"Same way the books won't die because you have an e-reader, magazines wouldn't die because of electronic media. People still want to hold a paper magazine in their hand. I think that the idea of the demise of print is nothing but a fallacy. I think it wise to adapt to where the market is going. But I think there is a core, and there will always be a core.Nick Carugati
Nick Carugati, Director of International Advertising and Brand Partnerships, Time Out International
, Neelam Kapoor
Publisher and Vice President, Paprika Media - October 08, 10

I firmly believe that the era of segmented and targeted newspaper is going to come to the Indian markets soon. As of today, newspapers run on a ‘one shoe fits all’ strategy… In the next 5-10 years, we are getting into an era of segmented newspapers. Look at England… We have the Times and The Guardian right at the top of the SEC, but the numbers are very small. The bottom of the pyramid is The Sun, the tabloid with a ‘nude’ on page three. It’s a labourer’s newspaper, but it is the largest circulated newspaper in England. Then there is the Daily Mail, which is the middle class newspaper in England. Above that you have The Telegraph. The SECs are very clearly demarcated. I suspect this is what is going to happen in this country, too, whereby, each newspaper will cater to a selected audience.
Suresh Balakrishnan, COO, Mail Today - July 30, 10

“We are a punctuation mark in many stellar corporate statements. That is such a blessing.”
Swapan Seth, CEO, Equus Red Cell - July 23, 10

People are beginning to realise that branding is more of a science than art, and our products are focused to aid that branding is a science. Clients’ perspective to his business has changed and they want to get the brand blueprinting or the brand vision map ready before getting in the market. We are beginning to see a lot of traction. This method of ecosystem branding, where we are positioning ourselves like the hub and the PR, advertising agency, design firms as the spokes, is new to the industry and is gaining ground. Today, clients believe that one marketing manager cannot be the hub alone and would like to use Vertibrand as the extended hub, and I think as a model this is gaining a lot of currency.
Raghu B Viswanath, Managing Director, Vertebrand - July 16, 10

I think mobile, if you look at the distribution of availability and consumer usage, is all about being mass. It is not a new medium. It is an incredibly personal and highly relevant medium. It may be the number one medium, but as an advertising medium, it is still very much in its budding stage… In India, mobile phone penetration is very high, however, the number of smart phones is still very low. It is up to the industry to take note and say, sure there are smart phones, but the majority doesn’t use them, so what do we do about that?
Maarten Albarda, VP - Global Connections, Anheuser-Busch InBev - July 09, 10

It’s been a roller coaster ride and we don’t plan to get off! 2009 was quite challenging as many clients cut back on their marketing budgets. Despite the slowdown, we were able to acquire and grow many new key accounts in the FMCG and telecom verticals. We have been actively rolling out new campaigns in the last few months, with many more on the anvil. For us, 2010 looks really exciting. All our services are in demand and are growing.
Kanika Mathur, President & Co-founder, Solutions | Digitas - July 02, 10

We see a huge opportunity in BTL as it is an extremely fragmented business and isn’t consolidated easily, and nobody has a scale in this business. We are in a nascent stage, but we have started focusing on this business significantly in the last six months. In the next 2-5 years, we want to have at least 20-30 per cent of market share. This is a fragmented industry as very few people have invested in it. The only player that is showing some consolidation is the WPP Group.
Tarun Katial, CEO, Reliance Media World Ltd - June 25, 10

Clients need to do what they need to do. What happens often is that the next pretty girl is whispering sweet nothings in the clients’ ears and the client is intrigued by the possibility, and would trigger a pitch to explore it. It is absolutely true that the clients know what the capability of the incumbent is. Some clients today believe that even if they are perfectly satisfied with their agency, they have a statutory obligation to review the media… It used to be that unless something went terribly wrong, the client didn’t initiate a review. Today, clients initiate reviews whether something is wrong or not. Very often they significantly underestimate the trauma to the entire system on both sides.
Irwin Gotlieb, Global CEO, GroupM - June 18, 10

Right now most of the media agencies have the same business model, and also the media service brands are facing a perception problem, wherein they have not grown in the last 10 years in terms of how they have been perceived. Media teams need to bring back on-ground learning to their strategic thinking. There is need to make the thinking process more relevant and with an ear to the ground.
Divya Radhakrishnan, President, TME & Rediffusion Y&R Public Relations - June 11, 10

The smart planner has narrow-casted his plans. Another good thing that had happened in the industry was the downturn, as everyone started looking at things in a more critical way and at their spends too… We have been able to increase the ad rates even in the slowdown. The way things are going, you can only expect to see better platforms, better service and better distribution structure.
Rahul Johri, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific - April 16, 10

We are still cautious from a regional perspective, but from the MEC perspective, both regionally and globally, we firmly believe in our proposition and our core positioning in the market place. It has not been a good 12-15 months, but I think we have come out of it stronger, we have got a good senior management in place across Asia and consistency is what people are looking for, so we are feeling positive about the whole thing.
Mike Jackson, MD, MEC Access, Asia Pacific - April 09, 10

The framework of traditional media is based on interruption, like a commercial on TV. Social media is about amplification. It’s also an incredible form of listening. People are engaged in millions of conversation and they are leaving the records of the conversation. If you are marketing a product, the idea is not to insert yourself in the middle of a conversation. Correcting untrue information and disseminating knowledge of your product that is relevant to a conversation is where one can interrupt. It’s just interesting to watch what people have to say about your brand.
Jonathan Nelson, CEO, Omnicom Digital, and Jason Kuperman, Vice President, Asia Pacific Digital Development, Omnicom Group - April 02, 10

