transform into an agency that thinks well digitally.
Q. How has this one year been for you? It has been exciting because we took the opportunity and we were confident enough to think that we can actually start another agency; it was a big call at that point of time.
The good part is that Mullen (Lintas) is doing very well and I think they are doing some nice work. This one year has been very hectic but we have managed to consistently put out work that has generated enough conversations for the agency, we have managed to put out great work, and create a culture that people want to belong to.
In fact, we have a term that people joke around in the agency called ‘Arre iski bhi Ghar waapsi hogayi’; there are so many people who have left us and who have pretty much come back soon. One of the things I am quite arrogant about is that when people go out of our system, they realise the value of our system.
Q. How has it been on an individual level? I have spent lesser time than I would have liked with my family but they have been supportive enough. I know the Mumbai Airport better than anybody in the city right now. It’s been a lot of travel but what I have absolutely enjoyed the most is, working with a lot of creative people and that number has increased a lot more now. For me, the trip in life is to actually sit and jam with creative people and come up with solutions and I have got more opportunity to do that so, it’s absolutely fantastic.
Q. You have been with Lowe since 2003, how did things change for you from NCD to CCO? I joined as a copy writer in 2003 and I have grown through the ranks.
When I became NCD in 2010, it was a dramatic shift for me. There are three levels between GCD and NCD. Balki picked me and said sit here, so I skipped three levels to run one group in the office on the 13th floor and suddenly, I was running half of Bombay, all of Bangalore and Chennai. So, that year was dramatic in my life. Since I have worked for six years as NCD, this was a smoother transition.
Q. You never wanted the option of running Mullen? That’s actually a conversation between Balki(Group Chairman of MullenLowe Lintas Group) Joe (Regional President, South & Southeast Asia, Group CEO India, Mullen Lowe Lintas ) me and Amer (Chairman & Chief Creative Officer Mullen Lintas) and it was a good three-four rounds of discussions until we came to a consensus on the structure we want. So, it wasn’t a diktat or a personal decision, we sat together and we said, okay, this is what is best to do.
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Rana Barua and Ashish Chakravarty, CEO and CCO, Contract
In a freewheeling chat, Rana Barua and Ashish Chakravarty, Contract’s CEO and CCO respectively get talking on the agency’s recent wins, which include ITC Personal Care, Century LED bulbs, Abbott Healthcare, Lupin OTC, Orient Fans, Reckitt & Colman, Garnier among others. Contract has also won the mandate for mygov.in, one of the largest mandates from the Government of India. <br><br> The duo field questions on receiving offers from other agencies, what is a compelling offer to them, taking Contract to the next level why clients are willing to wait for the agency today and more
The duo field questions on receiving offers from other agencies, what is a compelling offer to them, taking Contract to the next level why clients are willing to wait for the agency today and more
“Singularly or as a team barring two or three very obvious network agencies, everyone has made an offer at some point or the other,” says Chakravarty in a matter-of-fact manner.
Given their team work and working equation, ‘if’ they ever considered moving out, would it be as a team? Together would be an ideal scenario agrees the duo, but the offer has to be compelling enough.
And what makes a compelling offer for the duo? A compelling offer would be a large network, a solidly creative, global kind of entity coming into India, something that is a bigger challenge than what we have achieved, say both unanimously.
Barua joined Contract in 2013, Chakravarty came on board a couple of months later.
Chakravarty makes an interesting observation on one of the differences about the agency today.
Q. There were rumours that you were moving on from Contract; what is your take on that? RB: Conversations keep happening. There was never intent of either looking out or moving out, and there still isn’t. There were also a lot of non- committal meetings with people who I respect and are friends. Was there a genuine desire to move out? Not yet.
Q. When Cadbury moved gums and candy to Saatchi and Saatchi, there was a perception that the Cadbury account moved out of Contract….. RB: Cadbury’s Celebrations is the local jewel, which stays with Contract because we have built Celebrations. Celebrations was started by Contract, the relationship is that old, the brands that have moved was due to pure global re-alignment.
AC: Our relationship with Cadbury is very deeply embedded, I believe Celebrations is the only brand in the world where gifting has been successful. Our Eid film was successful not just for Celebrations but for the entire range of Cadbury products, giving it a very good spike.
