As 2016 draws to a close, we take a look at the news-makers and game-changers in the Indian Media, Marketing & Advertising industry - the IMPACT Person of the Year 2016 nominees. Who among them will win the title this year?
BY TEAM IMPACT
The year 2016 was a riveting one for the Media & Entertainment industry. It saw a slew of channel launches, major acquisitions and high profile exits. A slowdown in the first half of the year was followed by a tepid festive season. The year is about to end with just one word on everyone’s lips – demonetization. However, all through the year, and in every sphere, what prevailed was the India story. Earlier in the year, one image and phrase that caught everyone’s attention was a lion made of nuts and bolts and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call, ‘Make in India’. Also grabbing the headlines was the phenomenal rise of brand Patanjali which forced global FMCG giants to rethink their India strategy. Elsewhere, adding to the India story was the start-up, Ola Cabs, which challenged the most valuable start-up in the world (Uber) to the rank of India’s most popular mobile app for personal transportation. Players like digital payments platform Paytm literally changed the way small and medium businesses operate in the country by pushing the agenda of a cashless economy even before Modi’s recent de-monetization drive, and saw phenomenal growth in the process. Meanwhile, in media, the Television and Print domains saw a refreshed move to improve measurement metrics, the main focus now being on measuring what the Internet-savvy digital generation watches.
In this backdrop, it’s no surprise that Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, Baba Ramdev & Acharya Balkrishna of Patanjali, Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola Cabs, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Co-founder & CEO of Paytm, and ‘measurement gurus’ Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands India & CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM, South Asia feature on the IMPACT Person of the Year 2016 nominee list.
SOUNDING THE BUGLE
FOR ‘MAKE IN INDIA’
Amitabh Kant is the CEO of Niti Aayog, the Government's premier think-tank, which was set up in January 2015 to replace the Planning Commission. The dynamic 1980 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer is believed to have been handpicked by PM Modi for the role on account of his excellent marketing skills as the PM was keen to establish the institution, both domestically as well as internationally. From his first posting as a sub-collector in the coastal town of Thalassery in north Kerala in 1984 to becoming a close advisor to Modi, Kant has come a long way. This ambitious bureaucrat has relentlessly worked towards making India a business hotspot.
Kant co-ordinates with the chief secretaries and the industry secretary at the state level, and his job is aimed at simplifying rules for industry, manufacturing, start-ups, etc. He has had a 38-year run in the Indian Administrative Service, India's elite bureaucratic corps, where he built a reputation for innovative thinking and a knack for building durable brands. He introduced the slogan of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, is the man behind the Government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, and cult initiatives such as ‘Incredible India’ and ‘Digital India’.
Until recently, Kant was Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Chairman of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. His friends refer to him as ‘AK-47’ due to his potential and efficiency in his work. Kant today finds a special place in the Indian establishment and also on the IMPACT Person of the Year nominee list for 2016.
THE AYURVEDIC PATH
TO A STURDY BUSINESS
‘Patanjali will shut the 'gate' in Colgate, the birds in Nestle's nest (logo) will also fly away’... far from sounding like empty threats, these statements by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev reflect the confidence of a man who along with Acharya Balkrishna, disrupted the FMCG market using a swadeshi card. The business they set up together – Patanjali Ayurved Limited (PAL) - clocked revenue of Rs 5,000 crore this year, registering a profit of around 8-12%.
In 1997, Patanjali started with selling Ayurvedic medicines, for which dedicated Patanjali chikitsalayas were set up. People who wanted an alternative to allopathy could buy medicines, after consulting a certified vaid at the chikitsalayas. Acharya Balkrishna, who owns a majority stake in PAL, slowly started setting up franchisee outlets across the country for its products and once that network was built, the company launched its FMCG products. Who would have guessed that within a short span of time, PAL would go on to give all the FMCG giants in India a run for their money?