I don’t know any holding company that honours India like Omnicom does. They call APAC, Asia, SE Asia, we call it India. Even my card mentions APIMA, which basically means Asia Pacific India Middle East Africa. Although that in itself might not mean a big deal, but I do believe that it’s the path that counts. Japan and China are investing in India in a big way, but you don’t see that unless you are looking at the region way differently. Our vision is not of the vision of the present, but of where we see things going in the future. It is estimated that by 2025, India will be the second largest economy and that to my understanding merits being paid attention to.
Tim Love, Vice Chairman, Omnicom Group, CEO, Omnicom APIMA - March 12, 10

Let’s put it this way, we won’t create any confusion; we would clarify the brand offering that is relevant to local as well as to international clients and would help clients to make the right decision on which area they want to be the most serviced in. From the Mudra point of view, that gives Mudra the opportunity to clearly be the competitive brand and it gives DDB the opportunity to clearly be the international corporate. As a creative organisation, we don’t want to change local cultures or re-orientate them to western minds and that is where our local and international talent comes in.
John Zeigler, President & CEO, DDB Asia Pacific, Japan & India - October 16, 09

Let’s be clear, this downturn is going to end, and in India, it is a slowdown unlike in other parts of the world. Budgets are under pressure, but we see this as an opportunity and not a massive threat as now is the time to have an intense dialogue with our clients, really understand their business challenges and explore new areas to have greater interaction and dialogue with their consumers.
Mike Jackson MD - Asia Pacific, MEC:Access,
Stephen Li CEO - South & S-E Asia, Mediaedge:cia - March 06, 09

Our entire business is based on collaboration. So, we have a slightly different model than a lot of European design businesses. According to me, the activity and the effect on businesses and clients would be much more powerful working with somebody who is actually local, well-established, and has a successful business. So, the collaboration route will be much better than opening a very small office with a few people. We are also motivated to bring Indian creativity culture back to our studios. So, I don’t see it as a one-way interaction, but a genuine collaboration.
Simon Dixon Founder & Director, DixonBaxi, Aporva Baxi Founder & Director, DixonBaxi - February 26, 09

"We have found that Zed has created a good focus within the organisation and it provided a clear recognition to our clients. We got the best people in the digital space market. We are making the right investments to get people on board. Having Zed in the market, it allows us to have a focal point, which will help us to make acquisitions in this area. That's certainly what we have done in other leading markets: we have made significant and several acquisitions. By having a separate identity like Zed, it makes us much more adaptable and easy to have an acquisition we make."
Steve King, Chief Executive, ZenithOptimedia Worldwide - April 21, 07

India has got an enormous amount of talent. It has some very good people and strategic thinkers. This is testified by the increasing number of Indians in APAC countries and handling bigger responsibilities. I think when it comes to the operational level, the systems and processes that enable efficiency, that enable the culture of response and diligence is lacking. But as the blending happens and as more as more flatness comes across, those barriers have to disappear. It's a highly competitive market and India doesn't necessarily have to be competitive because of the low wages.
Vishnu Mohan, CEO, Asia Pacific, MPG (Media Planning Group) - February 09, 07

Today most youngsters want to do a poster, a mailer, a small book or a logo which will help them win an award. They have nothing to do with the brand, it's outside the jurisdiction of the brand, but they would do everything else for which they have not been hired for. That's a problem, and not just with us, it's a cancer that's going across the country. Unfortunately, a lot of good people who do good work on brands that gave them their bread and butter became disillusioned.
Prathap P Suthan, National Creative Director, Grey Worldwide - December 30, 06

One of the biggest things about Aegis is people don't want us to be bought by someone else, just as much as they want to buy us themselves. What really happened was Bollore (Vincent Bollore, Chairman, Havas) bought some stock - Publicis doesn't want Havas to get us, so they start talking to us - that becomes public. Sorrell (Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP) then has a legitimate excuse to put his finger in it. He can't buy our media business because it's a conflict of interest, competition issues and because he is so bored with it and he has spent so much of money on each acquisition!
Robert Lerwill, CEO, Aegis Group Plc - December 23, 06

The days when one said 'I am XYZ brand, buy me' are passe. People don't look at advertising in that way anymore, they have to decide for themselves what they want and in that sense you have to mean really something and be relevant to the consume...Anything that looks nice now might become passe later, so how it integrates into the thinking of the consumers and how consumers adapt to it for a long term is important.
Premjeet Sodhi, Senior Vice President, Initiative, Lintas Media Group - December 08, 06

I think, sooner or later, there will be a push to have more than one frequency available to you in a single market just to diversify the choice. The idea of foreign ownership may evolve someday into higher percentage. The idea of news and current affairs and public information being available on commercial FM radio may pave some sort of evolution as you go along.
Bob Cohen, President, International Radio, Clear Channel - November 24, 06

Yahoo! sees a lot of opportunities in mail, instant messenger, search, in communication products, in community services and in content across various languages. I think e-commerce will do very well in India, too, though we don't have much to offer in this field right now. And then Internet itself is a really fantastic opportunity that we see in India.
George Zacharias, Managing Director, Yahoo! India - October 20, 06

It is easy to say that bringing companies together will give you size, class and other values. The critical thing, however, is that the two companies should be culturally the same. Both Universal McCann and Lodestar have culturally strong connections. Universal McCann has a phenomenal global client list, while Lodestar has a phenomenal local client list. Lodestar brings in the infrastructure, while Universal McCann brings its global experience to India.
David Morgan, President, APAC, Universal McCann Worldwide - October 14, 06

In a big agency there is enough bad work floating, so you just squeeze a good work and manage the cost. Chances are that you will win an award for the fake one and it will help one move up in career. But the difficult part is to create something that might not merit an award but benefit the client and the consumer. You can do some bizarre packaging with some dew drop and the brand name thrown in some corner and win an award because it will look unusual from a jury's point of view, but not from client's point of view.
Freddy Birdy, Naved Akhtar, Co-founder, Shop - October 07, 06

One of the key things about the Internet today, after the upgrade from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, is that there are niche websites. User generated content has become very popular and very big. However, I don't think either will take over the other. Both will co-exist. User generated content in India is very recent, but worldwide they began 4-5 years ago. Still MSN, Google and Yahoo! are growing like crazy.
Jaspreet Bindra, Country Manager, MSN India - September 29, 06

Bunty Peerbhoy: "What is unique about the model is that we talk of Above the Line, Below the Line, and so on. This is the only medium that allows the desire to get fulfilled instantly. This is the only medium that truly delivers Through the Line."

