ITV

Tag: Mediaedge

  • Mediaedge:cia announces new European management team

    MUMBAI: Mediaedge:cia has announced a new management team for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

    Mark Austin will continue as chairman, Europe, Middle East and Africa, with Melanie Varley promoted to CEO, Europe, Middle East and Africa. They will report in to the agency’s global executive chairman Charles Courtier.

     

     
    Austin and Varley will be based in the Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters in London. Varley takes over from Dominic Grainger, who has now become GroupM Europe, Middle East and Africa managing director.

     
     
    Austin and Varley have worked closely in the development of Mediaedge:cia globally and regionally since the company was launched in 2002. Their objective will be to further drive the growth and success of Mediaedge:cia across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Austin will focus primarily on Europe, Middle East and Africa strategy development, management of the local markets, mergers and acquisitions (including commercial development of MEC’s Interaction and Content businesses) and managing MEC’s talent to its full potential.

     
     
    Varley’s task centres on the continued development of all European based clients and MEC product and services. She will play a key role in the management of the business’ specialist capabilities (such as Global Solutions, MEC Interaction and MEC Sponsorship).

    Courtier was confident that this management team would continue to build on MEC’s success within the region. “I’m delighted with this partnership of Mark and Mel. They are both highly experienced operators within the industry and deeply committed to our vision of communications planning and implementation, Active engagement proposition and the role we play as a founding partner of GroupM,” he said.

  • Mediaedge:cia launches itself in Puerto Rico; José Antonio Martinez made group VP &GM

    MUMBAI: Group M’s Mediaedge:cia (MEC) has launched itself in Puerto Rico, based in San Juan, and named José Antonio Martinez as the group’s vice president and general manager.

     

    Martinez, formerly VP / media Services for Y&R Puerto Rico, will lead a team of 15 employees. He will report to MEC’s regional headquarters for Latin America, based in Miami and Mexico City, led by Group M CEO David Byles and GM Sue Chamberlin.

     

    MEC is a media communications specialist company and part of WPP’s media investment management company GroupM.

  • Mediaedge:cia merges 3 units to form MEC Interaction in North America

    MUMBAI: One of WPP’s media franchises Mediaedge:cia is merging three of its leading interactive and direct marketing specialist agencies to form one unit — MEC Interaction. The announcement was made by Mediaedge:cia executive chairman Charles Courtier late last week.

    The agency’s direct response media planning and buying arm Wunderman Media, online media planning and buying arm The Digital Edge and its search marketing unit Outrider have been merged to form MEC Interaction.

     

     
    Mediaedge:cia UK chairman and Outrider Worldwide CEO Rob Norman has been named CEO Worldwide for MEC Interaction.

    This development will however not have any immediate implications or reflection in India for the time being, Mediaedge:cia India managing director Shubha George informs Indiantelevision.com.

     
     
    “We have merged three expert businesses to create a specialist unit focused on increasing the productivity of media communications. We have created a single account management structure, unifying the tools and processes,” said Courtier.
     
     
    Elaborating on the reason behind this move, Courtier said, “Many of our clients need to generate new leads or to generate a direct consumer action that results in deeper engagement or a movement closer to a purchase. They do not live in an on or offline world, they live in a multi channel world that creates actions from every source. They want to make their communications as productive as possible by being able to plan, buy and analyse across all response channels.”

    The management team of MEC Interaction will be as follows:

    Alan Schanzer will oversee MEC Interaction North America as managing partner
    Sarah Hammel will be senior partner and finance director for MEC Interaction
    Chris Copeland will be overseeing Search Engine marketing for MEC Interaction as managing partner, Practice Lead
    Jeanne Burkle, Maureen McKillop and Jean Scanlon as senior partner, Practice Leads, will manage MEC Interaction’s offline direct marketing specialists
    Carrie Frolich and Todd Fraipont as senior partners, Practice Leads for online areas. Frolich will manage MEC Interaction’s online specialists in New York, Chicago and Detroit, whereas Fraipont will handle the online specialty in MEC’s offices in Irvine and Los Angeles, CA.
    Greg Rogers as partner, director of insights and analytics, will lead development of combined analytics between all of MEC Interaction’s specialty functions.
    Matt Straznitskas as senior partner, director of business development, will manage all business growth and new business opportunities for MEC Interaction.
    Alice Minetti as senior partner, director of DRTV buying, will continue to oversee all DRTV buying for MEC Interaction
    Dwelling on the reason behind forming MEC Interaction, Courtier said, “Interaction describes exactly what we hope the consumer will do; calling an 800 number, a click on a search link, a visit to a web site, sending us a real mail or an e mail. Interaction creates data streams from those we can measure, compare and optimise. In the same way Navigator helps us define connection points we will also define interaction points like when and how will interaction help us achieve our communications goals.”

