Just drop it

Our experts from across the industry list ideas, approaches and practices for new year

Ashutosh Khanna
Senior client partner, Korn Ferry
 
The jargon of each CxO is a bit subtle and different. They don’t go defunct, but mean new things for new generations. As far as HR goes, here is my list of words that, if not on way to extinction, will be open to reinterpretation in the age of millennials — HR: Humour resource is something to peruse, clearly the best way to engage with employees and something to infuse training and career progression talks with; Staying local: The best talent is one that has not just experiences from ad agencies but different environments; Linear progression: If talent isn’t honed and groomed across a bunch of fields and hasn’t had the “all-rounder” experiences chances are the corner room is likely to be found more by luck than by design; Performance as a measure of potential: A person with a good track record is not enough reason to hire him/her. Measure the person’s agility first; Replacing CX with EX: Increasingly I am finding that instead of measuring Customer Experience, companies that measure Employee Experience do better business.

 
Ashish Bhasin

Chairman & CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia
 
I would like to get rid of the idea that digital is not mainstream. Digital is going to permeate every part of our business, and it will be the fastest growing part. For a long time, people kept saying that digital is only 10% of the market. I think that’s a very old world way of thinking. Digital is now a way of life, particularly with the younger consumers, and it’s going to permeate well beyond advertising to clients’ businesses.
 
Different parts of advertising work in silos, that is an idea that can be put to rest in 2017. The client today wants to deal with specialists with all the benefits of specialism but he’s fed up of dealing with silos — the outdoor guy coming and telling him outdoor is the best. What we have done at DAN is that everything was brought under one PNL (profit and loss), we report out of India as one country. So, it doesn’t matter whether you are in creative or media or TV or outdoor, when it goes out your destiny is linked. You sink and swim together.

 
Sandeep Goyal
Chairman, Mogae Media
 
Most of our work is in the area of mobile monetisation. In the past year the industry has been overdoing the business of accountability driven by performance. While the business of cost per view started out as a good idea — making the media you buy accountable to performance — it has gone haywire. It is actually the source of most malpractices in the industry, because in this mad rush to deliver on so-called accountability, it is bringing in a lot of rogue technologies that are not delivering what the customer wanted. With a lot of emphasis on performance you are getting in bots and rogue technologies, which are delivering numbers that look very good on paper but mean nothing. Going into the New Year, I believe some amount of sanity needs to be restored into this space. Related to this on social media, despite the number of followers and then the likes, tweets and retweets that you try to generate, 99% of it is all crooked. The sanctity of the entire system is bastardised.

 
Anish Williams
Co-founder & CEO, Transerv
 
One of the things, particularly in payments with demonetisation coming in, which people in the industry have to drop off is the idea of jugaad. In 2016, payment technology companies were stitching up solutions in a hurry. You’ve had circumstances of people launching products, then immediately pulling it back. Now that India’s moved to a less-cash society digital payments are playing a very important role. And the whole concept of “let’s launch, figure out and roll back” or jugaad is going to be unacceptable in 2017. Because the systems are becoming extremely large, security has to be looked at. Fraud management, processing transactions, the discipline behind launches, product development, etc. are on a far bigger scale.

 
Also, I think 2017 is going to be a year of partnerships. You have to work with each other, because of the scale and opportunity being so large. It’s about how we solve a national agenda like a less-cash society, by working in sync with others rather than disrupting everybody else.
 
Anil S Nair
CEO & managing partner, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi
 
Delinking digital from brand communication as an idea is not really working. In fact it’s becoming counterproductive for a lot of brands. Separation of specialisation is not really helping in terms of conceiving an idea and communicating it. So the idea has to be centrally managed. The jury is clearly out on that front. Second, what really isn’t working from a business perspective is buying consumers. Today, you are propping up Facebook likes. A following of a million or a million and a half practically means nothing. Unless and until it’s stupendous, consumers don’t flock to a brand site or a Facebook page and become fans of it. You might be a fan of a particular ideology that a brand is supporting, but expecting one to be on a sunglasses, shoe or watch’s fan page is fooling oneself. Creating artificial fans or followers means nothing, and engagement rates remain pathetic unless and until you put more money into it.

 
Krishna Rao
Category head, Parle Products
 
Parle so far has been inconsistent in the area of product innovation. Product innovation at Parle has been happening in tranches. It has not come through regularly. That’s set to change in 2017.
 
This year we are going to be consistent on product innovation. At the same time, we are shifting our focus from lower priced packs, say at Rs 10, to higher value packs.
 
Also, traditionally Parle has been big on rural markets but we need to break through a lot of urban areas by strengthening our distribution. We are looking to move away from traditional forms of advertising and focus on newer and more exciting formats of advertising.