MxMIndia

Category: INTERVIEWS

  • WatConsult Founder and CEO Rajiv Dhingra talks on his growth journey as his agency celebrates 10 years of existence

    Dentsu Aegis is the most liberal network…

     

    It’s celebration time at digital and social media WatConsult. The Rajiv Dhingra-promoted agency which is is now part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, completes a decade today, started on a modest note 10 years back. But from a team of four then to over 280 now and a roster of having worked with over 150 brands and over 100 awards, WatConsult has indeed come a long way. Dhingra, Founder and CEO of the agency, took some time off with MxMIndia a fortnight back to reminisce his early days and the journey. Excerpts from an interview…

     

    As you look back would you have taken the same route that you did finally… from the time you have started WatConsult to what it is now?

    To be very honest, I didn’t think and that’s probably the best thing I did. I didn’t think about the future at all. I lived moment-to-moment. Let me start by, when I even started WATconsult, it was a client at of PR event happened to tell me that we are looking for some blogger solutions. Can you come and talk us about it?  I was a blogger before that.  It so happened that I saw an opportunity, a window to make a business and I acted on it.  And that’s what set up the first client and an advance payment of four lakh which became the seedfund for WatConsult.

     

    Which at that time was huge.

    Yes.  For a 21-year-old, yes.

     

    What you would have done if you hadn’t started WATconsult?

    Funnily, I was running WATblog and wanted to scale it as a media thing and it was doing well. The blog was doing well, but it was not making any money.  If I would have failed at that too, I would have probably would have take a job in digital marketing or advertising or something like that.  Knowing myself, I would just keep dabbling, because I have not worked in a job anywhere in my life.  Right out of college, I had started something called jobsforfreshers.com.  I had a registered private limited which failed miserably after one-and-a-half years.  It earned decent popularity, but at that times dotcoms were not… So that was my first startup and WatConsult happens to be my second commercial venture if you don’t consider WatBlog as a commercial venture.  You can consider it a hobby because I really didn’t end up monetising it too much.

     

    Except that it helped you …. 

    Get a lot of respect because I was able to bring together a community of writers. Iin general I think I read a lot and that created a very strong base for my understanding of the digital space.  I spoke to so many people, I handled so many events  that at 21 you are like a sponge, you just absorb everything and your mind starts making those connections much later.  So that foundation kept me in a very good space to actually get into WatConsult and do a decent job at a young age.

     

    What did your parents think about it?

    When I started my first company, jobsforfreshers, my father thought I had gone mad.  I have done a job.  I did a campus placement for exactly 21 days and I quit that and I

     

    They must have been aghast?

    My dad who use with the Reserve Bank of India was mortified.  But I must tell you one thing, my dad is very liberal.  He is someone who doesn’t force himself on anyone.  So he kept telling me this is wrong but he eventually did register the company along with me.  He was the other director.  So I ended up starting jobsforfreshers so for one year he just saw me do this job site and hardly make any money.  I made Rs 2 lakh over one year.  For a fresher it was not bad…

     

    Yes, in 2005, 2 lakh was not a bad amount 

    For over a year selling job postings and all of that.  So that’s what laid the foundation because I marketed that job site that gave me an insight into digital marketing.  Then I read a lot due to WatBlog and met a lot of digital guys.  I would go to every event and expose myself and then I got this client…

     

    Who?

    It was Rediff.  Very kind of Mr Ajit Balakrishnan, never forget him.  Never forget your first client.

     

    To get business from Ajit Balakrishnan is very good because he is very discerning. 

    Yeah.   My first pitch in my life for WatConsult, I got feedback this is brilliant.  So it was not bad for a 21-year-old to stand in front of Ajit Balakrishnan and hear that and then get a fairly large amount as an advance.  I insisted on it because I had just Rs 3000 in my account.  So I didn’t have any money to do what I was claiming that I could do.

     

    So how many people working with you at that time?

    Nothing.  I had zero people because WatBlog was all freelancers working for free because they had passion for digital.  I was a 21, and working out of home.  I just had a laptop and a pitch that I did to Rediff and suddenly I was four lakhs richer and that’s when I started the company.

     

    So from one person to what you are now 

    280 plus almost touching 300.

     

    It’s a huge journey.  As you look back, obviously the first Rediff client was a huge milestone and an entry point. What do you think was your turning point?

    I don’t have one, but two to three turning points after the entry point.  I think the first turning point after the entry point was the crash of 2008.  While I knew digital advertising or I knew I was creative enough, I was enthusiastic enough, I was reading enough to be able to advise others or to work with brands, but I was not a businessman.  There is a difference.  Business is not about skills.  It is about financial discipline as well.

     

    You hit the 2008 crunchjust two years after starting up?

    Yes.  I hit it hard.  Because I realised a lot of my clients were projects, a lot of them like 20% of my business was via other agencies.  My cash flows were not in shape.  And that’s when I hit it hard.  I was 15 people in 2008 October and I had to lay off almost the entire team in three months because I just couldn’t pay them.  I had to take a personal loan of Rs 5 lakh, which I did not, but my sister took because I had no credibility at 23. Soon I did six events which was around WatBlog.  That’s the only money WatBlog made throughout its journey which were through events.  I did WatSummits and I did WatBlog panels.  And I did this thing called WAT mix up, WATblog Wednesdays.  So, WATblog Wednesdays and WATblog panels, I did six or seven of them and saved about six-seven lakhs in three months. I put together a three member team again in January 2009 and I sort-of rebooted.  I never shut the company because I had one client that was paying me a retainer of around 80-90 thousand, which I was servicing personally.

     

    Who was that?

    That was TimesofMoney guys at that point in time.  They had no clue that there was no company at the backend for three months.  Nobody had a clue.  You don’t go and announce these things.  They were paying me and I was delivering everything that they were asking for.

     

    2008 was one milestone.  What else?

    I think after that the big milestone was in 2010-11 when we started working with the big brands – P&G, Godrej.  That gives us experience.  Tillthat time we were not working with that big brands who have global creatives or who bring all the mainline agencies together in a room and discuss.  We had decent clients.  We had media clients like Warner Brothers and Neo cricket.  But these were not clients that had big budgets, big thinking, TV campaigns.  They didn’t have that kind of stuff.  We had a few others as well along with this.

     

    2011 was the big year 

    Yeah, 2010-2011.

     

    What next?

    I think post that, the biggest milestone was obviously in January 2015 when we looked to partner with the Dentsu Aegis Network.  That really gave us a global exposure.  I went abroad quite a bit.  I learnt how they function globally.  I think most acquisitions tend to take away more than they tend to add.  In our case thankfully they have added more than they have taken away.  To give you a sense, over the last two years we’ve gone from four global brands for whom we handled the India mandate to 26 global brand for whom we handle the India mandate.  These are not coming from the group though but the fact that we are a part of Dentsu Aegis Network we get an entry into clients much easier than an independent group.  There is a difference.

     

    As you look back, professionally what has been most satisfying experience?

    I can think of a few of them.  Let me mention around the 2010-2011 period, when we were working with both Godrej and P&G, I realised that I could take on the big agencies creatively. It dawned on me that we could be here for a really long time, because with all due respect, I didn’t see that I couldn’t either figure or better the work done by the big agencies who worked on that account.

     

    If you ever think of something that you would possible relook, if you had a chance to get back and possibly tweak it a bit, is there something that you would think that you would like to redo?  A Ctrl-Z?

    Nothing.  I think all of it was necessary for my learning.  So I can say that I would like to redo this but I don’t regret that because it happened.  Everything has a timing and that timing is very important.  Only after you fall, do you learn to walk a certain distance.

     

    Was there any fail that taught you a big lesson?

    There were several.  We did lose P&G.  That was due to some errors that the team made.  But P&G happened to us at a time when we were growing. It was too large a client for a small agency like 40-50 people for us to leave everything and focus on that client and leave the growth that were getting from the market.  So in a way, in hindsight, it is great that we lost P&G and we didn’t have it continuing with us because at that time it was a large part of our business.

     

    You are on a roll, 280-300 staff, a hundred-plus clients. Are there things that would possiblygive you sleepless nights? 

    Yes.  Definitely.  I think there are two kinds of worries; one is the worry of future growth as to where do we go from here how do we scale on because we are scaled and we don’t want to stagnate.  What keeps my blood flowing is the fact that I see growing numbers and growth in general.  How do you scale on a scaled agency? How do you scale qualitatively, how you scale in quantity?  That is definitely one aspect that keeps me thinking.  Then there’s recognition.  We believe that we are doing a lot of good work, but a lot of good work doesn’t get packaged well.  When I went to Cannes this year, I saw how they function.  I have realised that they do less but do great justice to each piece of work.  I think that is something that we want to learn and imbibe to at least 20 to 30% of the work that we do.  It is not that all the work need to be packaged that well.  Some of it is run-of-the-mill.  But then out of that work, there is 10% of our work which if packaged well, will put us on the global map as an agency.  That is definitely something that keeps you wake at night as to how do I crack that.  I think that the other thing in terms of operations, the sleepless thing would be, is when you become this large, a sort of hierarchy, bureaucracy and a slowness sets in and what has been our most emphatic USP is our agility as an agency both in responding to clients, in acting on trends, in acting on real-time insults because we started out as a social media specialist but over time we now have full-scale services.

     

    How do you ensure that you continue to stay in nimble and agile?

    You empower.  The problem with the lack of nimbleness is, in larger organisations is as you get large, in fear of mistakes you tend to create layers and layers of approvals. I think the only layer of approval that is needed is on the commercial side in our business.  On the creative side, on the visual side, on the work side you need to empower people to believe in themselves and to take decisions.

     

    Commercial approval… trait of a first generation entrepreneur

    I have never been someone who likes to keep all things to myself. If that was the case I would have started something called Rajiv Dhingra and Consultants.  I have started WatConsult.  It stands for Web Advertising Technology.  Yes, initially a lot of the company was known by my name.  Today nobody knows me.  If you get called for pitches not because somebody has heard me at a conference, you get called for pictures because of the work that people have seen of WatConsult.  The brand WatConsult has by far overtaken Brand Rajiv Dhingra.  That was always my

     

    But the reason that you got acquired the reason that you got known was because of the enthusiasm and the dexterity that you brought to the table.  Is there a fear that you might possibly lose that?

    Not at all.  That is why we invest in young talent.  Young talent by de facto comes with enthusiasm.

     

    But they also make errors?

    That’s  alright.  Errors are good errors to learn from. For them to learn and for us to learn as well. There are two parts to it.  They can’t make errors that can easily be avoided given our pool of internal knowledge.  They’ll make new errors which is good.

     

    Looking forward, what do you think is the road ahead?  Does it worry you that there are various mini WatConsults coming up?

    Not at all.

     

    Some of the large players are also getting into the same thing.

    It doesn’t worry me at all.  In fact, when our team get poached into younger companies or smaller companies or larger companies, in either case, that tells me two things.  One, we are still ahead of the game because younger companies want our people.  They are not trying to hire from somewhere else.  They are trying to hire us.  It means our people are good enough to work in agile startup companies and when larger companies hire our people, I look at it from the standpoint that they must have that kind of quality and maturity that a larger agency wants to hire them.

     

    That’s good to say but the reality is that the larger agencies, larger creative agencies, larger media agencies are now getting into digital and social media.  Does that worry you?  Is there a fear that it can take away potential business?  

    No.  Our job is to be ahead of the learning curve.  That’s what we have tried to do over time.  We started with social media in 2007, we started video production in two years.  Video now is very big.  It took us time to grow in each one of these things.  We have done well with that.  In fact, if we do lose some clients, it’s great to have that because at this point, I  am at a position where I can command a change within my agency instantly if I see an opportunity to do that.

     

    But since you are a part of a network, can you do that?

    Yes, because Dentsu Aegis  is the most liberal network out there.  There are no operational guidelines… from the standpoint of nobody interferes into how I run the agency.  There is financial reporting and there is IT compliance.  What laptop you use and what software runs on it has nothing to do with how you run the business.

     

    Any goals for 2017?  It is crazy to even ask you for the next 10 years.  So any goals for the next 18 months?

    Definitely. I think from a growth standpoint view compared to last year, we will be doing almost a 100% growth in net revenue this financial year. We would at least want it to be in the higher double digits next year which is 60 to 70% growth next year.  That is financially.  Talking about brands, I can’t tell you the brand name, but we just won the Asia Pacific mandate for a global brand.  So that is great validation of the kind of value that we are bringing to the table.  The third thing would be definitely global recognition through awards.  We are making a conscious effort.  We have a creative training workshop with a global trainer who has trained global agencies, who is coming and training us, who is coming to India for the first time actually.  No other Indian agency has gone through that creative training.  There have been agencies in Eastern Europe, Western Europe that have gone through that training, in US and South East Asia.  So that the first time we are investing and that’s a sizeable investment as you would appreciate to have that kind of creative training happening so that people can think in a global fashion.  There may be applications with Indian clients they may not be applications with Indian clients.  The exposure is important.  I think the only way I have learnt is through exposing myself to the industry in a big way and to very opportunity given.  So, I went to Cannes this year,  the Consumer Electronics Show… so that all the technology, best of technology is there.  In the same way, I would want my team to have all the opportunity to expose themselves both to creative and technology and other things so that they can grow and come up with bigger ideas, which is why we invested in virtual reality.  We have an HTC Vive device and an Oculus device inhouse.  It’s not that clients are dying to use them.  But VR is very interesting.  It is an interesting growth story that is happening globally.  Apple is surely going to get into VR.  I want to make sure that my team at least has all the exposure that somebody sitting on a London, New York, Sydney may have and maybe even more than that and certainly cutting edge exposure as far as digital is concerned.

