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Media
Moments
The India dream for media agencies slowed down, but media rocks on Noor Fathima Warsia  The
Indian media agency business is never short of action, and the year 2008
was no different. In fact, the year would go down in the history of Indian
advertising for several reasons - the top one being Sam Balsara's acquiring
a 51 per cent stake in WPP's MediaCom India, and the second one being
the impact of slowdown and the blow that many media agencies in India
faced. The 2008 Media Diary shows that every month had something interesting to contribute to the India media agency business. Even as the last quarter became dark with media agencies cutting costs in every way that they could, India is identified as a growth market, and international heads have said that they would continue spending here. What really would be written in the next Rewind for the growth of media agencies in India, as they say, we would find out soon enough. The 2008 Media Diary January The release of the Lintas Media Guide, in a sense, was expected to have set the tone for the year. The Indian ad industry in 2007 had shown a 4 per cent growth over the last year, according to the Guide, and for many, 2008 would have been better than the year gone. GroupM was active as ever from the word go in 2008 as well. Where GroupM agency Mediaedge:cia announced plans to enter the digital and entertainment marketing sectors with MEC Interactions and MEC Access, GroupM bagged the media duties of the Indian Premier League (IPL) - the single largest property on television that India has seen in recent times. February The action in the month came from the youngest player in the space. Omnicom's OMD India marked the completion of a year of its operations in India. The agency added businesses steadily for Omnicom to get some footing in the country in the year that it had been active here. Another interesting development of the month was Madison Media spreading its wings in international markets. Even as media reports suggested that Madison was in talks with WPP to sell a stake, Madison Media was busy launching an office in Colombo. The reason for the expansion was also to follow client Airtel that was eyeing the market. Aegis Media's international heads, including Asia Pacific CEO Patrick Stahle, made regular appearances in India to reiterate that India was one of the most important markets in its global agenda - even though not much was taking off yet for the agency. March What other than the Union Budget can be the highlight of this month? The Budget was not seen as a bold one and there was nothing for the Indian media industry to look forward to. Various media agency heads were quoted as saying that the Indian media industry went amiss in the Budget this year as well. The Budget gloom was soon lost in two developments. First, was the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation agreeing to finally bury the hatchet and renew the IBF-AAAI agreement that have governed many transactions between media owners and media agencies. The second, and very closely watched development, was P&G finally calling for a media review. After a gap of seven years, the move meant that things were about to shake up in the Indian media industry. Another talked about development in this month was Mudra going back to the full service model and rebranding it media service OMS to Mudra Max. The reason the announcement made any noise was because many wondered if the full service model would once again be the order of the day, even if in an evolved avatar. April Any situation where a large advertiser like P&G is involved with the likes of WPP and Sam Balsara cannot be short of fireworks. April was about that. Despite the reports in leading business dailies and all the speculations suggesting that Balsara was in conversation with WPP to sell a stake in Madison, India's own media guru did the exact opposite. impact, the weekly from exchange4media Group, was the only publication at the time that had said that there is a possibility that the "unthinkable" could happen - which was of Sam Balsara buying a stake in WPP's MediaCom. The development was a first in the history of Indian advertising, where an India media agency owner acquired a stake in a global advertising brand. MediaCom was detached from GroupM following this - logical given that P&G's arch rival Hindustan Unilever was parked in Mindshare - and was then aligned with Madison World. The rumours of WPP buying a stake in Madison never really died out - there are still hushed conversations in the industry on how the tables would turn in the deal one day. However, in the current state, MediaCom is a Madison World Company. The month also saw the release of the Gunn Report for Media Agencies that placed India on the fifth position. The fact that when it comes to creative agencies India is on the 17th or the 21st position, this was a big deal. May May was about MindShare. MindShare India had begun to see the changes of the restructuring that the agency had announced globally. Some of its key clients like PepsiCo, ICICI and United Breweries were already seeing formation of units like Business Planning, Inventions and Exchange, stitched together by Client Leaders. MindShare's official line was that this step would help it move towards 100 per cent accountability. Related or not, the agency also bagged the Aditya Birla Group AoR, with the exception of businesses like Idea and Madura, that month. Another noteworthy development of the month was when the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) launched a Copy Advice service for all of its members. The purpose of the Advice was to prevent problems before they happened and in the