Dan Ginsburg: "We are starting with India, and early next year we'll move into different markets. We're looking at two South East Asian markets, and two European markets. By the end of 2007, we hope to be in five markets."
Bunty Peerbhoy, Chairman, MAA Group and Dan Ginsburg, President, TAG Media Network - September 22, 06

If you recognise the value of creative then you should also understand that there are some conditions that are conducive to making a truly outstanding creative, and part of the condition is the encouragement and the fact that clients whom you tell a great idea instantly respond to it. They should be able to say yes or no from their heart. More and more clients are beginning to do that. But then it requires time - sometimes resources and sometimes just an open mind.
Santosh Desai, President, McCann Erickson - September 15, 06

"A media agency can't tell a creative agency what to do! When you work with good creative people, you realise that they bring something to the table that a media agency can never provide... Stable clients are seeing the importance of efficient media work and they are paying. Some of the large clients are on the fee-based structure, where commissions and rates don't arise at all, and that is a much better way to go... People are avoiding advertising more and more and this would increase. It is getting therefore a bit dangerous for advertising to just be conventional."
Lynn de Souza, Director, Lintas Media Group - September 09, 06

Indian industries should first look inside at the organisation's culture and what has been set up there. There are companies that ask how should we do this across the entire organisation because we are in marketing and we do not talk to sales. If this is how companies work, then they will be sitting in one space for a long time and not move forward. Companies that are making fast progress are collaborating with clients to get their RoI straight. All the departments in an organisation have to be in sync.
Jim Lenskold, President, Lenskold Group - September 01, 06

"I believe very strongly that as India moves forward with the young population we have, which is the aspirational population, there will be people who will move and say I don't want just saas-bahu, I want something which is more entertaining but informative. So, we will move to that space."
Deepak Shourie, Executive VP & MD, Discovery Networks India - August 25, 06

The clients want to partner with an agency who has domain knowledge but how can I have domain knowledge if I don't handle your competitor? Do you really believe that agencies go around leaking information? Look at the people movements from client organisation as well as agencies, so where is the secrecy? The junior people are moving anyways and there is no rule to say that competitive organisation would not hire them. It happens all the time, so much for confidentiality!
Suman Srivastava, Chief Executive Officer, Euro RSCG India - August 18, 06

I really wouldn't mind if we have it (pitch fees) in place as a system. It's not so much about the fees but I don't think it is a good idea for clients to go on fishing expedition with their agencies. I think that is bad business even for clients who have certain expectations from the agencies. If there is a way to officially avoid agencies from being exploited, then we should try and follow it.
Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, GroupM, India and South Asia - August 11, 06

The elements of a strong brand include name, logo and all the marketing activities that go around that. In terms of creating brands in a market place, it is about creating the right kind of awareness, image, performance and functions. Also, make sure that you create the right kind of relationship with your customers too.
Kevin Lane Keller, Professor of Marketing, Dartmouth College - August 03, 06

India is seeing a very fast pace of change. There are new buildings, airports, new infrastructure coming. We are seeing the country and the economy changing but how are the people changing? In some ways, they don’t seem to change at all and in some ways, everything is changing – so there really is a lot of guess work there. One big challenge is to understand this changing consumer and we have made major investments in that area.
Thomas L Bernardin, Chairman & CEO, Leo Burnett Worldwide - July 29, 06

Noise can be heard only when you make it. People are talking about awards won at Cannes - for ads that no one has seen! I haven't seen the ads in the media. We don't want to make this kind of noise.… We expect Dentsu to be among the top three media agencies in the country in the next 18 months. As the next few months unfold, expect some very large media initiatives from Dentsu.
Sandeep Goyal, Chairman, Dentsu India - July 21, 06

We have been very clear about what we are trying to do. Rajat Sharma personifies the India TV brand. He has built his reputation for standing up for issues and people, unafraid; being the voice of the viewer and of people in general. That continues, that's our content guideline. A lot of work that we do reflects that. We often pick up stories that many people agree a lot of channels wouldn’t have the guts to. A number of stories that we do are relevant to the everyday lives of people.
Chintamani Rao, Chief Executive Officer, India TV - July 14, 06

Explain what are the options that the industry has today? Margins are down, show me one client in the last seven years who has actually increased the percentage commission levels on an increased spend. The moment a client doubles the budget, he halves the agency's commission. If you are not going to reward your agency well, how do you expect an agency that goes to the same management school, has the same talent pool - wherever the talent pool exists - to pay a comparable salary to the people you are hiring? My clients and we go to the same management school, but they pay thrice the salary that I pay.
Ashutosh Khanna, Chief Operating Officer, Grey Worldwide - July 06, 06

Viacom Brand Solutions is priority. We have to get the channel environment perfect and authentic client endorsements added to that. We have to get the house in order first and get the business model right. We have to leverage what we already have. We are taking steps in the consumer products division and the digital space to get these models right and going too. I am very proud of the MTV brand and very excited about what can be done with it.
Amit Jain, Managing Director, MTV Networks India - June 30, 06