Q. In an industry where agencies are judged on their creative product, how has the agency’s creative offering evolved to suit the changing brand dynamics? AC: We have instilled an entrepreneurial spirit into the system. While there are different departments, we are all in it together - it’s a business to do shining work for the client.
It is not about individual glory but how to leverage creative as a tool for acquiring business. That reflects in the way we work. We have changed the entire rules of working on a client brief; we have people from all departments on the deck solving the issue of a client using the different tools available - that’s the spirit of a start-up, that’s an e-commerce scenario where individuals are not separated by departments. To a degree, we ascribe our success both in business and in creative to this spirit that we have in Contract. It’s about solving a business problem using creative, and therefore, beneficial both for the client and business.
Q. Given the equation between you two, no power camps at Contract? RB: We work in alignment and alignment is that common goal that both of us have set for each other.
Power camp kind-of conversations are likely to happen when both take independent calls but because of our alignment, you see the same percolating down the line at least 80 per cent in the agency, which is fabulous.
AC: Since we are aligned, what is happening across the agency and departments is that people are looking out for each other; it is not one against the other. If the other person has failed and I am gaining joy out of it then something is wrong. Wherever that happens, the agency is going to get crippled. That has started to flow and it is not across departments, it’s across geographies. You know that you are winning as a team or you lose as individuals. I think that sense has gone down. It’s not magic, it’s just that you put a set of people with a common purpose and then they align over a period of time.
Q. When you took charge at Contract, your initial focus was to stabilise the ship, then you went aggressively after new business, where is the agency at now? RB: What we managed to do with Contract is to make it a far more stable ship. If you look at the number of people who came on board in 2013, including me, Ashish and many of them, including many senior people and individual talents. They have got multiple offers but have stayed together. Secondly, if you look at the number of clients that have come on board and stayed with us, it’s a massive list of people who have invested in Contract. Without naming any agency, there are so many of them that are struggling to find a footing. Our conversation with clients is about creative effectiveness, product, planning - it’s a very different conversation. So, if you ask me if the mission is over, I would say, no. There are many categories that are open to Contract, there are many clients who are talking to us, and there are many more things we can do if we want but it also matters on our bandwidth.
Q. So are you saying no to pitches/ new clients if the bandwidth doesn’t permit it? RB: In many instances clients are ready to wait for us…
AC: Our first priority is to our existing clients..
RB: If we go for a pitch we go for a win. A lot of heartache goes into pitches and a loss is demotivating for the entire team, so there is no point just going for the heck of it. Also pitches we go into today are of a certain size and scale, let me put it this way, we have been going for pitches with the top few agencies in the country.
AC: If there is an urgent requirement, we excuse ourselves if there are bandwidth issues. Also a lot of what happened and worked for us last year was when a client approached us, we showed them our work and the team who would be working on the account and asked them to work with us without a pitch, in a whole lot of cases we were able to work on numerous projects in the manner.
Q. Any reason for the silence since the last one year? RB: There are two or three reasons you talk; when you need to, when you need a lot of attention and when you need to make a conversation. Right now conversations, attention and a lot of engagement is happening on its own. Whether it’s with clients, whether it’s with people, a lot of things are happening. There is no particular reason to come out and say something which requires any kind of eyeballs for us. Our work is speaking for itself.
Q. What would be some of the focus areas for you going forward? AC: I think it would be to up the ante in some of areas like design. The other would be newer forms of engagement.
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Charles Courtier, Global CEO, MEC
MEC’s Global CEO Charles Courtier gets candid about not playing the under-cutting game, why more regular pitching is the new normal after the ‘Mediapalooza’ of 2015, take-aways from as well as focus areas for MEC India
The agency globally saw a double digital growth last year (above 10%), which in 2015 was a very good performance, feels Courtier, even as he says that it is a bit early to comment on the agency’s performance this year.
Courtier declares that the overall view around India is very optimistic and global leaders continue to have faith in India as a fast growing market, more so, because growth in China has started to slow down, making the gaze on India more pronounced. On digital, Courtier believes it is just a matter of ‘speed’ at which digital takes over the Indian market, when comparing it with global markets like the US, Europe and even China to some extent, rather than ‘when’ it will take over.