     

    So 70% growth in the next year?

    Yes.  Would love to do that.

     

    And in terms of team size?

    I think we will definitely be close to 400 people.

     

  • Dana Anderson, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Mondelez International, talks of Mondelez's 'fearless' line on change ahead of chairing Warc's Prize for Innovation 2017

    Looking at marketing through a new lens: Dana Anderson, CMO, Mondelez

     

    What do you see as innovation?

    I find innovation fun and challenging and, personally, I enjoy it. When I think about some of my most favourite things that I want to do, they’re all around transitioning into new ways of working. That can be uncomfortable but the pay-off is so rewarding – so often innovation is a part of that. It’s about growth, stretching, excitement and fun. I don’t have bad feelings about change – it’s a necessary part of moving forward and just living. It’s important to brand communication because people need to be engaged and entranced; they want to interact with you differently.

    The pace of change is our marketplace in terms of channels and what people get turned on by requires us to think ahead in a fearless manner about what to do and the digitisation of everything. So not only do we experience mobile and social media but, as marketers, we need to learn how to do it and to do it well. Sometimes that involves turning your own view of the world upside down. In the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time here embracing Ehrenberg Bass and Byron Sharp’s Laws of Growth and that’s undoing everything we learned in school and looking at marketing through a new lens. We changed our strategic tools, media guidelines, how we do comms planning and how we brief agencies. That has created a new thing of its own: our Freedom to Create presentation has been delivered to agencies and town halls everywhere so everyone knows what we are looking for. Change can mean more work but it makes you feel like you’re on the fresh end of things and that can be enlivening for a group.

     

    Can you share a recent example of innovation within the Mondelez brand portfolio?

    We’re just launching a new chocolate bar that merges Oreo with Milka chocolate. Already, even at this early stage, people are crazy for it. Mashing up those two products and marrying what US consumers refer to as ‘European chocolate’ with Oreo, a brand they have loved forever – things like that are examples of product innovation

     

    How have you innovated in your relationships with agencies and media owners?

    It’s primary to our conversation and to our annual plans, particularly for new partnerships. When we are goal-setting at the beginning of the year, we have found that if we can see an intersection with what we tell our partners we are doing and what our partners tell us they are trying to accomplish, we are going to enjoy greater success. When we’re aligned we can make more progress. Two years ago, we worked with Facebook on creativity in social media – this was an intersection we shared.

    We also ask our partners what we can help them with and look for mutual benefit. Sometimes it’s great to just tell each other what we’re thinking about. It’s becoming much more critical to the selection of partners because once you begin to work with people who are innovating you look for it in other places. You can certainly feel it if you have a partner who’s not innovating.

     

    How is Mondelēz innovating in terms of its company structure and culture?

    We are re-engaging with our marketers. It’s a whole new way of working that affects culture and adopting things that we believe in. The work that we’re doing on content monetisation means that we want to be out there and trying new things. We want people to be proud to be here. Wellbeing is a big part of our growth plan: a couple of members in my group put together a presentation about how brands are marketing in the wellbeing space and it was fascinating; they’d identified eight big trends. They delivered that presentation internally to the finance, legal and IT teams because they wanted to know more about it. Those teams might not be marketing these products but they are still kept informed.

     

    What are the benefits of making non-marketers stakeholders like that?

    They get a view into a world they don’t participate in too closely. For them, it’s an enjoyable immersion – it helps them just as it helps us when they teach us about IT. That helps our world as it informs the decisions that we make and helps us act more holistically.

     

    Which companies have a good approach to innovation that link to clear business outcomes?

    DDB’s recent offering to McDonald’s. I don’t know the particulars of the offering except that it was custom-built with compensation on a different level. That’s a hats off.

    Also, two campaigns that I have seen recently at awards shows: one is for GoPro that is using word-of-mouth and social media to try to move from extreme sports to everyday usage. The second is U By Kotex launching a pop-up – a whole store about tampons. They had singers, they sold T-shirts with tampons all over them, and you could get your hair done there. People were lining up to go in. One girl said that she wished all public bathrooms were like that. Their purpose was to open a conversation about a product and a topic that isn’t usually treated like a desirable, beautiful thing and they monetised the whole thing. That’s innovative thinking.

     

    Is it harder to innovate with products like that, in low-interest categories?

    It doesn’t matter because it’s boundary and constraint that causes creativity to flourish. The book A Beautiful Constraint features some of the best creative and ideas that have come out of situations where you would have thought they had nothing going for them.

     

    What are Mondelez’s criteria for selecting innovation partners?

    I don’t know if there is just one criterion because we work with so many different types of people. When we work with startups, everyone walks away smarter and with an enhanced view of the world: they can’t believe how much information we have and we can’t believe how scrappy they are! Jim Stengel’s new book, Centurions and Startups:

    How They Can Thrive by Learning from Each Other, shows that bigger companies are going to need startups because actually that mixture creates sparks that don’t come any other way. Jim has interviewed a couple of our folks that have participated in some of our work with startups specialising in mobile or retail futures. When working with partners, you certainly look for chemistry and competency but it’s a turn-on for someone to have a fresh approach when you’re in a pitch situation. Most people get to the same level of understanding when it comes to strategies because it’s a process of going through what you’re giving them. But sometimes someone zooms way ahead because they have a way of working or a process of taking apart a problem. When you see that in action it’s pretty enthralling and magnetic.

    We try to create new engagement models rather than waiting to be reactive. You don’t criticise someone else for not stepping up if you don’t do it yourself! We developed a way of working through Fly Fearless. We piloted it and

    now have been working it out for smaller brands and it has meant we have been able to reduce the amount of time [spent working with creative agencies on campaigns] from 52 weeks to 20 weeks. Everyone is around the table at the same time and there are ground rules such as having a strategy before you start. What happens in the session is developed and run by a troika of the creative partner at the agency, a strategic partner on our side or from the agency and brand leaders. Together, they determine what they’re going to do in the session, whether it’s bringing in external stakeholders or whatever to deliver. So [Greek chocolate brand] Lacta is known for being all about love so they invited two guests to their sessions: one was a marriage counsellor and the other directed soap operas.

    All parties enjoy it more and agency partners prefer it because work doesn’t get revised 20 times. You can also bring in people who have engaged with us before, such as Google and Facebook, and we can all work together to financial advantage. That’s a form of innovation that anyone can take on. We’re going into our third year now – we did a year of pilots around the world and now we’re rolling it out and training people and showing them how to do it so they can be self-sufficient

     

    Can you please share an example of how a Mondelez brand has benefitted from working alongside a startup?

    We worked with [community-based traffic and navigation app] Waze and [Mondelez-owned chewing gum brand] Stride years ago on using geo-targeting to show where you could buy Stride. Unbelievably, we saw an increase in sales! What’s more, the outcome was what they learned: they felt innovative and like fearless marketers. They felt they didn’t necessarily need the rules that they had been taught because they had a whole new level of creative partners to work with.

     

    Where in the world is a future hotbed of innovation?

    It’s everywhere. We work across developing and emerging markets and I’m forever humbled by what I see. You think that developed markets are going to have more but sometimes the things that you see in awards shows – you’ve already seen this in the Warc Innovation Awards – don’t limit themselves. Brave people are brave people. But there’s a difference between brave people who talk about things happening and brave people who are actually doing it so we get to experience their work.

    At the 2016 Warc Innovation Awards, an app from Vodafone in Turkey designed to curtail domestic violence won the Grand Prix. Do you think innovation and purpose are closer together than they ever have been?

    I really do – more people are interested in purpose. We have a one day session for brands called Storyteller where you work out what your brand’s purpose is so we can then work out strategy. This is part of global marketing. We’ve nicknamed it ‘the luggage tag’ – people can look at it and know exactly what it is, from product to purpose. The visuals really help to clearly communicate to everyone what a product is as well articulating its benefits and values.

     

    At the 2016 Warc Innovation Awards, an app from Vodafone in Turkey designed to curtail domestic violence won the Grand Prix. Do you think innovation and purpose are closer together than they ever have been?

    I really do – more people are interested in purpose. We have a one day session for brands called Storyteller where you work out what your brand’s purpose is so we can then work out strategy. This is part of global marketing. We’ve nicknamed it ‘the luggage tag’ – people can look at it and know exactly what it is, from product to purpose. The visuals really help to clearly communicate to everyone what a product is as well articulating its benefits and values.

     

  • …Says Neeraj Vyas, SVP and Business Head, on the launch of Sony Rox

    With Rox, we will bring alive sound & video…

     

    By Santosh Jangid

     

    A quick chat with Neeraj Vyas, Senior EVP and Business Head – Hindi Movies & Music Cluster, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) soon after he unveiled the channel to the media. Excerpts from the interview:

     

    How will Sony Rox be different from the others?

    The main differentiator is that we will more than anything else bring alive sound and video quality as we have a partnership with Dolby. Dolby has a very stringent benchmarks that you need to comply with and we are very proud to say that we have adhered to all those benchmarks and we are actually merging the workflow of Dolby with Sony and the output that you see is a result of that. So it’s a huge step up for the whole music industry. That’s the first differentiator. The day-parting is another differentiator, the fact that we have deals with all the music labels is another differentiation. You pick up any channel, you will not find that. All the specials that we are doing – the Gigs in your town or School of Rocks which tells you about small things about music. We are also looking at doing interviews with musicians, we will also be doing music reviews. So a lot happening in the next six-eight months.

     

    ‘Mix for SD households, Rox for HD’

     

    Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) launched its second Hindi music channel Sony Rox HD which will cater to young music enthusiasts.  The channel showcases new Hindi film music in high definition visual format of 1080i resolution and enhanced by Dolby Audio. Served through a day-parted playout with unique programming initiatives, the tagline of the channel is ‘Music Melody Madhoshi’. Some of the specials on Sony Rox HD include Rox School of Music which educate the audience about the A to Z of making music, Rox Recommends which showcases the coolest hits every week, Gigs in your Town which unroll musical events around you and Rox Original Artist of the Month where there will be a new indie artist every month on the channel.

     

    Speaking about the launch, NP Singh, CEO, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) said,“There were 15 channels when we ventured into the music genre five years back. We wanted to create the most music-centered destination on Indian television and Sony Mix went beyond our expectations on that count. Building on this gratifying experience, we decided to launch Sony Rox HD. And now, with this launch, we are geared to take a leadership position in the broadcast of music entertainment by curating an incredible experience for music lovers. While Mix will cater to SD (Standard Definition) households, Rox HD shall set itself as the premium contemporary music channel for youth in HD (High Definition) households.”

     

    Added Pankaj Kedia, Senior Director, Emerging Markets, Dolby Laboratories  on the association with Sony Rox: “Great sound is essential for a complete cinematic entertainment experience and Dolby is excited to work with Sony Rox HD to unveil a dynamic audio experience for consumers.”

     

    Why a new channel when you already have one in Sony Mix?

    That would have disturbed the existing existence of Sony Mix. Sony Mix caters to a large section of people between the age group of 14 to 40 years whereas this is clearly for the youth in the age group of 14 to 25 years. You cannot dilute what a brand stands for and you have to only add to that. Mix has its own status, it’s a GEC kind of a channel and it caters to a large segment of the audience.

     

    Tell us more about the association with Dolby?

    It’s an understanding of two companies which adhere to quality so its more a marketing relationship where both the brands will benefit from the quality standards that each of us share with each other.

     

    What would be the promotion strategy for the channel?

    Luckily we are a network of 22 channels so we don’t have to look beyond that. The promos are already airing on the channels. We have a very large digital presence and we are the first ones to go live on Facebook for a channel launch. I don’t think anybody has done it. We are launching the channel live across all our network channel’s Facebook pages. So digital is taken care of. We have twitter handle where we get feedback, also on print. Outdoor is something we don’t do because it doesn’t  really work beyond a point. The strength of our network is our biggest platform.

     

    On a personal level, how important is music to you?

    Music is the only thing I live for. It ticks me like nothing else does. I start my day with music and I end my day with music. People normally watch TV before going to sleep, I listen to music.

     

  • A hundred percent of it is needed, said Sangeeta Barde of Sorento Healthcare in a quick chat on the sidelines of a recent workshop

    Sensitivity & Sensibility in healthcare comms

     

    A workshop on the do’s and don’ts of healthcare communication was conducted at the PD Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai where Sangeeta Barde, Managing Partner at Sorento Healthcare Communications shared her insight on how a healthcare facility can communicate effectively with patients/customers as they are now more informed and choosy in where they decide to get their healthcare from and take an active role in their care, experience and are choosing their own alternatives.The cost of care and quality of care and service are the most crucial factors in determining a patient’s satisfaction from a healthcare facility. Bardebelieves that digital is an important tool to communicate with the consumers and facilities need to work on making a stronger but sensible digital approach as a lot of consumers seek healthcare information online and also stressed that effective communication depends on much more on the tone of voice and body language than the words you use. 

    Santosh Jangid caught up with Sangeeta Barde who has over 20 years of experience in healthcare communication and is Managing Partner at Sorento Healthcare Communications to get a better understanding of the same in Indian context.