    MEC Interaction will represent the total capability of all three brands — Wunderman Media, The Digital Edge and Outrider. “We will continue to operate Outrider as a global search specialist and the Wunderman Media brand will be retained, with the full capability of MEC Interaction to maintain our long standing relationship with Wunderman and our shared clients. This unification of expertise enforces our promise to deliver channel neutral planning across all response channels supported by unified consumer insight and analytics,” Courtier said.

  • Mediaedge:cia bags HDFC Standard Life Insurance AOR

    MUMBAI: HDFC Standard Life Insurance has awarded its AOR to Group M’s Mediaedge:cia, which pipped Starcom to the post. The other agencies in the fray were Lodestar and Insight.

    According to industry estimates, the account is worth Rs 200 million.

     
     
    Confirming the development to Indiantelevision.com, HDFC Standard Life Insurance marketing head Sanjay Tripathy says, “We were very happy with the manner in which Mediaedge:cia approached our business and suggested media solutions, which can help us differentiate our brand in the market.”
     
     
    On the other hand, Mediaedge:cia India managing director Shubha George says, “We are delighted to partner HDFC Standard Life Insurance. Mediaedge:cia’s unique `Navigator’ operating system that helps provide business-led media and marketing solutions enabled us to showcase solutions that went beyond the conventional media. We are looking forward to closely working with HDFC Standard Life as true business partners.”

  • Mediaedge:cia names Cohen managing partner, director of national broadcast

    MUMBAI: Mediagedge:cia has tapped media veteran Bruce Jay Cohen as managing partner, director of national broadcast. He will oversee all buying duties for Campbell’s, Toys “R” Us and Mattel accounts.
     

     
    Before joining Mediagedge:cia, Cohen was a consultant to Masterfoods, where he managed the company’s brand budgets, the relationship with their media buying agencies, and their branded entertainment assignments. Cohen had previously spent 20 years at MediaVest.
     
     
    As senior vice president, national broadcast in New York, he oversaw all broadcast duties for clients including Proctor & Gamble, Burger King, Dow Chemical and Pillsbury. He holds a BA from the University of Miami and resides in Hartsdale, NY.
     
     
    “For major clients such as Campbell’s, Toys “R” Us and Mattel, it was imperative that we bring in a highly seasoned broadcast buying professional. Bruce has been in the thick of network, cable and syndication implementation for more than 20 years and is well suited to lead these clients through today’s rapidly changing communications landscape,” said Mediagedge:cia chief investment officer Rino Scanzoni.

  • “It’s in India and China, growing laterally or geographically, where we’ll remain most focused” : (Part II)

    “It’s in India and China, growing laterally or geographically, where we’ll remain most focused” : (Part II)

    Andre Nair, the man who has been the face of India’s most powerful media independent for the last three years, is all set to move on. The chairman and CEO of Mediaedge:cia Asia Pacific, having handed over executive charge of GroupM in India to Ashutosh Srivastava, will be based out of Singapore from next week on.

    In this the concluding instalment of a two part interview, Nair looks ahead to what his new portfolio will entail, what the challenges are and where the opportunities lie.

    Let’s talk about MEC. It looks as if just as Maxus, especially in its earlier and smaller avatar as Maximize, worked as a flanker agency to Mindshare as regards non-competing brands, smaller account pitches, etc now MEC will perform a similar role to both of them. Is that correct?
    Totally incorrect. There has always been this misconception that all the second string accounts went to Maximize, that the second string talent went to Maximize. The other part of the misconception is that since Srini (CVL Srinivasan) has come on board, suddenly it’s the real thing.

    So what you’re saying is that MEC will not be taking up the slack as it were off Mindshare and Maxus?
    In fact, it is exactly the reverse. As I said earlier, Mediaedge:cia is independent of the other two GroupM operating companies. The fact of the matter is that when WPP acquired Zenith in India, as it was then, it was not a large shop at all. It was a medium sized agency with a collection of small accounts. Obviously, since we launched Mediaedge:cia India in May, we’ve been actively pursuing business. We’ve won a number of new pieces of business. And that will continue.

    To be frank, Mediaedge:cia India still labours under the negative perception Zenith had previously. This is something we have to work on.

