Glimpses from fascinating session of Alumni of MICA at MICA for MICA...(23-25 January 2015)
Panel:
Dennis Koshy (Vice President, Draftfcb), Ganga Ganapathi (Vice President, Ogilvy & Mather), Shweta Bhatnagar (Vice President, Lowe Lintas and Partners), Prapti Banerjee (Mobility & Digital marketing Consultant), Ajinkya Pawar (Strategist, Junxion) and Ajay Gupta (Brand Partner, Rediffusion-Wunderman) and moderated by Madhukar Sabnavis (Vice Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather).
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Advertising is a dynamic
industry and requires certain temperament. It is in a way full with equal
amount of chaos and need to have order—whether it may be marketing, brand,
sales. Even though this industry is all about sales number, data, RoI;
fundamentally it is about crafting brands. In a way, advertisers have a
responsibility in shaping society and culture along with television, newspapers
and recently online-digital media. (ex. Johnson`s baby advertisement always
showed baby girl than baby boy.)
In a way, if we reflect upon
evolution of advertising media business; “nothing has changed” and you
know as they say, “more things change, they remain same…”. Eventually, you are
in a business of ideas. We have to reflect upon the fact that how it continues
to be a business industry even after 2000 dot com crisis and 2008 financial
crisis. Even though social media is hitting charts and is competing like
anything, advertising is the name of the game. In the meanwhile, industry has
moved from being an service agency to specialization service; but this change
has come with lot of negatives. And once
we internalize the “inevitable reality” that we are in a business of ideas; we
have to understand how we can nurture idea throughout every vertical, every
media platform and every application we develop. And then further we have to
see how this idea is taken forward and touches consumer. Increasingly, in
recent times; ideas based on needs are passing away in history. Today the technology
is defining idea and this redefined idea is further shaping our need. 
Stress, tension of deadline
and performance stretches across all domains of media industry. This is the era
of mobiles and thus mobile marketing. Technology is shaping everything we have
in front of us. Essentially we have to understand that, “way we communicate has
become very exciting since arrival of verities of technologies in recent
times.” How mobility, social media and technology is shaping our lives—is
phenomenal. This is the change many big companies and big advertisers did not
heed to. They were reluctant to diversify until emergence of social media.
Now the biggest problem this
industry is facing is that too many agencies are working on single brand. (For
example—offline, online-digital, creative, outdoor, direct marketing, PR,
social media, Google). At the meeting everyone tries to push their agenda and
it is becoming difficult and difficult for agency to do justice with every
stakeholder because there is so much overlapping in each other`s work. So, it
is necessary and it is a friendly advice to future professionals that it is
needed to break these silos. All this specialization is a great thing, but
sometimes advertising professionals are busy in doing ordinary things.
Many
times, we don’t get creative stuff to work on. That adds to the stress factor
even more. But there comes a time when after a ordinary routine of 100 days,
one day erupts with some kind of unique blend of idea, creativity which kills
the frustration of last 100 ordinary performance. Even in ordinary schedule if
we are ready to handle whatever opportunity comes to us, we can do marvels. Therefore
be ready to welcome and embrace every change, every new opportunity coming your
own way.
Our industry is catered to
principle “stick to the brief…”. Whenever we try to do something new, or
whenever we make mistakes—there are people who can stand behind you. Your ideas
may be accepted or rejected. Doesn`t matter. But don’t shy away from expressing
and working on those ideas. And if you are lucky to get working on big
ideas—mostly it is because of you and your idea are shaped by some mentor. So,
always be ready to jump into learning opportunity and try to get insights so as
to enable you for bridging gaps between strategy and execution. Being ahead of
the curve by experimentation is so exciting and new technologies, nature of new
technologies is enabling.
One can be skeptical about
how much creativity there can be in digital? Do planners have role in
campaigns? Answer to these questions lies in again—focus is on ideas. What many
times happen in this industry (or for that matter in any industry) that idea is
pushed to back seat and business is promoted in front of it. In short,
agreed—that is pragmatic compulsion to follow. But in the long run—this will
fail like anything. Always, we run behind headlines. But remember, first crack
the idea and then wait for the headline to flash. Currently there is lot of hodgepodge
about our understanding about how digital works especially in Indian context
but we have to see how things really move in next five years.
