The Hindu Business Line : Focus on customer insight, ad agencies told

Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu Group of publications, addressing at the Diamond Jubilee Seminar of the Advertising Agencies Association of India in Mumbai on Friday. Mr Peter Mukerjea, Chief Executive Officer, Star India Pvt Ltd, and Mr Arvind Sharma (right), Chief Executive Officer, Leo Burnett, are also in the picture. — Shashi Ashiwal

Mumbai, July 22

THE total size of the advertising industry has been underestimated, primarily because non-traditional advertising has been unrepresentative.

This was the view expressed by Mr Ranjan Kapur, Country Manager, WPP India, the keynote speaker at the AAAI Diamond Jubilee Seminar, `Beyond the Horizon' at Mumbai. Considering advertising was all about having a 360-degree approach to communication, most agencies were not factoring all the elements when estimating the size of the advertising industry, he said.

Highlighting loopholes in the communications industry, Mr Sunil Alagh, Chairman, SKA Advisors, said agencies tended to focus on consumer information rather than consumer insight. "We have to beg, borrow and steal. Beg for the right people to stay with you, borrow in terms of outsourcing what you are not good at and steal as far as ideas are concerned and make them bigger and better,'' he advised. Most agencies had stopped forming partnerships with their clients and most clients tended to regard their agencies as safety nets when things go wrong in their companies. "Advertising is expensive business for clients but advertising pays if you are an agency,'' he said. Warning agencies not to `bug' their consumers, Mr Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and National Creative Director, O&M, said, "We should not forget the business of the receiver and should ask ourselves what is the content of our communication. We should do something that will not have consumers run away."

Urging agencies to change their mindsets, Mr Shantakumar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi, suggested building relationships while selling products. Treating integrated marketing as not mere tools, Shantakumar said one could say `I love you' to one's consumers in different ways.

Dwelling on the FMCG sector, Mr Saugata Gupta, Chief Marketing, Marico, said, "Youthful and youth products need to be differentiated.'' Staying connected with the core audience would get tougher, he said. Tapping working women with their huge power, exploiting the `guilty mom syndrome' whereby the woman tends to splurge to make up for missed time with the family, should be the target of marketers. Highlighting trends in the FMCG sector, Mr Gupta called it the age of co-creation and mass customisation. "We have to use consumer knowledge and co-create products with the help of the consumers,'' he said. "There will be increased demand for innovation to drive profitable sustainable growth along with more demand on accountability.''

Mr C.K. Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director, CavinKare, highlighted factors driving value and volume growth in the FMCG industry. "There is a great opportunity for the less penetrated categories if marketers offer bite-sized products,'' he said. "Today's consumer is looking for ways to look and feel good. It's a great opportunity to drive per capita consumption.''

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