     

    On why healthcare communication hasn’t taken off in right earnest in India

    I think the healthcare sector should start promoting itself because its lot to do with the healthcare consumer today who has evolved a lot and wants to have the information and wants to know about certain facilities, certain hospitals, certain doctors. It’s not that the person is going to immediately come to your facility because s/he is not looking at your ads only when they need it but they are also looking at your ads when they don’t need it and when you continuously keep talking about your facility, at some point of time it is also registering in their subconscious mind and whenever and wherever he/she needs it, they are going to make use of that particular information which has been put in his black box, so you have to be present in the consumer’s mind.

     

    What are the do’s and don’ts of healthcare communication?

    A very important point here is that you understand that healthcare is a very knowledge based segment and therefore having that fundamental understanding of your product is very important and therefore creating good product claims or marketing claims are very critical and that needs to be developed and it cannot be just hear and say or extempore, one needs to go through systematic exercise to develop claims when it comes to healthcare which could be interesting and which could touch human lives.

     

    Do you think there is a need for sensitivity (and sensibility) in healthcare communication?

    100 percent. I am a complete promoter of sensibility and sensitivity when it comes to promoting healthcare facilities because I personally feel that it’s not about patients but its about being human beings and every human being is born with emotions, compassion and empathy and we must try and connect with that compassion and empathy with the healthcare consumers so that he/she feels wanted, gets reassurance and confidence from the healthcare facility that he/she is going to feel good after coming to the facility so it’s really important to have emotion in healthcare advertising.

     

    How do you see healthcare communication going forward? 

    I see a lot of good times in healthcare communication and communication is not just about the television commercial but it is a lot to do with the communication with the consumer at the right time at the right place with the right tools. So it could be a communication on ground or a communication on digital and thats where I feel it’s going to more because a lot go consumers today seek healthcare information online and if you can integrate healthcare information in the life of that consumer who is an e-consumer and who is going to be your consumer going forward, I think a lot of online communication should be seen with good content and good engagement strategies.

     

  • Says John Thankamony, Head Programmatic, Mindshare on how the human connect will still be needed in tech & data-led advertising transactions

    Programmatic will not displace humans…

     

    GroupM has been on the forefront on programmatic over the years, and beyond what’s being at the group level, last year, Mindshare appointed John Thankamony to lead its programmatic agenda. In a freewheeling chat with MxMIndia, Thankamony spoke about the status of programmatic in India, the need for good talent and how a data-led tech-driven regime will not displace the need for humans (and negotiations). Excerpts:

     

    While programmatic is here to stay, and since you were with Amnet earlier in environments other than India, how would you rate India’s progress in the adoption of the new order?

    I’ll step back and take it from a few different standpoints. I think from a programmatic standpoint and where we are going from platforms, understanding user data and being able to identify data and use data effectively to buy, India is in a fairly decent space, I think. Like lot of holding groups have focused on getting programmatic in place and there have been companies coming and talking about digital and how you can target people better on digital than you can on probably other mediums.

    I think some of the challenges that you have in India are systemic, in terms ofhow we define what is effectiveness and how we measure it and I think those are challenges which are just beyond programmatic. Those are challenges that each client is trying to address like, ‘Is my advertising working for me?How is it working? What direction is it changing and things like that.’ So I think what I have seen in other markets is beyond a point, the effectiveness of programmatic is measured in a few different ways.

    One is you have data and how well can you find people that you are looking for. Lot of brands are looking for mothers. How well you can find mothers or do you have enough mothers you can target. So in that aspect India is quite high up.

     

    If you have to rate our progress on scale of 10, where do you think does India stand?

    For programmatic, I think I would put it on a level of around 5 or 6.

     

    Five or six is very good. And where would you place a market like Singapore, UK and the US?

    I think Singapore is still probably somewhere around 6 or 7 only because you don’t actually have a lot of data in Southeast Asia. It is one of the problems that Southeast Asia market has is getting the data into the ecosystem. US is probably going to be on the 9 side. Australia and US are going to be around 9 or 10. UK is also around 9 or 10 because the market is very matured, lot of buying happens programmatically, platform-led with data coming into the ecosystem and publishers are also fully enabled and the entire ecosystem is going in that direction.

     

    You joined Mindshare in August 2016. How would you say has it progressed in acceptability since then?

    I think there have been a lot of conversations, definitely with the clients, and also internal. Externally I think it is about having clients ready for the conversation. And I think a lot of big clients are actually ready because they are saying we want to be able to identify our audiences better, yes definitely, and being able to measure better, bringing things such as effectiveness goals such as durability in target measurement all of them to play. I think internally a lot of the conversation has been what are the kind of skills that you need, because we as a market and also Mindshare and GroupM, very strong from media buying understanding how users behave from media buying perspective. But the analytic and data-led scenario is still to come in. so, I think that is probably the gap that is going to be at rest in the next couple of years. I would say It is kind of like saying how do you transform organisations. Because it’s just not about bringing in new processes and practices but we need to get different type of people also into play.

     

    How do you think India can go from your score of 5-7 to a 9? What are the stepping stones to that path?

    I think one of the important considerations is definItely the kind of people you have as part of your teams, the way your teams are builtbecause technically if you look at it the very foundational aspect of it, programmatic is about being able to work on platforms and understand platform and the technology and while also bringing into the play the understanding of media and of audiences. So what we are looking at is bringing all the skills into play. When I was building my team in Southeast Asia, we had analysts come in from different industries, who had never worked in advertising. It could be from the hotel industry…we need very number-focused people who could understand how numbers flow and who could actually read the data in different ways. They didn’t approach the scenario in just the normal singleminded way. So I think it is about opening up to having new people entering and bringing new ideas and new ways to read data. That is one. People who can actually appreciate and learn platforms is very critical. I think teams like Xaxis have been embodying that very well, where they have managed to get skilled sets which are not typically  available in our media agencies together, to form a team that is technically very competent. And I think all agencies will have to undergo that journey and that’s what you can see internationally as well.

     

    Talent is the big issue that is there, and probably the #1 factor. In a sense even Mindshare has to look beyond its own corridors to get someone  like you. So there is an issue of talent everywhere. Would you say that as a correct assumption?

     

    Ya, I think it is because the need for such people has not existed until  now. We are trying to also change the market so, we are bringing in new pieces into play. We will probably be a media plus technology agency so as we move along.

     

    In terms of the actual spends of your clients deploying programmatic to plan and buy, how has it been for some of your large advertisers, because Mindshare has the biggest of them all.

    Ya, so I would say, and this is the journey I would say which Mindshare started with all that theme even before I was here, and I think a lot of once I came on board, I made sure I help the journey along especially for those conversations where I think where we needed some more welding of what the offering was. We have seen for some clients they were already very heavilyinto programmatic, we have clients who are 70-80% programmatic life.

     

    Are there certain types of clients who are really heavy on programmatic and have adapted well to the environment?

    Ya, sure I will get to that as well, like I was saying there were 70% clients and then of course there are clients at the digital mix who were at 5 to 10%, some of the clients who were at the 5-10% we have actually managed to get them to 20% to 30%. And obviously the message there has been, find your audiences better or with programmatic, find the people that you are looking for. I think there are different types of clients, and when we say programmatic it is a very broad umbrella, because we are using data to identify our users better. So there are different ways you can use programmatic. I think a lot of FMCG clients have started seeing the benefits because for them it make a lot of sense.They know the kind of audiences they want and they are very clearly define them out and they go after them. So for them it makes sense to a have set of audiences and be able to talk to them on an ongoing basis.

     

    A lot of buying is done based on negotiations… how does that work with programmatic? Also, if you remember a few years back in India, a leading marketer had told the agencies pitching for itsbusiness that it was not going to pay any commissions given the monies it would make from its business. How do you factor in these things?

    Absolutely and I think these are things which are definitely going to part of the way you do business. Programatic in the simplest scenario is layering data and analytics to understand how you are buying media better.  We are trying to automate whatever you can so whether it is a TV or whether it’s a digital, whether it’s radio extra.  So and I think there is a lot of the effort internationally to do this. Negotiations, discussions whatever you have at play with all partners is always going to be a piece of this.  So technology is not going to remove the thought where humans do.  It is a way of improving things and I think a lot of programmatic players across the world have been able to get this into their DNA, and they managed to get the business aspect of it into this.  Now

     

    As head of the entire programmatic agenda at Mindshare but do all these things worry you?  The way I can see it is in course of the interview, I am sorry not to put you in discouraging tone on a Monday morning, but I see that you said that talent doesn’t exist.

    I didn’t say that[laughs]

     

    I mean there is a shortage of talent. Forget shortage of good talent externally, short of good talent internally right.  And the need for clients to be educated. And then this whole thing about negotiation. Does this entire scenario – the way it is today – worry you?

    That’s a good question and I think like a lot of these things are the way you position it right.  So I think this is transitional phase and in the last 3-4 years, GroupM has been focusing on how we get into a phase where we can actually say we will do more programmatic, more data-led stuff, more content, so all of these things have been like a central focus area in Mindshare and GroupM as well. I think these are all facets of the Indian market which you have to deal with on anongoing basis and I think there are different ways to solve it and different people at play.  Will technology solve all of the issues that we are trying to sort out?I think not all of the issues. But what happens is technology gives us better understanding of what’s going on and how we can make better conversation happen and that’s the idea eventually. And it doesn’t happen overnight… it’s going to be a longer term discussion. For example, in the case of viewability and the chance for an ad to be seen into play, we understand how effective our audiences are and where they are going, right.  So if we know this across all our publishers it gives a better idea of what we are doing and what we are buying and that’s what technology allows you to do. Now if you start layering in data to understand where your real audiences are in terms of the TGs, there are measurement systems for all of that.  So it gives you better conversation and while negotiations will always be there but there will be better conversations rather than just one or two points: how much do you have and how much price can you give it to me.

     

    I want to ask you an unfair question and you can choose not to respond to it.  Is that– I see the success of programatic in any agency and and I’m familiar with the structure of groupM, I see the success happening when your role and that of the head of a CTG is merged, right. When do you think that could happen?

    That’s a good question and I am not going to shy away from it because I think I agree with you on some point because I think I have said this to different clients and at different points I think eventually buying programmatically should be how you move forward because you have data-enabled platform-led ways.  Now there is obviously a journey to get there because you need resources, we need people.  And I think the idea is to have a person who lead that journey to start that off and that’s where I come into play really very heavily from 2017-2018. There are a lot of people who are doing programmatic so it;s not that programmatic is only being done at Mindshare or GroupM. Programatic is a part of literally every plan.  I have said it before and I will say it again, the idea is probably five years from now programmatic won’t be a separate job description because it’s going to be part and parcel of what everyone is doing.  But it’s a journey that we have to take along and we have to bring along and it’s a journey that we have to take our clients also on and that’s where we are at here.

     

    There is a belief that the word programatic itself puts people off  and  makes it sound very technology and programming and code-linked.

    I think there is definitely a plus and minus to it, it’s obviously a lot of people I think have plus and minus experiences with programmatic and then they sayprogrammatic doesn’t work, programmatic is not for me and they I am doing programmatic or I am not doing programmatic.  In the modern digital advertising systems most of the times you are indulging in some form of programmatic because there are a lot of platform led, data enabled byte.   So I think the idea is you need– yes I would probably agree with you it would probably help on as it is— as we move along.  But I think having programmatic as a separate word and a separate network and as a separate channel– it’s not a channel it’s a buying type I think to start off to get people on that journey.  I think it’s the journey that we need to start off on.

     

  • His first detailed video … six-odd months at the world's most happening social networking platform's second biggest market

    The MxM Interview: Umang Bedi, MD – India & S Asia, Facebook

     

    It’s been around six months that UmangBedi joined Facebook India and South Asia as Managing Director. While the world’s largest social networking platform doesn’t need any introduction, it’s not being embraced in right earnest in India by advertisers. And that’s the mandate Bedi has as he interfaces aggressively with the A&M fraternity. In Mumbai last week for some client meets, UmangBedi took time for this first extensive video and text interview with Pradyuman Maheshwari (Video production by Santosh Jangid)

     

    Six months into the job. How has it been going?

    It’s been fantastic. It’s been probably the  best decision of my life joining Facebook and the last six months have been really categorised and focused on doing three things — the first is meeting our teams, literally every single employee within the India business, our entire team in Asia Pacific and our leaders in Menlo Park, getting a good idea of the business and meeting our Top 200 clients and our Top 20 agency partners. So that’s been on a big focus. The second big focus has really been pivoting on growth and literally focused on the fact that Facebook moves business outcomes for the biggest brands whether it’s helping them move their brand efficiencies or having them drive sales both in the online world and driving sales in the offline world. We are moving product off-shelves and that’s been a big narrative in the boardroom trying to really talk to CXOs and how we could help them move business metrics that matter. The third big focus area has been on building the ecosystem. When I say ecosystem it’s really focusing on the foundation for Facebook on our creative strategy, on our measurement strategy, on our agency partner strategy and our creative agency strategy which we think is going to be the fundamental pivot for growth going forward. So all and all, phenomenonal six months, really enjoyed the pace of it, been on an airplane most of the time but we have seen outstanding outcomes in the business as well. We have seen both growth on the user side and despite demonetisation we have seen healthy growth on the business because we have been able to pivot ourselves on being world class efficient marketing platform ad driving value for advertisers.

     

    And we thought that Facebook was a networking platform, right?  You’re obviously making money on us.