Indian consumers are very smart. They feel that packaged goods are not fresh. They also give importance to value for money. If they feel it will be cheaper for them to buy fruits and process them at home, they will not pay a premium for convenience. They are also brand conscious, but the most important fact is that they want a good value-for-money proposition.
Amit Burman, Chief Executive Officer, Dabur Foods Ltd - June 24, 06

I think The Times of India, Delhi and Mumbai are very local newspapers, in fact just as The Telegraph is a good paper for Kolkata and the east, North-East or Jharkhand. I think we could be successful in Mumbai or Delhi. But again the question arises 'will the same brand work?' The Telegraph itself is a proposition that may or may not succeed in Delhi or Mumbai. When we are talking of national presence, we should not be talking of only Mumbai or Delhi, but of a pan-India presence. The point I want to make here is that being in Delhi or Mumbai doesn't make you national, it actually makes you a local paper that comes out from five locations.
Dr Pramath Raj Sinha, MD and CEO, ABP Pvt Ltd - June 16, 06

No merger can be without problems. In our case, the whole thing took longer than expected.... I wish we’d been able to complete everything a few months earlier. But it took its due course. To my mind, the biggest challenge, however, is really managing people’s sensitivities during this period. Because of the natural transition that an organisation goes through during a merger, people have a lot of questions and concerns that need to get addressed. Some get resolved very quickly, while some take time.
Subhash Kamath, CEO, Bates Enterprise - June 09, 06

We are focused on delivering "growth" and "consumer connect understanding" to our clients and all our research and tools are focused on doing custom specific rather than generic research for our clients. The challenge today is to develop a currency that addresses the use of holistic planning and we believe that this approach helps us maximise the ROI for our client's communication.
Ambika Srivastava, CEO, and Mona Jain, EVP, Zenith Optimedia - June 02, 06

What we like about being here by ourselves is that we can put in the investment that we think is necessary. We’ve found that in the major markets of the world, we’re much more successful when we can do it ourselves and put in the full force of both the financial and the information resources that IDG has. When you’ve launched publications in 80 countries, you learn a few things on how to do it right. And it’s good to be able to use that knowledge, as well as your financial resources, to do it right in every country.
David Hill, President and CEO, IDG International Publishing Services - May 27, 06

“India has been an exporter of market research talent and is one of the most talented markets in the world in terms of market research expertise. That said, the market here is growing extremely strongly – in addition you have markets like China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam – all growing in double digits. So it’s creating an enormous drain in terms of market research expertise.”
Travyn Rhall, Regional MD, Customized Research Services, Asia Pacific, ACNielsen - May 20, 06

"Street furniture is about designing, installing, and maintaining a product, which always have a public facility or communities for the public. Street furniture is more about the beautification, more about the services that you can bring to the people rather than all media design. That’s why NDMC project is more about the beauty of the shelter than about the size of the advertising, so it’s going to rock.”
Jean Charles Decaux, Co-Chief Executive Officer, JC Decaux, France - May 11, 06

With a luxury boom in India, there are over one million luxury consumers, which is only a fraction of eight million plus consumers who have the disposable incomes but are unfamiliar with the luxury segment. The growth rate is 14.6 per cent. Target audience is 22-55 year olds. India’s luxury goods market of Rs 717 billion is set to expand with a new firm to facilitate process by bringing together buyers and manufacturers. India’s total retail market has been estimated at $160 billion or Rs 7,170 billion, covering eight million consumers. Of them, one million are considered to be in the luxury brands segment.
Thomas Kastgen, Chairman, Leading Brands of the World - May 05, 06

"Hyundai Motors decided to set up an in-house agency that can take good care of the brand. In India, Hyundai wants to take its image to the next level so that it can sell its high-end products with a lot more ease than at present. The idea is also to consolidate the gains made by Hyundai so that we can strengthen, leverage, and add value to the brand’s presence in a very definitive manner."
Yoon Kwan Choi, MD, and Vivek Srivastava, ED & COO, Innocean Worldwide Communication India - April 28, 06

“I am appalled at the way creatives are researched. Most of the time the researchers go to consumers and ask them to become the judge of the creative! But consumers are not capable of being judges. Because, if they were, then they would be making great films or creating commercials. Consumers just want to be entertained.”
V. Shantakumar, Managing Director,, Saatchi & Saatchi - April 20, 06

“The Asia Pacific region -- where we launched our Asia edition in 2003 -- over the last three years has become very important and it is growing very rapidly. And that’s really where India fits in, because clearly there is no barrier as far as language is concerned and we believe there is a huge amount of potential not only in terms of circulation numbers and readership, but following on from that, in terms of advertising sales.”
Ben Hughes, Worldwide Advertising Director, Financial Times - April 15, 06

Earlier, when media was not as dynamic as it is today, you could get away with a lot of mediocrity. Even then, the ads that really stayed were ones with the big ideas, and it will always be that way. There were fewer of those then than what there is today. Another thing that has changed is that the need for the idea to be relevant is stronger today – it is not just about a good idea. Some people speak of global ideas today and I hate this word ‘global’. That can’t be your driving point. A good idea is one that is relevant to its market.
R Balakrishnan, National Creative Director, Lowe India - April 08, 06

Retention is a problem across the board - any good company is facing it. I think what O&M instills into each individual is great sense of belonging and a great sense of pride. The brand name is very strong and if you are here with the best, monetary benefits really don’t mater. If you look at the attrition rates across the industry, we would be one of the lowest. So you have to motivate people. That said, if someone has to go, he would go any way. Fundamentally, because the team is so strong, we have never been dependent on any one person.
Pratap Bose, CEO designate, O&M - March 31, 06

