Ipsos India, the global market research and consulting firm, has roped in Garima Mall and Pooja Doshi as Executive Directors effective immediately.
While Mall’s remit includes servicing Market Strategy & Understanding (MSU) and Brand Health Tracking (BHT) Clients in Mumbai and Bengaluru, Doshi will be focusing on servicing key CPG accounts apart from driving business development.
Amit Adarkar
Said Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India on the development: “Our Client First approach ensures that despite being among the top 3 MR firms in India and around the world, we provide our clients with small agency kind of attentiveness and counsel. “Accessibility of senior staff to clients is extremely critical. It also sends a tacit message that your work is our priority too.”
Vivek Gupta
Added Vivek Gupta, MD (Research) who is responsible for Mumbai and Bengaluru business said: “Both Mall and Doshi come with rich experience and sectoral expertise. Our endeavor is to provide our clients access to specialists as opposed to generalists, thus further strengthening our servicing capabilities in these focused geographies.”
Mall moves from Kantar and has previously worked with Nielsen and GFK Mode and Doshi has moved from BASES NielsenIQ, where she served as Director – Commercial Lead. Both Mall and Doshi will report to Gupta.
Ipsos has rejigged its top team in healthcare cesearch in India. Gauri Pathak has been roped in to spearhead the Custom Healthcare Research business with immediate effect and will report to Vivek Gupta, Managing Director- Research, Ipsos India. Her predecessor, Monica Gangwani is taking up a key strategic role as the Healthcare Expert Advisor and will report to Ipsos India CEO, Amit Adarkar.
Amit Adarkar
Commenting on the key new roles, Adarkar said: “Ipsos India is already a market leader in custom Healthcare research. However, Healthcare is a dynamic space and post pandemic the whole sector has undergone a complete transformation with a number of non-traditional players entering the space. Healthcare has also seen immense Start Up activity. To juggle a plethora of opportunities with a diverse mix of clients and their portfolios in Healthcare, we have reinforced the team to cater to clients’ needs, providing them with the best of expertise and depth of knowledge and advice.”
Vivek Gupta is Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of Sanmarg, a 90-year-old Hindi newspaper which started in Kolkata and has now spread itself to many parts of the East. The paper is a leader amongst the affluent Marwari community and the Hindi-reading MSMEs of the region. Gupta has been involved with Sanmarg right from the age of 17 and is a hands-on promoter who keeps a sharp eye on all aspects of the newspaper on an ongoing basis. We revive our series of short ‘Jaldi 5’ interviews with industry leaders with Gupta, who would decidedly count among the more erudite media owners in the country
Q01. We know you are a key member of the ruling dispensation in West Bengal, so may not like the usage of the phrase, but would you say that the ‘Achche Din’ are back in newspaper publishing?
We live in a hyper-competitive world, where in a sector good and bad results are dependent on the response of the players. I have encouraged and tried convincing my entire team that it is the action which changes the thing. Today, I can say with pride that this ACT (Action Changes Things) thinking has kept us, as Davids, alive and kicking while a lot of Goliaths are complaining. Pundits have always predicted doom for the newspaper business in the face of rising popularity of digital. To answer your question in your own language, we managed to hold on to our ‘achche din’ however the definition of ‘achche din’ are now very different from the past.
Q02. As you look back at the pandemic and the two waves of the virus attack, would you say that the dice was severely loaded against small publishers like yourself?
Absolutely. We were born about 90 year back as a community newspaper in an alien land. It was essentially for the migrant Marwari merchants. Kolkata, being the cultural capital of India, was (and will continue to be) a land of English and Bengali language publishing. Without realising, we became a force to reckon with in spite of being in a third language. We never wanted to go out of Kolkata and Bengal so remained small yet happy serving the needs of this community which practically are the largest contributors of the state’s commerce. Right from the onset of the pandemic we knew that ‘burre din’ is round the corner and it is our size which helped us make changes fast. Yes, there were financial implications but we punted against all odds and today it gives me immense pleasure to see that the silver line is much closer that it would have been if we didn’t ACT (pun intended).
Q03. One of the key cost centres of the media business has been staff salaries, though not as much with the non-English media. We’ve heard that you also retrenched a fair number of people in the pandemic. Talk us through the various steps you took to keep costs under check?
Being small helped to be fleet-footed and be experimental. We embraced the concept of productivity and technology. Instead of retrenching people we re-structured the organisation around productivity. Technology helped a lot but it was mindset of people which saw us reducing unnecessary costs without giving up the product quality
What also helped us is the understanding that for newspaper advertisers, newspapers became a must. As we are practically the only newspaper for the affluent (with significantly higher purchasing power than the other people of the state) Hindi reading population of the state, which the advertisers also knows very well. We had faith in our readers and knew they will never desert us. While we rationalised expenses on one hand, we invested in alternate distribution system and retained our cover price and advertising rates on the other hand.
