Cheil Worldwide, the Seoul-headquartered marketing communications agency, is thought of as a Samsung set-up, thanks in part to its 18 per cent ownership by the consumer durables giant. In recent years, however, Cheil, with 31 offices across the world, including in India, has pursued businesses beyond. The appointment in 2008 of Bruce Haines, former group chief executive officer of Leo Burnett, London, was intended to give this aim a fillip. In Delhi for the 2011 edition of Ad Asia, he spoke to Viveat Susan Pinto on the ground covered. Edited excerpts:
How do you propose to increase the proportion of non-Samsung businesses in markets such as India?
We are at the beginning of that process in India. But in some of the other markets across the world we have made progress, such as in New York, London, Paris, Bangkok, Beijing.
We are a little behind in India. I anticipate that by 2012, we will make headway here, too. For instance, in India, we have recently been assigned work by Polaris, the US-based maker of off-road vehicles, which has launched its range here. We will handle the duties of designing and developing their showrooms. The same is the case with Korean tyre maker Hankook, which is setting up shop here. We will do work for them.
The eventual plan is to have 50 per cent global clients and 50 per cent local clients. That is the ideal combination we are looking at in most markets.
Will you look at acquisitions to strengthen your presence in India?
We are not ruling that out. But there is sufficient growth at the moment that is coming organically from the Samsung business in India. So, immediately, acquisitions are not on our agenda here. Rather, we would like to go in for further acquisitions in the US, where we have already bought creative hotshop Barbarian. Then, we would like to boost presence in Latin America with acquisitions. Not leaving out markets such as China, where again we have done an acquisition of a digital agency called Open Tide. In the Middle East, France and the UK each, we have wrapped up an acquisition in the areas of retail and creative, respectively.
Will acquisitions also be a means to fill skill-set gaps?
Yes. Our endeavour, beside gaining a foothold in a market with an acquisition, is to also ensure we strengthen our portfolio of services at the same time. Most of our acquisitions have been in that direction. In developed markets such as the UK, US and France, we strengthened our creative offering by acquiring creative hotshops. In West Asia, the accent was on beefing our retail service; in China, it was digital, of course.
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Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB) is the agency you acquired in the UK. Yet, BMB went ahead and got into a joint venture with Madison in India last year. Why a tie-up like this?
We are interested to grow BMB as a mini network within the Cheil group. I am impressed with the way Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has managed its operations by setting up offices in a few key markets across the world. That is something we would like to do with BMB. Trevor Beattie is recognised as a creative person in certain markets, and India is one of these. Trevor feels passionately about India. He wanted to be here. And, we believe in giving him the freedom to decide where he wants to go.
Will BMB and Cheil work together in India?
As we develop BMB in Mumbai, there is a great opportunity for it to work with Cheil in Delhi on the Samsung business. We have done something similar in London. So, I don't see a problem with that. Whilst we are recognised for the work we do on Samsung, we don't handle its entire account. Other agencies have stepped in, such as Leo Burnett. We are comfortable with that.