CNBC-TV has asked ad bigwigs on what to expect in the New Year. 

Harit Nagpal, Chief Marketing Officer of Vodafone, said there is a high degree of competition in the market. “At the end of every quarter, one is answerable for the money spent.”

 

Sanjay Behl, Head of Brand and Marketing, Reliance Communications, said there is a lack of demonstrable behaviour to overcome complacency on a daily operative level.

 

Balakrishnan, Chairman and CCO, Lowe India, said advertising is possibly the only area where there is global recognition.

 

Arvind Sharma, Chairman of Leo Burnett, said Indian brands are beginning to go into other markets and a lot of them are already in West Asia, Egypt and South East Asia.

 

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Harit Nagpal, Sanjay Behl, Balakrishnan and Arvind Sharma:

 

Over 8% growth for the economy over the past three years, the advertising business grows at almost double that. Is it safe to go with premise?

 

Sharma: I would say a little higher, closer to 20%

 

What are the growth triggers you expect in 2008?

 

Sharma: Growth triggers are very visible, they are going to be infrastructure, retail and telecom which will continue to be as a major spender and financial brands.

 

What is going to be the big growth trigger when it comes to media properties? We know that we have the Olympics this year, but does that make such a big difference to Indian advertisers or are you all waiting now for 2009 and then 2011?

 

Behl: The one change that more and more marketers have definitely started embracing, and we would see as we go on, is the reflection of change in customer behaviour of spending a lot more time outside home with the explosion of retail sector.

 

From transactional it’s becoming an experiential kind of an engagement with the customers that lot of people are doing. Hence, the role of properties will continue to grow bigger.

 

It need not wait for one big property to happen like a cricket T20 or a World Cup of cricket which is slated in 2011. I think there are lots more opportunities, Olympics being one of them, for relevant brands to really ride on.

 

But I am also talking about smallish level properties, as compared to the big ones that we talked about on a world scale, which will definitely entice a lot more market they use to ride on.

 

Do you agree there will be whole lot of other opportunities besides the big ticket media events?

 

Nagpal: The number of opportunities are obviously increasing and when you are going to multiple segments, you have to approach them through different media vehicles.

 

Mahuya Charturvedi, GM, Lodester Universal: Fortunately for all of us in India today we are facing tremendous amount of growth in the markets so normal marketing activities are also getting us great growth and great benchmarks but in a way the setting benchmarks for tomorrow. My question to all the marketers and also to all advertising professional that therefore it is making us a little more placid are we doing enough to push the envelope.The economy is growing. What are you guys doing? Are you just riding the curve?

 

Sharma: Everybody is growing. But competition is increasing. Smart marketers recognize that if they go to sleep for a month, they will be left far behind. So, I don’t think this is the time when anybody is placid.

 

Nagpal: What is happening alongwith the growth is a high degree of competition. If I have to stay ahead of my competitor, I need to manage my cost and efficiency alongside. These mergers, acquisition and IPO public listings have for the four quarters in this country. At the end of every quarter, I am answerable of the money that I have spent.

 

Are you saying that there is no room for innovation?

 

Nagpal: There is room for innovation in areas of knowing your segments and the media.

 

Behl: I do not see a sense of complacency. But I do see a lack of demonstrable behaviour, to overcome that complacency, on a daily operative level. Whenever you ask for a communication plan, at the end of the day, you get a TV creative, which is a standard traditional media kind of a solution.

 

Are you saying that agencies are complacent?

 

Behl: I am saying the execution is not demonstrating adequately.

 

What about marketers and advertisers, who are collectively benefiting from the fantastic growth story that India is writing?

 

Behl: First of all, the growth is not coming easy. It is based on a lot of fundamentals and there is a realization that one needs to do a lot of things to get growth.

 

But there are industries, sectors, marketers and business people, who are working to deliver that. Secondly there is a fundamental shift in every single aspect of consumer behaviour that one would see. India is getting a lot more younger, people are getting restless and intend to spent a lot more today. Materialism is becoming a success criteria today.

 

One can take economic trends or infrastructural trends; television is reaching without cable in every home through DTH now, even in the smaller parts. The speed of change is what is worrying and not complacency.

 

Tejas Patel, Manger - Brand Communications at Mudra Communications: Being in advertising for around five years, one of the recent trends that I have noticed, is that more and more clients are preferring to go beyond an agency for their design and strategic needs. These are some of the services that the agency has successfully offered to the clients till date. Why is there a need for a client to go beyond an agency?

 

Balakrishnan: If an agency provides a strategic input or design inputs, then I don’t think clients will go. If a client knows that a agency is good at certain things, then he will stick with the people he knows.