    People say one similarity between you and Martin Sorrel is in the one-on-one personal pitches that you both set great store by. Is that a common feature of all the top execs of the group? And doesn’t this at times confuse the lines of command with the people under you?
    Let me just correct the first misconception, which is about Martin Sorrel. He is involved in some big pitches. But it is not as if he stands up and fronts himself as the man who is going to make the magic happen.

    But that does happen.
    No, he doesn’t position himself as that. What he does is two things. He says look, your business is important to us to the extent that I am getting myself involved and secondly, my role in all of this is to facilitate and make sure that what you need is given to you from across the WPP Group.

    Where he comes in is facilitating getting onto the pitch list, in having very high end contacts and therefore relationships with his counterparts on the client side.

    And you also do that, and I say this not as a criticism. But my original question was really leading into the point that doesn’t this at times confuse the lines of command with the people under you?
    Not at all. Exactly what I said about Martin, my job is to make sure that our people are enabled with all the resources and the capabilities to deliver on whatever it is we promise, to the highest quality. That’s my job. Are there clients that I’m more involved with in that? Of course.

    So I have a reasonably clear role. As do the persons who run accounts, units, offices or companies within the group. There is no point in undercutting them or undermining their authority.

    Another thing about Martin Sorrel has been his growth strategy based on acquisitions, the case of Grey being the latest in point. That is one growth route that WPP has not taken in India these last three years but that looks likely to change in 2005. The names of Madison, for which again Publicis Groupe is the other suitor, and Enterprise Nexus have cropped up in this regard. Your comment.
    All I can say is that acquisitions is part of our plan for 2005. We are actively looking at some of the players in the market in this regard. Something that is substantial, something that doesn’t duplicate what we’re already doing. That’s all I can say.
    “All I can say is that acquisitions are part of our plan for 2005. We are actively looking at some of the players in the market in this regard“

    Madison would seem to fit the bill on all counts. It is after all one agency that has gone toe to toe with Group M in 2004.
    I’m not sure I’d call GroupM winning 65 pitches versus Madison’s six “toe to toe”.

    Looking at WPP’s performance in 2004 at a global level, one point that comes out in stark relief is that Asia Pacific, with nearly 30 per cent growth, is way ahead of the US, UK and Europe (between 8-12 per cent). Is this a function of the way media is exploding in this region?
    Yes Asia is growing at a faster pace. One because of strong organic growth.

    But it does have a lot to do with the way media is unbundling in Asia. And it grows apace every year. You’ve got to understand that there is a greater percentage of media in Europe that is already unbundled versus Asia.

    Thirdly, I think that whatever have been the effects of the economic slowdown, Asia has either rebounded much faster or wasn’t affected as much.

    Economies here are growing much faster than the rest of the world. Is that it?
    Yes. The third thing also, is that Asia, at least for the last ten years, has been an attractive destination for people to expand their business into. And I think that continues apace.

    At least for us also, in the last two years, launching in new markets. Pakistan being a good example. Pakistan came online in the middle of 2003.

    That’s for Group M?
    Yes.

    Coming to your imminent move out of India, your takeover of Mediaedge:cia seems to be starting off on a bit of a sour note what with the InterContinental Hotels Group account for the Asia Pacific having just gone to ZenithOptimedia. Has there been any good news from the region to report as regards the agency in the last three months.
    There have been some big wins. One I can talk about is DHL. There was a huge global pitch for Deutsche Telecom recently after its acquisition for DHL. It basically boiled down to Carat and us. Carat kept Europe and MEC kept North America and Asia Pacific. That was a big deal for us.

    Furthermore, Mediaedge:cia Asia Pacific won over 150 new clients last year across the region. And big ones like Wrigley in China, Noavartis globally, Canon in Australia, to name but a few.

    What has been the expansion of Mediaedge:cia into new markets?
    India came online this year, as you know. We already had operations in China, but we’ve launched our third office in China two months ago. We won Wrigleys in China about a month and a half ago, which is a $ 50 million account.

    At the moment we are in ten countries, and we are looking activily at some others.

    But within our business focus, both India and China remain our top priorities in terms of growth moving forward.

    If you look at the top 100 spenders in China, less than 10 of them are multinationals. So there is huge growth potential in terms of really local business.

    And looking at the Asia Pacific, outside of India and China which are your target markets.
    Philippines has already come online as of this month. Mediaedge:cia has no presence in Japan as yet so that’s obviously up there on our radar. Vietnam is another important market that we’re immediately looking at.

