 "Madison changes the conversation")
Digital agencies do the digital medium the greatest disservice. It can never grow if left to specialists. Only if digital becomes a part of the media table, will it get its fair share, insists Sam Balsara (Sam), the chairman and managing director of Madison World (Madison). Celebrating Madison's 25th year in 2013, Sam, its much-revered founder, has seen his agency hit a few speed-breakers in the last four-five years.
The last few years have been a mixed bag, with the shortcomings of one of the few independent, indigenous media agencies, getting underlined more than its highs. It had to part with large accounts (though it has won others since) and long-serving senior managers, all leading to rumours of a sell-out. But if you listen to him and his top team now, it becomes clear they have paid heed to the criticism floating about in the advertising industry.
After all, it has lost long-standing accounts such as Britannia (Rs 150 crore), Zee Network, Tata Tea (Rs 50 crore) in a couple of years. Of course, it had won ITC's media mandate in 2010, considered to be worth Rs 350-400 crore, and followed it up with recent wins in Gowardhan Dairy (Parag Foods), McCain Foods, Maxx Mobile etc.
The lack of a separate digital think tank has been perceived as a drawback by many in the sector. Especially, in the light of agencies multiplying their digital business arms. Group M, for example, has gone as specialised as launching an outfit for digital video creation, with MashUp. Publicis' digital vanguard, Vivaki, had acquired digital agencies last year to pair them with its many creative and media agencies, apart from launching standalone digital agencies. Not just in digital, media agencies have been increasingly going beyond media placements into areas of content creation to innovate in various media.
Sam counteracts the perception: "Digital spends are just eight-nine per cent of the total media market. Despite our heavy FMCG bias, our clients are such that we spend around 12 per cent on digital, higher than the industry average. We have 45 people in this field. It can't be a large part of our billing when the total digital advertising market is Rs 1,500 crore, while we spend more than Rs 3,000 crore in total billing." Lara Balsara, executive director, Madison World, points out, "Clients such as Cadbury, Airtel and Asian Paints have all given us their digital mandate." Sam asks, "How will a small digital agency have the calibre to handle large, bluechip clients?"
But competition has stepped up the pressure on Madison's business. "I did not hear of Madison losing accounts in the first 10-15 years of its existence," observes a media veteran. One of the reasons for its trouble was the kind of conversations Madison was seen as having with clients. The chief at one of India's top five media agencies, familiar with Madison's erstwhile accounts, says, "Culturally, they were not being seen as cutting-edge. The teams would focus on media rates, GRPs and reach for the media manager, when conversations in other agencies had started veering towards insights and strategy that a CMO could relate to."
But Madison Media's group CEO, Gautam Kiyawat, who joined last year, with extensive client-side stints at places like the erstwhile Research in Motion and P&G, explains what's changing in Madison. He points out that the conversation with clients is one of the areas that Madison is working on. "Earlier teams would go away with instructions instead of understanding the issues. We are driving away from such tactical-only inputs to a deeper understanding of the client's problems," adds Kiyawat. He mentions the twin central units - strategic planning and analytics - created to bear on marketing plans, rather than just media plans, with consumer insights.
Kiyawat says that since Madison has multiple businesses (24 business units across nine functions, with around nine-odd units in media alone), it was imperative to centralise and standardise processses such as data generation. In fact, the lack of proprietary tools has been considered as a chink in Madison's armour.
However, the biggest change at work that could mark the agency's silver jubilee is its internal people management. Balsara says, "Earlier, we would not focus on our internal efficiencies, but now we have been looking inwards a lot more."
Kiyawat says, "We have got positive feedback from clients by making the teams less dependent on senior personalities as the interface. We are making sure everybody on a team gets to present work, rather than just the senior guys. This has created a sense of ownership." Personality-based relationships have always permeated Madison, starting with its charismatic founder.
"Sam can pull off a lot of things because he is Sam. So far, he has held on to Madison's accounts because of his relationships with the client's top brass. But there has not been much succession planning, despite Madison's many divisions with their own business heads. As a result, you can see some Madison employees, with fire in their bellies, leaving. Though, in a way, Madison's alumni, comprising CVL Srinivas, Ajit Varghese, Punitha Arumugam, speaks volumes about how good the agency has been. But a one-man show runs the danger of spreading itself too thin, as relatively smaller clients are left feeling side-lined."
The absence of succession planning has been the grist to the rumour mills. But even that might be taken away as Kiyawat points out, "The priority for Sam and I is to have active conversations with our senior people on their career prospects, and reward them for their performance. This would ultimately lead us to form a strong bench for the future."
Even as Madison steps up the media interactions, highlighting the changes in the last one and a half years, Sam says he wants the business to be more agile by learning from its past mistakes. Whether the current measures are in time, for Madison to successfully change the conversation, will become clear as 2013 draws to a close.