 

But the bigger picture is that we, as agencies, have tried to fight this battle by acquiring expertise and knowledge in clients’ area. I do not think clients should be happy with agencies knowing a lot about their business. I think clients should be happy about agencies knowing about their business.

 

But are there areas where one is going and looking for help and specialist skills outside the agencies?

 

Nagpal: Only if the agency does not have the specializations embedded.

 

How often is that happening?

 

Nagpal: Very rarely.

 

Behl: Yes, it does happen. So, I cannot disagree with that. The first choice is obviously to say that we have an in-house resource, a partner agency that understands the brands who have been with us for long now. So, they will understand our needs more.

 

But if the specialization is not good enough and if it does not really come through, then there is no choice. A Chief Marketing Officer is not a Chief Marketing Officer today; he is a Chief Accountability Officer there. So, he needs to get the world’s best into every single thing one does. If the agency cannot provide that solution, then one needs to look outside for solutions and we do.

 

Shailendra Katyal, Category Head, Marico: Since two years, we have been hearing about India Shining. We have seen reports in the media about how India has really arrived. But the parallel reality, being a marketer, is that no Indian brand has not moved out of the Indian shores. Do you see this reality changing going forward and what roles can the advertising and the marketing community play?

 

Does this really matter whether an Indian brand has really gone abroad or not where Indian money is buying foreign brands, so how does it matter?

 

Sharma: Indian brands are beginning to go into other markets. You will see lots of them already in West Asia, Egypt, South East Asia and now they beginning to be a bit more aggressive. But it is not going to happen overnight. It will require great efforts. If seven years later we look back, we see here are our seven Indian brands that are now global or a dozen brands which are now global.

 

Nagpal: Look at the flip side of the whole thing. Successful brands, which have been successful internationally, have been made relevant and successful by Indian marketers in India for the Indian masses, which is no mean job.

 

True, but we are living in an era where there is great pride about India. Being an Indian, you want the world to be an oyster and your platform for sure.

 

Balakrishnana: Advertising is possibly the only area where there is a global recognition. For example, I was a jury at Cannes and that was the time when Thanda Matlab Coca Cola commercials were coming on air. Nobody understood a thing. I was a jury of the press stuff and I don’t even know how a poster or press ad can sell Coca-Cola. It was like some barber wetting somebody’s hair with a Coke bottle. That is shit and that is Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola, it was just rubbish. Let us kind of have pride as Indians to say that is rubbish. We understand ourselves much better and don’t need global reorganization for those kinds of stuff, because if we seek that, then we may loose our edge.

 

Rishi Chandna, Manager - Brand Communications of Mudra Communications: Since I have joined the industry a couple of years ago, I have seen that there is a thrust on agencies to provide more and more 360-degree solutions and improving marketing inputs as well. It can really be an area of thrust for us, whether we can stick to the competency of the communication and advertising?

 

Balakrishnana: A core competency should be not knowledge, not expertise, not anything else; but the ability to churn out ideas. We are an idea factory and like people make bikes and cars; we make ideas. That is our core competence. We need to get what we need to get and nothing more.

 

Rohil Dabholkar, Senior Manager – Marketing, Electrolux: In the recent past, we have observed that multinational brands like Nokia and Coco-Cola are trying to Indianise their communication vis-à-vis Indian brands, like Videocon and Raymond, trying to give a foreign touch to their brand. What’s your take on it?

 

Behl: I have been a part of Nokia. The first campaign that we made was for India. So, you need to recognize the cultural and societal context of the market, that a brand is operating in and both examples are specifically on Nokia.

 

It was very important for them to conceptualize and connect it to India. It was about what “connecting people” mean to people in an Indian context, as well as the cultural context and to take the concepts and the execution in a meaningful way.

 

The important thing is the overall brand essence, as long as it is not getting violated across the globe and the creative rendition can suit the market need.

 

Do you agree with what is happening?

 

Behl: Yes, this is happening and it is the right thing to do.

 

What about the Indian brands, which are trying to use the international medium, for presenting themselves?

 

Behl: Its is simply the marketer’s brief that they need to increase the aspiration on the brand, overall look, feel and the sheen around the brand.

 

Sharma: I think that there is a new definition of India Emerging and I would summarize that as western material standards mixed with Indian emotions.

 

Some of the new ads show the image of the new “Chak De” or “Rang De Basanti” Indian. So, how true does this image of the Indian consumer show?

 

Balakrishnana: I do not like to get into this definition that, ‘Indians are like this today or like that’. The ad demanded that and there was a thought in that particular stuff.