    Well, I don’t know if I’d frame it that way but I think of Facebook as a discovery platform and I think it’s a platform that helps harness human attention and goes back to the philosophy of the company of giving people the power to share which is our mission and help make the world more open and connected. So it’s that platform which helps consumers discover content that is relevant, personalised and meaningful for them and give them the power to share and that’s how we think about Facebook. What drives it is we firmly believe that we wanna help the world get more open and connected. So drive more user growth on the platform and as on today we are 1.9 billion people on Facebook.

     

    And the second largest number of people from India…

    Yes, second largest number of people from India. More than 166 million MAUs or monthly active users and as we grow, what we are very focused on is driving engagement and we measure that by the amount of time an individual spends on the platform and the amount of content that he/she consumes.

     

    As somebody who meets a lot of people, one of the worries is that people spend all of the time on Facebook.

    Well, I don’t know if I would say that but what we are seeing is we have got a fair amount of penetration both on the user growth side. We are seeing that index forward, we are seeing timespent engagement index as well and when you have a large target audience who is engaged then its about connecting businesses to the people that matter and that’s the strategy.

     

    You know it all sounds very good but actually it’s very scary because if I am on Facebook, you obviously know my profile and the kind of people I interact with. So you’ve actually got me covered and scanned and tracked through. You know what I do, you know what time I get up, you know what kind of people I interact with. So you have me covered inside out?

    We take user privacy very seriously. So one thing you will find even in our ad policies is, for instance I would allow an ad for a builder, you’re into real estate and you’re selling a flat on Facebook and it’s true. Today Tata Homes sold 250 homes in a single day on Facebook and that happens but we wouldn’t allow you to target an ad to me that says, ‘Hey Umang you’re a Facebook employee so here’s 15% off’ because that would scare me because you just used personally identifiable information to give me an offer and that’s something we are very careful about. I was speaking at a client meeting today and they said, ‘Hey LinkedInallowed me to target CHROs or directors of product management and you have all my information. Why don’t you allow me to do that?’ and I think the answer for us and the answer I gave is the same thing I’m reeling now is we do not allow personally identifiable information

     

    I thought the entire thing of tracking makes Facebook so powerful. You can actually figure that you want to target your ads through people who are from a certain college or a certain school or from a certain city or live in a certain area.

    So you’re right, targeting is what makes personalisation really powerful on Facebook but it’s targeting to non personally identifiable variable. For instance, I would allow you to target, you wanna reach men between the age of 18 to 25 in a sub-section of Bombay in a certain area who has a device which is running 4G, that’s the level of targeting you would do. You would not go down to say black hair or brown hair or something which is very personal….

     

    But there is a very thin dividing line between personalisation and privacy

    Not really, because today if you look at the controls that we have given into the hands of the users, the users can decide what they want to be visible on their profile literally to down to the most ground level. So today I can share on Facebook and not share with anyone, it would just be with me. It goes down to that level. So, one is we have given control, two is we are being very careful. Our ad farm policy or our policy around blocking stuff that is using personally identifiable information is very strict… It’s built on trust and that’s the testimony to how we are building the business.

     

    Over the last few months, we’ve heard you speak a fair bit of the advertising options that Facebook offers and you’ve all been meeting various stakeholders, clients and agencies. Infant you’ve partnered with WPP for something and you’ve partnered with Nielsen and Millward brown. So talk to us about what you’ve been doing engaging the industry?

    Awesome, so that’s the most fun part about my job. So here’s what happening in the market….

     

    Fun and tough or fun and easy?

    Fun and fun. Fun and really engaging, really amazing, ill tell you why. When you think about let’s say the CPG[consumer packaged goods] segment. The CPG segment [marketers] are masters at brand advertising and they’ve always gone out and done stuff to increase brand awareness, recall, consideration whereas if you look at the commerce segment [marketers] for instance, they are very indexed on perform driven marketing but what we are seeing is lines between brand and performance are blurring. So the marketing funnel from awareness consideration down to purchase is actually collapsing. We are working on what we also know as the full funnel of solutions. It starts for us with creative, great marketing starts with great creative and we have indexed to set up something which is known as Facebook creative shops, these are creative strategies that we have hired who all have won Cannes Lions who really help creative agencies and our partners understand how do you build new feel friendly, mobile thumb stopping creative.

     

    And this creative service is available for people in India? 

    Yeah, in India. It’s located at this office where we are sitting.

     

    Could you name some of the people?

    We have JuhiKalia, we have Dan Coben, we have Parul Arora, we’ve got a whole bunch of really strong creative partners who joined us and they are a part of Facebook. Fergus O’Hare who has been fantastic in this business and they really lean on creating the right creative strategy. The second piece once we do that is measurement and on the measurement side we’ve partnered with Millward brown, we’ve partnered with Nielsen and our and are driving some amazing outcomes. So when you think about the kind of outcomes we are driving, there are audience outcomes, there are brand lift outcomes and sales lift outcomes. On the audience side, what we have found is on an average when we are using a region frequency to reach out our target, we are giving a five-point incremental lift over television at a cost which is 1/7th that of TV. On the brand side, we have found that today when we are targeting brand consideration or brand motivation or purchase intent lift, we are today 1/3rd the cost of TV and half the cost of any other competing video platforms and the most exciting part about this is how we are driving sales outcomes and these are measured by cross media studies with milliard brown and match market test from Nielsen. I will give you an example, Garnier went and launched and did Facebook-only media in a high penetration cluster and a low penetration cluster city and we got a 26% and 19% sales rift respectively. Durex did this advertising campaign with us which helped drive a 29% increase in sales during the period of campaign resulting in 9% increase over the year and this is moving product off shelf. Tanishq went and did advertising beautiful, creative and absolutely stunning giving you a code making users walk into stores and then drive a 30% sales and all these examples are brick and mortar examples. The ones that we do seamlessly are because there is an integration of Facebook Pixel is what we do with amazon or e-commerce companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal and OLA cabs because there is conversion happening in the online world.

     

    In the kind of clients you have, do you find any specific category or specific domain which has greater affinity to Facebook or is it across various segments?

    I think it started off by being very heavy on e-commerce because it was a natural fit. They are digital natives, we are a digital platform, they want to drive performance and conversion, we offer them real people with real identities so that was a beautiful match. What we’ve found over the last few years is that there is spectrum across all verticals that are leaning in very well. So today if you look at the largest brands across CPG, telecom, you’ve been offered a Jiosim and an Airtel pack and a Vodafone depending on your profile, we work with automobiles in a big way, travel and almost every segment.

     

    But still the amount spent in the digital media by the likes of a Hindustan Unileveretc is not significant enough. Right now it would possibly be single digit at most and inspiteof the fact that you are offering targeted stuff and fairly granular data of your possible target audience. Why is it that you think people are not putting their bucks on this media?

    It’s a very interesting question so when you think about time spent v/s amount spent on media there is a dichotomy. So the least time spent is on print whereas print is 30% of the AdEx. Between print and television you’ve got 86% of the AdEx. Today the AdEx is 7 billion dollars about 14-15% is digital, 85% is between television and print. What we are seeing happening over the next four years and this is predicted by e-marketers, by GroupM report or any other report that you read, digital is going to be 40% of the spends, all spent in India. Today the market is 7 billion, by the next three to four years it will be about 9-9.5 billion which means that the digital part of the pie is going to be 3.5-4 billion dollars which means there is a 2.5 billion dollars of shift that’s gonna happen in the market. Now, you’re right. A traditional advertiser spends single digit on digital today but there are industries that have indexed as high as 35%-40% in e-commerce where they are very very driven around digital being the only play for them or a large play for them.

     

    I was speaking to a very large BFSI advertiser recently and he said that possibly in his lifetime and mine, it’s unlikely that digital will exceed television. Do you think that this is something based people not really aware of how things are going or is it possibly the fact of life? 

    I think it’s where you are looking at the problem from. When you think about it, I would not agree with that statement and I’ll tell you why. Would you believe me if I told you ten years ago that a billion people in India would have a cellphone when you and I dialled using an analogue instrument? Just ten years ago that’s the landline we both had at our homes. We had a conversation 10 years ago saying that every Indian would have a cellphone with not even a wire connected to it, we wouldn’t have believed each other. I think it’s a little bit of that. In the West, what we’ve found last year in Australia which is the first market where mobile advertising pipped television and this year it’s going to be higher by 20 points. So my firm belief is that digital will increase whether its 30 or 40% is a prediction. Will it currently increase from the 15%? It will and there are two reasons for that — one is growth in the platform. Today, if I look at television there are 180 million television sets in the country, you look at the reach of any GEC its about 110 million. The moment you have half a billion people on digital which is gonna happen soon so we have 300 million people connected to the internet in India. Nasscom predicts that it’s going to be 720 million in 2010. Essentially, even if you say we have half a billion Indians connected and if that’s where they are spending a majority of  their time, the shift is inevitable and we see that shift happening sooner than later and it’s happening as we speak. So when we are working with advertisers one of the things we are working on with them to say is when you television alone your efficiency is X  but when you do television + Facebook your efficiency is at least 15% higher because what happens is even in television there is some amount of wastage whereas we could just remove the wastage part of the dollars onto the Facebook + TV narrative we’ve been talking to advertisers on and see a 15% uplift in terms of any campaign KPI that they are tracking.

     

    Let me ask you a slightly unfair question and you don’t need to answer that if necessary. There is a fear that the likes of Facebook and google, etc are going to eliminate the advertising agency as an intermediary. You already mentioned that you hired creative guys here. Do you feel that the advertising fraternity in India is not really pushing your case that much because they possibly think that you ay eliminate them soon?

    On the contrary, I think my #1 bet on my go to market in India is working with our agency partners whether you meet with our friends in GroupM or Dan or Publicis or Omnicom, they are integral and critical to our success. From our perspective the agencies are an interesting….

     

    They obviously know that soon enough the clients could speak to you directly

    So here’s the way I look at it. I think in India you have to build leverage scale models. There is no way that we have the workforce to go and cover the whole of India. It’s just not possible. If you look at Facebook globally as well with the number of people, agencies in India have twice as many number of people in the whole of Facebook. So I don’t think we ever have ambitions to go direct into every segment of the market. That’s not what we are.

     

    Some segments you will.

    No, we always work with agency partners. So we are very clear our creative is not an agency. We work with the creative agency to help built mobile first creatives. On the media side, when I look at how we are partnering with the agencies, we are doing three things which are fairly unique. The first one is they also understand that today their growth is going to be from all three mediums but the agencies are looking at media mix more than anything else today. It’s not just growth on television or print but they wanna see a healthier media mix come in to play and that’s where platforms like ours are critical to their growth. So we are working with them to embed our blueprint, training and certification program into their e-learning curriculum and that’s a big initiative. The second piece you referenced with the WPP, we are literally working all their creative strategists to just show them what are the best practices that we have learned on creating creative for being thumb stopping, mobile first creative that is thumb stopping which is very different from maybe what you see on television which is a far longer format whereas the attention span on mobile is a lot shorter and these are deep partnerships. So we literally spend two days with 90 professionals from WPP going through an entire course after which we gave them real client pitches and they came up with some outstanding outcomes because don’t forget, we are not creative professionals. The creative agencies are awesome at what they produce. The media agencies understand media mix, what we are doing is really showing them how we can participate with them to be mobile first and working with the agency partners is our number one priority.

     

    And they don’t have this worry that you could avenge them?

    I don’t think so and I don’t think anyone from our team at any point ever has this strategy. We will succeed with our partners.

     

    What is it that’s stopping people from embracing Facebook in the way it is. Obviously there are worries, people are not putting in the money as they should be. What according to you is the single biggest problem that exists right now?

    I think the single biggest problem for the industry in digital is really coming up with a standardised measurement narrative.

     

    And that you know will never happen.

    I think it will.

     

    I think industry associations have kind of failed. In television you have IBF, in print you have the INS and the IAMAI seems to have been hijacked by various pressure groups?

    I’ll stay from that comment on the industry association but what I would stay is, when I talk to marketers and I’ve literally spent a lot of time with them, when I talk to CEOs, there is an old saying  in IT that you will never be fired for buying an IBM, its one of those things. You will never be fired for doing an intelligent campaign because GRPs are a well-established standard. I will not go into the details of the fact that its sampled, etc. Having said that there has to be a uniform standardised measurement narrative and our belief is that as an industry there is a lot of jargon coming from the digital world. So let’s talk about jargon. So we first talk to your about cookies, we talk to you about clicks, we talk to you about CTRs, we talk to you about CPMs, CPMMs, CPAs. So we are confusing the hell out of you.

     

    You mentioned that you run a two-day course for people. I was speaking to somebody senior at GroupM who heads programmatic there one of the worries I figured that exists even I an agency like that is even that the talent that exists is not really educated [on tech]. Is that something that you are looking at educating the world about what Facebook can offer?

    Absolutely. I just want to complete my last point, I think what we need in that uniform measurement narrative is a narrative that’s not based on cookies but a narrative that’s based on real people. It’s a narrative that’s not based on CTR or CPM or a CPA. It’s really based on conversions and as a business leader you care about conversion, how many customers come. So let’s track conversion and you don’t care about what your CPM rate was whether it was high or low. You care about ROI on your business or return on you adspend. So let’s build a people based narrative that is focused on driving conversions for your business that is driving an ROI and a great ROS. That’s basic business if you talk to a CEO… he understands that language. That’s the narrative we need to get to.