From ghee, oil, biscuits, honey, chyawanprash, juices, instant noodles and shampoo, staples to nutrition, cosmetics and personal care products, Patanjali Ayurved Limited sells all. PAL products are sold through through 1,200 Ayurvedic chikitsalayas, 2,500 arogya kendras and 8,000 swadeshi kendras. This apart from being available on e-commerce channels, in kirana stores and retail stores like Big Bazaar. PAL products are available at a price point at least 15-30% lower than products of other FMCG brands, making them extremely attractive to the consumer.
The company which started as an alternative to MNCs in India is on its way to becoming one itself as Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna have already started units in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa and Nepal. Acharya Balkrishna says that the company has also started exporting honey and cosmetics to 10-12 countries, including the US, Britain, Canada, Africa and Arab countries. The duo is hoping to take their in-house production to rupees one lakh crore by 2020.
Despite multiple controversies, Patanjali has managed to hold its own and is one of India’s fastest growing brands, finding a place across households in India. While Baba Ramdev is the face of PAL, Acharya Balkrishna is its backbone. Owner of 94% of Patanjali’s assets, Balkrishna is amongst the fastest to reach India’s elite club of billionaires with personal fortunes worth Rs 25,600 crore. Together, they make an impressive debut in the nominee list for IPOY 2016.
THE INDIAN KING
OF THE CAB WORLD
“My parents believed I’d gone crazy. They thought I was becoming some kind of a travel agent and were very apprehensive about it,” Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola Cabs has been quoted as saying in one of his early media interactions in 2012. There was clearly no reason for Aggarwal’s parents to be sceptical, for Aggarwal, an IIT - Bombay alumnus, would go on to build India’s most popular mobile app for personal transportation that would revolutionize integrated city transportation for customers and driver partners alike. Aggarwal started Ola in December 2010 along with Ankit Bhati, a fellow IIT Bombay alumnus, with a mission to build mobility for a billion Indians. Today, Ola is one of India’s most valuable and respected start-ups and has over 76% market-share in the Indian online transportation space. With innovation being the buzzword, Ola expanded its range of mobility options to include auto-rickshaws, business class vehicles, local kali peeli cabs, and also introduced shared mobility innovations like Ola Share and Ola Shuttle in an effort to make travel easier for commuters across 102 cities. Another innovation, Ola Money, ensured that Ola customers could say goodbye to cash payments, much before the de-monetization drive. During the recent cash crunch, Ola came to the rescue by partnering with Yes Bank and Punjab National Bank to set up mobile ATMs. In addition to no haggling with taxi and auto drivers, and no standing in queues to withdraw cash, people could even pay for fuel and utility bills with Ola Money. Ola has managed to stand up to its competition, Uber, and its acquisition of TaxiForSure for $200 million in March 2015 has helped it cement its place on Indian roads. Bhavish Aggarwal has managed to stay on top of the game in the constantly evolving start-up culture, where new business models and continuous breakthrough innovations challenge existing businesses. From getting the right overseas investors to introducing categorized services, and strategic tie-ups with leading Indian businesses, Aggarwal has done it all. True to his belief of the need for transportation on demand and as a service, Bhavish Aggarwal doesn't own a car himself and vows that he never will!
BRINGING IN THE DIGITAL
ERA IN MEASUREMENT
Both Shashi Sinha, CEO of IPG Mediabrands, India, and CVL Srinivas, CEO of GroupM South Asia, believe in the traditional forms of advertising while being at the forefront of the push to Digital in the organizations they head. Both have been actively associated with industry bodies such as the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and Media Research Users Council (MRUC), etc, and continue to think of ways and means to improve the measurement metrics for both Broadcast and Print consumers. They have also been strong proponents of transparency in measurement, and a policy shift to enhance TV viewership and Print readership. As Chairman of BARC’s Technical Committee (TechComm), Sinha led the initiative to establish how television viewership would be measured in the new rating system adopted by the industry. The next big game-changer at BARC is Digital measurement. Sinha undertook a similar mandate at the ABC, where his task was to implement the Digital measurement project undertaken by it and establish credible digital data. In fact, ABC, which plays a crucial role in Print measurement, will soon start measuring Digital audiences, a big achievement despite pricing constraints. Srinivas, with more than two decades of rich experience in media planning and buying, has been leading the Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI), which brings out the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) for the Print media. Earlier, he was Chairman of the Media Research Users Council (MRUC). Under his leadership, the IRS has seen technical enhancements and also enhanced security measures for data collection for a more robust survey designed to capture the real Print consumption patterns for use by advertising agencies and advertisers. Srinivas has also been actively involved in finding solutions to challenges facing the industry, such as ad cap per hour on TV. Looking ahead, a big focus area for both Sinha and Srinivas, as heads of industry bodies, will be to integrate data from various sources, i.e., IRS, BARC, ABC and TGI (Target Group Index), to create a single data source.
