Madhukar Sabnavis: Desi, videshi or swadeshi?

Is foreign ownership a sign of lack of self-confidence

"Firang aisa jod lagai ache ache se na tod pai" (Foreigners have got such a bond that even the best can't break them), lamented Mr Anil Ambani during the keynote address at the recent golden jubilee celebration of the Bombay Advertising Club. He went on to say that the sun has not yet set on the East India Company as thousands of Indians continue to work for foreign advertising firms in India. And this was a reflection of a lack of self-confidence or of the typical Indian mindset. Only one of the top five advertising agencies in India is Indian. He wished that during the next jubilee celebrations, the scene would be different. Is the scenario really so alarming? Has the industry sold its soul?

There is indeed a lot of pride and jingoism in doing everything ourselves. It was perhaps the driving force behind the Nehruvian policy of self-sufficiency and protectionism in the first four decades of our economic development. It perhaps helped the country in setting up its basic infrastructure and gave us pride, that unlike many other nations, we managed to do everything ourselves.

But simultaneously, it created a whole host of inefficient and uncompetitive ventures that have not been able to survive the battle with the global players as the economy opened up in the 1990s. And this exposes the limitations of the swadeshi call.

It is in this context that the international ownership of advertising agencies in India needs to be viewed. Eight of the top 10 agencies are majority-owned by global networks.

However, they didn't start that way. In fact, advertising is the most entrepreneurial business, as entry barriers to start afresh are low""all that is needed are a few creative minds.

However, sustenance is not easy without the support of strong, reliable client partners and these come from, unfortunately, multinationals.

Global alignment is a way of getting global business, because that is the way multinationals tend to work internationally. This naturally also means regular foreign repatriation and the following foreign practices.

It is unfortunately a truism that:

There are few truly Indian marketing giants""many categories are actually dominated by multinationals. The best Indian companies are also run on western professionalism, technology, and standards.

The average Indian entrepreneur, by and large, still looks at advertising agencies as suppliers and treats them like one. Compensation is squeezed, budgets slashed at the drop of the hat, credit periods stretched, and relations handled fairly unprofessionally. There are exceptions to the rule""these are the flag-bearers of the best creative work""but it is not easy for an agency brand to sustain itself purely on local clientele.

Interestingly, Michael Porter in his seminal work Competitiveness of Nations debunks the theory that nations should do everything themselves. He actually propounds the best productivity of a nation is achieved when it identifies its core strengths and builds its competitive edge globally on this, and out-sources everything else.

New Zealand focuses on its strength""sheep rearing""and produces the best wool in the world and exports the same. And buys everything else from outside. The principle is not to reinvent the wheel but to focus on your core competence and do it better than the best.

In the advertising industry, the core competence resides with the people""the minds that generate great ideas on a regular basis. Funding and clients are only a means to actualise this.

What should or should not give us pride is not the ownership pattern but the talent that manages the process and output. Here India scores.

All international agencies are actually run by local Indians (a far cry from many South-East Asian countries where expatriates are a norm in the senior echelons of agency networks). This is a reflection of and a tribute to the fundamental knowledge and talent power of the software""human minds""available in India.

In fact, foreign networks are hesitant to send expat resources to India because that will affect the profitability of the operation and unnecessarily reduce the returns to shareholders. So foreign manpower is always a well-considered move to transfer specialist skills across borders.

Further, while internationalism in ownership has taken place, the ethos and the spirit of Indianness have been retained in the output of the industry. And simultaneously, the quality of the creative has lifted to global standards""both in ideas and execution. India has been an active participant and winner at many of the international creative award functions.

An Indian has headed the Press and TV jury at the recent Cannes festival""the first Asian to do so. Most global brands actually create communication specific for the market through their local agency arm. (In many other markets, advertising is just transferred or adapted). And there are cases emerging like Perfetti that are today outsourcing creative work from India.

In fact, the advertising industry is instructive about how to take the best from the world (the funds, the clients, the practices) and use the best in India (talent) to further national interests.

There is already much in the Indian advertising industry that Mr Ambani can be proud of; maybe he needn't wait till the next celebration to feel good.

In sum, the advertising world opening its door to global partners has benefited it in more than one way:

Sure it has resulted in the transference of aligned businesses, which has helped in building a strong base for the local agency to allow its creativity to bloom, besides providing strong professional relations

It has helped in transferring knowledge and expertise through regular interactions with the professional skills and standards of the global partners. Best practices have been transferred without reinvention in areas where they are not necessary""finance, MIS, talent management, etc.

It has provided a gateway for both Indian talent and Indian expertise to find expressions in the global market. As we move into the future, this could be the springboard for India to be a possible outsource for communication ideas. After all, the Indian mind has worked with diversity more than any other in the world. India is a mini-Europe in terms of cultures, languages, and variety.

Joel Shepherd, an Australian sports reporter, commented after India's single-medal endeavour at the recent Olympics: "... Look at Australia""a population of 20 million similar to Assam, and we're consistently among the top five in the Olympic medal tally ... India should copy us, and any other nation that has a successful model to offer in any sport. We've copied everyone else! We've diving coaches from China, running coaches from Africa, scientific equipment from America, etc. ... If we saw some other nations succeeding we'd send our people to learn what they were doing, hire one of their coaches if possible, and copy their methods. Every global power today does this, not just in sports""also in economics, technology, military, etc. It's only the Swadeshi brigade that insists that India must continuously reinvent the wheel ..."

Is it more important to worry about ownership? Or ensure that Indian creative talent and products are able to flower and compete with the best in the world?

This is the choice between swadeshi and being global.
The choice is ours.

Something worth thinking about.

madhukar.sabnavis@ogilvy.com

(The author is Country Manager""Discovery, Ogilvy and Mather India. The views are personal)