Is digital becoming new
analog, we have to ask this question again and again. Are we stuck in a
self-defeating game of idolizing digital too much. Historically after a long
run of print-press, television has been flavor of our lives for a long time. Every
medium has some complexity and we have to understand that how we navigate our
strategy through the channels of interpretation of this complexity. Amidst all
these complexities this business is all about communicating ideas—however long
we have travelled—from print to electronic (Radio-TV), internet and recently
social media.
Role of client service and
accounts management is still valid—no doubts. Still, we have to understand as a
committed professional the need to erase divides in diverse media platforms. Clients
don’t wish to spend money on ten different types of agencies and different
types of services. They don’t wish to get confused. They wish to spend minimum
aspiring maximum returns. Amidst in all these changes and dynamic reality of
media business—one thing has remained bottom-line for forever—this business is
all about storytelling. Earlier it was one to one communication and today
amidst the emergence of social media, big data—it is still one to one
communication that rewards opportunity for business expansion.
On one side, it is great to
be specialist because it gives you unique incentives and rewards to work upon
unlike generalists; but as we have already embarked upon age of IMC and our
ultimate aim is to satisfy consumers through client service, we have to learn
to become generalist. Doing everything, knowing everything is a gem of a life
and specialist can’t beat this inclusiveness’ generalist. In a way, the point
of reinforce is that era of specialist is ending and era of generalist is
coming back. It is not always possible for specialist to go up in a ladder of
value chain and generalist has great capability and potential to do that.
Our aim remains to sell idea
to customers/clients. But before that we have to understand that where from
ideas come and travel and how they propagate. We have to always be curious and
conscious about who can come up with great idea and takes ownership of those
ideas to shape the future. Therefore we have to constantly check the way we
define an idea. Idea is always AGNOSTIC, it has universal appeal. It has no
linear/stereotypical approach. But harnessing ideas and creating possibilities takes
courage of fostering collective ownership to that idea. How that idea renovates
the brand and how it resonates with customer.
Many times, change is driven
by people outside industry. They can be people in our society, consumers, kids,
young generation. Yes, change happens from outside. We have to enhance our
abilities to know and track changes coming from outside world. As each and
every medium is finding its niche after need gap analysis, measurability is
still big problem. Every medium has its uniqueness and we should make sure that
how we measure the unique potential, incentives and rewards this niche area
offers.
In the age of data-big data,
we are in search of engagement, interaction with consumers because
engagement-attention quotient is the name of the game. It is paradox that, “so
early after its inception, age of like has passed.” Next level may be—can follower/user/consumer
become champion/ambassador of that idea. Can followers comment on it, can they
disagree about it? Can they express their opinions about it? Can these types of
conversation opens up new ways, new possibilities? And can these interactions
create further roadmap for not only business development but solving some kind
of problem consumers are facing?
So in these times, there is
heated up debate of whether data helps or patterns? Obviously, numbers cannot
fake but in the complex society like ours we have to have tools to apply
sociology, psychology and cultural studies for better understanding about not
only changes in our society but also how to apply that understanding of society
for better client service and better customer satisfaction. So in a way this is
not conflict between creatives and analytics, data and patterns, statistics vs.
understanding; but it is about how to interpret those numbers, stories and insights
for better engagement, better lead and better results. Even though language of
data makes it easier to sell pitch, it is the number behind cost per contact,
cost per lead, cost per acquisition and cost per engagement that determines the
perception of client for collaboration and creativity. Client is in the
business of selling products and services but we as advertisers are in the
business of selling ideas. Everyone in this industry lives on monthly and
quarterly reports. Everything has been planned and geared for greater benefits.
We are struggling with
online-offline nature of industry and life at large. Is it a blessing or a curse,
we have to live with it. But coming generation, five years down the line will
be borne into it. What is novelty today will become common-sense/everyday life
tomorrow.
In essence, we never ever
should be disconnected from three things; culture, technology and our shared
life. It defines the prescription for anything—understanding client`s brief,
consumer`s requirement and further our capabilities in dealing with challenges
of communicating with the world—through advertising—through storytelling. Therefore
refresh ourselves and get fresh minds to crack it. We have to learn how to tap,
nurture and receive ideas from huge crowd out there. We have to learn to swim
in relational contexts to enlighten ourselves about this world. Throwing open
the challenges open to public and engaging with them and further recognize
those, harness those and capitalize on those is really the way ahead. It is
World 4.0 and Web 4.0; it is Communication 4.0.
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