The Hindu Business Line : `Ad agencies must offer complete solutions'

Coming to Chennai is always a homecoming of sorts for Diwan Arun Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director of advertising agency Rediffusion DY&R. As he says, he spent his growing up years in the city in school and later in Loyola College and has many friends in the city whom he always likes to catch up with. On a recent visit to the city, BrandLine caught up with Rediff's feisty Chairman for a chat on advertising trends, the imbroglio with Rediffusion's foreign partners over increasing their stake in the Indian agency, on the pressure for people and talent in the agency business. Excerpts from the interview:

You launched Showdiff with Ravi Shastri three years ago for celebrity and event management. How has it been doing for you?

We felt for a long time that sports management — not celebrity sports management — but sports events were underplayed in India. The only thing that event companies seem to get into is either cricket or endorsements of cricket players. Worldwide you'll see sports event management is far beyond that. They take alternative sports, develop them, conduct tournaments with new ways of presenting them. I felt that the time would come very soon when that would explode as an opportunity. We wanted to have specialist event areas in the field of sports, arts, cinema, but sports was priority. We have dipped our ankles in the water; we did events in Mumbai and Delhi and have now tied up with Havas Sports, one of the largest event managers in the world.

They are making presentations to the Tamil Nadu authorities on the possibilities of water sports using the Marina beach - not just a local event but a worldwide event. We are planning it now and once we have a framework we will approach the relevant authorities. We are at the stage of putting up a proposal for it. So, as you can see, celebrity endorsements are only one part of activities of Showdiff.

You also launched a design consultancy just over a year ago, how is it doing?

We shut it down. We floated it because of one individual who had come back from the UK - we wanted to build that around him and his capabilities - he moved on, so we closed that down.

The Rediff group today offers a wide platform, from advertising to DM and healthcare communications. Are you looking at new areas such as retail to float a new wing?

We have on our roster RPG Retail in Kolkata. We are working with them on strategies for their expansion but we are not setting up a separate consultancy; there is no market. Most of the players have looked at worldwide retail trends and I don't think an ad agency has anything to teach them in that sphere of retail management, either in the back end or logistics.

So, you say that Rediffusion in its present set-up has all that it can offer a client, a complete solutions package?

You have to do it (offer complete solutions). If you don't, you're cheating the client. When a client comes to an ad agency he believes that it will add value to his business and more importantly, he trusts you with his money, whatever the amount is ... he expects you to deliver a communications package or brand image. If we are true professionals we must look at solutions that are most cost-efficient or effective. That's our job, not the client's. When you start thinking on those lines then you must look at all solutions beyond mass communications.

Do you see Indian agencies outsourcing work in the agency business from the rest of the world, or would the reverse be true?

I always see a lot of talent from the rest of the world coming here. It's starting to happen; it will become a fad. There will be people in the communication business, creative and otherwise, who will relocate to India because it's an exciting market. They are like artists, they create out of very little, and they need to be in a space where there's a buzz in the air and your adrenalin flows. I can see all that happening. At Rediff, for Microsoft in Delhi, we have got three people from abroad working in Wunderman because we need at this point of time for that client to implement the processes they are used to abroad. Lots of them are keen to come but we need to see that they are good enough! This cannot be a retirement posting!

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