course "benefits not only the advertiser, agency and media immediately concerned, but also the wider advertising industry, by avoiding complaints and promoting social and consumer responsibility". June With half the industry at Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards, there weren't any big developments to announce back home in India. Even as India won Media Lions at the Cannes Awards; Lodestar Universal's CEO Shashi Sinha was in the jury as well, but the win was not a motivator for the media agencies given that the no media agency won the Lion. July If June was about Cannes Lions, July was about Emvies and nothing else. Media agencies were preparing and working against time to make the best of their works further presentable at the Emvie Awards. The month had seen a fire break out at the GroupM office and officials at MindShare and Maxus worked from makeshift offices to be able to present competent case studies and win the Emvies. MindShare swept the Emvie Awards 2008, Maxus, Madison and Lodestar Universal were the other agencies that did well at the Awards. August Sam Balsara was back in the news in August given his decision to launch Platinum Media - a second wholly-owned media brand that began its operations from Delhi. The month also saw the beginning of the end of the media services of TBWA. TBWA\India Group CEO Shiv Sethuraman was candid on his intentions on working closely with OMD India for the media requisites of the clients that TBWA had once the complete buyout was executed. At an industry level, the pitch fees subject was gaining momentum again. Madhukar Kamath was re-elected the President of the AAAI and he had mentioned the pitch fees as one of the key areas that he would drive in his role as the AAAI President. September September was busier than usual month for the media agencies... MindShare completed its restructuring and topped it with a rebranding exercise. MindShare was hereon Mindshare, and the change was not just from a capital 'S' to a small 's'. Mindshare rebranded itself to reflect the global restructuring that the agency had undertaken. On September 23, 2008, Mindshare unveiled the comprehensive worldwide rebranding of its corporate identity. The redesign was a first in over a decade. Ashish Bhasin was settling in at Aegis Media as its CEO. In this month, Aegis concluded its first ever management meeting in India. The Aegis Media APAC board, headed by Patrick Stahle, CEO, Aegis Media APAC, was in Mumbai for this meeting. With Posterscope and Isobar also active in India Ashish Bhasin ensured a good start to his stint at Aegis. The big one was the speculation on Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) decision to launch the MediaVest brand in India. The two brands - Starcom Worldwide and MediaVest Worldwide - co-exist in many other international markets. exchange4media understood that SMG is eyeing the first quarter of 2009 to launch the brand in India. Even as the India story was still shining, September-end quickly brought on some dark clouds with the global recession taking on its worst form and the impact of that trickling down on the Indian market. October The last quarter of the year was not what many were expecting when the Lintas Media Guide first spoke of a 4 per cent growth in the year, and everyone expected a better 2008-09. The media agencies had begun feeling the panic of whether clients would spend or not, of diktats from international offices to cut down all costs - overnight things were not as simple as they had been through the year. One of the first hits was when an internal mail from Sir Martin Sorrell made its way to the press. The mail was on WPP's decision to freeze hiring across market. Even though WPP India officials were not perturbed just then, in the following months, the freeze was to become a reality for India offices too. Diwali would have boosted a few spirits given that traditionally it has been a period for heavy spending. However, that did not happen. Various studies like R3, Assocham data and ZenithOptimedia ad spends survey showed a 20-25 per cent to 40 per cent dip in marketing spends in comparison to the previous years. All estimated ad spends for 2009 were also brought down. November The month saw restructuring at Starcom MediaVest Group, too, where the organisation identified a few markets as its growth markets. Needless to say, India featured in the list and the move also meant that Ravi Kiran, who was stationed at Singapore for his role as Starcom MediaVest Group, CEO, South Asia, would now be back in India. At another level, the television strike created problems for the media agencies as well as they got busy in negotiating with broadcasters on compensations given the drop in ratings due to repeat programming. The Mumbai terror attacks ended the month on a terrible note for everyone. December Agencies across were busy preparing for 2009, which they thought would be the worst year. The recruitment freezes stay - WPP is not hiring unless the hire was critical for a business; Interpublic Group companies began seeing the inclusion of regional heads in their hire decisions; Publicis Groupe Companies stayed quiet too; Omnicom, whose businesses are still at a nascent, have been speaking to people, but with the cuts in spends that were announced globally, the Indian operations began feeling the panic too; Aegis Media has kept its share of quiet, while Havas, too, has not been adding to its lot despite losing some senior officials. Lintas Media Group, Madison and Mindshare were the top scorers when it came to new business wins in the year. For now, all agencies have said that 2008 has closed fine even though some clients postponed communication activities. The real test though is 2009. |