    Coming to the point on education, we have just launched Blueprint. Facebook Blueprint is a 54-odd course module across various parts of digital advertising with mobile being at the centre of that experience and one instance of what we are doing is GroupM has a very very vigorous training process known as their internal digivisits. we are embedding our blueprint into their digivisits. Those are the kind of initiatives that we are doing with all their agencies, we are working with all our partners, running blueprint live workshops, blueprint trainings and ultimately working wth them to help get their team certified. Facbook.com/blueprint has these 54 modules and they are free for the entire world. We are literally making it open source and open standard as an industry so people can learn and adopt.

     

    What gives UmangBedi sleepless nights? I don’t see any dark circles but is there anything that worries you? 

    I sleep really well. I don’t sleep like a baby but I sleep well.

     

    Don’t spend too much time on Facebook, do you?

    I spend a lot of time on Facebook but we work on Facebook so Facebook at work or Facebook work place is literally how we communicate. We communicate in tribes and groups. So my email traffic has clearly fallen ever since I’ve joined because we just communicate on Facebook, on Messenger and groups in a big way but I think what worries me is the opportunity is so large today in the market that I don’t know if we are moving fast enough and I keep asking myself this question: is there more that we can do? As an industry to really move the needle forward, because I think every time you connect people to the internet every time you drive digital, you uplift a society. There is economic data from the world bank that proves the more people you bring online, you give them access to jobs, to healthcare, to financial services, to education, you add value to the GDP and as more and more business goes online as digital becomes a means to an end in the country transparency increases and we believe the businesses that want to reach brands we are that world class marketing platform that enables businesses to reach real identities. So are we moving fast enough towards that goal / mission is a question I ask myself.

     

    I must saythat although you’ve been just six months in the job and you come for a different setting, you’ve learnt the idiom of this business fairly well?

    Actually you could say both Facebook and Adobe are technology-driven companies.

     

    Yeah, you did interact with marketers considerably but this is more of nuts and bolts advertising, 

    speaking to GroupMs of the world and all of that.

    I think you just have to stay humble, keep your feet on the ground and learn from the best around you and Facebook has hired the best people, I’m privileged to work with the best people and learn from them. So, I think it’s a function of the team more than really I’ve really done I don’t think its that but I think I really love the industry. Best decision of my life…

     

  • … says Prashant Peres, Marketing Director (Chocolates) for Mondelez on the sidelines of the launch of the Cadbury Silk's Oreo variant (text + video)

    Building on the equity of the mother brand…

     

    Chocolate major Mondelezneeds no introduction to consumers… yet, when  it brings out a variant, and in keeping with the times, it organised a closed door activity for food bloggers in Mumbai last fortnight where well-known chef Michael Swamy dished out some sinful creations out of Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk Oreo. With this variant, the company aims to further seize the growing opportunity in the premium chocolate category.  The product is supported by a 360-degree communication campaign designed to demonstrate the soft, smooth and crunchy silk experience which includes a new TVC, innovative outdoor and digital campaign and strong in-store visibility.  Santosh Jangid caught up with Prashant Peres, Marketing Director (Chocolates) for Mondelez, India to discuss the product’s marketing and more.

     

    Over the last few months, we have seen Cadbury come up with more variations of its products than ever before. What would you attribute the reason for introduction of so many variants?

    Over the last three or four years Cadbury has introduced a lot of variants into the market. It’s on a higher pace than before but that’s really a continuation of a roadmap that we had built many years back. We first wanted to introduce consumers to a more premium chocolate in India and we did this through the launch of Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk and once people had really tasted it and understood how good this chocolate really is I think they started looking for more and that’s when we decided to provide them with new experiences. So Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk Caramello for example was the first centre filled chocolate with liquid centre. We then did Bubbly the first aerated chocolate and now Silk Oreo which is again first in its kind not only in terms of the combination of Oreo with Silk, vanilla cream, a crunch of biscuit but also in terms of technology. It has a cream that you are tasting in the centre, its very different from the kind of cream that you would taste even in the centre of an Oreo. It’s very refined, it’s very creamy and all this has needed new technology internally as well. The reason we’ve done this is because we believe consumers are really ready for it. In fact they are asking for more and more excitement and that’s why we see fantastic results with every innovation that we do. I think while we have done a lot of innovation in the category like silk, we have also brought a new format like what we’ve done with Fuse which is an individual consumption. It’s something that has a multi sensorial texture so it gives people a crunch, gives people a chewy texture, salt and sweet together and its also based on a different needs altogether.

     

    How much of stress does the Introduction of new brands and variants obviously put on marketing spends?

    I think the good thing about anything we launch under Cadbury is that it builds of the fantastic equity has had in this market. The mother brand Cadbury Dairy Milk has over 41% share in this market. So first of all whatever we do it adds a dimension to the brand, the innovations add a dimension of new use, our standard advertising that we do of course connects with consumers at a very different emotional level. So when you plan it as a portfolio and you plan your spends on different platforms well it does not put that much pressure on your advertising budget because they are all synergistic then in the end.

     

    Can you talk us through the marketing strategy for Dairy Milk Silk Oreo?

    There is a very big launch plan that we are underway right now. We’ve broken on digital and digital has become an important component of our adspends. We are doing various tie-ups with big digital platforms — Facebook, Google, Bookmyshow, launches on e-commerce. So these are some of the things we are doing and we are getting better and better at it but along with digital we normally do a big bang outdoor campaign and of course something that Cadbury is always known for is some really lovely advertising on television. So I think this combination works really well for us and you hopefully see it right through the first part of this year.

     

    Are you looking at doing such exercises of taking chefs to other markets as well?

    Definitely. I think this is the first time we have done that with relevant people in Mumbai and that’s because we are based out of Mumbai but I think seeing the success and seeing how much people have enjoyed this event we would definitely like to do it in more places. One of the reasons besides doing a lot of stuff on media what we love to do is sample our product to consumers. We are doing a lot of sampling simply because once you taste it you really fall in love with the product. So I hope everybody who gets a chance to see this (interview), goes out and tries it.

     

  • A quick chat with the GroupM South Asia CEO and MadisonWorld Chairman on the adspend forecast by their respective agency networks

    Quick chat with CVL Srinivas & Sam Balsara on the adspend forecast by GroupM & Madison World respectively

     

    A quick chat with CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia and Sam Balsara, Chairman, MadisonWorld on the adspend forecast by their respective agency networks

     

    Writing has been on the wall on digital: CVL SrinivasTaking time off a string of interviews after the presentation of the TYNY report on Monday,  CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia spoke with PradyumanMaheshwari on whether the adspend forecast portends ‘achche din’ for A&M-land

     

    It’s the type of question we love to ask you: given the forecast of 10% AdEx growth in 2017, would you say it’s achche din or good days for the industry?

    In the current circumstances I would say good days, because of all the gloom doom projections going around in the media for a while… actually 10% is not a bad number.

     

    In October when we met last around Diwali, it was somewhere around 14%, and which now got from 10 to 12%, what would you have anticipated the growth this year to be?

    Well, it is such a dynamic world that nothing is a constant today. Everything from global commodity prices, to petroleum prices, to local economic political factors, to sectoral factors, to media-related factors. I mean there are just too many variables one is juggling with these days, so I don’t think any study or any estimate, can be a one-time number. We obviously have to keep looking at the numbers, and revisiting the hypothesis may be every quarter going forward, giving the kind of change going on.

     

    Would you think the numbers could possibly change after the UP election results?

    I won’t want to commit on this particular event, but there is no denying the fact that these numbers could go up or down depending upon the various factors. Which is why TYNY as a study is done twice a year, the first time its basis estimates for the 12 months, and the second time we do it is in the middle of the year around July-August when we have the actual data for the first 6 months…

     

    Would you say the first few weekshave been fairly decent in terms of spends?

    The first month hasn’t been very good at all and we see this continuing till April. In fact the first quarter is going to be pretty tight, things are going to start picking up fully from April onwards, and that’s the way we built up the report.

     

    Post-demonetisation therehas been a bit of a scare for media owners with some publications shutting down, some publications shaving off lot of staff. Television has also been down in sales.What do you see is the environment for media owners? Given that you are predicting only a 10% growth, is that good tidings for them?

    I think the big story coming out of all this is that we are living in an age which is so dynamic and which is getting so, I would say, which is all converging towards digital so fast that organisations have to kind of somewhere let go completely off the rules of the past when it comes to doing business… I think the base of change is so rapid that sometimes we are not able to kind of make adjustments and we are forced to kind of take some very very massive decisions in a very short span of time. I think if organisations are more on the ball, look at reality and start taking hard calls more often, things won’t reach a state that they have reached today. For example, the writing has been on the wall that digital is going to eat over the shares of traditional media companies for some time now. It’s not a new development. I don’t think demonetisation has anything to do with it. The consumer has moved to digital many years ago for consumption of various kinds of content.

     

    Do you think people are using demonetisation as an excuse too…?

    To an extent, I think so. I think there are so many other factors which are at play and even in this day and age there are organisations whether it’s in the media sector or whether it’s in other sectors who are continuing to do well because I think they have just been better prepared. I think they have been able to futureproof their business a lot better. For example, in our own case, we diversified our revenue streams many years ago. Today, given the presence we have across areas like content, sports marketing,  data analytics actvations and so on, we haven’t really felt as much of an impact because of the slowdown of the media sector than perhaps some of the more traditional agencies. And I guess the same holds true for other organisation and other sectors as well.

     

    In terms of the overall numbers that you see, as per your predictions which sector of the industry has the brightest future?

    See, these things change almost year to year. This particular year we are looking at auto, we are looking at BFSI, we are looking at one part of Ecomm which is Ewallets. We are looking at the media sector and we are looking at the government sector –

     

    And FMCG continues to be around 27%-28%.

    FMCG’s  contribution to the total AdEx will still remain around 27% or so.

     

    One of the sectors which was not included in the entire study is the SME sector and that’s where the future of the country is and what’s where everybody is saying that the growth is in terms of advertising. If you were factored into that do you think your final numbers could have been little different?

    Infact we factored in the overall base of advertisers. So that would include the long tail or the SME sectors as you call them as well. In fact a lot of the digital growth is not only coming from the established players but…

     

    SMEs

    …The first-time advertisers. We are finding in the last couple of years, first-time advertisers moving straight to digital because the entry costs are low because they are able to target the consumers a lot better and also measure the return. We see them continuing in the short- to medium-term.

     

    		 2016 growth would’ve been 16% had there been no demonetisation: Sam BalsaraTalking to Labonita Ghosh on the sidelines of the Pitch Madison Advertising Report presentation, Madison World Chairman Sam Balsaraspoke on the dangers of depending too much (or only) on data, on e-commerce advertising and why he thinks the 13.5% growth is realistic

     

    Some might say your forecast of 13.5% growth of AdEx or adspends in the year 2017 is very optimistic, especially since we had GroupM telling us just yesterday that it estimates growth to be 10%. Your comments on how realistic the growth estimate is…

    Obviously we think it’s realistic otherwise we wouldn’t have put it up. Asyou’ve seen, last year, growth was very low, which has made us bring us forecast down. We do recognise that in the period from January to April, growth will below and that is whyour forecast is 13.5%, otherwise it would’ve been higher.

     

    Tsunami is an interesting way to describe the impact of demonetisation. Had demonetisation not happened, what would you say the growth would’ve been last year?

    The growth would’ve been 16%. And that is almost exactly what our prediction was in February 2015. It’s because the market de-grew by 8% in the months of November and December, that growth is down to 12.5%.

     

    Your forecast on digital touching 43% growth is in line with the way it’s been growing in the last five years. Why do you think it wasn’t impacted by demonetisation?

     

    Ofcourse it was. But digital also looks at leads, and search and all that stuff.Also, FMCG [advertising] is very low on digital, the lowest [of all media]. We’re not saying digital was not affected, but we’re saying that it was much less affected by demonetisation.

     

    You have also said that January to April is going to be down. But this is also the time when we have elections. So no real impact of election spends?

    Assembly elections don’t pull in that much money. And I think that these elections, coming on the back of demonetisation, have been a bit of a dampener, if I may say so. I don’t think political parties were as flush with funds as they normally are. I think we are seeing a more conservative approach by most political parties in these elections

     

    ‘Don’t over-depend on media data to support business decisions. Use data as a guide and not as a crutch.’ Now that’s quite a statement from a media agency veteran who has been and led most industry forums. Do you really think there is too much dependence on data?

     

    What I meant to say was, don’t use data as a crutch. Don’t close your eyes and just blindly go by data. Use your common sense to question whether that data might be wrong or if it even makes sense. Take a holistic look at your plans, and don’t only say this is the data, so it must be like that, so let’s go with it.

    I think there is not enough lateral thinking bring applied to data. And I think a lot of plans are routine, andthey get mechanically done. There is a belief that as long as the GRPs and TRPs are met, I’ve donemy job. But it is possible, that despite all these being met, the brand doesn’t do well. And I think we’ve seen quite a few examples of that.

     

    E-commerce, as we have seen, has hit the adspend bottomlines. Madison has its own share of e-commerce clients and one of these which has been a big budget advertiser. Do you expect it to go down or up?

