Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison Communications Private Limited

"Last year was an unusual year in more ways than one. It was the year when Marketing Myopia reached its zenith on Indian shores and Brand building took a back seat"

Mr. Sam Balsara, born 1951, is a Management Graduate (from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute, Bombay) and has over 25 years experience in Managerial positions in Marketing with Sarabhai’s & Cadbury’s and in Advertising with Contract ( a subsidiary of JWT/HTA), Mudra and Madison. He joined Mudra in 1984 when the agency’s billing was under Rs. 4 crores and contributed to its meteoric rise over the next four years. Mr. Balsara was also directly responsible for organizing the Reliance cup in India (Cricket World Cup) and marketing the cup in India and abroad. He founded Madison Advertising in 1988 with 3 Blue chip accounts Godrej, Tata (Nelco) and Mafatlal and the agency has steadily gained in stature and billings and today its client list includes, Procter & Gamble, BPL and Coke with current media billings of Rs. 350 crores. Over the last few years Mr. Balsara has acquired a reputation in Media having successfully handled the first AOR in the country for Procter & Gamble. Madison is now the AOR for P&G, Godrej, Coke, BPL, Kinetic, Perfetti and Maruti (for TV) with media offices in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore.
He is a prominent member of the Indian Marketing and Advertising profession. He has been President of The Advertising Club, Bombay (arguably the world’s largest Advertising Club with 3000 members) for almost 3 terms and has been editor of Solus – the Ad Club’s magazine for many years. He was the Vice President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India and is currently Chairman, Triple A Awards. He is currently Chairman of NRSC Technical Committee and serves on the AAAI–IBF joint Committee. He is also the immediate past Chairman of Advertising Standards Council of India and a founder member of ECO-India, an organization to promote environment-friendly actions. In an interview with Ms. Neha Pant of Inside Media, the exchange4media newsletter, Mr. Balsara shares his perspectives on Indian Media and Advertising Industry, the year 2001,the outdoor industry and his numerous entrepreneurial ventures.

Q. A lot of senior people tend to back all your initiatives, what do you attribute these to Sam Balsara, the individual or because of the work that Madison has done?

small pipipaydayloans.com

I am a hands-on manager (not an arm-chair one!) and try to keep my nose to the ground. All Madison’s new initiatives are born out of a deep conviction that a need exists in the market place for such a service and not just because of a corporate growth objective.
Most successful organisations, more so in the service sector are strongly identified with the CEO. It’s a bit difficult to separate the CEO from the organisation, especially in a young enterprise.

Q. What is your opinion about Internet as a medium ? Has it lived up to its potential?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Internet has a long way to go. It is a good interactive medium but at best will notch up 5% of the total industry size in a couple of years. Today, I see it more as an alternative or competitor to ‘direct marketing’ than an alternative to mass advertising through press and television. Don’t forget, “The medium is the message”.

Q. Adnova started as very ambitious project and the industry had a lot of expectations from it. Why do you think it failed to pick up ? Was it too early or it is because of mindset issues?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Yes, Adnova was a very ambitious project. We have moth-balled it for the time being because it is going to be quite a while before the broadband infrastructure in the country is well established which is a pre-requisite.
Secondly I think we need to have a slightly more mature and stable state in the television industry among the channels before Adnova can get adopted as a common platform.

Q. What is the role of innovation in media planning? How does one balance it with reach and frequency?

small pipipaydayloans.com

In the current scenario innovation has already become a very fundamental requirement and tomorrow’s media stars will be those that will come up with more impactful campaigns through use of innovation after meeting reach and frequency objectives.