HOW TO CASH IN ON
CASHLESS PAYMENTS
The rise and rise of Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been meteoric, from a boy born in a lower middle class family in Aligarh, to a bright engineering student who struggled to follow lectures in English, to founder and CEO of Paytm, one of the most formidable unicorns on India’s start-up scene, it has been an inspiring journey. VSS, as he is known, at one time survived on Rs 10 a day, but dreamt big. Today, he is living that dream.
Paytm, set up in 2005, is arguably India's largest mobile payments and commerce platform today, and Sharma counts Jack Ma of Alibaba Group and Ratan Tata among his investors. The company launched the Paytm wallet in 2014. Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications, is valued at approximately $4.7 billion, after Sharma recently sold 1% stock to raise Rs 325 crore. Meanwhile, Sharma himself is an investor in start-ups like GOQii, Applied Life, InnerChef, DealStreet Asia and Intelligent Interfaces, and recently pledged a Rs 10 crore fund to build a network of start-ups that are working towards environmental sustainability in India.
Sharma has been at the forefront of India’s cashless revolution. Following PM Modi’s demonetization announcement on November 8, he quickly prepared Paytm to take on the upheaval that followed, going all out with advertisements in the media, adding user-friendly features and making the Paytm Android app available in 10 regional languages, to see a massive quantum of growth in a short time. He has made Paytm a household name, and the advertising tagline ‘Paytm karo’ too made a major impact on everyday transactions in people’s lives. Today, every roadside vendor and kirana store owner has embraced the mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm, and for 38-year-old Sharma, that is the biggest achievement.
So far, Paytm has hit more than five million transactions a day with a user base of more than 160 million, and Sharma’s aim is to bring half a billion Indians on the Paytm platform by 2020. He is all set to launch a payments bank and merge his wallet business with it under a new company, Paytm Payments Bank Ltd.
SO, WHO WILL BE IMPACT
PERSON OF THE YEAR?
This year’s nominee list is a stellar one, comprising people whose list of achievements are an inspiration not just to everyone in the Media, Marketing & Advertising world, but also beyond it. So who will win the coveted IPOY trophy this year? IMPACT Person of the Year 2015 and TV news anchor Arnab Goswami’s pick is the Shashi Sinha-CVL Srinivas duo. He says, “If I were to pick one out of this very difficult list, it would be CVL Srinivas and Shashi Sinha for the work they have done. Shashi and CVL are two remarkable industry professionals with deep knowledge of the complexities of this sector and it is only with their combined experience that they would have been able to navigate through the complexities that go into building, rolling out and mentoring a new measurement metrics in this country.” Goswami adds, “Bhavish Aggarwal and Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm have done revolutionary things in the online space and I would commend them for what they have done.” Sam Balsara, Chairman and Managing Director of Madison World placed his bets on the Patanjali duo: “Baba Ramdev will win hands down because of the phenomenal impact he has had in the last one year. For a company in the FMCG industry to come even close to Rs 5,000 crore in such a short time is quite incredible.” Meanwhile, Mallikarjunadas CR, Group CEO, Starcom India is rooting for Vijay Shekhar Sharma: “Vijay Shekhar Sharma has revolutionized cash mobility and really transformed our lives. So, my vote would go to him.” Amitabh Kant gets a thumbs-up from Kamal Bali, MD of Volvo India: “Amitabh Kant is a game-changer and a transformer. He truly deserves to win because of the kind of transformation and concepts he has brought into the bureaucracy and also initiatives taken to help ease doing business in India and attracting investments.”