    Then there are the other countries in IndoChina, Laos, Cambodia but that is more long potential than anything immediate. South Korea is a huge market that is yet to be tapped by either GroupM or Mediaedge:cia.

    But really it’s in the large markets like India and China, either growing laterally in terms of services, or growing geographically penetrating the interior, where we’ll remain most focused.
    On a more personal note, one aspect of corporate life in India is how much longer hours top management put in than their counterparts in the West. But you still manage to find the time to do different things. You enjoy trekking, you’re a keen squash player, and you’re even into martial arts. What’s the formula?
    Where do I find the time? Well, you have to make the time. I and my wife by the way, are working towards our black belt in Tai Kwan Do. So I think it is a question of making time. Don’t get me wrong on this, but sometimes we are a slave to our own bad time management. It really all boils down to working to manage your time.
  • ‘A few media agencies in the fray are in this desperate volume building at any cost game’ : Andre Nair – Mediaedge:cia Asia Pacific chairman and CEO

    ‘A few media agencies in the fray are in this desperate volume building at any cost game’ : Andre Nair – Mediaedge:cia Asia Pacific chairman and CEO

    For Andre Nair, chairman and CEO of Mediaedge:cia Asia Pacific, it is time to pack his bags. After three more than successful years at the helm of GroupM in India, Nair’s last working day in India will be 14 January, after which he heads out to Singapore, where he will be based. This is not to say that Nair is severing all links to India. He continues to retain overall responsibility for GroupM in India, as too Mediaedge:CIA India – which resides within GroupM but operates independently.

    As a parting shot to the media frat as it were, Nair offers indiantelevision.com a glimpse of his three years as head of the country’s most powerful by far media independent and his take on the media business.

    In this, the first of a two-part interview, get a load of Nairspeak on what’s good, bad, and ugly about the media business in India, both on the client side and as regards rival agencies.

    You’re all set to head out to a new challenge. Looking back over the last three years, what have been the highs of heading WPP’s media agencies in India?
    The first high for me personally was coming to India. To live and work here was an exciting prospect. Second was launching the group company and the individual operating companies of MindShare & Maximize (now Maxus) within three months of getting the remit to do it.

    The third high, which stretches into the fourth, was that within the first three months of official launch we won nine new business pitches. Carrying that forward into end-2002 we had 53 business wins and no losses as far as existing clients moving out. Over the last three years we’ve won over 190 new pieces of business.

    On the manpower front we had two great hires in Vikram Sakhuja (Mindshare Fulcrum) and M Sukumurthy (Broadmind). And CVL Srinivasan in end 2003. Also, empowering our senior managers. Having P&L responsibility to manage their own units was a big thing for them.

    There are some common threads that run through all this: new business, growth of individuals, hiring of great talent, launching of new business units and companies. We launched Mediaedge:cia in May.

    Finally, being recognized over the course of three years for the work we’ve done which is reflected in the number of external and internal regional and Indian media awards we’ve won. The highlights of which were winning the annual Asia Pacific Media Magazine “Office of the year” in 2002 and EMVIES “Media Agency of the year” 2003.

    And the lows? Keeping aside businesses that you failed to win.
    Losing some good people, some pitches and some clients. And of course, leaving India.

    When you came here, one of your primary responsibilities was to manage the smooth integration of HTA Media, O&M Media and Contract Media into GroupM. The common assumption is that if you hadn’t been there, there would have been a turf fight among senior executives. Could that be termed as one of your key successes? As in managing the transition in such a smooth and seamless fashion?
    To be fair to everybody, that wasn’t just me. It was a number of us working together. It was a real team effort with the senior managers of the company. And yes, a testimony to the success of that effort was that 99 per cent of the staff stayed with us and 100 per cent of our clients stayed on.

    So what is your take on the media scene in India today? What’s the biggest problem that the industry is confronting?
    Looking at the downside, it’s this continual erosion of remuneration. A lot of silliness goes on today, both with clients and other agencies in the business.

    Two, as an industry we’ve never really got to grips with training our people. I still fear for the brain drain of media folk to other industries. And even if they are in the same industry, leaving India, so the rest of Asia gets the benefit of our talent.

    When you say the continual erosion of remuneration, doesn’t that boil down to the big issue among all the media agencies, which is margins?
    Not margins, remuneration, which is what ultimately affects profitability. It’s not a question of margins of 20 Vs 10 Vs 5 Vs 1.

    Some clients seem not to realize that there is a cost of doing business. And cost of business, particularly in our industry, in a large way goes to staffing quality people.