    I think e-commerce spends are guided more by the penchant of the investors, and I think investors in e-commerce behave in a very erratic manner. So I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess on what e-commerce investors are thinking of, or will think tomorrow

     

     

  • Digital CRM agency Hinduja Global Solutions Interactive biz head Sachin Karweer on how and why it's important for marketers to listen…

    Listening, the HGSi way

     

    Hinduja Global Solutions Interactive (HGSi) Business Head Sachin Karweer on why it is imperative for brands to listen to what their customers want, and then tweak their strategy accordingly. Thanks to organisations that provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and customer engagement data, this process has become a lot easier. In between coffee and a pesky PR honcho snooping to find out our private phone number, we speak to Karweer on his vision for HGSi, and more.

     

    We still remember the ‘For India’ website that you were running until it was acquired by the Hindujas. If you look back now, and since you were one of the early movers in the digital space, Hhw would you say your journey has been so far? And how would you rate – not just yourself — but the entire digital media space itself?

    It’s been a fantastic journey, starting with For India just after college, and then it getting acquired by the Hindujas when I was just 23 or 24 (and still not sure what I was doing in life), to subsequently working on the media business for the Hinduja group and helping them with the set-top box deployment for the cable industry. I was doing all kinds of innovative things, including [creating] electronic programme guides, videos on demand, pay-per-view offerings, and then doing their digital work. I also worked with clients on end-to-end digital marketing. So it’s been a fantastic journey. We’ve seen brands evolve, and seen them move from traditional to digital media over the last five or 10 years.

     

    Do you think the journey has been what you envisioned when you started out? Or has it gone on different, unexpected tracks? Like, say, wanting to travel from Mumbai to Delhi, but finding yourself on a completely different route?

    When it comes to digital, I think it started a little slower in India as compared to the West. But in the last couple of years, it has taken everybody by surprise. Thanks to the push from the Government of India, digital has acquired a great shape and speed, as far as brands and consumers are concerned. In fact, consumers are more inclined towards digital now.

     

    You work across various markets, not just India. How would you say India compares to the rest of the world?

    We work with the India market, obviously, but also with the US, European and Middle East markets as well. The Middle East is strong on experience; they really want [to provide] great customer experience but are not as technologically-evolved as Europe and other Western markets. They want large, king-sized experiences on their digital devices. The US is extremely evolved, and strong on both technology and its advances. They are the first movers, innovators and change agents. India is progressing quite well. The Indian consumer has really taken to innovations and new ideas in the digital domain.

     

    Consumers in developed markets like Europe, are fairly discerning and also have the luxury of choosing between different vendors. How would you rate our Indian vendors, compared to those in other markets?

    Compared to the European and US markets, India’s big advantage is technology. We have great skillsets available in India that can do cutting-edge technology work. There is also a lot of innovation happening in India which is helping vendors achieve the dreams they are selling to brand owners. It’s all about doing it faster, but still being cost-effective.

     

    Let’s move to HGS Interactive. Why don’t we know much about it?

    Traditionally, we’ve been a little quiet on the PR front because the group itself doesn’t believe in too much of PR.

     

    The [Hinduja] group doesn’t need much PR because it is already well known…

    So we’ve been quietly doing a lot of good work in the various markets that we operate in. We work with lot of clients in the banking, insurance and hospitality verticals, but we’ve been a little quiet. Now that we want to be known in the Indian market, the company wants to invest more [on this since] this is where we want to be heard a little more.

     

    You’re not a traditional digital media firm. You’re part-digital media, part-advertising and part-technology.

    Yes

     

    There are other players who do that too. For instance, large agencies also have large CRM (customer relationship management) networks, and they do use technology as well. So how do you see yourself not differentiated from the others?

    What we call ourselves is a digital CRM agency. In the market, you’ll either find a digital marketing agency, which may be a boutique agency, or it might be an offshoot of an advertising agency. We are a digital CRM agency where we do digital marketing, digital customer experiences and also social CRM. It’s a unique mix of the services we offer.

     

    But CRM is, essentially, a technology-driven solution. There are CRM companies which also have all the facilities you offer, like Talisma, for instance. So what is it that you bring to the table?

    There’s a huge difference between a technology CRM solution, and what we do. We are not just a technology platform company which deploys CRM; we work with people like Talisma to get insights from them, and then go back to the brand and tell them what to do with those insights. For instance, how do you get learnings from consumers via CRM data and what you, the brand, should subsequently do; how can you apply it back to marketing, and what is it that you are specialising in, and such. That’s the difference between a technology CRM company and a digital CRM company.

     

    As a technology player you may not want to reveal your clients, but can you share a success story about what you have achieved so far?

    We work with a large media company in India — it’s one of the largest broadcasters — who also has a OTT player with a large network of channels in India. We have a binding non-disclosure agreement with them, so I won’t be able to name them, but it’s one of the top players. We manage their entire consumer interaction over email, calls and social media.

     

    And how does it reflect in their brand strategy?

    CRM for them is crucial. For this particular brand, the CRM team reports to the marketing team, so they really understand the importance of consumer interactions and consumer insights.

     

    Can you give me one example of how CRM insight has actually changed a broadcaster’s, or any other company’s, brand strategy?

    What this broadcaster is trying to do, is understand consumer behavior. What content the consumer would like to see, and at what time during the day. It is giving the company a lot of insights in terms of content ideas, content stories, characters and actors. The company is trying to use the intelligence gained from what people are saying, and where the buzz is, to take it back to the content provider to rework around the storyline of a particular serial or show. Plus, the OTT that this media broadcaster is running, is helping solve the company’s technical issues… It needs to ensure the customer is getting a great experience.

     

    Are brand managers willing to listen to customers? It’s easy to say ‘yes we listen’, but do they actually do that?

    They have to listen, they have no choice. In this new age where everything is digitally driven, if you don’t listen to your consumer, you’ll start spending money on channels which have no takers. All the top brands, globally, have to listen to their consumers, whether they’re an FMCG company or a retail brand.

     

    Just to play the devil’s advocate, recording customer views is something any CRM provider can do. So what is the different thing that you are offering?

    The way we manage this business is with the intelligence and process of a BPM (business process management) company. An advertising agency doesn’t follow a BPM process because it is typically about creatives: It’s about a story, it’s about content, it’s about ideas. You need that discipline and you need to hire the right kind of people who will do it day after day, 24/7 through different shifts, so that you don’t miss anything. How to run a creative shop with the precision of a BPM, is what we specialise in.

     

    Typically, what is the profile of the people who work with you?

    For this particular CRM initiative, we hire people who have a digital marketing background or a content marketing background. It’s not like a typical BPM where we hire college graduates and train them. That’s your typical BPO or call centre business. Here, we take people from a digital marketing background who are also strong in content marketing, good at writing blogs and who have a creative bent of mind. Then we train them on the product, and then they work with the efficiency of a BPM.

     

    But when you say you are a digital CRM agency, you obviously don’t make banner ads…

    We do that, and it’s one part of my business which is competing in the digital marketing space, where we sell ideas and also create banners.

     

    In terms of percentage of business ratio of your revenue pie, how much is it?

    It’s equal. So we are doing a good amount of digital marketing and a good amount of digital or social CRM

     

    But you still call yourself a digital CRM agency…

    Yes, that’s the differentiator. Our DNA is CRM. We understand consumer interactions really well. Our belief is, if you want to be a good digital marketing agency, you need to listen to your consumers. We work with lot of brands in pure-play digital marketing. We also consult with brands in helping them carry out performance marketing.

     

    What are the kind of creative folks in your team?

    Since we are in the digital marketing business as well, we have people who have a background in the arts — people who’re from the JJ School of Arts or with Rachna Sansad. In fact, my creative head, Divesh Swamikutty, is from a mainline advertising agency, and was working as the national creative director, digital. We have a strong, creative in-house team. Because we work with a lot of banks, insurance companies and hospitality brands in pure-play digital marketing, we have to have strong creative content.

     

    In the years to come, which of these domains is likely to grow faster and become bigger?

    We feel CRM and marketing are going to converge, and be under the same umbrella. The team that is listening to consumers and understanding them, will be able to market effectively too. Gone are the days when you work on impressions, views and leads. You really want to spend money where your customer is. So customer segmentation is a integral part of CRM. Technology will only give you a way to get the data; you need data scientists to read it.

     

    What about your turnover? How much is that likely to grow by?

    We feel it should grow by about 25 per cent every year, for the next two years.

     

    Can you share some turnover indicators?

    We will not be able to reveal any financial data

     

    In terms of opportunities, would you say that you will be operating in triple digits in a couple of years?

    For sure.

     

    What is your path to becoming more known in the market?

    I think it’s innovation. What we are really looking to do, is a lot of innovation in the digital CRM domain. More and more brands have to get into this, and that is where we feel our expertise lies. Digital agencies will not be able to do what we’re doing, and advertising agencies will obviously stick to their core of creativity and content marketing. What we have is our strength, which is what we really want to leverage with brands.

     

    If you have to make an elevator pitch to a potential customer, what would you say about how different you are from other digital CRM agencies, in terms of the services you offer?

    We’re a part of the Hinduja group, so we have the scale and mobility, which is a great boon for us. We’re backed by the HGS family which is across the globe, so we’ve got the best-in-class expertise in technology and creativity. So what we offer is the entire suite of digital solutions: Customer sourcing, customer acquisitions, customer engagement and customer retention.

     

  • A no-holds-barred discussion with Raj Nayak, Ashish Bhasin and Ramesh Narayan on Goafest 2017, the controversies and how it’s more than just a creative fest

    Bigger, better and ‘housefull’

     

    It’s that time of the year when the industry folk get set for Goafest and the Abby awards. And some don’t. But despite the demonetisation and a tightening of budgetary belts, this year’s edition has, say Organising Committee chair Ashish Bhasin, Awards Governing Council chair Ramesh Narayan and Ad Club president Raj Nayak, garnered a record amount of sponsorships and number of entries. For the first time, the organisers fear they may have to say no to delegates with a ‘housefull’ board. In a no-holds-barred discussion over lunch last week, Messrs Bhasin, Narayan and Nayak speak to Pradyuman Maheshwari on this year’s edition, the participation (and non-participation) of some agencies in the Abby, and how Goafest and the Abby are now a lot more than just for creative agencies and awards. Excerpts:

    Let’s start with you, Mr Ashish Bhasin. Given all the pressures, would you say being Chair of the Organising Committee is a thankless job. Is it really? 

    Ashish Bhasin (ABhasin): I wouldn’t say thankless. Actually it’s very gratifying because once the thing is done, you feel good about it. But people often underestimate the logistics of it. It’s like having a ‘baraat’ of 2,500 people come over for three days, and the logistics that go into making that happen — the quality of speakers, the funds that have to be organised and the very organising of the event and the awards — are a task. It’s like [working with] 10,000 moving parts. The thing that you are always aware of is that about 9,999 times you will do right and no one will remember that. But the one or two things that may not go as expected, are the things that throw you off.

    And all of this alongside your day job…

    ABhasin: Is taxing, but it all comes together. This is the time that it all starts bunching up. This year we started well in time, and because of that, I think we have a much better speaker line-up than we’ve ever had.

    So to get straight to the point: What’s special this year?

    ABhasin: This year’s Goafest, to my mind, is going to be like never before. We already have a record number of creative entries and a record number of media entries, and therefore a record number of total entries. I also think we will have some of the best speakers that we’ve had in a long, long time…

    People whom one hasn’t heard or seen before?

    ABhasin: Yes. Some you haven’t seen and heard, and to an extent less incestuous, but because it’s not only going to be advertising people talking to advertising people, there is a lot of learning to be had from related industries and from people who have achieved a lot in other areas, like people from Bollywood or spiritual leaders. The Phogat sisters, for example. I think there is a lot to learn from their story.

    We are also going to have Masterclasses which will be ‘By Invitation’ and conducted by a very senior [industry leader from] Israel. There will also be one day on innovation, and one on creativity. This will be for a select group, on a first come-first served basis among those who have applied for it. There are a lot of other things planned. You know about the Champions of Excellence award, which Mr Ramesh Narayan will talk more about. Also, this time Goafest is going green in part because we have to be responsible about the environment. So for the first time, we are taking baby steps in water conservation because when there are 2,500 people, it is sometimes painful to see people take three swigs from a bottle of water and then discard it. If you consider this could happen eight hours a day over three days, you can imagine how much wastage of water actually happens. So we are trying to make [Goafest] a little more sustainable. Also the element of fun..

    You aren’t returning to make Goafest 2017 more outdoorsy…

    ABhasin: Obviously [moving it indoors] works better in terms of both timing and control, and the new technology we are now using, probably won’t work outdoors. But this year, we’ll have sundowners with the sea as a backdrop.

    Okay, let’s move onto the awards, and to you Mr Ramesh Narayan, as Chairman of Awards Governing Council. How have the entries and judging been? Other than the Champions of Excellence category, what’s new this year?

    Ramesh Narayan (RNarayan): The Abby Awards are now over 65 years old. They’re a brand that everybody knows and loves. Everyone said that in a year like this, with demonetisation and a slow economy, it’s good even if we get 20% fewer entries. But, as you know, we’ve got more entries than last time, and it’s the highest ever — despite an increase in the rate…

    Will you be able to share some details with us?

    RNarayan: [It’s more] in terms of numbers. But I see an increase across categories too, especially in digital. Digital and publishers have led — as far as the numbers go. Another thing to note is that when it comes to awards, historically you’ve had the Big Five of print, film, outdoors and such. Today, throughout the world (and here as well) you have broadcasters and publishers, and now there is an all-new category called Mobile. This was not there before…

    Last year, the response from publishers was not very good… they had not entered their best work. How has it been this year?

