Advertising Industry Peers Discussed Shifting Media Mindset at Exchange4Media Conclave

 The 13th edition of the exchange4media Conclave, held at Four Seasons hotel Mumbai on November 25, 2013. The conclave was attended by the peers of Indian Advertising world.

The first speaker Arnab Goswami made a strong case for spending   more at TV news channels. He felt that news on TV is making more impact because of attention, impact and scalability. He said that our TV news industry is at least 20 years behind the production and 10 years behind technique. He said that 51% young people see news in US on their tablet or similar devices. Arnab also said that news has tremendous power to engage the audience, so the impact of advertising will be much deeper.

David Mayo, CEO-Bates Asia spoke on power of  ‘&’. He said that in today’s scenario innovation will be the key in driving growth ahead. He cited the example of Wikipedia to showcase the fundamental shift in how media is being used. The involvement of people today is shaping the evolution of media and the direct impact of this is that consumers are no longer passive. Mayo believes that with the influence of consumers growing, this constant interaction of people can effectively be used to generate content as “people control more media than they realise”.

He emphasised that even creatives need to adapt to this change effectively as new media today fuels desire and has created a platform for people to dictate content. Mayo believes that progressive brands have realised this shift in media, have adapted to this shift and are today getting people involved in their creative processes. “Social media is democratisation of information in all forms,” he pointed out.


With Big Data being the buzz word, Mayo felt that creativity too will be driven by data, but the key here is on how to use content. With Big Data players acquiring traditional media, as in the case of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos buying The Washington Post, Mayo believes that it is the engineers at the internet giant who will re-invent The Washington Post with Big Data and their expertise with data will shape the evolution of the paper going ahead.

David’s watch word is Embrace change and innovate.
Coca-Cola is a company that has embraced this change and innovated and more involved their core consumers as part of this process. The beverage MNC got people involved by having their name printed on their bottles in place of its sacrosanct logo. While this effort got a tick on both the creative and innovation boxes, the campaign also provided a big boost to the beverage company’s sales.

He advised Innovate  that is effective. He gave  example of Oreo who ran a campaign to celebrate a century of its existence for 100 days. The company first searched for what people were talking about and then got people to comment on the current event of the day across their various platforms.

Accordingly to mayo innovation does not mean something expensive. He emphasised on the misnomer that innovation is an expensive proposition. According to him, innovation does not have to be high technology as it is on what you do rather than how you say it.

Highlight of conclave was a group discussion on eternal question : what clients expect from their agencies. There are as many views on this as there are thought leaders. Discussing this crucial topic was a panel that was a mix of ad agency leaders and clients that included Anil Jayaraj, CMO, Pidilite Industries; Karthi Marshan, Executive VP and Head-Group Marketing, Kotak Mahindra Group; KV Sridhar, Chief Creative Officer – India Subcontinent, Leo Burnett; Nandini Dias, CEO, Lodestar UM; Ravi Deshpande, Founder and CEO, Whyness Worldwide; and Shubhranshu Singh, Marketing Director – India and South Asia, Visa. The session was chaired by CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia.

Srinivas laid out the agenda for the session by stating that some critics feel it was time to go back to the full service mode, when one agency would manage all the work of the client, as opposed to the scenario today where work is divided among multiple agencies. “The agency once prided itself as being the client's trusted advisor. With digital disruption changing the way brands and plans are perceived, can a single agency today be the sole custodian of a brand?” he asked the panelists.

Marshan reiterated the cliché that the client continues to desire solutions that are better, faster and cheaper. “We are doing a lot of digital planning today that which is faster and cheaper, but it is not necessarily better. But to answer to the primary question of this panel, I want my agency to be on my side,” he said.

Nandni Dais elaborated how different persons for different jobs meant a lack of coordination, and thereby delivery, of the job undertaken on behalf of the client. She also raised a crucial point of value for work. She said that while the buzz is about value creation, agencies are never paid for it. She felt that agencies ought to be remunerated so that they could deliver that what the clients need by hiring good talent.

Jayaraj shared that the quest was for a centre point that could be managed, but very rarely would any one agency bring all the needed skills. So the reality is of dealing with multiple agencies. “But a real issue is that consumer behaviours are changing every six months. Agencies ought to be able to understand this speed like the way we see it and would like to address it,” he shared.

Deshpande, who recently started his own outfit just few weeks ago, said that there was a need to synergise creativity with technology under a single roof. “Often the digital solutions in our country are poor in aesthetics. So the designer needs to be involved right from the beginning to make the experience extraordinary for the brand and the consumer, and we believe this way of working together with all specialists is the best way forward,” he said.

Deshpande also explained the almost non-existent relationship between data and planners. “We work closely with research agencies and they intimately interact with data. Then the picture is created of the challenges ahead, and that is the only data that the agency deals with. But there is always some allergy towards data and numbers. If one doesn't know why the planning is taking place and the focus is only on creativity, then the latter doesn't make sense,” he explained.

Singh, on the other hand, expressed his concern about the fragmentation of consumers. He said, “I want a shared sense of destiny from my agency. TV and print are abundant, and digital will soon become abundant too. So there is a greater need for engagement various levels.” He also felt that patience is in short supply in the industry. “We feel we are drowned by activity and that we are not doing enough. We have to agree that there is nothing that creates greater impact than movies. But evolution of medium like digital will take place on its own,” Singh added.