    Some of them are single mindedly working to cut the remuneration down so that it is not a question anymore of margins; it’s a question of trying to break even or preventing going into loss.
    “Some clients seem not to realize that there is a cost of doing business. And cost of business, particularly in our industry, in a large way goes to staffing quality people“

    If everybody is aware that the problem is eroding remuneration as you term it, why isn’t the industry collectively working together to raise the bar?
    Exactly, but that’s not happening. We would be the first to support any moves in this direction.

    But one criticism that Group M in particular seems to constantly have thrown in its face is that they were the leaders and they started the whole two-and-half per cent game.
    We DID NOT start the two-and-half per cent game nor are we a ‘discount shop’.

    The creative agencies started this game prior to the coming of age of media agencies, by getting the AAAI to prescribe the breakup of media as 2.5 per cent out of 15 per cent, and since they never invested in building their media product, the market saw no reason to disturb this remuneration structure. We have been fighting this from the day we started, and there are clients who are now seeing the greater value we bring and beginning to remunerate differently.

    We do not go out and charge the two-and-half per cent every which way. What we do is we say to clients, ‘If you want this scope of work it’s X per cent, if you want more then it’s plus X per cent.’ So remuneration is scaled up or down according to the scope of work.

    We work with clients in a range of commission levels. But today more than half our business, close to 60 per cent in fact, is fee remuneration and fees are based on scope of work with incentive upsides based on performance evaluations. Ultimately fees are the fairest system of all because a client gets what they pay for.

    If there is that kind of clarity in terms of what you bill, then it’s a take or leave, so what’s the problem?
    The point is that ultimately, because we’re market leaders, everybody shoots at us. But there are a number of our competitors who are the worst offenders of this. I know of agencies that have gone down below 1 per cent. I don’t know how they run their business, but that’s not my call anyway.

    The problem is that apart from us, Carat and Madison, there are no other independent media agencies in India. All the rest are full service agencies with branded (and subsidised) media departments calling themselves media agencies. And these agencies, in order to compete with the media agencies, give away media free, or try and value them at 2% and less in pitches – as they are anyway working on creative at 5-7.5% and have no investment worth talking about, in their media product. Obviously many clients see through this, but there’s always the temptation to use these benchmarks to negotiate remuneration with the real media agencies. And what complicates the scenario further is that the few other media agencies in the fray are in this desperate volume building game at any cost, and are accepting business at 2.5% and less, and not too bothered about profitability at this point in time.

    You talk of eroding remuneration but all the big agencies, whether yours, Madison, Rediffusion DY&R and the like have had a stellar year, clocking 15+ per cent profit growth. Which takes me back to my previous point – if there is clarity in terms of what you bill, where’s the problem? And your top and bottom lines also reflect that.
    Yes we did grow although I don’t know where you get your numbers from. But that’s not the issue. Just because we grew doesn’t mean that we start giving away cut price remuneration. Aren’t we allowed to charge appropriate compensation and make a reasonable profit like all other businesses? You don’t hear anyone questioning the profit margins of Reliance.

    We should be remunerated appropriately for each of the clients we work for. We don’t want to get into a situation of where profitable clients subsidise other clients – that’s just not fair or healthy.

    “We work with clients in a range of commission levels. But today close to 60 per cent of our business is fee remuneration and fees are based on scope of work with incentive upsides based on performance evaluations“

    One offshoot of the size that is Group M today is the number of oftentimes big daddy clients that you service. Now take cricket on TV for instance, how do you manage competing demands from similar category clients having similar requirements for what is a finite inventory availability?
    Their requirements will be quite different. The fact of the matter is that we purchase 70 per cent of all cricket inventory out there. That is a function of the requirements of some of the clients we have. Ultimately, if there is that one thing that two clients want, it is the initiative and the speed of the individual teams that will decide.

    But that is the end of the process. The beginning is that we will get the inventory because we have such large requirements. We get it at a price that is better.

    Is it always better?
    Guaranteed. We wouldn’t purchase it otherwise.

    Staying with the cricket example, and I believe this can be extended to other genres as well. Would not the very size of your cricket requirement make it an inverse monopoly kind of situation? Wherein you cannot walk away from it even if you do not agree on the price?
    Ultimately we have to advise our clients what is an appropriate price to purchase or not purchase. Yes, we leverage our size. But should it come to an instance where the price is not reasonable for us, that is what we advise the clients. Ultimately it is their decision but based upon our advice.

    Coming back to the original question (of managing clients wanting the same thing), in all the instances that we’ve gone through, it has never happened that two clients both have exactly the same requirement. And if you’re looking at cricket, it is also because of the sheer amount of inventory that has increased substantially from 2002 to 2004 moving into 2005.

