‘India Is A Standout Market’

People, processes, and positivity were the three recurring themes that kept emerging during our conversation with Tony Harradine, Chief Executive Officer – Asia Pacific, Omnicom Media Group. Harradine has lately been visiting clients and the agency leaders in the region’s top markets and was most recently in India. The former Chief Investment Officer of the Group took charge in this role in April of 2018, and one of his biggest successes today is having steered the business out of the shadows of the pandemic in every respect. All that remains of it, for good, is a stronger and better OMG in APAC, a happy workforce, and the learning.

The Omnicom Media Group added several big names to its portfolio last year, and Harradine tells us that APAC’s contribution to it was significant, “There have been a lot of global wins. OMG bagged a huge luxury client like Chanel, then there was Sanofi, Phillips, the expanded Mercedes remit; all are pretty significant. Towards the end of 2022-23, there were back-to-back wins with OMD bagging Burberry - another luxury client, and Hearts and Science taking home the automotive brand, Jaguar Land Rover.”
“As far as the big local wins are concerned, PHD India took home ACKO. We also won Bajaj Consumer Care and Electrolux in India, Unilab in the Philippines, Vitasoy in China, and a slew of government state wins in Australia — we picked up the Victorian Government account a few years ago, and New South Wales just last year. So, we have won some big clients in this part of the world,” he says.

Although the APAC CEO believes that they have been fortunate to rope in several big accounts, he maintains that a business is only as good as the clients it retains. “You can’t win one and then lose something else. We have been very strong in terms of retention as well. And that, I believe, is a true testament to how much your clients value you.”

Closer home, amongst those retained is the Nivea account, which OMD had been handling for the past nine years in India. The brand had called for a multi- agency pitch earlier in 2023. Additionally, it has also won accounts like McDonald’s India - North and East, Sony Sab, Muthoot Finance, and BP Castrol recently, while PHD won Bajaj Group and ACKO General Insurance accounts. On an APAC level, the list is longer.

Not surprisingly, Harradine considers APAC business a growth engine for the holding company at a time when there are bank closures, market correction for tech stocks, and slowdowns happening in other parts of the globe. Calling India a ‘standout market’, he says there are high expectations from the region and Kartik Sharma – Group CEO, Omnicom Media Group India. This is also considering that India overtook the UK to become the fifth largest country from a GDP perspective.

“In India, digital adoption remains high and fast-paced. The market adapts to change quickly. It is leading in innovation. Moreover, the sheer size of the market means that any evolutionary change or development happens at an extreme scale. So, it is certainly safe to say that the expectations from APAC are very high, and we are a highly ambitious, driven team which overdelivers when necessary. I can confidently say that every country in APAC today is well past the 2019 numbers on performance.”

Talking about how the size and contribution of the APAC market has helped in reserving a big seat for them at the global table, Harradine says that some of the largest global brands that OMG represents today, such as LG and Singapore Airlines, are from the APAC region. He also points out that North Asia has some very big luxury and auto brands.

Recently OMD celebrated its 25th anniversary. The agency had earlier topped the media agency rankings for total new business won globally as well as in APAC in 2022 as per COMvergence. Interestingly, it started its first full-service operation from this region, i.e., from Hong Kong. In India, it is headed by Anisha Iyer who was elevated to the CEO’s role in December, 2021. Talking about the agency, Harradine says, “OMD has evolved tremendously over the last 25 years, and continues to be a pivotal part of Omnicom at large. Historically, it has been the bigger entity in terms of number of clients and clout; and has consistently topped the order of the world’s largest media agencies in billings. It’s a market leader and, with that comes a lot of responsibilities."

“Arguably, sometimes the bigger you are, the harder it is to adapt or change. But I’d say OMD has countered that and testament to it is our global CEO Florian Adamski’s rise to his current position while running the OMD business. This adaptability also puts us in a position to pivot such a large organization to one that is extremely focused on outcomes for clients by keeping data-driven capabilities and technology at the heart of all that we do,” adds Harradine.

There are two other global agencies under the OMG umbrella; Hearts and Science, which doesn’t have a presence in India, and PHD which, in India, is led by Monaz Todywalla. Interestingly, even though PHD entered the Group fold much earlier, it is the smaller one amongst the two. Harradine explains, “I’d say, PHD does have a fairly unique positioning. It very much has a challenger mindset even today. It has done very well to land global complex businesses in recent years, even though you’d put it under the banner of an Omnicom win. A lot of the capabilities that powered those wins were derived from the PHD team. And I would certainly put Diageo and Chanel in that bracket as it relates to APAC.” Over half of Chanel’s revenues are believed to come from Asia-Pacific, 30% from Europe, and the remaining 20% from America.

He adds, “PHD is doing well. It still has some ground to cover because OMD is a very large agency for us globally and in APAC, but it has certainly caught up in terms of the split between the two agencies. We have a very strong and ambitious management. We’ve got great teams around the regions and markets. So, their success is an ongoing story.”

In 2021 Omnicom increased its global headcount by 7,600 to reach 71,700 after losing around 6,000 roles in 2020. The hiring within a year of the pandemic clearly hints at how well the network swung back, which becomes particularly relevant now because many of the tech firms that did well back then are laying off staff today. “While you want to preserve as many jobs as you can, there are obvious challenges when you’re resetting a few things. Having been in the role only for a few years prior to the pandemic, it was a steep learning curve for me and for everybody involved. We’ve learned to build more flexible operational models and working practices that provide agility for clients. We’ve learned to lean into new technologies to better connect our markets. This has arguably brought us all closer as a leadership unit and as a holistic region.”

Last year, during the earnings call, the Group had also announced plans to invest more in AI, e-commerce, and data. Talking about the new verticals and capabilities they’ve launched since then in each of these domains, Harradine says, “TRKKN was launched in a big way in APAC recently even though it has been a mainstay in Europe for some time. It provides consulting and managed services across the Google tech stack for a range of local and international clients. Second is Transact, which is focused on connected commerce consulting. This continues to be a big priority, given APAC’s scale for commerce. It is the highest across the world in terms of volume. Therefore, it’s on us as a region to be leading the charge in this very complex and diverse space. And as there are a plethora of platforms in APAC, it’s probably more complex than most other regions. All this means that our APAC practice has to be at the leading edge. We have also introduced a new version of OMNI in India, OMNI 2.0. There is also Auto ROI Vault. You would’ve also come across the announcements around our AI taskforce, which brings together talent from across the network to articulate the strategy and help design our roadmap for AI to transform our agency services.”