 "Mark Patterson")
Media agency GroupM's Asia-Pacific chief executive Mark Patterson travels across 16 markets in the region, but his attention is especially devoted to China and India. In an interview to Viveat Susan Pinto, he indicates the next phase of growth for GroupM, the holding group for agencies such as Mindshare, Maxus, MEC and Mediacom. Excerpts:
What brings you to India?
India ranks third after China and Australia in terms of size of market for us. India, in fact, is catching up fast with Australia. The latter is a large market, but it does not have the growth curve that China and India do. I try and devote time in the major markets because these are the countries that will drive growth.
The Asia-Pacific already contributes 25-30 per cent in terms of revenue to GroupM worldwide and from a WPP point of view (GroupM is the media arm of WPP) as well, this region is very important.
Historically, WPP has been around longer than GroupM in the Asia-Pacific region. As an entity, GroupM is far younger. We've been around for a decade. And what we are now looking at is the next phase of growth from markets such as India.
With China showing signs of a slowdown, does India become a top priority for you?
Yes, China is slowing. It has been slowing for two years. In India, we have done exceptionally well all along. We are the leaders in India, with a 43 per cent share of the market. We lead by a tall margin here and don't take our size and scale for granted. We believe there are areas that can help propel growth for us in the future.
Which areas will you focus on to transform into what is being described as GroupM 3.0?
While analytics, big data and a general focus on technology characterised our second phase of growth, I think the third phase will be about partnerships. For instance, GroupM is working closely with WPP's market research agency Kantar in a few areas. It makes sense to harness each other's strengths, since both of us are dealing with a lot of data and information.
There will be more of this as we make our ourselves future-ready because let's not forget, this is an era of specialisation. So having technology specialists will also be critical in this endeavour to be future-ready. Being nimble, in other words, adapting to change quickly will be critical in this day and age, when things are changing fast.
And, nowhere is this more apparent than in the media agency business, where we spend half our time adapting to change. Broadly, these will be the priority areas for us.
What about acquisitions?
We continue to look at acquisitions. There are six acquisitions happening at the moment in Asia. I cannot tell you how many are happening in India. But suffice to say that they are more digital in nature and have technology built into them. One thing about acquisitions is that we make sure that we can integrate them into our business. That is a hygiene factor we keep in mind. Otherwise, an acquisition is simply wasted if we cannot integrate it.
Programmatic buying or media buying led by an automated auction process is something that has gained ground in the online or digital media. Is GroupM doing anything to take this kind of media buying into print, TV?
The online and digital media has been first off the ranks in terms of adopting programmatic buying, but I do see traditional categories such as print, TV and outdoor also taking to this kind of buying a few years from now. Eventually the tide will turn as traditional media begins to get digitised. That is beginning to happen in TV and outdoor, for instance. So yes, that transition will happen and we will as the leaders engage with advertisers and media owners to be open to this.
