Hurry up, slowly

I would describe the current state of the advertising industry in India as ‘good’. Good, in terms of both quality and quantity. If we compare ourselves with China, in terms of quantity our size is disappointing. At one time we were similar in size and now China is 8-10 times larger. But we have more to show for ourselves in terms of quality. Advertising in India has now moved up the ladder from merely passing on information or creating awareness. It persuades consumers to reach for their wallets, by reaching out to their hearts. Advertising in India even helped to bring about a change in government! So, on balance our scorecard reads well, though it’s a few notches higher on quality than quantity.

The prospects of the advertising industry in India are very good. As we all know, advertising is less than 0.4 per cent of our GDP, whereas the global average is almost double of that. This percentage is bound to go up over the next decade and combined with the growth in our economy, advertising will benefit. Besides, the pro-business approach of the BJP government will contribute to the growth of the economy, which will help make the Indian poor a little more comfortable and make them actively participate in the consumption economy. This in turn will augur well for business in general and advertising in particular.

The challenges faced by the advertising industry are broadly similar to those faced by the entire services sector and revolve around shortage of talent and shrinking margins, leading to recruitment of poorer quality manpower at entry level and lower quality and quantity of training.

My advice to my colleagues would be not to sacrifice margins, beyond a point, for the sake of growth. Advertising people have a weakness for growth in billings as that is visible to the world. Often that is achieved at the expense of both profitability and absolute profits, which advertisers tend to take advantage of, but which does not augur well for the future of the advertising industry. Within the industry we will have to put up some self-defence mechanism to ensure good prospects in the future.

I don’t see a possibility of re-integration taking place, nor is it desirable. My view is that the tremendous developments that you have seen in media, OOH, new media and analytics have been possible because of unbundling and it would be foolish to give up on these benefits. However, given the level of specialisation that has taken place, it is necessary for advertisers to set up a structure that enables a collaborative working climate amongst the various specialist organisations chosen by the advertiser. We have seen in the past that this collaborative approach can yield very good results.

For young marketers and advertising professionals it is important to maintain professional integrity throughout your career and focus on contributing to the advertisers’ and agencies’ cause (in that order). And even in today’s nanosecond world, I would say patience and setting up of practical goals that are achievable is necessary for a satisfactory and fulfilling career. Young people in today’s world often make the mistake of setting up unachievable goals that result in early burnout, anxiety, exhaustion and disappointment. Everything happens for the person who hurries up slowly.

COMMENT NOW