The last few years have been a mixed bag, with the shortcomings of one of the few independent, indigenous media agencies, getting underlined more than its highs. It had to part with large accounts (though it has won others since) and long-serving senior managers, all leading to rumours of a sell-out. But if you listen to him and his top team now, it becomes clear they have paid heed to the criticism floating about in the advertising industry.
After all, it has lost long-standing accounts such as Britannia (Rs 150 crore), Zee Network, Tata Tea (Rs 50 crore) in a couple of years. Of course, it had won ITC's media mandate in 2010, considered to be worth Rs 350-400 crore, and followed it up with recent wins in Gowardhan Dairy (Parag Foods), McCain Foods, Maxx Mobile etc.
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Sam's observation on digital agencies was to explain why Madison has digital talent on each of its account-teams, rather than bank on separate units. New trends in digital have led many media groups to introduce new business arms, either organically or inorganically. But as a media veteran from one of the agencies of the largest rival media conglomerate says, "Madison was, afterall, the first to establish the trend of an agency-on-record (AOR) in India. But over the last four-five years, it seems to have lost out on new trends. The perception of Madison has been that is has not diversified as well as some agencies from other groups such as Group M and Omnicom."
The lack of a separate digital think tank has been perceived as a drawback by many in the sector. Especially, in the light of agencies multiplying their digital business arms. Group M, for example, has gone as specialised as launching an outfit for digital video creation, with MashUp. Publicis' digital vanguard, Vivaki, had acquired digital agencies last year to pair them with its many creative and media agencies, apart from launching standalone digital agencies. Not just in digital, media agencies have been increasingly going beyond media placements into areas of content creation to innovate in various media.
Sam counteracts the perception: "Digital spends are just eight-nine per cent of the total media market. Despite our heavy FMCG bias, our clients are such that we spend around 12 per cent on digital, higher than the industry average. We have 45 people in this field. It can't be a large part of our billing when the total digital advertising market is Rs 1,500 crore, while we spend more than Rs 3,000 crore in total billing." Lara Balsara, executive director, Madison World, points out, "Clients such as Cadbury, Airtel and Asian Paints have all given us their digital mandate." Sam asks, "How will a small digital agency have the calibre to handle large, bluechip clients?"
But competition has stepped up the pressure on Madison's business. "I did not hear of Madison losing accounts in the first 10-15 years of its existence," observes a media veteran. One of the reasons for its trouble was the kind of conversations Madison was seen as having with clients. The chief at one of India's top five media agencies, familiar with Madison's erstwhile accounts, says, "Culturally, they were not being seen as cutting-edge. The teams would focus on media rates, GRPs and reach for the media manager, when conversations in other agencies had started veering towards insights and strategy that a CMO could relate to."
But Madison Media's group CEO, Gautam Kiyawat, who joined last year, with extensive client-side stints at places like the erstwhile Research in Motion and P&G, explains what's changing in Madison. He points out that the conversation with clients is one of the areas that Madison is working on. "Earlier teams would go away with instructions instead of understanding the issues. We are driving away from such tactical-only inputs to a deeper understanding of the client's problems," adds Kiyawat. He mentions the twin central units - strategic planning and analytics - created to bear on marketing plans, rather than just media plans, with consumer insights.
Kiyawat says that since Madison has multiple businesses (24 business units across nine functions, with around nine-odd units in media alone), it was imperative to centralise and standardise processses such as data generation. In fact, the lack of proprietary tools has been considered as a chink in Madison's armour.
However, the biggest change at work that could mark the agency's silver jubilee is its internal people management. Balsara says, "Earlier, we would not focus on our internal efficiencies, but now we have been looking inwards a lot more."
Kiyawat says, "We have got positive feedback from clients by making the teams less dependent on senior personalities as the interface. We are making sure everybody on a team gets to present work, rather than just the senior guys. This has created a sense of ownership." Personality-based relationships have always permeated Madison, starting with its charismatic founder.
"Sam can pull off a lot of things because he is Sam. So far, he has held on to Madison's accounts because of his relationships with the client's top brass. But there has not been much succession planning, despite Madison's many divisions with their own business heads. As a result, you can see some Madison employees, with fire in their bellies, leaving. Though, in a way, Madison's alumni, comprising CVL Srinivas, Ajit Varghese, Punitha Arumugam, speaks volumes about how good the agency has been. But a one-man show runs the danger of spreading itself too thin, as relatively smaller clients are left feeling side-lined."
The absence of succession planning has been the grist to the rumour mills. But even that might be taken away as Kiyawat points out, "The priority for Sam and I is to have active conversations with our senior people on their career prospects, and reward them for their performance. This would ultimately lead us to form a strong bench for the future."
Even as Madison steps up the media interactions, highlighting the changes in the last one and a half years, Sam says he wants the business to be more agile by learning from its past mistakes. Whether the current measures are in time, for Madison to successfully change the conversation, will become clear as 2013 draws to a close.