 |
 |
Himanka Das
Associate Vice President, Lintas Media Group |
 |
| |
While doing his graduation in Physics honours, Himanka Das had almost decided on joining ISRO. But 1991 turned out to be a historic year for the nation as well as for Das, when economic liberalisation completely changed the dynamics of career planning. The columns of Guruchan Das and Swaminathan Iyer influenced Das to develop an analytical mind about the future of Indian consumer. |
| |
Post his management degree in Foreign Trade from University of Pune in 1995, Das was working for a shipping company in sales and marketing in Mumbai, when the advertising bug bit me. He then went on to get his second Masters Degree in Mass Communication Studies from University of Pune. When campus placements began, he got a call from Ravi, secretary to Sam Balsara, saying that Balsara wanted to meet Das in Mumbai. Those days Madison Media was known as Madison DMB&B and it was where Das began his journey in the media industry, where he was inducted on the P&G account. |
| |
From Madison to Initiative and back to Madison, and then back to Lintas Media Group with short stints at Ulka Media and Starcom, Das’ 13 years in the media management profession has zig zagged quite a few agencies.
|
| |
Das was with the Lintas Media Group for seven years, working across offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and gathering the experience of working in different geographical environments. This laid the basis for his organic growth from a media planner to a business leader. |
| |
He has worked across diversified blend of product categories FMCG, Automobile, Electronics, Financial, Lifestyle, Travel accessories, etc. His key experience on several multinational accounts spreads across P&G, Unilever and Coke. He still looks back at the Axe launch in India 10 years’ back with much excitement. Also noteworthy was his work with clients like Maruti, Jyothy Laboratories, Samsonite, BPCL at Lintas Media Group. |
| |
Das believes that whatever the environment one faced, where one needed to take risks, it was good for the industry as it taught discipline to manage the advertising pie and also rationalise competencies. |
| |
|
 |
What was your breakthrough moment in the media and advertising industry? |
| |
Five years back if this question was asked to me my answer would have been different. Nowadays, every month one asks me this question. After 13 years in the industry, I am confident enough to say that nothing is permanent in our profession. Our skill sets have to be as dynamic as the media environment. My ability to be rational using logic and objectivity to manage our client’s investments and our media associates gives me breakthrough moments everyday. |
| |
|
|
What has kept you going in this industry for so many years? |
| |
I am a consumer of the Brand X. When I see the same Brand X in the media I consume, I ask myself whether the brand appealed to me. Next morning I ask the question was the media strategy right or the idea was right. Nothing can be more interesting than this! |
| |
|
|
Where do you see yourself five years hence? |
| |
Knowledge, scale and dynamism will enable me to achieve my personal goals in my profession. What I want to contribute to our industry is to make myself exemplary to attract talent. Maybe I should think about how to make Microsoft Excel glamorous. |
| |
|
|
Who are some of the people from the industry that you think have played a role in shaping your experience here? |
| |
Sam Balsara, who attracted me to join the media profession.
Ravi Kiran, who taught me how to be a smart negotiator.
Lynn de Souza, who taught me discipline and precision.
NP Sathyamurthy is a brilliant tutor to challenge your own strategies and bring in differential thinking.
|
| |
|
|
You are amongst the industry professionals who have seen the industry in absolute boom to this present slowdown. What were the first signs of slowdown that you noticed? |
| |
I feel fortunate to work for an organisation that has a sound heritage. We handle a diversified blend of businesses who are leaders in categories such as FMCG, Automobile, Electronics, Financial, Lifestyle, Travel accessories, etc. Yes! Financial and Automobile businesses are going through slowdown, but it is a matter of time. |
| |
|
|
What are some of the steps that you are taking now to help your agency brave the situation? |
| |
Our ability to collaborate with our media partners to create impact solutions to our client’s marketing objective is exemplary to the industry. We don’t force our clients to spend keeping in mind our revenue objective. We grow with our clients, at the same time we have to be patient if there is a slowdown, that’s true partnership. |
| |
|
|
What do you attach most importance to:
Numbers - Viewership - readership
Quality - Environment
Impact – buzz
|
| |
Each of these compliments one another. These are hygiene. In an age where we are talking about accountability, I am yet to see light of the day in advanced mechanisms like single source data. I know that India is a complicated market, but somewhere we need to start, before we celebrate 10th year anniversary of Peoplemeter and readership sources. |
| |
|
|
Your views on growing the advertising pie...
|
| |
It’s a natural progression that will enable to grow the advertising pie through new marketers, fragmentation of media, fragmentation of media consumption, inflation to media cost. We don’t have to worry on growing the pie. Challenge lies in how we differentiate our strategies for our brands and consumers. Definitely we are moving towards ROI business model, where we enable our business partners (clients) to grow their bottom lines. That’s true business partnership. |
| |
|
|
What are some of the biggest changes that you have seen in the advertising and media industry in your time spent here? |
| |
This space is too less to answer this question. Very soon you will see a 1,000-word write-up on the same. On a serious note, clients have become very media savvy and the biggest challenge for our media partners is that they should become more business solution providers rather than just being a media space seller. |
| |
|
|
Any experience that you really would want to go back in time and change? |
| |
Not really. We have come a long way. I had the opportunity to attend the recently concluded Festival of Media at Valencia, in Spain. At the Festival, a couple of panel discussions where I participated was about media scenarios of countries like Brazil, Finland in Europe. That was a reassurance that our scope of work in India is by far challenging. |
| |
|
|
What would you say was the most proud moment for you at work? |
| |
When any of my competing agency approaches my client for a pitch and my client says no to it, it is a proud moment for me to represent the team and the organisation. It is also a reassurance to me that I have many more years to keep going. |
| |
|
|
What is the motto or the guiding principle with which you lead your team? |
| |
I act as an extended arm of my clients/ marketers… |
| |
|
 |
| |
The GenNext Media Magnate is chosen by a committee comprising the exchange4media editorial team in consultation withRaj Nayak. |
| |
|
| |
Archive |
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Samir Khanna –Vice President, Mudra Communications |
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Prerna Singh AVP – Media, Reliance ADAG |
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Deepak Netram General Manager, Lodestar Universal
|
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Andrew Williams Group Brand Manager, Asian Paints
Ltd |
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Nitasha Narad– AVP – Marketing Communications,
Tata Teleservices, Mumbai |
| |
|
|
GenNext
Media Magnate: Divya Gururaj – Making a difference, not
a nest |
| |
|
|
