They weathered recession, quite Ad-mirably
A number of advertising startups & new-to-India agencies are now breathing easy.
By Rajiv Banerjee & Amit Sharma, ET Bureau |
When veteran ad professionals Partha Sinha, Subhash Kamath and Priti Nair posed before the cameras at Taj Lands End in Mumbai as British ad agency BBH announced its foray into the country last November, the three partners could barely mask the anxiety that was slowly engulfing their dream entrepreneurial venture. The global economic downturn had begun washing on India���s shores, making a panic-struck middle class stay away from consumer markets������affecting everything from staples to durables to cars.
They were not alone. A number of ad startups and new-to-India agencies, including Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi���s TapRoot India, Raj Kurup���s Creativeland Asia, BBDO India and Weiden+Kennedy, found their fledglings bang in the middle of an economic maelstrom comparable in its severity only to the 1930s Great Depression.
From the word go, these small agencies were forced to keep their costs in check, limit new hires to a bare minimum and generally stay flexible, much like what big ad flotillas were doing.
In hindsight, their launch timing has proved to be fortuitous. "We were born during the recession. That���s our strength, and our opportunity. We were able to bend with the moment and design ourselves around the recessive sentiment, which is probably why we won more businesses during this period," says Josy Paul, chairman & chief creative officer, BBDO India. The agency claims to have won plum accounts like Quaker Oats, Aviva Life Insurance, P&G Gillette, Wrigley���s DoubleMint and Bayer Healthcare, in the past one year. Talk of baptism by fire.
Today, as growth returns to markets across the globe, these new agencies can breathe easy, for the first time since their tumultuous birth. Braving and surviving such a financial storm in their formative days has equipped these agencies with the tools and guts to take on whatever comes, something their bigger rivals grown up on healthy business cycles may not be up to. Partha Sinha, managing partner, BBH India says; "We are a product of the recession and we took a pragmatic look at building the organisation. There���s a lot of inefficiency in the (ad) system and we just couldn���t afford it."
And all that prudence of getting rid of inefficiencies has borne fruit as some big accounts have come BBH���s way. Says Sameer Satpathy, head - marketing, Marico; "We do not evaluate an agency on its size but on their ability to create an idea. BBH has had a fantastic track records is creating compelling brand arguments and it is well knit global agency , offering global scale at a local level. It also helped that we have had a long association with the founder partners. So it makes a compelling argument to sign on!"
BBDO India���s Paul says the fact that the company was bereft of any baggage of the past helped. "We had only just begun. So we did not have to retrench anybody. But we were careful with costs. We are sensitive to the global situation. It���s cool to travel economy! It���s cool to say no to expensive parties. It���s cool to cut costs. So we did not go to Cannes, and we sacrificed, sacrificed, sacrificed."
So even as Cannes this year may have seen limited Indian participation as part of the austerity measures by agencies both big and small, creativity is in ample evidence as these smaller outfits rejigged their business model during the slowdown. Sinha Of BBH India says with a number of brand consulting businesses in the pipeline, partnering with clients to recast the brand architecture has emerged as an important focus. "We are the BBH of 2009 and not 1982, so if it goes this way brand consulting will be big for us," he says, adding that recession has forced a lot of brands to rethink their brand strategy and that���s where BBH as a consulting partner is looking to play an important role.
They were not alone. A number of ad startups and new-to-India agencies, including Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi���s TapRoot India, Raj Kurup���s Creativeland Asia, BBDO India and Weiden+Kennedy, found their fledglings bang in the middle of an economic maelstrom comparable in its severity only to the 1930s Great Depression.
From the word go, these small agencies were forced to keep their costs in check, limit new hires to a bare minimum and generally stay flexible, much like what big ad flotillas were doing.
In hindsight, their launch timing has proved to be fortuitous. "We were born during the recession. That���s our strength, and our opportunity. We were able to bend with the moment and design ourselves around the recessive sentiment, which is probably why we won more businesses during this period," says Josy Paul, chairman & chief creative officer, BBDO India. The agency claims to have won plum accounts like Quaker Oats, Aviva Life Insurance, P&G Gillette, Wrigley���s DoubleMint and Bayer Healthcare, in the past one year. Talk of baptism by fire.
Today, as growth returns to markets across the globe, these new agencies can breathe easy, for the first time since their tumultuous birth. Braving and surviving such a financial storm in their formative days has equipped these agencies with the tools and guts to take on whatever comes, something their bigger rivals grown up on healthy business cycles may not be up to. Partha Sinha, managing partner, BBH India says; "We are a product of the recession and we took a pragmatic look at building the organisation. There���s a lot of inefficiency in the (ad) system and we just couldn���t afford it."
And all that prudence of getting rid of inefficiencies has borne fruit as some big accounts have come BBH���s way. Says Sameer Satpathy, head - marketing, Marico; "We do not evaluate an agency on its size but on their ability to create an idea. BBH has had a fantastic track records is creating compelling brand arguments and it is well knit global agency , offering global scale at a local level. It also helped that we have had a long association with the founder partners. So it makes a compelling argument to sign on!"
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Meanwhile, most ad professionals who decided to go solo say they were completely aware of the coming economic storm last year. Agnello Dias, co-founder of TapRoot India, says by the time he and Santosh Padhi started shop, they were already into the recession. "Even when I was working as a creative head (with JWT India), I was looking at aspects like profitability and margins, so it wasn���t entirely an unknown territory we were getting into," he says. However, with the slowdown, a change in the way one does business became imperative and the first milestone was to keep overheads to the bare minimum.BBDO India���s Paul says the fact that the company was bereft of any baggage of the past helped. "We had only just begun. So we did not have to retrench anybody. But we were careful with costs. We are sensitive to the global situation. It���s cool to travel economy! It���s cool to say no to expensive parties. It���s cool to cut costs. So we did not go to Cannes, and we sacrificed, sacrificed, sacrificed."
So even as Cannes this year may have seen limited Indian participation as part of the austerity measures by agencies both big and small, creativity is in ample evidence as these smaller outfits rejigged their business model during the slowdown. Sinha Of BBH India says with a number of brand consulting businesses in the pipeline, partnering with clients to recast the brand architecture has emerged as an important focus. "We are the BBH of 2009 and not 1982, so if it goes this way brand consulting will be big for us," he says, adding that recession has forced a lot of brands to rethink their brand strategy and that���s where BBH as a consulting partner is looking to play an important role.
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