    There’s enough inventory out there for agencies to purchase.

    Looking at trends in the business, one common strategy among all media companies today is the increasing importance given to BTL activities – direct mail, market research, public relations, promotional events, Internet Marketing. What has been the growth in BTL as opposed to the traditional prints and TV buys?
    Well, I would not call them below the line activities; I would call them non conventional or non traditional media, which encompasses a whole host of other things outside of what you’ve mentioned as well.

    Ok, nonconventional media. If one were to look at growth, how does it stack up today? Globally as well as in India?
    I can’t give you any real numbers. One, because the sheer variety of what goes under nonconventional is so broad that it’s not actually captured by most measurement systems for a start.

    Some of them are very fast growing. Event management for instance. Internet, outside of India is growing at a much faster pace. But I think if you look at where Japan is today in its media mix, it can give some indication of the potential nonconventional media holds. 30 per cent of advertising money spent in Japan goes into things other than TV, print, radio, outdoors and Internet.

    And now of course there is wireless. Does wireless have the potential to overtake all the others do you think?
    Potentially yes. Though I believe it is used much more effectively globally than it is in India. One reason could be that people here are just too TV oriented, too conventional media focused. Secondly I think that many people just don’t understand the technology and therefore the potential that goes with using this kind of media. Thirdly, some people could be looking at numbers and saying there aren’t enough mobiles to compete with television.

  • Mediaedge:cia rebrand sponsorship division

    LONDON: WPP’s Mediaedge:cia (MEC) has created MEC:Sponsorship as the specialist sponsorship consulting division of MEC.

    The global media communications specialist is looking to reinforce its commitment to providing clients with a holistic communications service. Building on the success of its UK operation, MEC claims to have accelerated the growth of the sponsorship business with the newly christened division.
    Specialising in strategy, negotiation, management and activation across all forms of sponsorship, MEC:Sponsorship which was formerly known as Total Sponsorship will work in partnership with MEC to deliver insightful and innovative solutions for new and existing clients worldwide.

    MEC:Sponsorship managing director Jeremy Clark said, “In the past two years, we have doubled the size of the team in the UK as a result of the changing media environment and increasing demands from clients for sponsorship expertise. We hope that this re-branding will help to stimulate additional interest among clients for an independent sponsorship consultancy service that is wholly focused on maximising the return on their sponsorship investment.”

    MEC UK chairman Rob Norman added, “Our sponsorship division has clearly demonstrated its ability to add value to our clients. It is a live symbol of our group’s commitment to communications planning and implementation. The brand change from Total Sponsorship to MEC:Sponsorship will enable more MEC clients to take advantage of the services that are on offer.’

    MEC:Sponsorship recently created Norwich Union’s Do the right thing campaign, using its sponsorship of UK Athletics as a platform to assess and address the decline in physical activity among children across the UK. The company also runs Visa’s Olympic leverage programme across Europe. In addition it has managed broadcast sponsorships for Sony Ericsson and Schwarzkopf.

  • ‘TV is a 2006 story with focus on branded entertainment. Who knows it might spin off into a side business?’ : Ashutosh Srivastava – Group M South Asia CEO

    ‘TV is a 2006 story with focus on branded entertainment. Who knows it might spin off into a side business?’ : Ashutosh Srivastava – Group M South Asia CEO

    Ashutosh Srivastava looks a man still getting used to the lonely at the top state he’s been in since he took over from Andre Nair in October 2004 as Group M South Asia CEO. What he misses is the client – agency interactions and various pitches he spearheaded as head of MindShare India.

     

    Since he stepped into his new role, Srivastava’s mandate was to bring the individual agencies – MindShare, Maxus and Mediaedge:cia to the forefront rather than the holding company – Group M – hogging the limelight. At times the names Group M and MindShare have been interchangeable. This Srivastava feels has been harmful for the business and hence has started taking corrective measures for the same.

     

    In a two part interview with Indiantelevision.com, he holds forth on the year gone by and what lies ahead. What he reveals is that one major focus area is going to be that of branded television programming.

     

    Read on for more….

    What has the year gone by been like and how has it been since you took over from Andre Nair in October 2004?

    Broadly if I look back since I have taken over as Group M South Asia CEO, it is difficult to see any minuses.

     

    Business growth, personal growth in getting into new things and challenges are by and large pluses. The minus is that this role is less client facing. This role is a lot more about internally managing business and talent and making sure that WPP’s growth strategy is in place. Making sure that we are able to spot all opportunities outside of traditional areas and grow them and invest in the right ones.