Edited excerpts from a conversation Charles Courtier had with Priyanka Mehra:
Q. Are we done and dusted with the craziness of last year's ‘Mediapalooza’ wherein an extraordinary number of big clients put their accounts up for global review at the same time? I don’t think it is done. But you are right... it was crazy, and if I were a big client, the last thing I would do now is pitch my business, because how on earth would I get the best out of any agency when they are drowning in these enormous pitches? Having said that, I think much more regular pitching is the new normal. And I don’t think it started in 2015 - I think we are quite used to pitch and re-pitch of businesses on a very regular basis and that’s going to continue. It might not be 2015 every year, but I think we will continue to see a lot of media pitches every year.
Q. What are the possible reasons for this, in your view? I think there are two key reasons. One is procurement, because companies and businesses are all under tremendous pressure, and the media number on the balance sheet is a very big one in most clients’ businesses. So, procurement is a fact of life, it is very important for these companies to get the best efficiencies and value that they can for the money they are spending. Procurement is competitive from a pricing point of view. The other side of it, to some degree, is fear in the sense that the communication business is changing so massively, that I think clients want to test if the agency has the right skillset to navigate them strategically through the chaotic, difficult and fast-changing media world driven by changing consumer preferences. Marketing is changing so fast; if you are a CMO in a big company, you know it’s hard to keep up with everything that is going around. The way the consumers are buying your goods or entertainment is changing so fast that the CMOs in that situation need to know, and they want to check that the skills they need are there.
Q. How do you deal with under-cutting, especially given the added pressure of significant global pitches and a cut-throat competitive scenario? The only way to deal with it is responsibly. We have to be competitive on price. Yes, there are situations where somebody does something crazy and you get under-cut; yes, everybody has a story of when that happened. But honestly, if you get into that game, it’s a very short-lived game; don’t think you are doing your client any favour because you can’t sustain under-cut prices. In the end, you have to be responsible in terms of pricing that you are putting forward; you have to deliver it over a long-term basis. So to answer your question, we won’t play that game.
Q. What are your focus areas for India from a global perspective? Digital is key, because I believe it is the tipping point and India is on the cusp of that. It is all about ensuring we are ahead of competition in terms of our digital and our data capability. So, absolutely that is the priority, because we can see the wave of opportunity about to come so we have to be ready for it. The business has grown fantastically over the years and has great opportunity. You have to have talent to manage that growth and also to sustain that growth. The development and diversity of talent is another key focus area; growth of talent is equal to growth of the business for us.
Q. What would you like to take from MEC India to MEC globally? India is a very entrepreneurial country. When we look at MEC here, in comparison to MEC globally, there is a real tough entrepreneurial spirit in India. And if I could take that, box it, move it and export it around the world, I would.
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Sajan RaJ Kurup, Founder & Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia
Last year was an eventful year for Sajan Raj Kurup Founder & Creative Chairman Creativeland Asia, a visibly exhausted but spirited Kurup gets candid about why industry do’s are ‘unexciting’ for him, why staying away from Goafest has added to the agency’s culture and focus, expanding operations beyond India, Why charging a pitch fee still works for CLA, his thought process behind work for Micromax, and life after Parle Agro.
Q. What is the insight behind the new logo and tagline—‘Nuts: Guts: Glory’ for Micromax? Nothing symbolizes a cultural revolution in an organization as much as a change in identity. This exercise wasn’t about redesigning a logo and writing a tagline. It was about capturing the Micromax culture. For this we studied the Micromax story of four guys taking a brave decision to risk it all and enter the devices market. We traced their journey that started evolving from the back-alleys of the mobile phone revolution in India and all the way up to the global scene. We sat and understood the personalities of the founders, their ambitions and plans. What stuck out for us was a sincere amount of audacity. So, for Micromax, we created a line that establishes the innate desire for audacious and unconventional victories. And decided to scribe it as ‘Nuts: Guts: Glory’ in an unconventional slogan of sorts.
Q. The new campaign is completely different in tonality and positioning, and definitely more aggressive, was this the brief given to the agency? The most defining characteristic of this generation is the admiration for (and a desire to emulate) the crazy and the brave. To not just win, but to win big. To make irrational decisions, and to win madly. This cultural fuel becomes meaningful for us when it connects with the Brand Ethos.