    RNarayan: It has been very good this year. We made it a point to reach out to all the publishers, and even involved the INS (Indian Newspaper Society). We asked them to circulate our mails in the industry. Everybody has cooperated, and the quality has been good. We’ve got very good jury members too. So the whole experience had been quite gratifying. This time, we also had our annual Town Hall very early, sometime in November, so it gave us the opportunity to listen to all voices from our industry and on-board their ideas and suggestions.

    Who were the people who attended it?

    RNarayan: Creative people

    From across agencies?

    RNarayan: Yes.

    Including those who were not participating?

    RNarayan: Yes, at that time they were not aware that they were not participating. So they did come. I can state, for the record, that as far as processes and systems go, we are now ‘super’. I don’t think anybody can have anything to say about it — and I am willing to debate it out with anyone who does!

    There has been a charge that it’s not held at the right time. One of the leading lights of your industry, Bobby Pawar, mentioned this during a panel discussion on ET Now. When asked a question, he said that the meeting with creative folk should be held immediately after Goafest.

    RNarayan: That’s too early. November, I think, is the ideal time. If you have it in June or something like that, that would be like giving a brief to your advertising agency six months in advance, and asking them to deliver the campaign and no one will remember it.

    Mr Bhasin, as someone associated with both creative agencies and advertising agencies, how do you view Goafest in terms of your agency’s participation? We do know that Taproot participates in a big way. I remember the other Dentsu creative agencies participating in large numbers last year. So how do your folks look at it? You are also an active member of the Ad Club …

    ABhasin: I wear two distinctly separate hats, my industry hat and my agency hat. When I am sitting with my agency people, they are least bothered about the fact that I am the chairman of Goafest. They want to see what’s in it for them, as any industry agency would do. But as a group, we view this in two or three ways.

    First, we see it as a great learning opportunity for youngsters, so we encourage more youngsters, rather than the seniormost guys, to attend. We have a lot of incentives and a lot of facilitation for some of the youngsters because during these three days, you get to see and hear the best of the best. This year, for example, we are concentrating on digital trends.

    What about the participating in the Abbys?

    ABhasin: I am separating the two. You said going to Goafest. So we encourage people, particularly the youngsters, to hear from the best of the best speakers which they otherwise won’t get an opportunity to do. As far as the awards are concerned, Dentsu, I have to confess, wasn’t very focused on awards until maybe a year ago. It just wasn’t on our radar, apart from Taproot Dentsu, who have always have been very good at it and done brilliantly. Last year, we tried it as an experiment, and it was very encouraging because as a group, we got the highest number of creative awards, and among the Top 10 agencies, three were ours.

    What was it that led you to participate in the Abbys when you weren’t earlier?

    ABhasin: It’s not that Dentsu wasn’t participating. It was just that we were not taking it seriously enough. When you go and make your creds presentation, when you go out and talk about your creative reputation and go out to recruit youngsters, there is a big high for campaigns that have done well. In the Indian context, there isn’t a bigger awards show than Goafest. So we just decided to dip our toes in it last year. Not just dip our toes, but go in a more serious way. But when three of our agencies made it to the Top 10, we decided to build on that this year.

    Selfie time! From Right: Ramesh Narayan, Raj Nayak, Ashish Bhasin and Pradyuman Maheshwari

    ABhasin: Absolutely, and that’s why they continue to participate. This is also a good time of the year because after this comes Cannes and various other international award festivals

    Do you participate at Kyoorius?

    ABhasin: One or two of our agencies have…

    Taproot doesn’t?

    ABhasin: It’s not that we don’t participate, but how many awards shows can you focus on? It’s a huge investment as well, so you have to balance it out. Last year, we focussed on Goafest. Besides Taproot, this is a relatively new thing [for our other agencies]. So you’ve got to ace the sysem, start learning to present your work, and learning to encourage your team to come up with good work. Once we do consistently well in the local awards, we will start looking at the international ones.

    So we have a plan whereby we hope that at the end of three or four years, we will dominate, not just pan-India, but also the international circuit. But I think we’re still on a learning curve with some of our agencies, so that’s where we are.

    We have seen that while many creative agencies stay away from awards, media agencies participate in large numbers. I’m not referring to digital and outdoor, since they are slightly different, but creative and media are the two traditional players. Why do you think this happens?

    RNarayan: First, the fact that media agencies from all the big groups do, in fact, take part, validates the point that none of them has anything against either the Ad Club, Goafest or the Abby judging… Because if they did, they might be split in their decision even within the group, with one arm participating and the other staying away…

    Sorry to interrupt, in the case of WPP you have one part agency participating in all its might like JWT as it is not participating so…

    RNarayan: True, so all the more reason to say that this one thing is absolutely clear to all people now, and I’m glad that the organisers of the Abbys don’t need to defend themselves anymore. That age is gone now, as we can see with all the networks and all the agencies participating in some way or the other….

    Pardon my saying this, but does this mean you are showing the finger to those who don’t participate?

    RNarayan: No it’s not, certainly not. I have always said this, and I say this on record that I will be the happiest man if all the agencies participate. However, I can appreciate that each one has some reason [to stay away], and that this has nothing to do with processes or the way this whole thing is organised. Each one has its unique reason. For some it could be budgets; for some it could be [the condition that if they] enter, they have to win big. Sometimes it may not be a very healthy bag of entries they can send in, so they won’t enter at all.

    Are you saying that one of the reasons people may not participate is that they don’t have good work?

    RNarayan: Adequate good work. All of them will have [to have] some excellent work to show. Or enough numbers to be able to rank among the Top 3 or even the Top 5. It’s a cultural issue where they might feel this is an important thing for them.

    There are charges that the judging quality is not right. [Some agencies] don’t think it’s right for people from their own industry to do the judging. And also the fact that the views of the industry are not taken in time…

    RNarayan: As to the views of the industry not being taken, we have a Town Hall for this and it was held early this time, in November. Many people attended it. But for those who did not vote, I’d say if you didn’t vote, keep your mouth shut.

    ABhasin: I will add to that. This is the first year in which I actually said that we want to crowdsource Goafest. The speakers, the awards, we wanted to crowdsource it all.

    Were Ogilvy and Lowe invited for this meeting?

    RNarayan: Everybody was invited. All our members were invited from the Ad Club as well as AAAI. May I say two more things which are my like my hobby horses? First, that the Champion of Excellence award is not an Abby. It is an award, and it goes to those advertisers who have nurtured brands or who have taken that leap of faith and ought to be celebrated. So that is a new thing. Second, as Ashish mentioned, the Abbys have gone green this time, but they’ve also gone good. For the first time we have an industry initiative to start a campaign to mitigate violence against women.

    Which you kind of introduced last year in a smaller way…

    RNarayan: That was an Abby, in gender-sensitive advertising. This is an industry initiative where we have invited entries, and the winning entry will be funded by the industry to turn into a campaign that will then run for a month, across the country and across media. For example, we had FCB creating the call for entries; and we’ll have GroupM running the campaign for us afterwards. We have MullenLowe Lintas’ chairperson judging it… in the chair, so we’ve got the entire industry on board for this, and I think that speaks volumes for today’s leadership of Goafest  — the Ad Club and AAAI– who have been able to pull this off.

    Sorry to push on this question: Participation in this proposed campaign is from across agencies, even those who are not participating in the Abbys?

    RNarayan: So Goafest has now evolved into a thing that is bigger than the Abbys. We have all these agencies participating to mitigate violence against women, so I don’t want to distinguish between those who are a part of this campaign and those who will participate in the Abbys. Though it is a fact of life that yes, those who have judged an Abby have not judged here. I don’t want to say, but it’s true; Lintas is there, so that makes everybody.

    Having discussed the nitty-gritty of Goafest and the Abby with Messrs Bhasin and Narayan, I am going to turn to you, Mr Raj Nayak.

    Raj Nayak (RNayak): I won’t go politically correct, so don’t worry.

    So does it upset you that you’re still not able to get the growing number who choose to stay away from the Abbys, to participate in the awards?

    RNayak: Let me pick it up from where Ashish left off. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but over the last two or three years, there has been a strategic shift in the way we view Goafest, both as an industry body and at AAAI. The Abbys are not just about creative awards anymore. It’s a place for networking, for showcasing work, yes, and it is one place where we bring all parts of the industry under one roof – broadcasters, publishers and even digital. I think you can’t find another award [that has all of this put together].

    And, of course, the speakers. Year on year, we have over 3,000 or 4,000 people come together for a three-day festival. First, there is no entity or body that brings all this together for three days in one place. More importantly, the way to look at this is there is no agency which has not participated. You say my right hand has participated or my left leg has not participated, but the fact is that taken collectively, there is no agency that has not participated.

    Can you elaborate?

    RNayak: You name an agency.

    Lowe Lintas?

    RNayak: Yes, but their media has participated.

    I’m talking about the creative agencies

    RNayak: My friends will be politically correct. But I have spoken to a lot of media people and a lot of agency heads I don’t wish to name, and they’ve clearly told me this is about one or two people not participating, though nobody wants to assign any reasons for it. But I think sometimes when you take a stand, it becomes difficult for you to do a U-turn from that stand without a valid reason. Then there are those who don’t want to lose if don’t have enough good work. One person told me that they did not have enough good work this year, and didn’t want to send an entry just for the sake of it. If I don’t participate, it doesn’t matter if I don’t win. But if I do participate, and I don’t win — or don’t make it to the Top 5 at least – that makes me look bad. It’s like the countries who stay away from the Olympics.

    All these agencies who tell you that we don’t listen to the industry and we don’t take feedback from them [are not being entirely honest]. Last year, I personally invited them to the Town Hall, where you were also present. We had a media meet last year where we said ‘forget about feedback, we welcome you to come, and be part of the event.’ But you have no right to be an armchair critic and say this is bad or that is bad, if you don’t involve yourself. Why are Ashish, who runs his full-fledged agency, and Ramesh Narayan, who’s got his own business, giving up their time for this? Why am I, with my full-time job, doing it? It’s not for personal benefit, it’s for the industry.

    Does it worry or anger you when people from your own business — as you might have seen on a recent TV show – and just stop short of damning the awards?

    RNayak: I don’t know which show this is, but I’m sure that there was no representation from AAAI or Ad Clubthere.

    The anchor, Sonali Krishna , said she reached out [to you’ll]. She didn’t quite use the word boycott, but she almost said that.

    RNayak: Of course. I will go on record to tell you that we chose not go on that show.

    Why?

    RNayak: Because this has been going on for the last five years, and it’s time to move on. Goafest has become bigger, is getting more entries and more delegates. Goafest is getting better. So you have to move on. As an industry body, you can’t pander to one or two individuals.

    Why do you think some in the A&M media are being unfair? Because you have chosen not to participate in one event, in one panel discussion now, another anchor of another show has been openly critical of Goafest and the Abby? Do you think it matters?

    RNayak: It doesn’t matter. You have to do what you believe is in the best interests of the industry. We are all practising professionals. We have full-time jobs to do and yet everybody is giving their time, pro bono, for the sake of the industry and that is something that must be recognised and appreciated.

    The happening thing is, of course, that all of them — including the Big 2 or the Big 5 – do participate in the Effies. So it’s not that they have something against the Ad Club…

    RNayak: Let me tell you that it’s the same process that we follow for Effies and the Emvies. We have 150 or 200 jury members even for the Goafest Abbys in different phases. Everything is online. It is transparent and we even upload the shortlist. How much more transparent can one get? Be upfront. I have no hesitation if you to say: ‘listen, I don’t want to participate’. This is the first time — and I’m saying this on record – that we did not reach out to anybody asking them to participate. We said Goafest will continue, irrespective of someone’s participation (or not). You can’t be saying the same thing every year. You have to move on, and that’s what I am saying.

    Given the fact that people are saying they don’t have enough good work — and some of these are big agencies — do you think there’s a way out where you can still attract some really good work? I know you don’t have a ranking system, but whatever it is, one does to look at ranking eventually… 

    RNayak: But even if you have one good work, and if you believe it to be good, you can get you an award. You don’t necessarily have to get the Grand Prix. I mean, if India were to participate in the Olympics only if we are to get all the medals, that won’t work. You may be good in shooting or you may be good in wrestling, but you are still bringing honour for your country. You are still bringing honour for your agency.

    ABhasin: And even the sad part is, most of the guys who are part of the non-participating agencies, have built their careers on the Abbys.

    RNayak: Very true. Did you see the campaign ‘Made of Abbys’? Did you see agency after agency, some of whom are not participating, featured in our campaign?

    Yes, I saw one with Piyush Pandey or Ogilvy

    Let me tell you something very interesting. We released a set of eight agencies and obviously we would want to show every agency who has won in the Abbys, but it’s not possible because we don’t have the campaign or the resources to do that. So we decided we will pick out eight agencies and we will put it in order. We chose strategically to showcase first those agencies who are participating. The head of an agency which is not participating – I will not name the agency – asked: ‘How come we are not featured in your campaign?’ And I said: ‘You are being featured, my friend. It’s just that we will put you later’. We actually included their campaign after the entries were closed, and it was a strategic decision to demonstrate that we are not canvassing for entries. And also to demonstrate that as an industry body, we will always continue to be inclusive. It’s not a mom-and-pop show.