     

    Upsides are plenty: Transition was planned very well. We stepped into our new roles in October 2004 but we made the announcement in May.

     

    Figuring out what clients want from media agencies. Start scaling up entertainment, digital, research and insight, micro marketing, data analytic. The seeds were all sown in 2003, in 2004 we were nurturing them and we saw the results last year. At that stage the role was to make sure that the initial plan was seen through to its culmination. That was pretty much the challenge last year.

     

    The second was when we started in this country in the media business; there were so many conflicts between Ogilvy and JWT that we started with a two agency model from day one – MindShare and Maxus. So what got established was this overall WPP or Group M brand. It is very unusual because most of the countries where we have gone in, we have done so as a MindShare. Only in the last couple of years have the other agencies entered those countries and the scale is being leveraged. Here it was the other way round. One of the issues, which we saw and which we have begun to correct in 2005 is that Group M is not the brand that faces clients – it is MindShare or Maxus. We have put in concentrated efforts since last year to build our individual brands.

    What are the brand differentiators between the four agencies of Group M – MindShare, Maxus, Mediaedge:cia and Mediacom? How would a client decide, which agency he wants for his brand?

    As Group M, my real task in that situation would be to figure out what is the service need for this client. With MindShare it is pretty clear as the bulk of its revenues come from global clients. These are clients who basically look at an agency, which will manage their media with a lot of accountability. The agency is driven by clients such as Unilever and other FMCG majors, where their requirement is accountability. For them media is pretty much a science.

     

    Maxus has positioned itself as a smaller boutique that is tailored to individual client needs. And its clients are very diverse like a Britannia, Hero Honda or Hutch, which are all poles apart and have different requirements. Each of them are heavily into creativity, being able to grab opportunities fast, being able to move very fast in the market and shut out competition even if it means paying more than them in order to gain that upper hand. So at Maxus, it all boils down to being street smart, creative and agile. The agency is totally in synch with all its clients’ personalities. It has also has the huge buying clout of Group M so the clients are not really missing out on anything.

     

    If we had to look at Mediaedge:cia, it still has to evolve. Globally, if I look at Mediaedge:cia, it is not as dependent on global businesses like MindShare is. MindShare’s business model has been to go after clients and service them across. Whereas Mediaedge:cia still is dependent on local or regional clients. Its strength globally (which is what we are building here too) is great communication planning. However, the agency is weak on executing those communications in-house. But Mediaedge:cia does have an advantage of having Group M, which helps it in the execution. That’s one reason why I expect them to be lot more successful here and grow much faster than they would have in other markets. Because again globally that non-traditional area of strength is there in India and a couple of other markets, but not across the world. More in Asia, less in Europe and very little in US. Consumer insight is the core of Mediaedge:cia’s business.

     

    In India, it does have a huge client base and hopefully at some point in time, the merger of TME will come through so that will further increase the client base. That will make Mediaedge:cia another large player in the market and yet different from a MindShare or a Maxus.

     

    As far as Mediacom is concerned, we still have to understand the agency because by the time it integrates into Group M, it will be the end of the year. That’s not a challenge that we are going to be taking on this year. It will be more of a 2007 thing. While we have begun to work along with them and help them in what are the Group M strength areas, the real integration will only start next year.

     

    Like I said, the challenge has been that we do not want to keep Group M as the brand and in the public face. We want to scale that down and make it more like the holding company, which has two – three key functions. The financial structure remains within Group M, the investment and development of capabilities in all the growth areas of the future, Group M is the driver. Once those resources get developed, they move to the operating companies because the clients are sitting in the operating companies. Group M is more the incubator for developing all kind of new expertise and strengthening each of the four agencies.

     

    We have been trying to correct the balance since last year so as not to have Group M but the agencies under it in the public eye. The feedback we received from the industry is that Group M and MindShare names are interchangeable, which is harmful for the business, so we are taking corrective measures.

     

    In the WPP fold, Group M is really the star operations for the last couple of years be it in terms of client acquisitions or revenue growth.

    The nontraditional activities of Group M started delivering since 2005 in terms of quantifiable revenues. What is the kind of growth you have seen last year and what is your projected growth for Group M by the end of 2006?

    Yes it would be right to say that last year our specialist units starting contributing substantially in terms of revenues. There are a large number of advertisers today who have gone beyond television and print and hence there is a need for a service that can deliver beyond TV and print buying. The critical mass is there in the market and the tipping point came in 2005.