In many ways, Micromax embodies this spirit we see coursing through the veins of the nation.
Anyone who has followed Micromax closely would know that the brand has an audacious story of how it was born in the back alleys of the mobile revolution in this country and has propelled itself on to the global stage in less than a decade.
Micromax is clearly an unconventional winner brand. It is a brand that’s taken chances, fought off much larger, more reputable competitors and still managed to come out in the driver’s seat. It has a sheer bloody-minded will to succeed.
It’s brash, bold and defiant .Which is why it goes for it. It’s why it doesn’t do things in half-measures.
Q. What does the campaign aim to achieve? A large part of the campaign objective is also to break a de facto price ceiling when it comes to how the brand is perceived and to align the cultural fuel and brand ethos with the new brand philosophy of ‘Nuts: Guts: Glory’ for its next phase of growth.
Micromax’s ability to premiumize itself lies in creating more meaning around what the brand stands for, its philosophy, how it sees its story, how it sees its users and how it delivers across the entire user brand experience.
Q. Do you have any plans of expanding operations beyond India? Yes, we have already incorporated an entity in Singapore. We have been studying various strategic overseas markets for the last three years now. We have already started engaging with brands in some of these markets. Slowly but surely you will hear more about our expansions beyond India.
Q. You are now a rarity at industry do’s as well, is this a result of the over hyped loss around the Parle account or is this a conscious effort on your part to stay away from the advertising industry? The Parle Agro- CLA split affected the industry gossip mongers more than it affected Parle Agro or Creativeland. We have moved on to business as usual. People who know me have learned to ignore the over-hype or gossip. It has nothing to do with being a rarity at industry dos.
Look, I am terrible at befriending, small talk etc. And, I don’t even drink alcohol any more. So, I don’t know what to do there once I get there. Also, instinctively, I can be quite politically incorrect and blunt. So, it would be kind of dangerous and not so exciting for me to be at all these ‘industry dos’.
I am better at focusing on what I am good at and what I enjoy.
Q. What are your thoughts on the new Frooti brand campaign? I’d prefer to pass this question.
Q. CLA charges a premium, at the same time you refrain from pitching how does this work in the real world? Creativeland doesn’t undercut itself or others. More times than often, we have won mandates despite of not being the L1 on cost at the procurement desk. We believe in creating great value for our clients and ourselves. We handpick our client partners as carefully as we pick our talent. It has been almost 9 years of Creativeland and every single year we have successfully delivered on setting benchmarks in every category we have brands to work with. Over the years, we have more and more clients inviting us to pitch and paying us a pitch fee for it. Every time a potential client says, “We are very excited to have you pitch and we are very keen to see the Creativeland perspective” I know the value the decision of sticking with a pitch fee has created for Creativeland.
Q. You haven’t participated in Goafest for 4 years now, 2012 was the last time CLA participated. Will we see CLA back at Goafest? The years we participated in Goafest, we have won big in front of a full house of participants. We have won big in competition with strong organizations like Ogilvy. Especially in the film and integrated campaign categories including the integrated grand prix in 2012. But, some of us also saw some amount of ganging up against winners, lobbying and alarming levels of scam ads by agencies desperate to win. Since we have a clearly different point of view on how awards must be conducted and instituted, I decided to step away. We haven’t missed being at the fest even once. In fact, staying away has added to our culture and focus.
Q. Coming back to Micromax, is this the first campaign that CLA has worked on, for a global audience? We have had several instances in the past when our campaigns have been used in overseas market/global audience. Audi, for instance. A lot of our work was considered and used in the Asian and European markets. The work we do for a lot of brands at Godrej gets used across the SAARC countries. Even as we speak, there are a few more global initiatives Creativeland is in the midst of in Africa, EU and US, apart from Micromax of course.
Q. Is this a very different task from some of the others that Creativeland has done for brands in the past? We’ve had invaluable experience of dealing with premiumization challenges across different categories.
We successfully repositioned Cinthol from being a popular segment soap to being at the premium end of the bathing soap category, making it a youthful and gender-neutral brand in the process. We did this by telling young India “Alive is Awesome.”
We re-positioned MTS from being a lower SEC, voice-driven brand for price-sensitive customers to becoming a data-focused brand for the digital youth of today, who consume gigabytes for breakfast.
