Hemant Bakshi, Executive Director, Home and Personal Care, Hindustan Unilever assumed the role of Chairman, Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) in the backdrop of exceptionally volatile market conditions in September last year. Since then, he has set his priorities to bring BARC to fruition, drive higher return on marketing spends, get advertisers to adopt new media and make the ISA pivotal to solving industry issues through consensus and collaboration
By Srabana Lahiri
(With inputs from Saloni Dutta)
When Hemant Bakshi was elected Chairman of the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) in September 2013, the market was extremely volatile due to an economic slowdown and for most marketers, it wasn’t business as usual. Even the media industry was in turmoil, with issues such as the 10+2 ad cap per hour on television affecting advertisers, besides a question mark over the designated agency giving out television audience research data. Bakshi’s first job was to address common concerns faced by advertisers and try to find solutions in a collaborative manner.
“As advertisers, we are central to the industry and it is our role to bring all stakeholders together and create an environment that fosters collaboration. Equally we must all understand that collaboration happens when there is an environment of trust. It is our role to ensure there is trust between various industry bodies to rise above partisan concerns,” says Bakshi, an affable person known to be fair and balanced in his dealings. Even within the ISA, decision-making is by consensus in the executive council, which has leading advertisers on board.
“The economy is still a little slow and the entire measurement system is in a state of flux until the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) happens and broadcasters and advertisers make sure that their business model drives profitable growth,” observes Bakshi.
According to him, every time there is a problem, the parties could either get confrontational or resolve the problems through consensus and collaboration. In this, the ISA can play a very constructive role in making sure that the industry resolves these issues in a manner where in the long run, it is good for the health of the industry. “That is really the role that ISA can play at this point in time,” says Bakshi.
Former ISA Chairman Bharat Patel, who helmed the industry body for nine years, says the ISA has been playing a very proactive role to ensure that there is a level playing field in the advertising and marketing sector. “One of the key principles that ISA works with is that as an association, it does not get involved in commercial decisions of individual companies in terms of advertising and marketing, believing market forces should determine them,” he says.
THE MANTLE OF BARC
The ISA is a stakeholder in BARC, and Bakshi and Patel are ISA’s representatives in the BARC Board. Bakshi is actively involved in getting BARC off the ground by October this year, and has been working tirelessly on this front. “The progress made by BARC in the last 12 months has been incredible. I have not known any industry body to produce such high quality work in such a short period of time. Especially fantastic has been the contribution of the highly qualified technical committee of BARC, headed by Shashi Sinha,” Bakshi says.
In March, 2012, the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF), ISA and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) had got together to announce a unique initiative –BARC - which would represent the interests of all key stakeholders and carry out sophisticated television audience measurement and research in India. IBF, ISA and AAAI hold 60%, 20% and 20% respectively of the equity in BARC, and accurate measurement of television audience data promises to be a boon for advertisers.
LEVERAGING THE STRENGTHS
The ISA does not have its own R&D set-up or the funds for it, but as it has top advertisers as members, it leverages on the expertise and the R&D capability of members whenever there is a case in point. “Say if an issue comes up in the area of how marketing should be done to children, we have members like Pepsi, Cadbury, Coca-Cola... we can leverage on their expertise and skill base to help the industry,” says Bakshi. But in a fiercely competitive market environment, are member companies ready to share their views? “Coke and Pepsi, P&G and HUL, we compete with each other and I think that competition is very healthy and very good. However, when it involves the industry as a whole, we are competitors but also peers in the industry, and we should come together. So for example if you look at BARC today, all of us believe that a robust measurement system will be good for the industry. Therefore, in many ways we will collaborate and what we do in the marketplace as competitors is a little independent and distinct from what we might need to do as an industry body to create a better environment for everyone concerned,” says Bakshi.
A lot of information is institutionalized and has been there for a long time as part of ISA, allowing members and agencies to leverage it. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self-regulatory body, was formed at the behest of ISA in the 60s, and it has its knowledge repository as well. “For example, I am also a member of the Indian Beauty and Hygiene Association, and we leverage that in case we need information on personal care or beauty advertising - what should be the codes of advertising in fairness products category and so on,” explains Bakshi.
ACCENT ON NEW MEDIA
One of Bakshi’s avowed aims is to get advertisers to adopt new media to promote their brands. “Television has been a dominant medium and in the foreseeable future also, I see it as being the largest single option available to us as advertisers. But in the recent past, we have become over-dependent on TV and that is something that we need to correct,” says Bakshi, who can draw on learnings from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), of which ISA is an affiliate, for advances in online, social and mobile advertising. According to him, the challenge in new media is that it is growing faster than imagined. “The big problem is lack of capability. A lot of people who take decisions in the advertising industry – be it the marketing side or the client side or the agency side - haven’t really grown up with new media, and therefore, their knowledge and capabilities in new media and their understanding of it is relatively inadequate. The big opportunity we have and the role which ISA must play is in helping build skills and capabilities to leverage new media better, through seminars, workshops, programmes, etc.,” he says.
For Hemant Bakshi, being the leading advertiser of the country perhaps makes a difference as far as steering the ISA is concerned. One of his achievements is organizing a high level global conference on ‘Navigating a VUCA World’ last year with none other than Paul Polman, Global CEO of Unilever, delivering the keynote address.
Also to Bakshi’s advantage is a nice mix of old hands and fresh entrants on the ISA’s Executive Council, giving it a lot of fresh ideas and new direction, while being able to bank on the wisdom and experience of senior advertisers as marketing and advertising become more and more competitive each day.
ABOUT THE ISA
The Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) was founded and registered as a company in 1952 by a group of large advertisers.
Original member companies: Bata Shoe Company, Calcutta, Birla Bros. Ltd., Calcutta, Corn Products Co. (India) Ltd., Bombay, Glaxo Laboratories (India) Ltd., Bombay, Parle Products Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Bombay, Polson Ltd., Bombay, Tata Industries Ltd., Bombay and West End Watch Co., Bombay.
Current membership: Over the years, nearly all major advertisers have become members of the ISA and its current membership of close to 200 accounts for two thirds of all annual advertising spends in India.
OBJECTIVES OF ISA
• To promote, maintain and uphold ethical and economic discipline in advertising
• To represent, protect, inform and guide advertisers in all matters related to advertising
• To help formulate and promote laws, codes and standards
• To monitor, measure and moderate the media in terms of cost, competition and viewership/readership/listenership
• To encourage and support the development of new media
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