KV Sridhar's idea was somewhat different. Drawing on his 34 years of experience, he put the focus on understanding people and ensuring loyalty, to be able to charge a premium. He said that the digital medium offered a short-term relationship with the consumers rather than offering consumers a long-term relationship with the brand.

According to Vikram Sakhuja, Global CEO, Maxus, the Indian media landscape is still unsure of how to use digital. He stressed that it is necessary for media agencies to realise that digital has to be viewed as an ecosystem of its own, rather than as an add-on to traditional media.

Comparing notes between the media landscape in India and the West, Sakhuja noted that the three phases of the media in India in the last 25 years have been media planning, communication planning, and the current phase of digital planning. He elaborated that the first phase in the late 80s to the early 90s was mostly about reach and frequency, and TV and print dominated the media planning. The next phase was in the last decade, which saw the birth of communication planning and there was much talk of engagement and consumer activation. People were planning based on the share of voice, and more channels such as FM radio appeared. The current phase of digital planning has an understanding that digital is a “must” yet planners are not quite sure what to do with it.

The mindset is still that of a broadcast market today, with the game being of reaching out and ensuring salience at the lowest cost. “There is a premium for reach, impact, association and buzz, and that has to be understood in the context of digital planning,” he said.

Vikram Sakhuja spoke on necessity of a new media mindst. He said that the West, in contrast to India, has a lot of conversations on how people are using content so that consumers could be reached anytime and anywhere. “The adage that 'If the content is king, then distribution is god' has been rubbished there. Good content is still the winner,” he maintained.

Elaborating on the increasing fragmentation of reach, he explained how changing symbols mean that one need not stick any more to just one spot with the aim of connecting with the audience. The UK and Europe as a whole, as compared to the US, is “going where the fish are”, said Sakhuja.

Most of these markets do not wonder about the role of digital any more. We need to similarly shift our attitude in the ways we target people. What we need is more behavioural targetting rather than one done based on demographics, Sakhuja opined.

He concluded his talk by leaving the audience with a question to ponder on – in the grand scheme of marketing, are marketing budgets an investment to grow brands, or a marketing manager's indulgence?

When asked by a member of the audience about the onus of innovation, he dashed out any misconception about the onus lying on either the client or the agencies. Ideas can and will come from everywhere. It is simply not realistic to depend on just one entity for innovations.

The conclave started at 3 pm and brainstorming continued upto 9.30 pm, but the discussions were so relevant that participants reamin glued to seats. Anurang batra the group editor Exchange 4 Media in the last session grilled Dominic Proctor, President, Group M Worldwide.

According to Dominic talent crunch has been a cause for some serious worry across industry, more so in the advertising industry. One of the main concerns facing the industry is re-training the existing talent pool, however not enough is being done on this front.

“You cannot transform a business without transforming the people in the business,” said Proctor. Speaking on the talent from India, he felt that not enough leadership is emerging from India and this is a challenge as India is still a follower and not the leader as far as new thought processes are concerned. An observation over his many trips to the country is that while India has become much more confident, the challenge remains in building on this and becoming a world leader.

Looking ahead, Proctor forecasted that while media companies will be more automated, he does not foresee a situation where a company will have fewer people on board. He sees firms concentrating on a lot more strategic initiatives and reiterated that for this to happen companies will need to refocus on their talent.

Proctor further said that while he found the constant comparisons between India and China amusing, he found extraordinary innovation in China. While many in the West still think of China as being masters of duplicate, this is no longer true as today some of the best innovation is coming from entrepreneurs based behind the Great Wall.

Proctor saw developments in digital media as the primary change in the last couple of years globally, but added that India is still down the curve when compared to other global counterparts. He felt that there is “incremental value in growth of digital” and felt that mobile will play a big role in growth of digital in the country. With mobile being the primary access medium to the internet, Proctor believes that other countries could learn from India on using mobile as a target.

While consolidation in the industry is a positive sign, he admitted that the recent Publicis-Omnicom Group (POG) merger did come as a surprise and believes that media and investment management was most likely the reason behind the merger. While on mergers, Proctor did not rule out further acquisitions in India by GroupM, but added that no large firm is on GroupM’s radar. However, the company’s focus will remain on small, strategic firms as specialisation and not scale was the company’s strategy.

Being in the client servicing business, it is critical to remain ‘more intelligent’ than the client, Proctor said, adding that GroupM picks up knowledge from the broader market. However, while the focus always remains on the client, the company has walked away from global pitches as it felt that these businesses would not have helped recoup their investments. However, the company believes in engaging with its clients and even involves them in its internal awards, Choreos.

Another very important discussion was on adopting to the multiscreen world.  The panelists were Sam balsara, Ashsih Bhasin, Neeraj Roy, Kartikeya Sharma and moderated by Sanjoy Chakraborty. The panelists discussed that Google is 13 years and Facebook is only 8 years old companies. But they have impacted people and changed the way media works so strongly that we feel they are here from the eternity!  The way technology is progressing, all screens will be merged in a single screen that is tablet. So the clients and agencies both have to understand this important development.