Internet spends have already gone up in India in the last year, but people are still doing it without any data or research to base their decisions on. Advertising accelerates when there is measurement. Nielsen Media Research launched Hispanic panel in the US and advertising on the panel increased significantly following that. NetRatings launched in New Zealand and advertising almost doubled in one year of that. Clients, particularly in markets like India, are starved of some kind of information. Right now, they have to depend on company server logs, which can be inflated for any number of reasons. It’s not good to trust server logs.
Forrest Didier, Managing Director, Asia Pac-Latin America, Nielsen-NetRatings - March 25, 06

Just on the face of it, it is difficult to isolate any one media. But when you look deeper, because of emergence of through the line or integrated marketing communication, the emphasis is shifting from the creative side of the business to the media side. The role of account or strategic planning, which was once an important component of an advertising agency, is now seen in a media agency and not a creative agency. Simply because media agencies have access to the small and big picture of media consumption habit, where the consumer is, and what are the different ways of reaching him. And in the process, even the remuneration or commission is getting closer between the media and creative agencies.
Chandradeep Mitra, President, Optimum Media Solutions - March 17, 06

"I think that the whole media is in a crisis. It's a paradoxical situation. You have an exploding media, which is expanding in every segment – television, Internet and print. But I also think everybody is questioning their basic assumptions. Who is our target audience? How do people get information? When do they want this information? What are they willing to pay for information? Has news become a commodity? By information I mean news, opinions, analyses. These are the questions everybody is asking themselves because the consumer is getting information from many different sources in real time. There is no waiting any more."
Aroon Purie, CEO & Editor in Chief, India Today Group - March 10, 06

Long live India Today, Long live Outlook! When we launched the magazine, we did not target India Today. If India Today wants to follow us, then it’s their problem. When we launched Outlook, we launched it as a weekly news magazine, they were a fortnightly at that time. When we launched Outlook Money, we launched it as a personal finance magazine, I did not ask them to start a personal finance column in Business Today or India Today. I started Outlook Traveller as a travel magazine, if they changed India Today Plus to Travel Plus, it’s not my problem. I have been identifying issues and going ahead with that. If they want to follow us, if they want to change the way they look at journalism, then God bless them. I think there is space for the two of us and maybe more.
Maheshwer Peri, President & Publisher, The Outlook group - March 03, 06

"There will be some modifications along the way, but the business - at the end of the day - is still about ideas. It’s still about attracting and growing business with ideas. There is a great pressure on the individual’s ability to attract business."
David Bell, Co-Chairman, Interpublic Group - February 24, 06

"In the short run, there is a lot of interest in BTL, but its growth and revenues are largely driven by clients who are in one form or the other in niche marketing. In my experience, niche marketing may be high income group individuals or it may be medium net worth individuals, but for main stream FMCG businesses, my belief is that television, the 30-second ad, will continue to be the dominant drivers. That will change only when modern retail volumes will begin to touch 30 per cent or 40 per cent of FMCG sales. Right now they are some 5 per cent."
Arvind Sharma, Chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett India - February 16, 06

Unless you have more money than the sun, you can't possibly reach everybody. You never get to the point of a marketing machine where you stick a certain amount of money on one end and you get customers on the other end. Human beings are rational, emotional and intuitive and this means that marketing will always be part art, part science. You have to target and that isn't enough, as I can target you but if I can’t touch you, I can’t motivate you. So is it enough to just do a great ad today? No. Is a great idea, message still central to communication? Yes.
Kent Wertime, President, OgilvyOne Asia Pacific - February 10, 06

"I think we need to be relevant and distinctive to our audience. We need to constantly find ways of making the viewer feel the news – we are a channel of big stories and we have got to make sure that we stick to that…People have liked the style and the content. But we mustn’t forget that news is a habit that takes time to build, it doesn’t happen overnight."
Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting Co. Ltd - February 03, 06

"We believe that the so-called classic advertising can only grow to a certain extent. Real growth has to come from the marketing services area, where the client spending is also increasing. While clients have been relying heavily on classic advertising, they also realize that their reserves are going to come from events and CRM and other issues that seem to have been taken for granted. To us, both these business groups are very important, to provide holistic solutions to advertisers."
Srinivasan K Swamy, Managing Director and CEO, RK Swamy BBDO (P) Ltd. - January 20, 06

For other mediums like television and the Internet, technology has created its own set of problems, where people can avoid ads – but that is not the case in OOH. Here technology is paving the growth for better plans, measuring returns and in all giving the advertiser more reasons to invest in the OOH sector. With Kinetic, we are in a leadership position in India and we will make sure that we do our bit to achieve exactly that – get more advertisers to trust the medium.
Eric Newnham, Global CEO, Kinetic - January 14, 06

The focus this year would be on maintaining relations with the customer and being a part of his/her life. Our focus would definitely increase towards the Premium end of the product categories. The focus products in the consumer electronics category would be New Display Panels(NDP)-Plasma TV's, LCD TV's, DVD Players and Home Theatres is another area that would be on top priority."
K R Kim, President South West Asia, LGE, and MD, LGEIL - January 13, 06

We don’t create noise because what matters is that we have grown at the pace we wanted, our infrastructure, our clients are fantastic, we have a rich bank of human resources. What else can we ask for? I don’t care about awards and public image. We know the business of entertainment. We worship our work, we worship our clients and we worship profitability. We don’t worship packaging. We like media but we don’t live by media.
Shailendra Singh, Joint Managing Director, Percept Holdings - January 06, 06

