The Hindu Business Line : Bridging the gap

Media and creative have split, but how can advertisers and agencies ensure communication doesn't suffer? Catalyst talks to a cross-section of the industry.

THE advertising fraternity in India has more or less reconciled itself to the fact that the days of full service agencies where the creative, media and client servicing teams sat together under one roof and shared the tumult and joy of releasing an ad are past. It is now accepted the two functions will continue to remain separate profit-making units, and the future will only see further unbundling of services, especially in media, which is definitely in for multiple splits considering the amount of specialisation under way in that domain.

However, both the industry and advertisers are talking about integration and setting up processes to ensure the brand doesn't suffer — a method where the client gets the benefits of specialisation and consolidated buying that the media agencies deliver, without compromising on the truly integrated offering of the pre-media unbundled days.

Tarun Rai, Vice-President and General Manager, JWT

Advertising professionals as well as advertisers are emphasising the need for a brand custodian to be in charge of the brand's well-being and coordinate between the the client, creative agency and the media agency. Says Tarun Rai, Vice-President and General Manager, JWT, "I believe we will have to evolve a method whereby the client gets to eat his cake and have it too. To my mind, there is the need for a brand custodian who has the authority to ensure that this happens."

M.G. Parameswaran, CEO, FCB-Ulka, also underlines the need for brand custodianship to bridge the disconnect created by the break-up of the advertising industry. "Who is the custodian on the client's side? And who is the custodian on the agency's side? Do they have the partnership that makes for a great innings? And do they need a third partner from the media agency? The trouble is that too many cooks may spoil a perfectly good brand, and under such circumstances, the better clients have to set up systems to handle the multi-level coordination nightmare."

M.G. Parameswaran, CEO, FCB-Ulka

In fact, the FCB group has already set up processes to ensure proper coordination between the media and the creative agencies and the client, says Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar (the media division of FCB). "The brand strategy should overpower the creative and media. Even if I am a standalone media company, I integrate through processes. Integration doesn't mean that all the three divisions have to sit together physically."

"In fact, the people who work with me are more marketing people than media buyers, and are able to view a brand's needs both from a media planner's point of view as well as a marketer's point of view," adds Sinha.

On the other hand, Arvind Sharma, Chairman, Leo Burnett, feels that half the onus of ensuring integration lies on the communications agency. The agency, he says, has to offer marketing, creative and media solutions under one umbrella, even though there are separate balance sheets for each. He says Leo Burnett is investing heavily in a training programme called Effective Solutions Plan, which focuses on cross-function training. "The people working in our media, creative and marketing solutions divisions are trained in each other's disciplines, as we believe that much before one figures out the media, creative or marketing solutions, it is important to agree on the key brand tasks."

He says most clients feel synergising these functions is in the interest of the brand, and so prefer entrusting all these duties to a single group. "If the three arms are not part of the same communications group, it is difficult to get the alliance. Here, the onus of strategic brand thinking is on the client, which is quite challenging, as they have a host of other things to attend to."

Jasmin Sohrabji, President, MediaCom

Jasmin Sohrabji, President, MediaCom, says, "If the client is convinced of the individual strength of creative and media within the same agency, he would ideally like to award both duties to one group. However, better integration cannot come at the cost of compromised creative or media functions! Keeping the buying consolidation apart, the interim days of retaining planning within the creative agency fold did have its merit." On whether a single group being given both the creative and media functions is in the better interest of the brand, U. Jayraj Rau, Vice-President and General Manager, JWT, says, "Yes. At least the situation is better than if it was with different groups where communication and interaction is almost negligible."

U. Jayraj Rau, Vice-President and General Manager, JWT

Rai of JWT says that working with the same group is not really the issue. The creative agency and the media agency could be from the same group and yet there may not be adequate cooperation. "Some of our clients have expressed their concern at the divorce of the media buying house from the creative agency. Not that they do not appreciate the benefits that consolidated media buying brings to the table but they do want the creative agency and the media buying houses to work better together."

The despair continues ...

The above discussion clearly shows that the industry is yet to come to terms with the state of affairs. "The situation is still the same," says Rau of JWT. "More than confusion it has led to a certain level of complacency, a lack of interest and knowledge in the other domain," he adds.

Abhijeet Awasthi, Creative Director, Ogilvy and Mather, says the biggest casualty of the entire segregation process has been the creative thinking process of the media agencies. "When you are sitting in an agency you think creatively, when you move out you begin to think laterally. Previously, the media was in constant touch with our thinking process. Now there is a lag."

In the bargain, it is the brand which is suffering. "Now, the client has to ensure that there is co-ordination between the two divisions. At the same time the creative team also has to make that extra effort to maintain a rapport with the media team. Sometimes when the media person doesn't share the same creative philosophy it gets a little difficult to convince him about the impact of a 40-second commercial as opposed to a 30-second commercial. This would not happen if the media person is from the same creative agency."

Has the brand actually lost out?

Prathap Suthan, National Creative Director, Grey Worldwide

Prathap Suthan, National Creative Director, Grey Worldwide, cannot think of any brand that has lost its equity because of this split, but says, "What I think has eroded is the familiarity of being together — the closeness of my media colleagues and the possibilities of many things that could have happened. When media guys and creative guys sit together and talk, sometimes magic happens."

Similarly, JWT's Rai says, "I don't think there are any losers. But I do believe that the way we are operating now is sub-optimal from the brand's perspective. I am pretty sure this will change and we will evolve a better system."

On the other hand, Sam Balsara, Chairman and Managing Director, Madison Communications, says media is very much within the realm of the agency network despite being a separate profit centre. "If media continued to be a part of creative, it would have been a total disaster. The kind of sophistication the discipline has reached today is only because it is a separate profit unit."

Sam Balsara, Chairman and Managing Director, Madison Communications

Giving an advertiser's perspective, Sameer Suneja, Head (Marketing), Perfetti, says that while on one hand, a specialised media agency gets better rates for the brand, the creative team does get divorced from the media plan. "As advertisers we often try to initiate common meetings as a team and debate on the strategies, but many a times it is not possible. Therefore we try to speak to both the sides regularly and try to integrate their views."

But with the rising fragmentation of the various disciplines, Suneja feels that in future, the advertiser has to break down boundaries and get the teams together, or else the brand would suffer.

However, Amit Syngle, Head (Marketing), Asian Paints, feels that the spilt is working quite well for the brand. "I guess each agency is able to focus on its core competencies quite well and is able to deliver a good output. The role of the client is extremely important and much of the coordination is a function of the client's involvement in the whole process. We feel that our brands are doing extremely well and over the years our brands have grown from strength to strength."

While the debate on whether unbundling of services is or not in the brand's interest continues, Nitin Bhagwat, Executive Director, Interface Communications, says this unrest and disruption would continue for a while till the agencies put in place proper systems to ensure smooth functioning.

Nitin Bhagwat, Executive Director, Interface Communications;

"Large global advertisers are looking, once again, at a full service agency model; offering strategy, creative, media, direct and interactive. They want one face as the custodian. This trend will gather momentum in the coming years," says Parameswaran of FCB.

Suthan of Grey sums it up by saying: "As long as the focus remains on financials, I think this confusion will continue. But perhaps when clients are willing to look at, or even start thinking in terms of what they may gain from integration, they might be willing to pay extra for the partnership to re-ignite and deliver more. I think when the focus is on quality of thinking and cohesive thinking, and not the bottomline, as the differentiator, then maybe advertising will start coming back to what it ought to be — a wonderful science versus cold figures."