We made MTS the definitive telecom brand for “The Internet Generation”, significantly growing its ARPU in the process. While these categories may work differently from each other, there’s no denying that building a consistent, meaningful brand identity and philosophy is key to capturing the hearts and wallets of contemporary, young India today.
And as this category slides further into parity product problems, brands will need to start differentiating themselves based on personality, based on how they make consumers feel about themselves, and how consumers identify with their beliefs.
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Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO, FCB
Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO, FCB, talks about his expectations from Rohit Ohri who will don the role of Group Chairman and CEO (India) in January this year, speculations around talent moving from Dentsu to FCB. He also reacts to speculations around Satbir Singh, and talks about reasons for not wanting to make any revolutionary changes in to the agency in India. Excerpts:
In an interview with Priyanka Mehra, Carter Murray, Worldwide CEO, FCB, talks about his expectations from Rohit Ohri who will don the role of Group Chairman and CEO(India) in January this year, speculations around talent moving from Dentsu to FCB. He also reacts to speculations around Satbir Singh, and talks about reasons for not wanting to make any revolutionary changes in to the agency in India...
Q. Are there key areas that the industry needs to work on from a creative perspective? There is opportunity in art and design, to elevate the level of advertising. With creativity you have to take lateral leaps and I think there’s a cultural environment in which we can do that even more here.
Q. What is your reaction on the speculation regarding Satbir’s ( Satbir Singh, Chief Creative Officer, FCB) exit? This is unhealthy gossip which is being spoken about which is untrue, of course there is gossip when a large company appoints a CEO, but it is unhealthy and unfair to the people who come to work everyday, We are in a talent business and we need to treat people with respect. Satbir is a really creative guy and really respected and it is unfair that people are saying that. Rohit who is the new CEO coming on board is a grown up, a good leader and he will give everyone a chance.
As the Global CEO, I will, like for any new CEO, after 90 days, come here and ask for a plan and assessment of the team. We’ve put in place a rigorous HR so we know exactly where people are. So if he feels they’re in a different place then he will have to explain to us why. When you are in a talent business, there are checks and balances in place to make sure great people are taken care of.
Q. How are you working to ‘up’ the agency’s creative quotient in India? I have very big ambitions for FCB Ulka. With Rohit coming on-board along with some of the creative talent we have already, my challenge to them is how we can help our clients and work together with them to raise the profile of India on a global stage in the industry we are in.
Most countries have a belief, probably partially correctly that they have a rich vein of creativity and a right to be in the forefront of creativity. India is one of the few countries that has a natural birth-right for creativity and has a right to play a much bigger role on the global stage but I don’t think India does it nearly as much as it can currently.
Q. What is the mandate given to Rohit Ohri as Group Chairman and CEO? There are certain goals that I, as Global CEO look to deliver and I expect the same from all other CEOs including Rohit. One is to be able to retain and attract the very best talent in the industry. Through his leadership he needs to create a culture and ambition to attract and keep key talent.
He should have energy and passion for the creative business. Sometimes our industry follows trends, which is understandable but the core of what we do is creative work.
I am excited about Rohit coming on board because he is the right influx of talent and will give the right perspective to the team we have here and take Ulka on the next step of its journey. It is very different from a reinvention where you bring a team on board to completely change things. That’s not we have here. Here we have a successful agency and a strong culture.
Rohit is going to bring fresh energy and perspective to what is already an experienced energised team.
Q. Will we be seeing a lot of movement of talent from Dentsu to FCB? I have heard of a lot of speculation around this, but it’s untrue. Rohit needs to come onboard and see what the team is here. I assume he might want to bring one or two individuals onboard with him. Speculating on what Rohit will do is unfair to him.
Q. Which other Indian agencies do you see doing good work in your view? I think Lowe and Mcann have had a good reputation for a long time. We mainly look to our sister companies for competition. There are also one or two boutique companies that have started, from which I think more and more of the competition will come, in the future.
Q. What do you want to change on the business front in India? For this market we are not making crazy margins but we are making fair margins. I want to grow but I don’t have any revolutionary ambitions or desires. I don’t have any pressures to double the size of the margin because if I push the margin too far I’ll start to destroy the company. I want Ulka to keep its size and scale. Yes, I do want to keep growing but I want to do that by focusing on the creative talent and product. A lot of the holding companies and networks today have been pushed into putting the numbers first.