“We believe that if a brand has to create an equity that time cannot erode, the communication idea around it has to be eternally young. It has to be an exciting idea that energises the brand. It has to make the brand highly desirable to people, no matter what the brand is. That’s the kind of work we will remain engaged in – impeccably executed, unusual ideas that set our brands apart from the rut and build them to be unforgettable. We will remain engaged in creating work that the audience will enjoy and relish. Along the way if some awards happen to come by, that would be great. Right now though, we are concentrating on the means rather than the end.”
Ravi Deshpande, Chief Creative Officer, Contract Advertising - December 30, 05

“What clients are happy about is that we tell them that we are not inventing a brand, we are just helping you discover it or rediscover it. Most of the entrepreneurs have a very clear idea of what kind of corporation they want. Our job is to ensure that the viewpoint is articulated clearly so that not just him but the entire company share that, and secondly, the most important thing is to know whether stakeholders also see it similarly. We’ve had instances where the stakeholders have turned around.”
Kiran Khalap, Co-founder, Chlorophyll Brand & Communications Consultancy - December 23, 05

“I don’t think there will be any change in the low agency commission structure. The low agency commission system was started by multinationals; Indian agencies or Indian advertisers didn’t start it. The low commission as well as fee system came with multinational agencies and their clients to make more money.”
Ali Merchant, Director, Triton Communication - December 17, 05

I believe clients love our honesty. We are simple people, who work hard and think hard for our clients. We want our clients to win, and in that is our success. They like the freshness that we bring, along with the flexibility to mould ourselves according to our clients needs. They like our thinking, they like our working process, which is collaborative. This has worked wonders for us in India and this will be the process around the world wherever possible.”
Praveen Kenneth, Co-Chairman and Managing Director, Law & Kenneth Worldwide - December 09, 05

China has been one of our strongest markets. When I had first gone to China, I was of the impression, ‘fine, this is a big market, but it is going to be simple because everyone speaks the same language’. Of course, that naïve notion didn’t last long – eventually, I wrote a presentation titled ‘500 Chinas’. It is a difficult market because of its heterogeneous nature. Sure it has a national language, Mandarin, but it is like India, where much of the South can’t speak Hindi.
D Sriram, CEO, Starcom Mediavest Group, Asia - December 02, 05

I am not particularly concerned with number one or number two. I have seen lots of different studies that change, depending on what you look, creativity or size – the basic point is that there are three major agencies and we are one of them and that is fine. I’m more concerned about the quality of the product… If I were to draw a comparison between O&M and Lowe, there is more focus on brilliant effective work for our major clients at Lowe as opposed to O&M, which has spent more time on winning creative awards. The idea has worked, it has made the agency hot and interesting and that is great.
Tony Wright, President & CEO, Lowe Worldwide - November 18, 05

“I have a lot of respect for WPP and Publicis and I expect them to be very fierce in India. This is one area where they have better market share, but I know that through our style and creativity we can develop quick partnerships here and then, once we are doing the best work, we aren’t dependent on anything else…India is a fabulous country and it has got unbelievable opportunity! I think the entrepreneurship and creativity inherent in the Indian people is a breathtaking cocktail, which makes for a great future and I want to be a part of it.”
Michael Birkin, President & CEO, Omnicom Asia Pacific, Vice-Chairman – Omnicom Group - November 11, 05

The fact that we’ve just produced a number of original productions in India – Music, Art and Dance, Bam Bam Bam Gir Pade Hum, which are two of the top rating shows on POGO – goes on to show the knowledge we have on the content that clicks. We’re obviously doing something right. And I put a lot of it down to experience. You have to put in your apprenticeship. You have to do your homework. You get a degree after three years at a university, not just in a month. Groundwork is important and our strength there is working for us.
Ian Diamond, Sr VP and General Manager, Turner Network, Asia - November 11, 05

“One of the first things that HINDUSTAN TIMES tried to do is to make sure that its brand is more sharply defined in the minds of its readers. For this, in Delhi we did a campaign to communicate the positioning of HT as a brand. One of the strengths of HT is that over several decades, it has been seen as a dominant brand influencing the thoughts and behaviour of people it reaches out to. In certain ways, HT was playing the role of a thought leader, a brand which stimulated thought, thus empowering the reader.”
RAJIV VERMA, CEO, HT Media Limited - November 04, 05

“For a long period of time after we started, Zee was the No. 1 channel, and then for about a year we were No. 1. Thereafter, STAR has been No. 1 for a while. So far, both have been No. 1 for four to five years and, in that regard we didn’t get our due sufficiently. So it is our time now to turn around and get it!”
Kunal Dasgupta, CEO, SET India - October 29, 05

“I think the secret of our success is the belief in the Internet medium. While a lot of people gave up the Internet, the Times of India Group, under the leadership of Vineet Jain, continued to believe in the medium. Jain has a firm belief that the Internet is the way the world will move. The Times of India Group continues to invest on the Internet. So we continued to build our portal, continued to deepen our content, continued to roll out new products.”
Mahendra Swarup, Managing Director & CEO, Times Internet Limited - October 22, 05

“JWT has always been known for its relationships with the brands it handles. What matters most is the quality of the people, the thought process and the work that we do. Most of the ads that we have done are close to my heart. I feel the organisation is far greater than the individuals. JWT is the kind of agency that is bigger than such small issues. True we have worked hard to grow from a small agency to a big one, but it’s merely a perception that creativity has got lost in this process.”
Rohit Ohri, Senior Vice President, JWT - October 14, 05

“Only those channels, which will showcase news concerning the masses and make them aware in terms of the happenings of the world, will be successful…Every channel has its own business strategies. I feel that there is space for only four news channels in the country and ultimately only four will survive either through mergers or through buyouts.”
Laxmi Narain Goel, Director, Zee News Group - October 07, 05