 

But in the ad of Idea, clearly you are talking to a set of people who are suddenly very energized, perhaps by the media or there seems to be a social conscience.

 

Balakrishana: I see us having more of a sense of humor. We can laugh at a lot of things, which we have never laughed at or never even talked about in public. So, I just think that we are laughing at a lot more things.

 

Would you suggest that there is a lot more things or brands, which seem to be socially relevant, and on the higher moral ground as agents of change?

 

Nagpal: It is not really about agents of change. You need to strike a chord with the customer and it should be relevant to the product that is selling.

 

Is it striking a chord right now?

 

Nagpal: Yes, because you have to mirror the emotion out there

 

Shilipi Verma, Account Executive, Starcom Mediavest: We see that today the AAA, FI, etc are taking their part of revenue fighting amongst themselves. Can’t we just build up one common body?

 

Sharma: This is a competitive and collaborative world. So, we collaborate in advertising agencies and clients and other associates are working very well together. Some of the relationships are very good. But there is a role for competition and it is the law of nature and the law of business.

 

Behl: All ecosystems do take a bit of time to come under one common roof. I think the only way of going forward is by collaboration and partnership. Each of these new mediums or ecosystems will take a bit of time to stabilize.

 

Tushar Pal, Supervisor Copy at Mudra Communications: Shouldn’t people, who are responsible for the final output, be heading the agencies?

 

Is creative leadership the way to go for all the agencies?

 

Balakrishana: No, it is not. I just believe that the person doing any job should qualify at that point of the time. In advertising, it should always be a person who is interested in the business of ideas

 

Does it not matter where he or she comes from?

 

Balakrishana: Yes, it does not matter. I believe that there are a lot of people in advertising, who are not necessarily doing the ads; but they love ideas, trigger ideas, open windows to ideas or actually do business with ideas.

 

So does it make any difference whether it is Arvind Sharma or Balkrishnan heading the advertising firm?

 

Nagpal: No, as long as the job is getting done

 

Behl: The only thing in which this trend has been happening is between creative and client services and vice versa.

 

Meghana Ogale, Art Director, Rediffusion DYR: During your time, the only domain for creative expression was advertising. Now, there are multiple domains like television, Internet etc. available to the creative youth of today. How do you think we can still stay attractive to them?

 

How would you sell advertising as the good place to be?

 

Sharma: Advertising is the power to move hundreds of millions of people. It is to come up with an idea that just five days later or five weeks later the whole country is talking about.

 

Or it may be something that impacted the behavior of the whole country. In the last elections, everyone thought that it is going to be hands down NDA. To be able to change the result in a span of just six weeks is very powerful and motivates a bunch of people. Our challenge is to make sure that they stay motivated through a combination of salaries or opportunities, as we continue to bring them aboard.

 

Balakrishnan: If we continue with advertising the way we are going, we won’t be able to attract more people. Advertising has to become a place where people can come and show their ideas, where people come and say that it is a place or a roof, where I have an idea, I come here because of ideas. I can make a lot of money at other places. But you are not going to be able to attract people into advertising, if they don’t have that trip.

 

Nagpal: If your are creating a creative house which is an idea house, then the guys who are executing, feel that they are in a wrong place and they could get more money if they could go towards the marketer than to stay in the advertising business. It is the loss of those people who do not provide adequate wheels to the ideas that are generated by the creative guys.

 

Balakrishnan: If there are products related to those ideas, there are people who actually create a passion in selling or executing those ideas or doing those stuff. But it is all around that one single passion. It is not about running the business in any other way.

 

There is a consensus that getting the best talent and retaining the best talent is a concern largely, where all of you are concerned?

 

Nagpal: When you put out your stuff to the market, the working attrition slows down. In the agency also, it is the case, whether it is in the creative side or the execution side

 

What is the most exciting thing that will happen this year? What would be the challenge that the industry as a whole, needs to look out for?

 

Sharma: The growth is going to be even higher in 2008. Talent is going to be the main challenge.

 

Balakrishnan: I think there is so much work and so many more businesses to have an idea on. Obviously, when the mass is a lot more, you will have better ideas. I feel that this year is going to be a much better.

 

Behl: The challenge will be the marketer’s metamorphosis. That needs to be an agenda for almost all marketers. Yesteryear marketing may not work as officially or optimally as the digital marketer is required to work. The way it has to be embraced by all of us and its going to be a huge challenge.

 

Nagpal: I should be able to get better insights to meet my customer’s needs. I should be able to get better insights about my customers and excite these guys to come out with bigger ideas and together we can make the most of now.