Q. Tell us about your latest outdoor services venture. What kind of a gap in the market is your outdoor services firm going to cater to?

small pipipaydayloans.com

More and more advertisers are discovering the power of ‘outdoor’. Especially with the advent of affordable ‘skin’ for good 4 colour half tone reproduction.
The outdoor market is bound to grow. Most of the outdoor business today is transacted directly between advertisers and large number of hoarding contractors, because conventional full service agencies don’t bring much value to either the advertiser or the hoarding contractor. Advertisers need a strong agency, as a one-point contact who has the infrastructure and resources, is transparent and can be relied upon.
There are hundreds of small hoarding contractors who do not have access to clients and whose hoardings remain vacant, who are quite happy to give them out at reasonable rates, provided they are assured of bulk business and payment on time. MOMS (Madison Outdoor Media Service) hopes to successfully meet the needs of both the advertiser and the hoarding contractors.
MOMS has been started as a separate company with a capital of Rs.1 crore, has a staff of 20 with offices in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore. MOMS has completed projects for many prestigious clients including: Jet Airways, Blow Plast (VIP & Delsey), B4U (B4U Music and B4U Movies), Zee Network (Zee TV / Zee Alpha / Zee English, Maruti, HBO, Kinetic, Coca Cola, and Nokia

Q. What is your opinion on Media independents? What kind of an impact will media independent arms like Mindshare have on the Indian market place? Do you think they will lead to better practices and efficiencies in media planning?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Media specialists are good whether dependent or independent, but if you are talking of agglomeration for the sake of size, it is definitely not good for the Clients because they tend to sacrifice transparency, though it may be good for agency shareholders. On the other hand it may not be good for agency shareholders too because it is difficult to manage all the fall outs of client conflicts, agency cultures, client and employee egos.

Q. What do you attribute the trend of having separate creative agency and a separate media planning / buying entity?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Full service agencies did not do justice to the media function. They failed to recognise the power and impact that intelligent and clever use of Media can deliver over and above what good creative can deliver. Few clients were quick to recognise this and started seeking out media specialists who could do a good job. This separation of media from creative has enabled agencies with good creative skills to retain creative accounts and not loose them altogether.
Specialisation is always good. It builds resources and expertise which is very necessary in a young business like advertising. However I am not sure that the mindless agglomeration which is taking place today across the globe in our industry is good for advertising

Q. Don’t you think more and more media planning is buying led? Shouldn’t it be otherwise?

small pipipaydayloans.com

In the normal course Media Planning precedes Buying but given the current state of churn in the industry each impacts the other and there is continuous interaction between the two before the final buying is done. This is why today more and more Clients are vesting responsibility for media planning function with the buying agency rather than the Creative agency. Infact, I see a time not so far away when the entire strategic communication process will be led by the media agency. This will cut out a lot of waste that currently prevails in the system.

Q. Tell us about the various sister companies that Madison has.

small pipipaydayloans.com

The various units we have are as follows:
Madison Creative
Madison Media
Madison PR
Madison Outdoor(MOMS)
Anugrah Madison(Rural)

Q. How does one train a fresh entrant into media planning / buying ? Is there a lack of skilled, good people ?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Yes, there is lack of skilled good people in Media. Once agencies have regimented processes and systems in place to crunch data in a systematic way it will enable a large number of young people to join the profession at low cost to agency and then turn into a skilled work force for the industry.

Q. What in your opinion are the key trends being witnessed in the Indian Media and advertising over the last one year?

small pipipaydayloans.com

Last year was an unusual year in more ways than one. It was the year when Marketing Myopia reached its zenith on Indian shores and Brand building took a back seat. Advertising money got diverted to promotion. Marketing Managers under pressure from their stock-market driven Managing Directors became Salesmen responsible for weekly sales.
In the past, press lost to television because of the audio-visual impact of television and high cost of newsprint. Now television has also become high cost, not just because rates have gone up selectively, but because of severe fragmentation and low TRPs and has started loosing to other media like outdoor, direct mail, and events in addition to below the line. The tantalizing features of television which made it such a hit medium resulting in galloping growth are slowly disappearing, thanks to channel fragmentation, low TRPs and huge clutter.
The veil that the Indian Consumer is using to filter advertising through is becoming thicker and thicker and this is resulting in advertising working less efficiently.