    After attending various Goafests and Abbys, I can say that last year’s was a stupendous show. Does it really upset all of you, having spent so much time and pro-bono effort, that people who should be participating in the event, are not participating?

    RNayak: It used to upset me – I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t — probably next year, I may not be there. Ramesh may not be there. Ashish may be there for a year or two. We will pass the baton to somebody else. But I believe that Goafest, given the way it’s going, will only get bigger and better. [So as an agency] you may choose to stay away today, but there will come a stage when you will want to be a part of it.

    You do, however, also recognise people who are not participating, like Balki or Piyush….

    RNayak: Of course. We are an industry body and we have no personal agenda. We will always be inclusive, no matter who participates or doesn’t. It is a stated rule for AAAI and the Ad Club that as an industry body, irrespective of participation, we will be continue to be inclusive. If there are good suggestions, we will always welcome them. We may make a mistake, but you should look at the intent behind everything that we do. As president of the Ad Club and on behalf of president of AAAI and my colleagues, the intent is to give it our best. Let’s put on a great show, and let’s do it for the industry.

    I’m going to ask you a question, you can choose not to answer it…

    RNayak: No, I will answer it.

    As the CEO of Colors, you are also associated with the Kyoorius Awards. What is your experience with that? Even that doesn’t get the participation of all.

    RNayak: See, I could have been petty and not sponsored Kyoorius, right? But for us, every awards event is mutually exclusive. That’s a private show. Some other media publication may host another one. We are a part of everything. We are a part of the Ad Club as well, and continue to be. For me as Colors CEO, if I see value in an event — whether or not it is an industry event, though there must be some RoI because I am answerable to my organisation — we may decide to either sponsor it or be associated with it. But there is a big difference between an event for profit and an industry event. Made in India…

    Let me ask you a naughty question. Which gives better RoI?

    RNayak: Definitely Goafest, for the simple reason that there is no other event that brings all the different constituents under one roof for three days. If there was something that you could compare it with, maybe it would have been difficult for me to say. But right now, every other event is a smaller one.

    RNarayan: I would like to add that I’d also like everybody to keep in mind that Goafest and the Abbys are probably the only industry-organised awards show in the world may be. So it’s in our interest to get together and to cherish it.

    There is a feeling that privately managed shows are better…

    ABhasin: What is your opinion?

    Two or three years ago, I felt the same. But since the tenure of Shashi Sinha, the Abbys have been very well-organised.

    RNarayan: Without naming any shows abroad, it’s true you don’t have any kind of right to appeal there. Here you can pick up the phone and speak to Ramesh Narayan, and ask, ‘What the hell is going on, guys?’ That happens only in India. So, in fact, we must celebrate it.

    Any last word from the Goafest chairman?

    ABhasin: I think this might be the first year when we may have to say no to delegates. When we started off, we did so with trepidation. We started marketing Goafest from the morning of November 8 and you know what happened that day. and I’m happy to go on record to say that we’ve received record sponsorships than ever before.

    Then we feared that we might get 20-35% fewer entries this year, because everyone was on a tight budget. But we got a record number of entries and now it’s looking like I might have physical, space constraints because the hall only has a certain capacity. Already, it looks like it may be over-packed. So much as we would not like to, this might be the first year when we have to close the delegates list on the date we say we will. This year, we might have to put up a ‘housefull’ board.

     

  • A focus on non-fictional and devotional content plus ensuring parochial pride is part of the secret sauces Tarun Katial has formulated for Big Ganga

    Quiet, but strong flows Big Ganga

     

    Reliance Broadcast Networks’ regional channel Big Ganga, which was launched in 2014 to cater to the Bihar, Jharkhand and Eastern UP markets, has become a leader of the pack in this region after BARC data found that it commands 58 per cent of the viewership here. CEO Tarun Katial speaks with Pradyuman Maheshwari about what has worked for the channel, the focus on non-fiction and devotional content and ensuring parochial pride.

     

    It’s interesting that we’re doing an interview about Big Ganga because until now while weve discussed the channel, it’s almost always been either Big FM or Big Magic.

    Quietly but surely, we’ve created a brand that resonates so well with one of the biggest regions of this country. That makes it worthy of some adulation, or at least some highlighting.

     

    Having worked on GECs over the years, what are the specific characteristics of a Hindi GEC versus a Bhojpuri GEC?

    One of the things you have to be careful about is to not show a state and its people in poor light. They are very proud of who they are. Regardless of how the state is represented by the national media or viewed by people on the outside – in terms of crime, poverty or underdevelopment – the people of the region are very proud of what they are. And you’ve seen the transformation that’s taken place in the last 10 or 15 years, right? So we were very careful to not look down upon the region in any way, but project it in a positive manner. Parochial pride is one of the things we [promoted] with our initial tagline ‘Apna Pradesh Apna Magic’, which actually helped us a lot. It was like saying that we have magic in our region. Since then, we’ve stuck to the philosophy of giving people a platform, and showcasing the best of the culture and the best of the talent, and giving people respect, through all the formats that we’ve built around the channel. We’ve put in all sorts of filters to ensure this.

     

    You’ve obviously gone beyond Shatrughan Sinha and Ravi Kishan…

    Yes, much beyond them because we believe that there is so much more to this region than just a couple of icons. Like, the latest show that we’re doing, called Birhadangal, takes all the Birha stars from the region — from eastern UP to Bihar and Jharkhand — and gives them pride of place. I was amazed with the kind of response it got in terms of timespend.

     

    How is a channel like this different from a large-format Hindi GEC?

    The one thing that we did not do was venture into fiction, because fiction then causes friction, right? And we didn’t want to go down the path of social issues; we wanted to showcase the positive and the uplifting in the Bhojpuri region rather than the social challenges and issues that exist. People are living those challenges every day, so if you fictionalise and exaggerate them, that doesn’t really help, does it? So the channel is primarily based on non- fiction content, and that is the difference.

     

    Doesn’t that affect the economics of it, because fiction is slightly cheaper?

    Yes, but you have to find a way of balancing out the economics, and this has worked very well for us. The other different thing we did was make the Morning Time band bigger than Primetime.

     

    Obviously the Prime Time in those regions is different from what we have here in Mumbai…

    Correct. While primetime in middle India is from 6 to 8 pm and in Indian metros it’s 8 to 10 pm, here it is at 7 to 10 in the morning. Our largest volume comes from viewership between 7 and 10 am. That was something completely different, so we’ve invested in regional content from 7 to 10 in the morning, every single day and through the year, for this reason.

     

    So that means your competition in that region is not another GEC but a news channel like Aaj Tak …

    No, [some of the viewership] in the morning actually goes to devotional [channels] — devotional fiction, devotional non-fiction and devotional music. We realised that faith is a very big pillar of society in this part of the country, and people live by it. Yet, there wasn’t really a platform for people to evoke their faith beyond what they do themselves. So we invested in a lot of original content around music, around singers, around events, around the Panchang, which, in this region, is between 7 and 10 am. It’s a significant investment we made, which has shown significant results.

     

    There’s a significant population of Muslims in this region but your devotional content is all geared towards Hindus. Does this alienate a section of your viewership?

    So during big Muslim festivals, we do go down the route of celebrating it in any form or fashion. Unfortunately devotional music, as we know it, is more popular, and prevalent in Hinduism. Apart from this, we’re doing a show on Buddhism, so we acquired ‘Buddha’ from Zee and dubbed it into Bhojpuri, and it’s done exceedingly well for us in this region. After all, this is seat of Buddhism in the country, with Bodhgaya being a part of this region. So we realised that Buddhism is another thing to tap into. For us, the [religious] colour of region doesn’t matter; it’s about celebration and whatever gets people to celebrate together — and faith is one kind of outlet for that.

     

    How about the synergies, when you launched there were, you know, since you had a existing Big FM presence there, how about the synergies worked for…

    Big FM and?

     

    Big FM and Big Ganga and how possibly you could…

    So like Birhadangal is simul-=cast on Big FM and Big Ganga. It’s unique for a TV show to be actually simulcast on radio. So all the content through the year, is uniquely simulcast between Big FM and Big Ganga. And a lot of the outsourcing on the ground for local talent for some of these shows, is done through Big FM. Listeners get an opportunity to come on television, and finally the show ends up on Big Ganga, which is again simul-cast on Big FM. So it’s a fairly 360 degree reach.

     

    Do you also integrate with a lot of ground-level events?

    We integrate as well as do a lot of ground level events of our own in Patna, Ranchi and Varanasi. These are the three big hubs that we’ve created for ourselves.

     

    And you know, you’re not the first player in this region…

    It’s really crowded, but we have over 15 per cent of the market share, which is good for us.

     

    You had a successful run with a channel like Mahua, before it went under. And for a while Bhojpuri cinema was also doing well. Is there a secret sauce that you use to make sure you’re more successful than [others]?

    The secret sauce is consumer insight and local connect. We don’t rely on movies as the staple to reach out to audiences. Movies don’t contribute more than 20 per cent of our entire GRP across the channel, whereas in some of these Bhojpuri channels? it’s 100 per cent, which leads to a lack of differentiation between you and the next guy on the block. So our content is all original IP that is locally produced, locally shot, provides local people opportunities and is built on local insights. We don’t want to go down as a generic content channel either of music or movies.

     

    Non-fiction and a fair bit of devotional…

    Yes, we’re looking at a fair amount of mythology with [shows] like Ganga Shaurya, which actually showcases the life of achievers from this region, which does extremely well. Then there are comedy shows like Comedy Tanatan and Litti Chokha, which are all locally shot in the cities of this region. There’s a lot of work you have to do at the ground level, to be able to get this right. It’s not something which is so easy to put together, sitting in Bombay. That’s why we have a fairly big team in the region…

     

    My last set of questions…. First, what happens with Big Ganga post the Zee acquisition? I know the final touches are still being put on that…

    Nothing, really. It will be business as usual; we continue to retain the brand Big Ganga, and it continues to operate the way it does. [The channel] benefits from Zee’s ad sales momentum, which are done by Zee Unimedia, and it benefits from Zee’s distribution momentum. It also benefits from cross promotion across platforms, so those are things that will help the economics of the game even more.

     

    In the case of Big FM, you’ve hired some new people for marketing and such. Will they now be merged with Zee?

    No. Big FM continues as is.

     

    And for Ganga?

    As for Ganga, this is a very unique part of the business, where the marketing and all that is done out of Patna. It’s not done out of Mumbai. The region demands its own marketing people and that will continue to be the case.

     

    Zee also has a news presence in this region…

    Yes, and we try to coordinate things as much as we can together.

     

  • Q&A with the Madison World Chairman

    Sorry to know about ITC, but we won our fair share of accounts: Sam Balsara

    Sam Balsara

     

    The news of the loss of a client in advertising is big, not just for the agency that has bagged the account, but also for the incumbent that has seen the exit of a relationship. And whilst an official communique came in from Maxus, we thought it would be good to do a Q&A with Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World, on his sentiments on the loss of the ITC business. Normally, any business leader would hesitate doing it, but not when it’s Balsara. Always very candid, and not one to shy away from facing what may appear to uncomfortable questions from Pradyuman Maheshwari. Read on….

    Question: How do you view the exit of ITC? Your comments on what you think could have led to the account moving out? (Since ITC is a homegrown FMCG, one can’t even attribute it on an international realignment.)

    Sam Balsara (SB): We are of course sorry to know that we will be losing the ITC account. We cannot comment on what could have led to the account moving out, because as a policy we do not comment on client relationships. ITC continues to be one of our valuable clients at Madison PR.

    Interestingly, Madison recently bagged Titan, an account held by Maxus. Would you say these movements (and account swaps, if we can call them) are part of the game? Is that the way things work in the advertising world?

    SB:Unfortunately, yes that’s the way things work in our advertising world. That is what makes our world so exciting and challenging. It’s a sign of the new VUCA (Volatile, Ambiguous, Complex, Uncertain) world we live in. It’s interesting to see that recently of the three large accounts that came up for pitch – Maruti, Titan and ITC, none of the incumbent agencies retained their accounts. We won our fair share of accounts at play, having won the prestigious Titan/Tanishq account.

    Given that ITC was a significant business, will this impact in [your] staffing?

    SB: We have some vacancies across offices and also need people to handle the new businesses we have won, so our endeavour will be  to accommodate as many people as we can.

    There is talk on the street on how the ITC exit is going to severely impact the Madison stature in the Indian media agency scene. Your comments and a word to naysayers/detractors.

    SB: In the last 12 months, Madison Media has won the media mandate of 21 new clients, which include some large ones like BJP election campaign in UP and Uttarakhand, Ministry of Petroleum,  Dixcy Scott undergarments, Times Jobs, RBL Bank and National Basketball Association (NBA – US) and Titan/Tanishq amongst many others.

    Madison Media now handles the media mandate for over 80 media clients. Our decision, a few years ago to not restrict ourselves to only large clients, but to include some medium sized ones, has as you can see paid rich dividends and de-risked our business considerably.

    Vikram[Sakhuja] has done a good job of attracting and bringing in our roster almost 35 new clients in the last two years. Lara [BalsaraVajifdar] continues to do a good job of growing Madison World, which across its 11 units now handles over 450 clients. And we continue to hold a 26% stake in Mediacom that handles P&G and many other clients.

    So, the talk is mildly amusing. But, as they say, “Only the paranoid survive”, so I take it seriously.