“Indian products are present under global brand names, but as contract manufactured products. It shows that we need to transcend and create brands out of products…I cannot see why an Indian brand cannot address the global market. All around the world, there is an ‘India fever’…it is now a great time to enter the fray.”
K V Rao, Managing Partner, Idee Nouvelle, Singapore - September 30, 05

“The debate over editor is king or the marketing manager is king is a phoney debate; it doesn’t exist because no editor will tell you that selling is not important. That there is a war between the editorial and marketing departments is phoney too…However, the real test for the media is the test of editorial credibility and how we reinvent ourselves. The industry is at a crossroads. I am not just talking about the magazine business -- I am talking about the entire media industry.”
Vinod Mehta, Editor-in-Chief, Outlook - September 23, 05

“We’ve got to be seen as one of the creative powerhouses in the country. I am aware that currently we aren’t and that has to change, so that is number one priority for us. We are not so sure we want to be an Ogilvy because out of the Ogilvy stable, apart from Fevicol, I am not aware of any other brand they have built. We don’t want to be a Lowe because they have their own standard ads. We want to be Rediff DYR and that’s what we are. We want to do work which has to be relevant, it has to build brands, it cannot just be a one-off.”
Preet Bedi, President, Rediffusion DYR - September 16, 05

“We are not just looking at the US and UK markets, but other areas too like Canada, Middle East and South Africa. We will be entering foreign soil in a phased manner starting with the UK market. We are trying to release both the channels, Aaj Tak and Headlines Today, in those markets.”
G Krishnan, Executive Director and CEO, TV Today Network - September 09, 05

“I always say that newspaper is like a department store. The front page is the lobby, which has a little of everything and a map of what is available where. The department store has something for everyone and you can choose what you want from it using that map.”
Gautam Adhikari, Editor, DNA - August 26, 05

“There is fragmentation and market proliferation now with growth in media, which makes our task complicated, but these are positive trends. Earlier, there was no way of achieving reach unless you did business with all the channels. But now we can reach objectives through dispersion. The trade dynamics also change with this. There is no one that you have to do business with, so no one holds you to pricing. It does mean a lot more work for us, but that is what we are paid for.”
Irwin Gotlieb, Worldwide CEO, GroupM - August 19, 05

“The focus very clearly is to work with a select group of large brands/companies so there are some 18 or 20 big brands that we handle as opposed to signing up everything that comes our way for a lakh of rupees. We definitely are not interested in small businesses, small billing businesses because it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the client it doesn’t work for us, can’t add enough value in terms of the repertoire of services that we have to offer.”
Niteen Bhagwat, Executive Director & CEO, Interface Communications - August 12, 05

“On a major film, India accounts for less than 1 per cent of the world market. The same goes for China. The reasons include: one, that there is rampant video piracy in both the countries. Secondly, the price of tickets is too low. Lastly, audiences for an Indian movie are too less. The average production costs are in the region of $60-65 million. The marketing cost is $30-35 million. Neither India nor China gives back even a million.”
Ashok Amritraj, Chairman and CEO, Hyde Park Entertainment - August 05, 05

“Advertising has, like the consumer, evolved over the years. Competition has increased rapidly and immensely. Categories have been crowded with brands. As a result, demand for consumer attention has increased. Agencies and advertisers have had to innovate to retain consumer mindspace cutting across mindsets and SECs.”
Ram Ray, Chairman, Response India - July 29, 05

“The ambition is to establish a sports channel and sports is not just restricted to cricket. However, Zee Network does not regard the cricket issue as finished but it did give us a great deal of thinking time on alternatives to supplement cricket. We got more creative and more innovative. The idea is to bring certain sports, which Indian teams or Indian individuals succeed in, to the fore and if we latch on to one of those sports effectively, we can probably ride our way to success.”
Gary Lovejoy, COO, Zee Sports - July 22, 05

“The Italiano series that we are going to bring comprises seven new scooter designs that have previously been bestsellers abroad and will now come to India for the first time. Clearly, these scooters are like a breath of fresh air in the scooter industry, where the format has not changed since 1984 when Kinetic brought in India’s first gearless scooter. While motorcycles in India have segmented from 100cc to 250cc, and in designs from commuter to cruisers to sports bikes, the scooter segment has not benefited from much innovation.”
Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Joint Managing Director, Kinetic Engineering Ltd - July 15, 05

“There are a lot of changes I would like to bring about. But there is one thing that saddens me deeply. The whole concept of a good campaign has been reduced to making these ‘award winning’ ads. I wish agencies would realize that their job is not to create to win trophies but to service the client who is paying for it. A good ad is one that can be related to the brand, and literally contributes to the philosophy of the company.”
Bunty Peerbhoy, CEO & Group Chairman, MAA GROUP - July 07, 05

“Actually our objective is to play an important role in everyone’s daily life. The Internet is touching the social fabric of communities and Yahoo! is playing an integrated role by enabling its communities to grow, communicate and connect over the web and now the mobile.”
Neville Taraporewalla, Country General Manager, Yahoo! India - July 01, 05

“The service that Aprais provides is more like auditing the relationship between client and agency for longevity of their partnership and for better outcome. It aims at clients and agencies wishing to arrive at equitable solutions for agency compensation. Aprais works with marketers and their advertising, direct marketing, PR and other communications agencies to help them interact more effectively.”
Malcolm Rankin, Chairman Asia Pacific, Aprais - June 23, 05

“The business has become more competitive, younger and demands a greater responsiveness in terms of turnaround times, capturing consumer insights or even the nature of service demanded by clients. Communication plans are not merely TVCs and print anymore. We are talking of different touch points, we are talking of a need for media neutral solutions and these are significant changes that have come in the business.”
Madhukar Kamath, MD & CEO, Mudra - June 18, 05