We also capitalised on certain opportunities. Firstly, our Sunday circulation has always been twice that of week days at a cover price of Rs 7 (which probably is as high as a morning newspaper price in India). Add to that the fact that people spent much more time at home. Which helped us drive the weekday circulation. Besides, our language competitors from neighbouring states discontinued local operations which helped us convert a lot of competition readers. Not being from this state they depended heavily on national news while for us the state always remained the main focus. We also saw a lot of circulation increase in rest of the state (other than Kolkata)
Q03a. There is a charge that media companies which have been profitable for years should have absorbed the losses and not passed on the (negative) effect to employees. Your view?
We have always believed in that. We motivated people for multi tasking and reskilling. Yes a few could not reinvent themselves who eventually moved on
Q04. We saw many large-sized display ads and jackets in Sanmarg, around the Durga Puja and Diwali seasons. While the volumes are there, has the value gotten back to 2019 levels? Or are you still discounting?
We never believed in mindless discounting. We always knew that advertisers for whom we matter they will especially during festival time as that is also the buying time. Here also we had the understanding that the amount of cash available for consumers, mainly our consumers have increased multi-fold during last 18 odd months. We got the rates that we deserve
Q05. What was the biggest lesson that you as a media-owner learnt from the pandemic?
In one word, faith that it is the action which changes things. We reimagined the market place in deep details and reengineered our operations accordingly.
Centennials or Generation Z have carved a niche for themselves and are inspiring the preceding generations in the process, as they strut forward juggling all areas with dexterity, according to the Isobar-Ipsos #MeetTheZ Survey.
Said Vivek Gupta, Managing Director, Innovation, Ipsos India: “The new breed of youngsters (Generation Z) – born between 1995-2015 – is pragmatic in every possible way, true role models for older generations – they know what they want and know how to get it. Tech savvy, clear headed, confident, outgoing, valuing close bond with family, this generation embodies traits, which every parent has dreamt, for their kids to possess.”
Added Gopa Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, Isobar India: “Interestingly, Generation Z does not portray the conventional stereotype – if they are digital natives, they also yearn for and prioritize offline connections. They are constantly on the lookout for authenticity and purpose when they are engaging with brands. In fact, they have an informed view of the transformative impact of technology at work and play.”
The study highlights how Generation Z is realistically ambitious, and shows that at least 73 per cent of those polled are keen to pursue unconventional career paths while 80 per cent of them are willing to put their heart and soul into achieving their career goals.
When digitally connected, this tech savvy generation, sometimes loosely called E-Generation, perceives technology as the means to information and empowerment. At least 55 per cent say their life runs on technology – 66 per cent believe tech helps them gain experience and acquire new skills. Interestingly, across various activities, this generation spends an average of at least 8 hours per day, online.
This generation understands the dichotomy of social media – 64 per cent believe it aids in reconnecting with long lost friends; 43 per cent find it limiting in its scope for personal relationships.
The study also highlights the paradox about Generation Z – on one hand they are home bodies, consciously spending time with parents, with at least 51 per cent of them consuming all meals with parents, at home, at the same time they are highly gregarious, like to hang out actively with friends (29 per cent) at least once a week, 50 per cent stay over with friends at least once a month. Parents are the anchor in their lives and at least 78 per cent of Gen Z polled claims their parents give them independence and personal space.
Generation Z realizes that some relationships may not be for the long haul, 70 per cent reject a limiting relationship, while 66 per cent are accepting of relationships not moving to permanence. They are easy going when it comes to forging personal ties and don’t drain themselves emotionally. We found they are in different modes – 14 per cent of those in a relationship want it to culminate in marriage, 22 per cent of those in a relationship are not in the marriage mode just yet, 22 per cent singles are actively seeking out partners and 41 per cent are happily single and are in no rush to get into a relationship, just yet.
Ipsos has hired Vivek Gupta from Kantar to steer its Mumbai business. Gupta will be designated Managing Director and will report to Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India.
Gupta’s role will mainly focus on managing and growing all Mumbai-based client relationships, though he will be closely involved in strategy formulation and implementation for other geographies.
Amit Adarkar
Said Adarkar: “Donning an archetypical business head’s hat, Gupta will be aggressively going after lucrative, new accounts and servicing existing large accounts with attentiveness and detailing, underscoring Ipsos’ glocal strategy of providing global know how and backing with local depth of knowledge and sectoral experience.â€
Gupta has worked for most part with Kantar and IMRB in different capacities. And has also held positions with GFK, DDB Mudra and Ogilvy & Mather (O&M).
