<p align=justify>India has got an enormous amount of talent. It has some very good people and strategic thinkers. This is testified by the increasing number of Indians in APAC countries and handling bigger responsibilities. I think when it comes to the operational level, the systems and processes that enable efficiency, that enable the culture of response and diligence is lacking. But as the blending happens and as more as more flatness comes across, those barriers have to disappear. It's a highly competitive market and India doesn't necessarily have to be competitive because of the low wages.

exchange4media Staff Feb 16, 2007 12:00 AM

"Unfortunately, there are flaws in ILT. It measures day-after recall, which is equal to saliency; it's not equal to listenership. As a listener, you don't even know what the brand looks like. Typically, what gets picked up is salience, which really is the top-of-mind brand that you might have recently seen in an outdoor campaign. That is why you will see most radio stations do very lowest common denominator marketing - frequency and station name. But is that a way to build a brand?"

exchange4media Staff Feb 9, 2007 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>You cannot expect to make money or better the industry by just planting outdoor media formats arbitrarily. The building of world class outdoor formats must go hand-in-hand with the cityscape and must form part of the city. Further, to do all of this requires huge investments, which we are more than willing to do.

exchange4media Staff Feb 6, 2007 12:00 AM

Public relations in India is, in some instances, highly sophisticated in the way it is practiced. As a democracy, India has provided an environment for the development of public opinion and that is the very basis of public relations. As India’s business communities expand on a global basis, the practice of public relations will follow.

exchange4media Staff Feb 6, 2007 12:00 AM

"I don't think a city limits creativity in any way. If you mean the kind of clients that you get to work on in Delhi, well, I think all clients want good work. Overall, the work being done for Delhi-based clients by agencies based in Delhi is good."

exchange4media Staff Jan 27, 2007 12:00 AM

Getting new job seekers is extremely important. That’s what our business is all about i.e., how many new resumes are we able to acquire. We believe that a job seeker comes to a job site to search for jobs and that we should make it as easy as possible for him / her to do just that. The redesign of the site has worked well for us because the job seekers can see that we are respecting his reason to come to the site.

exchange4media Staff Jan 23, 2007 12:00 AM

Just because digital needs attention it doesn't mean that print doesn't - print needs the same amount of focus. We have to get into brand extensions today as we are growing into something bigger than anything in the past. You can see that magazines are adding more to the main magazine. Around the world, the reason why there are such initiatives of specials and supplements is because the consumer is impatient, he doesn't want the same thing. So, we are creating the illusion of doing something new - even though we are really doing the same thing.

exchange4media Staff Jan 20, 2007 12:00 AM

It is the interaction of RJs with their listeners that make FM channels popular. An RJ has to create a rapport with his/her listeners and make them feel that he/she is one of them. He has to make the caller feel at ease. Every FM channel has its devoted band of listeners/followers and it is the RJ’s job to make those people feel that we are all part of the same family and ensure that they remain with the station.

exchange4media Staff Jan 16, 2007 12:00 AM

I am extremely unhappy with the channel rate of Rs 5 under the CAS regime. We are being forced to sell in metros like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata at the same rate. We have requested TRAI to treat sports channels in a different manner and not club then in the same price bracket as that of entertainment channels.

exchange4media Staff Jan 13, 2007 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>Today most youngsters want to do a poster, a mailer, a small book or a logo which will help them win an award. They have nothing to do with the brand, it's outside the jurisdiction of the brand, but they would do everything else for which they have not been hired for. That's a problem, and not just with us, it's a cancer that's going across the country. Unfortunately, a lot of good people who do good work on brands that gave them their bread and butter became disillusioned.

exchange4media Staff Jan 6, 2007 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>One of the biggest things about Aegis is people don't want us to be bought by someone else, just as much as they want to buy us themselves. What really happened was Bollore (Vincent Bollore, Chairman, Havas) bought some stock - Publicis doesn't want Havas to get us, so they start talking to us - that becomes public. Sorrell (Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP) then has a legitimate excuse to put his finger in it. He can't buy our media business because it's a conflict of interest, competition issues and because he is so bored with it and he has spent so much of money on each acquisition!

exchange4media Staff Dec 30, 2006 12:00 AM

Disruption is not dependent on or linked to channels and mediums. Sure, the strategy has to be executed differently every time, but it is the strategy that has to be fresh. There is no reason why India should prove difficult for disruption… Disruption helps to a better strategy. For instance, what we have done for Bajaj Allianz is fantastic.

exchange4media Staff Dec 23, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>The challenge facing the tea industry is how do we make tea a relevant beverage for the rapidly going-out-of-home segment. Tea as a beverage continues to dominate the in-home consumption, with a penetration of nearly 90 per cent. However, due to lifestyle changes more and more people are spending time out of home and tea is not exactly seen as a beverage on the move. This is the main area that we want to address by developing both superior formats and value.

exchange4media Staff Dec 21, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>“We are a pro-client agency and the only objective we have is to be accountable for every penny the client spends with us and I guess all our clients will vouch for us in this regard. We always try to add value at each step when a campaign is in progress, starting from planning to post-campaign presentations. This was our approach for the Tesco campaign or the recent Suzuki Zeus launch campaign across 70 towns.”

exchange4media Staff Dec 19, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>The days when one said 'I am XYZ brand, buy me' are passe. People don't look at advertising in that way anymore, they have to decide for themselves what they want and in that sense you have to mean really something and be relevant to the consume...Anything that looks nice now might become passe later, so how it integrates into the thinking of the consumers and how consumers adapt to it for a long term is important.

exchange4media Staff Dec 15, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>TV effectiveness is declining, but at the same time this whole debate on 30-second TVC dying is really exaggerated in the Indian context. TV is growing in India, but the reality is that the consumer is looking away from TV because of the options she has today. We haven't reached the levels of the UK and the US, where TV is innovating quickly because of growing technologies. Technology in India is growing, but it is still on a very small base.</p>

exchange4media Staff Dec 8, 2006 12:00 AM

Ogilvy’s trademark is insight, ideas and influence. What we mean is that you develop an insight which is difficult to arrive at. It’s kind of an ‘Eureka!’ sort of moment… Second is to develop new ways of story telling, which has moved dramatically away from traditional formats, yet a great story is a great story. Because of lack of attention span and fragmentation in media, it is imperative to understand the tools of modern story telling. It means education, both internally and externally, in terms of new media, which we do.

exchange4media Staff Dec 4, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>I think, sooner or later, there will be a push to have more than one frequency available to you in a single market just to diversify the choice. The idea of foreign ownership may evolve someday into higher percentage. The idea of news and current affairs and public information being available on commercial FM radio may pave some sort of evolution as you go along.

exchange4media Staff Dec 1, 2006 12:00 AM

In relation to the size of the market, the media market is really small and the English language market is even smaller. Second, it's a very inexpensive market, so it is hard to make money - both cover price and advertising rates. The third is the strength of the newspaper market, it is really, really strong. Cable TV doesn't exist anywhere the way it is here - cable TV is strong in the US, but not in the UK or Australia. In all, the Indian market is very, very competitive.

exchange4media Staff Nov 24, 2006 12:00 AM

<p align=justify>Our global vision is ‘seamless mobility’. Eventually, the mobile handset will be an all emcompassing device – you will be able to pay your bills, unlock your car, your home, buy tickets, and even use your mobile phone as a personal ID. It is going to be an integral part of people’s lives. The more you personalise mobile phones and provide consumers with additional options, the more consumers value it.

exchange4media Staff Nov 20, 2006 12:00 AM