The Hindu Business Line : 'India vital part of our jigsaw'

On his first trip to India after taking over as the President and CEO of Lowe Worldwide, Tony Wright was here to address the AAAI diamond jubilee symposium and attend his first board meeting in the country.

Ever since he took over the reins at Lowe a year ago, when the IPG group was being plagued by a financial crisis, Wright has been doing his bit to get things right for the network. Before joining Lowe, he served as the Chief Strategy and Planning Officer for Ogilvy & Mather, where he created its 360-degree Branding Toolkit.

In a chat with Catalyst, Wright outlines the importance of India to Lowe, especially in terms of it serving as a hub for the region. "We are looking at doing more work for Asia from India. It is an absolutely natural thing for us to do, particularly when the operations here are so strong," he says.

Treating India as one of its top five operations, Wright intends to include India as one of his `lighthouses', which will serve as centres of excellence in key markets across the world. His first board meeting in India is also an indication of the growing importance of the India operations.

Excerpts from the interview:

You switched from the WPP network to join the IPG group last November when it was facing a financial crisis. How did you cope as the worldwide President and CEO of Lowe in handling this crisis?

I joined IPG at a very challenging time, when it was facing certain issues, which have already been well documented. The network was facing complicated accounting and financial issues, which we are still working on. Basically, it was about adhering to the Sarbanes Oxley Act in the US. WPP is a UK-quoted company and does not have to account for these things. My focus, since joining, has been on the Lowe brand, which has been through low times with the IPG issue in the US.

You are here to address a seminar on `The Future of Advertising'. What, according to you, is the future of the advertising industry? Is Lowe equipped to handle the future challenges?

The biggest trend in the industry has been towards total communication packages. Although this conference is called `The Future of Advertising,' in a way that is not a good name. The issue really is the future of communication, and Lowe in India has been far-sighted in seeing it coming.

In fact, communications have been moving faster than advertising and there are many opportunities in that. For instance, at Lowe we are seeing an increasing emphasis on the management of data for CRM.

As consumers become more segmented, clients become interested in talking to them on a one-to-one basis. That is an interesting opportunity for us.

Please explain the new structure of the `lighthouse model' that you have adopted across the Lowe network?

The `lighthouse' model reflects our belief that the traditional network delivery system is broken. Micro-networks are too confined to meet the modern client's needs, while traditional networks are too cumbersome. We have combined the advantages of both. We have, in short, achieved `reach without compromise.' Our network is now structured around 12 lighthouses — centres of excellence in key markets around the world including Mumbai, Moscow, Sao Paolo and Shanghai.

Every lighthouse leads a cluster of local agencies and each is empowered to make decisions in its part of the world.

We know it is not possible to be the top agency in all 81 countries. Instead, we are focussing our resources on the lighthouses or clients considered most important, giving them the hands-on-talent they need, when they need it.

Each lighthouse is designed to be among the world's premier individual agencies. It works with local offices and wins the best clients. For our company, the lighthouse structure enables us to remove a layer that imposes both costs and creative barriers and is all about regional management.

So, how will the `lighthouse' structure benefit your clients?

For our clients, it means access to top-flight talent around the world. Talent that has access to local markets and the creativity and flexibility to execute. Talent that understands the broad advertising, marketing, public relations and other services of the global network. It means we can tell a company in Europe that we understand the consumer in India and, just as important, we can assure an exporter in Mumbai that we can inspire consumers from Moscow to Middle America.

And this structure allows us, frankly, to do what micro-networks cannot. A boutique agency cannot simply open a shop in Mumbai or Moscow and hope to succeed. But if it hopes to treat consumers with respect, it can't limititself to London, New York or Singapore. What we offer is both brilliant ideas and broad range, imagination and integration ... global ideas and local expression, low overheads and long reach. Basically, reach without compromise.

How do you plan to step up growth for Lowe in India? Is acquiring agencies going to be a strategy?

Our focus is not on expanding the agency brand unnecessarily. Our second agency, SSC&B Lintas, is performing well and has access to what the group can offer. We do not have a weak footprint in India that we need to acquire more agencies. For us, expansion will be more in terms of spreading into the communications area. Acquisitions are not the way forward for us.

What potential does India hold?

India is a driving force behind a breathtaking and rapidly accelerating trend. There is a shift of economic power from the US and European nations alone to four nations with burgeoning populations and accelerating economies. These are Brazil, Russia, India and China — the `BRIC' economies. In India, Goldman Sachs projects a more than 5 per cent annual growth over the next five years — exactly the period over which the major industrial economies are slowing down.

Per capita growth over that period will exceed 7 per cent. By 2050, per capita income in India could be 35 times higher than it is today. Our clients already know that the most robust growth will come from the massive expansion of emerging markets and not from taking a point or two of the marginal share in those markets which are already saturated.

You are here to address your first board meeting in India. What kind of decisions are you likely to take for the region?

I wanted to come to India when I could spend a significant amount of time in the country. It is a big and complicated market. That we set up our board meeting here goes to show how important India is for us. As India is a vital piece of our jigsaw, there will be board members across the world to take decisions about where the business is going and the kind of investments we need to make. I look forward to introducing the members of the board to their colleagues in India, enabling them to have better access to our worldwide network and vice versa.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
It destroys turned

The business of hospitality

Castrol shifts gears

On the horns of a dilemma

'India vital part of our jigsaw'

AAAI symposium

Customers teach, simply by being themselves