Comeback formula

AGKSPEAK

How the Indian advertising industry can recover its lost prestige with clients.

Ad agencies over the years...

I started life in advertising. Four years later, I became a client. Four years after being a client, I moved back into advertising. After 23 years in advertising I became a client again. There's a lot I learnt during the years that I spent on both sides of the fence and I would like to talk about the most important lesson learned.

During the first agency-client-agency move (1972-1980), I could hardly discern much difference between being either "" agency or client. Both times, it was quite a seamless transition. The agency was well-respected by the client who was well-versed in the manufacturing nitty-gritties of his product and not so informed about the ins and outs of the ad world. Marketing communications, or Marcom as it is known today, was a shared knowledge base "" the agency clearly devoting more time to the gathering of relevant facts and figures.

Then the world started changing during the early 1980s. Ad agencies started recruiting from the creme-de-la-creme of management schools. It was boom time for the advertising industry. In fact, the field was so promising that the publishing industry paid tribute by launching special publications to cover it. Brand Equity, an entire supplement on the fads and fallacies of advertising, was born. A&M, a magazine that spent reams on the field, was launched. And so on.... The ad agency was now glowing with a new-found confidence. The IIM recruits and their like spent their time wisely updating their agency's skills, knowledge base and professionalism. So much so that the client started depending on the agency for Marcom wisdom. And deliver we did: the ad agency had made an investment in people that paid off handsomely. The clients paid us fair and square for our services, and we in turn paid our people generously for theirs.

Then, it was time for the world to start changing yet again. This time around, sometime during the mid 1990s, the client started grafting Marcom professionals. The ad agency was finding it difficult to hold ground during client-agency interactions. The client had more information than the agency at his fingertips. The field in which the agency had proprietary knowledge didn't exist anymore. A host of factors contributed to this. The internet made knowledge an easily downloadable commodity "" mostly free. White papers, theories, research...they were all a click away. Information, which was the cutting-edge of an agency service, was now a free-for-all domain. A well-armed and dangerous client was evaluating media plans on his own, negotiating with media-buying houses with greater success than an ad agency could, formulating his own marketing and creative strategies, and then farming it out to various shops to have them executed. He was privy to indepth information on both sides of the fence. This was why he listened with polite boredom during agency presentations where he was exposed to information he already had access to.

Unfortunately, even though the road was well marked with warning signs that this day would come, I guess the advertising industry was in denial. I met an agency person the other day who told me that the last IIM recruit that an agency made was ten years ago. Today, all that agencies can afford to pay as starting salary is about Rs 4 lakh, and not many agencies can afford even that.

So how does the industry heave itself out of doom and gloom? Perhaps it is time to start investing in professionals all over again. Upgrading skills could be another effort that could work. After all, it's what every professional does constantly. Doctors, lawyers, accountants... all of them have to keep themselves abreast of the latest in international breakthroughs, and offer them to clients. Or else, they will be left behind. It does not annoy us when our favourite heart specialist has dashed off somewhere to attend some seminar on some pathbreaking procedure. We pay willingly when he returns with his newly acquired skills. It's not very different in advertising. A client feels reassured when he listens to sound insights from a professional. And those are the key words to regain the trust the industry enjoyed: "sound", "insights" and "professional". Once these three facets are gleaming with freshly polished vigour, I'm confident that advertising will top the list of "most preferred career choices" once again. And clients will start handing the reins back to the agency's capable hands.

agkbrandconsult@yahoo.com