“We are into corporate transformation programmes. It is different from management consulting. In any consultancy you have to provide a growth vision, and define some tangible deliverables. At Shining, we are in the specialist platform. Our specialisation is in growth and we target the growth area.”
Shombit Sengupta, International Management Consultant,and Founder & Creative Strategist, Shining Emotional Surplus - June 10, 05

“Why live in fear? If the organisation offers good prospects and a great working environment, people will keep coming in. You can’t narrow somebody’s horizons, just because you are afraid of losing that particular employee.”
Suman Srivastava, President, Euro RSCG - June 02, 05

“Bates did well on existing business last year. Some excellent campaigns were created on brands like Nokia, Tata AIG, Indian Airlines, Hamam, Anandabazar Patrika, etc. And all these brands are doing exceedingly well in the marketplace.”
Subhash Kamath, CEO, Bates India - May 26, 05

“It’s sad that most media agencies are willing to work for peanuts, just to showcase a decent roster of clients to the world. In turn, this leads to low pay scales, which further prevents the right kind of talent entering the industry. It’s a vicious circle.”
Lynn De Souza, Director, Lintas Media Group - May 12, 05

Advertising and marketing services go hand in hand. Bates is an ad agency and 141 Worldwide takes things forward with through-the-line initiatives. The two teams function together to activate the brand. Activation means that the brand is not just talking through advertising but interacting with the consumer.
Charulata Ravi Kumar, Country Head, 141 Worldwide, and EVP and GM, Bates India - May 06, 05

“We are seeing a change in the market now. Apollo Tyres is giving a lot of education and training on the advantages of tubeless tyres. It’s a learning journey for the customer and people will have to start believing in it and experiencing it. It’s a slow process but will eventually happen. The world today is going tubeless. We are in discussion with OEMs for our new brand, Acelere, for tubeless radials.”
Neeraj R. S. Kanwar, Chief Operating Officer, Apollo Tyres Limited - April 28, 05

“From the analog world of post-production we began to make a paradigm shift with digital technology where the technology was very capital expensive. Today the creative folks of the entertainment industry enjoy a digital intermediate capability, which has unleashed a power never experienced before.”
Devendra Mishra, President & CEO, Prasad Corporation, USA, and Sai Prasad Director, Prasad Group - April 21, 05

“I have been familiar with Indian films for a while now. When I was young, I saw movies of Satyajit Ray in the foreign film categories at various International Awards. I have also seen Elizabeth and Bandit Queen and have seen many more but I don’t remember the names now. Well, I think India is quite ahead both in terms of quality and quantity and certainly has contributed significantly in this medium.”
Barrie M. Osborne, Hollywood Film maker, - April 14, 05

“Dabur Foods is now contributing 10 per cent to Dabur India’s sales. Our growth for the last quarter has been around 45 per cent over last year... We have no plans to enter the ready-to-eat food segment. We are putting all our energies on the beverage side which we think is a much better growth area.”
Amit Burman, Executive Director, Dabur India, Dabur Foods - March 24, 05

“In an interactive age, the consumers have an immense control over media with technologies like Tivo and Pop-up blockers. They really are the determinants of where, when and if they want to experience both programming and advertising. The fundamental change is to move from the push model to the pull model.”
Matt Freeman, CEO, Tribal DDB, Worldwide - March 18, 05

“We have pioneered brand valuation as a discipline. And according to our survey of world’s most valuable brands, Coca-Cola is the number one followed by Microsoft at number two and IBM at number three. Then come GE, Intel, Nokia, Disney, McDonalds, Marlboro and Mercedes.”
Graham Hales, Executive Director, Europe & Asia, Interbrand Group - March 03, 05

"Direct selling is a very mature and established industry in the US, which competes very successfully with the traditional FMCG retail channel. In India, this industry is just 10 years old and has a very long way to go to evolve and to develop to the size of the US industry."
William Pinckney, Managing Director & CEO, Amway India - February 24, 05

“We are in the business of communication, not creative, planning, account management and media. Our philosophy of disruption and connections does not allow us to be fragmented. When you deal in ideas, these divisions are meaningless because they are merely for operational convenience.”
K. George John, Chairman and MD, TBWA\India - February 17, 05

“I think the world has woken up to the fact that India is a big market. We have seen every possible global brand available in India. With respect to the advertising industry, it is maximising this new opportunity. And an opportunity to work on global brands is helping the local talents think and stay ahead with the rest of the world."
Praveen Kenneth, Managing Director, St Luke’s - December 09, 04

“Over time, we felt that Dabur’s brand equity had to become more cohesive and in sync with its brand architecture and therefore a change was required. At the same time, it was also important to maintain continuity, as the banyan tree was so closely identifiable with Dabur.

As part of the new look, the Dabur India logo will be sporting the good old banyan tree with a younger look -- both in form and colour, and the brand essence line will be ‘celebrate life’.”
Sunil Duggal, CEO, Dabur India - December 03, 04

“Our list ensures that the companies needn’t spread their resources so widely to find the right intermediaries. We do the vetting for all, ensuring huge cost-saving for the companies. After all, a single due diligence exercise costs around $15,000.”
Alexandra A. Wrage, President, TRACE - March 19, 04

“The experience at Sony is stimulating and challenging. But at STAR, I have had some of my life’s most wonderful moments and some good learning. I am still close to my ex-peers and ex-colleagues and this too is a good experience. I have learnt a lot from Sameer Nair and I owe him for being where I am today, in more ways than one.”
Tarun Katial, EVP, Programming and Response, SET India - March 12, 04