Ketchum is serious about increasing its footprint in India. On Tuesday, the company, part of the Omnicom group, acquired a major stake in Sampark PR, a leading public relations agency in India. Ray Kotcher, Senior Partner and CEO, spoke to Varada Bhat on their plan to leverage this, why the Indian market is important and how social media is the changing landscape of media business. Edited excerpts:
You acquired a majority stake in Sampark. What is the strategy in the Indian market?
It is a great day for Ketchum and Sampark. Now we will be doing business as Ketchum Sampark. This market has been extremely important to us for some time. It’s one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing ones in the world, with most global companies looking to invest and expand their footprint here. Public relations plays a huge role in that. In India, the projected (yearly) growth for the public relations industry is 32 per cent.
If the Asian market is a key focus area, why have you entered so late?
Yes, it has taken us bit longer. But, sometimes, while you wait longer, you get quality. For instance, in China, we just took a majority stake in our Chinese partner this January but we have been affiliated with them for 20 years. Here, we have worked with Sampark for three years and made sure each of us were comfortable with our work cultures.
How important are emerging markets like Brazil, Russia , India and China?
In the past six months, our investments have been in Russia, China and now India. We are seeing huge interest from our clients to enter and develop in these markets. There is an incredible sense of optimism and confidence in terms of communication, whether in Moscow, Beijing Sao Paulo or Mumbai.
Would be you looking at servicing your global clients like P&G in India, which might have been with another client till now?
We are in the business of servicing clients. Our job is to offer integrated services on various platforms for our global clients.
As you have huge plans here, would you be looking at India as one of your key bases?
We have set up several programmes for our clients internally. We have an internal product called Idea8, where we put a client proposition and provide solutions on real time across the globe. Then the Mindfire programme, where we associate with various universities to solve client challenges across the globe. In India, we tied up with five universities. These students could solve a client problem in Beijing or Chicago.