India will be among top three in five years: Lowe chief

caught up Wright, who was in India last week. Exerpts:

On the lighthouse system followed by Lowe: The issue, really, in any global agency now is not only how to provide clients with reach into all markets, but to do it faster and with more agility. So, the notion of the lighthouse is to take away layers of management between people: Those who are actually running agencies and businesses, and those who are running the worldwide company. The outcome of this system is that there is very little delay in communication when something happens in India to when it reaches the global level.

Previously, India would have been a part of Asia, so we are now three layers removed, making it a much leaner structure. Clients today have restructured themselves as well in broadly similar ways, specially in Asia.

With the kind of growth and diversity of the region, the notion that you can treat Asia as one region is looking ridiculous now. Our two biggest global clients - Unilever and Johnson & Johnson - have chosen innovation centres that lead the charge of that brand in this part of the world.

There are four lighthouses in Asia. Bangkok looks after South East Asia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Shanghai and Beijing are one block and Sydney comprises Australia and New Zealand. Mumbai is in charge of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Significance of India: India is one of our biggest markets in the whole world. The Indian office is within the top five global agencies with Mumbai slotted at the fifth position. Looking at the current growth rate of Lowe in India, within five years it will be in the top three after London and New York.

India is the most important market for us in Asia as is also the highest revenue contributor. What is really commendable about the Indian operations, is that it has moved from being an advertising agency to a communications company. We want to use the Indian operations to take on projects for the global company and certainly for the Asian businesses.

One being database management, which is one of the biggest areas that clients are interested in and that's a huge opportunity for India to be a worldwide resource.

The other area being training and development. India has underscored the need for laid emphasis on human resource management, recruitment and training and we're going to use this model for the worldwide company more and more.

We are looking at the digital business as the internet penetration grows in India as well as the looking at developing a product that actually helps media owners develop their businesses.

And India could be a worldwide centre for us in this area.Currently, India accounts for about 4-5 per cent of the total global revenue for Lowe.

And this will grow further due to the natural market growth as the marketing spend per head in India is extremely low. As the economy grows, even a modest growth ahead would account for a massive jump in revenues for India. Challenges in Asia: For Lowe, as for other agencies in general, talent is something that is an issue the industry is grappling with. And when you find them, it is difficult to retain them. Lowe in India though is far ahead in human resource management. Lowe India is the only agency that I know, where the chairman, Prem Mehta is also the head of human resources.

The other challenge is how to advise clients to think beyond television advertising. In India, we are probably ahead of our competitors but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Indian advertising on a global platform: I think the issue with Indian advertising is that it is all set in the Indian cultural context. For a non-Indian, some of the work is quite difficult to understand.

So though the quality of work here is actually very high, Indian advertising generally doesn't do very well at international award shows. If you look at Thai advertising on the other hand, there is a basic slapstick humour that in universally understood. But the level of strategic thinking here is very high.