In the last one year as CEO of GroupM, South Asia, CVL Srinivas has brought in youth leadership at the decision making level, put digital at the core of every effort and found a new trajectory of growth for an entity that already enjoys 40% market-share in the Indian media agency space
By PRIYANKA MEHRA
In October 2012, the naming of CVL Srinivas as Vikram Sakhuja’s successor at the helm of GroupM, South Asia did not surprise many. After all, it was a homecoming of sorts for Srini, literally an ‘insider’ with an earlier stint in the agency, during which he helped set up Maxus after GroupM launched operations in India.
In the year that has passed since then, as CEO of GroupM South Asia, Srinivas – Srini to most - has brought about changes in his characteristic style, not rocking the boat, but gently ushering in freshness with the launch of YCO (the Youth Executive Committee), the digital-focused ‘New Me’ and other such initiatives. Under his leadership, GroupM emerged as Number 2 among companies within the holding group WPP in India in 2013.
‘This role keeps me completely switched on 24x7’
EXCITEMENT AROUND INDIA
GroupM, which manages a large part of the media spends in India through its agencies Mindshare, Maxus, MEC, Motivator and MediaCom, completed its twelfth year in India last December. It enjoys 40 % market-share in the media agency business, as per the last RECMA ratings, and is doing its best to retain its position, not only by virtue of its sheer size and scale, but by ringing in the cash register as well.
Group M agencies in India won 82 new businesses last year, including accounts such as Zydus, Himalaya, the Kotak Group, Tata Global Beverages and the digital mandate for Nestle. They also retained GSK and L’Oreal on the back of fiercely fought multi-agency pitches. Besides, GroupM agencies and specialist units had a good run at domestic and international award shows including Goafest, the Emvies, the Festival of Media, Cannes Lions, Mobile Marketing Awards and Out of Home Awards. Srini is quick to attribute this success to the respective agency brands. Undoubtedly, one of the high points for GroupM was winning the Porter Prize for ‘leveraging unique activities’ last year, making it the only media & advertising agency to win the award.
Thus, India continues to be an exciting market for the agency, with promising headroom for further growth, and this excites Srini. “India is a land of innovation, it is also home to great talent in analytics and data management. Digital is disrupting the market and throwing up both challenges and opportunities.
India continues to be a thriving market for entertainment and sports. Moreover, by all accounts, despite all challenges, we will have a double digit growth - 11.6% in 2014, as predicted by our latest TYNY Adex report. The scale, size and complexity adds to the excitement around India as a market,” says Srini.
DIGITAL GREW BY 50% IN 2013
India has over 200 million Internet users, a figure expected to double in the near future, signifying that Digital is now mainstream, and media agencies need to have Digital at the core of their strategy, content and plans. Group M India had established an in-house Digital practice 12 years ago, and has an early mover advantage in this space. Apart from this, the agency has assets like Madhouse, a leading mobile marketing agency; Quasar, a full service digital agency; Blazar, a search agency and Mash Up, which helps build engagement through content and video.
“Despite all the noise about Digital, it is under-leveraged by most advertisers. There is a lot more that we all need to do. And yes, changing mindsets is the starting point. We no longer talk about Digital and non-Digital staff. All those who work in an agency these days need to be Digital-savvy. All our agencies have strong integrated products. The Digital contribution has grown by 50% last year,” states Srini. Group M also started a series of inhouse Digital initiatives involving all their agencies, including a knowledge series called Digital Rendezvous and an online training programme called Digiversity.
Within Group M, Xaxis is slated to be the next big thing. “Xaxis is a strategic investment made by our parent company. It is what the future is all about – i.e., audience planning. We made a start in late 2012 and scaled up the practice last year. The response from our clients has been very encouraging. As a product, it will keep evolving,” shares Srini.
