Madison on a mission

There's a bit of action brewing within Madison World. Over the last three to four months, a series of new hires at the top tier of Madison Media were announced. Internally, there's a focused push on automation and optimisation of people resources. Inevitable, as the media agency major has grown in scale since its inception in 1988 - to claim combined billings across media businesses of over Rs 3,000 crore.

But there's more to the action at the communications group than the new positioning it has adopted and the people it has hired. There's more to it than the new business units beyond media planning and buying.

Madison is strengthening its core - the organisation within that will determine the future of all its business units in the market in future. At a critical juncture in its celebrated history, the group is showing that it can adapt to the dynamic universe it operates in. The signs were always there - Madison Xurpas, the mobile marketing unit, was launched in April 2007.

Necessary, Not Sufficient, Condition

The most visible changes are the new hires at the top of the organisation at Madison Media. From Amandeep Khurana, IIM Ahmedabad grad and former brand planning hand whose last stint was at Spice Global Group, to Ruby Bana, who in her previous assignment was Chief Intelligence Officer for Havas Media, APAC Region, the hires were noticeable. According to someone from the top rung of a competing media agency, “The hires were noticed more because they were very unlike Madison.”

In conversation with BrandLine , Sam Balsara, Chairman and Managing Director, and his daughter Lara (Director at Madison who has been driving the agenda for business development and diversification), explain the goings-on. For starters, explains Balsara, the media-buying universe and client expectations have changed.

“With the kind of media environment that exists today and solutions that clients are looking for, diversity is quite important. This will help us come with more innovative solutions, rather than have ‘more of the same' - that is what we are attempting to do. A lot of our clients now want a multi-disciplinary approach,” he says.

He explains that while buying efficiency continues to be an important and necessary condition, ‘it's not sufficient'.

Admittedly, the agency focused on getting domain specialists in the first 10 years. The thought process that drove diversifying talent at the top was that with a set of domain experts brought up in the same way, the agency tended to adopt ‘a kind of unitary thinking'.

“I think of that as a problem and an opportunity. Our opportunity is that once we have diversity within the organisation, we will be able to come up with newer and innovative solutions on top of what we always offer,” adds Balsara.

There is also recognition that as the scale increases beyond a point, profitability will drop.

“We have to invest substantially more in resources in order to absorb the growth and further capitalise on it,” notes the ad veteran, even as he acknowledges that Madison will not be able to pass on the premium it is paying for this talent to clients.

“I wish I could, but I can't” he adds.

The Other Madisons

From creative agency BMB in which Madison owns 50 per cent to MBA (Madison Business Analytics), there's a lot going on beyond the media business. Within Madison World are 24 different units across 10 different functions today.

Lara explains this evolution: “Of overall revenues, media would contribute 50 per cent. Five to six years ago, the contribution of Madison Media to revenues of Madison World was at 80 per cent. With more new units coming in, this is continuously changing.”

With the new talent, a longer-term agenda is to explore synergies between Madison Media and other units. For now, that's not something that's encouraged in discussion.

Balsara cites MBA as a unit to watch out for. The move towards data-based decisions and validation saw MBA being launched in November last year. Like other Madison units, this too operates independently, notes Lara. Only, in this case, it's critical that it does.

“In our view, analytics must be handled independently (of the media agency). While the skill sets required are a little similar, we think business analytics can offer an independent view that is data-based, devoid of any bias of a media expert,” says Balsara.

The 12-member team is offering analytics services to Madison clients and others today. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

“When the bucks are big, people are hesitant to take decisions based on ‘I think so' and ‘You think so'. Thanks to the lower cost of technology, computing power has substantially gone up. India is also slowly emerging as a mini-global capital for analytics – we're not just a global capital for software,” notes Balsara, underlining ambitions for this unit.

Mobile Shopping Vision

Balsara points out that the launches of new divisions at Madison have not been driven by revenue considerations, but with client needs in mind. He cites MATES (entertainment) as an example.

“I don't think MATES is a big money spinner for us. But I genuinely think the advertising and marketing community is under-harnessing the power of Bollywood to its advantage – it could do a lot more,” he notes.

According to him, units from Madison finding greater traction include innovative out-of-home units such as MOMS IES (Madison Outdoor Media Services - Integrated Experiential Services).

“I think they are finding favour because clients also know that exposure alone is not enough, unlike in the olden days. Today we need to engage with prospects more deeply,” he adds.

Mobile still continues to be an area where, for a variety of reasons, admittedly, Madison is unable to leverage the power of the medium. Focused on mobile, there are two units within Madison - Xurpas (mobile advertising and marketing) and Kabuza.

Balsara explains, “With Kabuza, we are attempting to use the mobile as a sales platform. Like you have television shopping channels and those in print and online (like Naaptol), we are attempting to create one on the mobile. The vision is to make it a shopping channel by itself.”

That vision is beset with its set of challenges. Kabuza is waiting for telecom companies to leap with it into that future.

Strengthening the Core

The focus at Madison right now is on building the organisation, which according to Balsara, is ‘primarily Lara's area of responsibility'.

The organisational strengthening has begun from the media business, the largest. Many of the centralised offerings – like its finance system M-power, appraisal system, and the client feedback system - will begin from here and flow down to the other units.

“So far, we have all been focused only on the clients' businesses. The time has come when we need to build strong organisation processes. We're getting large and now need to become a little more rigid with documented processes to be in place to bring some method to our madness,” reflects Balsara.

Last year, Balsara recounts, Madison released 50 lakh television ad spots. From planning to payment, there are numerous processes. Doing all of it ‘for a pittance' meant that continuous investment in systems, processes and automation was inevitable.

“Our intention is to introduce systems and processes even into our planning process so that the regular, routine analyses can be auto-generated – and the interpretation can be left to the expansive human mind,” he explains.

Asked if Lara's increasing role in the system and infusion of senior talent reporting to Madison Media's Group CEO Punitha Arumugam are indicators of his stepping back, Balsara responds, “Strengthening the organisation is not with a view to enable my retirement. The organisation needed to be strengthened in order to keep pace with the growth.”

The journey for AAAI's lifetime achievement award winner in 2009 isn't one without regrets – and there's one that he is keen to address.

“I do think I need to spend more time with our people. This has been a casualty. I am extremely unhappy that I do not know every Madisonite's name, and have not had the time to have individual chats with them, which in some way disturbs me,” says Balsara.

ABC agenda

Sam Balsara dons yet another hat – that of Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation for 2011-12. His to-do list in that chair:

1. The main priority - if at all possible - is to make the ABC audit as painless as possible for publishers: To not let the audit rules interfere with publishers' legitimate marketing strategies, and yet increase the credibility and authenticity of the ABC certificate

2. To increase user-ship of the ABC circulation data by agencies

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