     

    In 2005, in terms of the overall numbers we grew 25 per cent as a company, which was built on the media business. As a share of revenue, all our specialist divisions accounted for almost 20 – 21 per cent of our topline. In 2006, we expect it to close at somewhere closer to 30 per cent and our overall business to continue to grow at about 25 per cent this year too. That’s because the market is expanding and we have acquired a whole lot of new clients who want all kinds of services and not just traditional TV and print buying. And on the back of those there is a huge growth coming because if we just went by market growth and inflation, then we will be stuck in the 10 – 13 per cent growth rut.

    From the specialist units, there are ATG and Broadmind. If you had to split these into the kind of activities that we can expect from them in 2006, what would they be?

    We are going to focus on two – three areas this year. The first is what we define as entertainment, sports and partnerships. These are both in the area of content as well as managing of sponsorships and a whole lot of 360 degree communication around it. That is under Suku’s domain (Broadmind). Analytics, which is what we call business science is under Balu (ATG). These are the two big stories.

     

    On the entertainment side, there are three growth areas. The first one being movies, which comprise both Bollywood (90 per cent) and Hollywood (10 per cent). A lot of work started here in co-marketing and co-promotions, scaled up quite a bit. Some of it has gone into integrating brand messages or product placements and there are a host of these that are lined up in the next 12 months.

     

    We have close to 50 – 60 movie projects in hand wherein we have in-film placements, joint marketing, brand promotions along with the movie and a lot of spin off business from that. We are not going to get into representing celebrities but we will represent brands. It is not going to be a huge business but we will at least 10 – 12 such deals in a year.

     

    We have commissioned IMRB to do a study for us called Celeb Zee, which tracks brand personalities of each of these celebrities. We have 300 clients across the country and there is always requirement for celebrities and we would use that study to match the brand’s and celebrities’ personalities. It is a growing business and is a spin-off of the foray into entertainment where the primary focus is to put brands and films together in various ways.

     

    On the television side, we are doing similar stuff. Last year it was not on a large scale as most channels were worried that if they go the whole hog it creates problems. So we will have about 10 projects in a year.

     

    It takes six months for concepts to actually get into production. We are working on all new original formats. We will also be exploring other platforms for our formats in the near future as and when the technology develops. The aim is to bring brands and entertainment together starting with television and moving on to other platforms.

     

    At this point there are about six clients of ours like HLL, Britannia, Glaxo Smith Klein (GSK), Hutch, Hero Honda, Motorola and Pepsi who are all very kicked about it and talks are on with them at various stages around branded entertainment.

     

    Before venturing out in the Hindi entertainment space, we have been experimenting with some of the concepts in the South market for the last couple of years. It started with GSK’s brand Horlicks, with a couple of shows. Hero Honda wanted to enter the south because TVS is a big brand in the south, so they created a big event – a talent hunt show on television – in search for a ‘hero’ with Sun TV. It was a huge learning experience for us.

     

    Television is a 2006 story with branded entertainment but as we learn the ropes we might get into pure commissioned programming as well because the capabilities are all there. I’m not ruling out that we won’t get into pure production at some point in time but the focus is branded entertainment. Who knows it might get spun off into a side business.

     

    The third area is brand activation. Again the question is whether a media agency should be getting into this or is it the domain of a creative agency? What I feel is that it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, it’s just another way of touching the consumer. We are approaching it as developing some more communication channels.

     

    We have not scaled it beyond five – six clients because we want to get the model right.
  • WARL to create joint worldwide campaign for BBC World and BBC World Service

    WARL to create joint worldwide campaign for BBC World and BBC World Service

    The BBC’s international broadcast wings, BBC World and BBC World Service, have appointed a creative agency WARL to handle a jointly branded creative campaign worldwide.

    London-based WARL will be responsible for the planning and execution of an international advertising campaign promoting news output on the television and radio services, says an official release. BBC World marketing head Jane Clancey and BBC World Service head of international marketing communications Jane Futrell say WARL will develop a campaign promoting the comprehensive 24-hour news and information services provided by both broadcasters. “We have two truly global brands with unique reputations and are confident that WARL will play a significant role in further communicating the benefits of our output,” they say.

    MediaEdge:cia will provide media planning and buying for the campaign, scheduled for later this year.

    This is the third joint advertising campaign undertaken by BBC World and BBC World Service, who will form a new BBC global news division shortly. Within the division, their identities will remain separate and their funding streams respected under strict fair trading rules to ensure no cross-subsidy, the release says.