While Group M also introduced ‘New Me’, an initiative that places Digital at the heart of everything last year, a fundamental shift in the mindset of both employees and clients is easier said than done “It is an on-going journey, and we have progressed rather well in the last 10 to 12 months. I would say we are geared up to move from ‘Digital also’ to the ‘Digital first’ era. Many more clients are receptive to Digital and today, you rarely face questions such as ‘Why Digital?’,” observes Tushar Vyas, Managing Partner, GroupM Interaction, South Asia.
“In fact, we index higher than the market media mix on Digital in India. India is also a hub for many countries when it comes to breakthrough work in the area of search engine optimization and analytics. As per GroupM estimates, Digital is growing at 35% YOY in our industry and contributes 7.9% to our Adex. It is already the No. 3 medium after TV and Print. We expect Digital to continue growing at 30-40% YOY over the next few years,” he adds.
THE MEDIA BUYING PLAN
So how has GroupM’s approach to media buying evolved over the years, specially with the focus on Digital? “It has become imperative for media planners and buyers to be media neutral in their thinking and drive solutions where integrated media solutions are at the core. Thinking beyond conventional media - be it new media, activation or content integrated solutions - has become more prevalent. Cross-media comparisons and efficiencies have become the norm. There is also an increased effort from media owners to understand client requirements and offer cross-platform solutions that led clients, media agencies and media owners to co-create and co-own communication and a closer working between all stakeholders,” says Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner, CTG South Asia, one of the largest media buyers in the country.
THE TALENT FOCUS
Over the years, Group M has come to be known as the exporter of Indian talent, from Ashutosh Srivastava, now Chairman for Global Emerging Markets, Mindshare to R Gowthaman, COO for Mindshare, Asia Pacific; Vikram Sakhuja, Global CEO, Maxus to Ajit Varghese, CEO, APAC, Maxus – all are examples of Indian leaders growing into regional and global roles from India. “As Indians, we are naturally tuned to managing multiple challenges and large volumes. Leaders from India have become a critical part of defining what the future of our industry would be today,” shares Gaurav Hirey, Chief Talent Officer, South Asia, GroupM.
While Group M has seen steady leadership in the top rung, an organization of its size and scale faces the inevitable challenge to retain, motivate and nurture talent at the middle and lower levels across agencies, which plagues the industry as a whole.
“Our retention rates are much better than the industry average. Our middle and junior level talent get great learning and growth opportunities. We also have an intensive feedback and communication mechanism which allows our employees to speak to us. Our people know that if they have something to say, they will be heard and that their feedback will be acted upon,” adds Hirey.
The agency also has regular town halls with its senior leadership, where everyone is encouraged to ask questions and these are answered. Besides, it has internal recognition awards called the Choreos.
THE DATA EQUATION
While brands are constantly trying to ascertain how to optimize media spends, leverage multiple touch-points to engage and interact with consumers in order to enhance the influence of brand communication, clients and agencies are grappling with the two-pronged challenge of getting access to the right data and then its optimum usage. The range of data metrics available today adds to the challenge, leading to an overload of data.
“Our investment has been continuous. Way back in 2001, when the term big data did not even exist, we built a platform to analyse People Meter data at the respondent level. We were possibly the only media agency in the country to have a proprietary consumer study ‘3D’ done continuously since 2002. Our marketing analytics practice has been delivering 20x returns from analytical investments for its clients for more than a decade. We run a data panel to study mobile usage behaviour. Our tools have been refreshed and renewed many times over,” comments Sundar Muthuraman, Global Managing Partner, Meritus, a specialist unit. He does admit that managing talent is an ongoing challenge, particularly in analytics, as it is the space of high buzz, even globally. “Despite the odds, India possibly has the highest skill concentration in analytics, and hence our challenges are fewer as compared to other geographies,” he adds.
According to Suku Murti, Managing Partner- ESP, GroupM, next generation marketing is going to be driven by data and story-telling. “Anticipating this, GroupM already built capabilities, capacities and alliances over the past decade in these areas. There will be tighter integration with Social, Digital and the Experiential arms as we move forward to ensure that our clients get insight-driven communication plans which are multi-screen, convergent and measurable,” says Murti.
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