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Vikram Sakhuja, Equity Partner and Group CEO, Madison Media Group (including OOH)
“All media agencies today are gearing for change in an environment of digital, data, and technology. This is potentially changing the way we target, work seamlessly across media, deal with a connected consumer and deliver outcomes. This re-engineering, if you want to call it that, is as applicable to Madison as it is too any other agency. I hope to play my role in being a catalyst of change”
The news of GroupM’s Vikram Sakhuja joining Sam Balsara’s Madison Media Group including OOH as Equity Partner and Group CEO took the industry by storm in April this year.
In his new role, Sakhuja will be responsible for the Media and OOH business of Madison World. He will work closely with Sam Balsara.
Interview
In a brief chat with exchange4media on his first day at Madison, Sakhuja a highly respected name in the media industry, talks about his expectations from Team Madison, his excitement on working with Sam Balsara, who he has known for over two decades now.
Sakhuja also answers the question on speculations over the possible movement of talent as well as clients from GroupM to Madison post his move, in his own inimitable way.
Excerpts:
Q. You have known Sam Balsara for over two decades now in your various roles as a client and a formidable competitor. What are the advantages of your partnership, despite the perceived difference in leadership styles? Sam is a great dealmaker with an exceptional commercial acumen, and I have a decent strategic mind with a good record of growing business and organizations. Both of us believe in client-value and we both have more than a decent network in the media marketing ecosystem. I’m excited about teaming up with someone I’ve respected and admired for over two decades. I hope for starters to rub off some of his amazing energy and spirit on to me.
Q. You have been a digital evangelist at GroupM and Maxus. What is your approach and strategy towards bolstering Madison’s digital offerings? I have just joined today, so it would be presumptuous and premature to talk of a digital strategy now. Suffice to say for now, I believe in digital being a specialism that needs to integrate into the overall plan rather than work as a silo.
Q. In a recent interview with exchange4media, Dominic Proctor (President, GroupM Global) said “Madison has a fine heritage and clearly needs to re-engineer for the future. I guess that's why they have taken him on” on your exit from GroupM and joining Madison as Equity Partner. What would you like to say about his observation on the need for Madison to re-engineer for the future? All media agencies today are gearing for change in an environment of digital, data, and technology. This is potentially changing the way we target, work seamlessly across media, deal with a connected consumer and deliver outcomes. This re-engineering, if you want to call it that, is as applicable to Madison as it is too any other agency. I hope to play my role in being a catalyst of change.
Q. What would you like to say about speculation on the possible movement of talent as well as clients from GroupM to Madison post you taking charge at Madison? If you’re trying to flatter me into thinking that my old friends might want to follow me, you are succeeding. The truth is that talent are looking for growth in four areas: exciting work, personal and career growth, an organization and leaders they can look up to, and economic wellbeing. Good organizations that focus on these normally don’t worry about flight of talent.
Q. Is building on ecommerce business also going to be an area of focus for you adding on the Snapdeal business? Agencies learn from all their clients. ecommerce is clearly a sunshine industry with great momentum. One, we can learn much from – especially the always on, real time nature of business and the link between cause and effect. That said, traditional businesses bring a huge foundation of consumer marketing skills. So short answer is that all sectors require focus, including of course, ecommerce.
Q. You recently said you might bring in to Madison the culture of setting ambitious targets and trying to achieve them, do you think the agency needs this more now with the recent loss of Mondelez (on account of a global pitch) and Airtel at earlier this year; both of which are significantly large accounts. What is your strategy towards Madison regaining lost ground and going on to new heights? The context of that comment was the difference between MNCs and local companies. MNCs of which I have been part of are more target-driven than local companies. My philosophy on targets is really one about objective setting. My conviction is that if managers are clear about deliverables, they are also smart enough to achieve them. On Madison strategy, I am hardly likely to reveal it, especially on my first day of joining.
Q. While we have covered extensively what is it that you would like to change and strengthen within Madison. What are your expectations from Team Madison? To have a passion for making a difference to our clients’ brands, and to enjoy what they do.
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