Talking Heads with Publicis's Richard Pinder

Sheetal Patel - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai

Richard Pinder

On his first major international visit after taking up sole leadership of the Publicis Network, Richard Pinder, chief operating officer, Publicis Worldwide, emphasises the importance of India as one of the few growth markets. He talks of his plans to position the agency as one of the top five advertising agencies in India in three years and double revenues from operations.

How has the Publicis network and Groupe been performing ?
We are at minus 4.4 per cent growth in the first quarter as a group globally and that is a less bad situation than other holding companies in our industry. Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe has indicated in the recent annual general meeting that the second quarter would be worse, but that we would outperform a number of our competitors.

The Asia-Pacific region has surprisingly been a drag on those numbers and has performed less well. Everywhere else the conversation is how are you going to protect your margin if you are declining, our conversation with India is that you are one of the few economies that is growing, how do we get you to double the scale of business in the next three years.

What are your plans for India ?
Last year, India was one of the fastest growing markets for Publicis worldwide. This year, it is one of the very few places in the world that is seeing any growth. For us, it is incredible that India is a growth engine.

We are among the top 10 advertising agencies in India - at number seven in terms of revenues and number three in terms of creativity. As the gap between the top five and the rest is huge, our goal is to double the size of business and be among the top five advertising agencies in the country.

What are your business priorities globally and in India ?
Three things I am trying to do globally: Ensuring that we are clearly positioned and seen as the company providing contagious ideas that change the conversation. I believe the role of our business is to provide much more than TV commercials for clients. It's to provide an idea that people want to talk about and share with each other. I want our creative profile to rise substantially. We are already among the top 10 of the Gunn Report in our 83-year history and now I want to be in the top five in the next three years.

The second is digital. I want 30 per cent of my global revenues to be in digital by 2012. I am already at 15 per cent. When I took over the job we were a little under 7 per cent. In India, I think, we can grow at a faster pace but we're starting at a lower base of about 5 per cent.

The third is, the world we are in has seen a huge rupture with the past and I want the new generation of clients and talent to look at us and say "wow, you're leading the way".

Which areas are you looking at for growth ?
We are a young organisation in India, just 10 years old. In these years, we have already made four acquisitions - Zen Communications, Ambience, Capital Advertising and Madhyam Communications. Besides, we have launched two start-ups - Red Lion for design and Publicis Modem for digital media.

The way forward is to build on this momentum. We will look at new markets/cities for growth. We will also look for acquisitions in the digital space in areas like customer relationship management (CRM) and also in a few other areas that we would not like to disclose right now.

But is not the digital media a nascent market in India ?
The medium is interesting for marketers of high value goods, like BMW, who are interested in targeting a focused market. If we look at advertising globally, it is predicted to dip at 7 per cent, whereas internet advertising is still growing.

In the first quarter of this calendar year, it grew 20 per cent. Digital contributes 15 per cent of our global revenues. In India, the contribution stands at 5 per cent. By 2012, the contribution from digital will be up to 30 per cent to overall revenues globally and, in India, it will account for 20 per cent of total revenues.

What is your take on the effectiveness of a campaign ?
The speed at which conversations are moving is unfathomable and that has been achieved because of technology in the form of the Internet, social networking and SMS. It is this speed, which, needs to be put to good use by brands and advertisers to create effective campaigns centred on consumer conversations about the brand.

I can substantiated this with examples. The first among these was Cadbury's Crème Egg, a chocolate that was available only for three months in the UK and buzz needed to be created for the same. Publicis came up with the 'Here today. Goo tomorrow' campaign as the chocolate egg was filled with a gooey creamy centre.

The outdoor and commercials cascaded a consumer response where consumers uploaded videos of how they could get the 'goo' out. On the final day of the Crème Egg season, the commercial read 'Gooing gooing. Gone!'.

Advice and recommendations have always been one of the strongest influencers and always will be. In another example to highlight the speed at which conversations happen today, i can explain with an example of the fall of Joseph Estrada, the President of Philippines. A simple text message sent out by a single individual to 10 of his friends turned into a mass rally that demanded that the president resign.

Similarly, Obama's use of the Internet through his website and social networking set the pace for the conversations that happened about him in and around the USA. The marketing imperative for today is to manage consumer conversations about brands. It is necessary to ensure that positive conversations are much more than the negative ones.

Studies indicate that recommended brands show more growth compared to the others. What is your call ?
Yes of course, the more growth can be equivalent to five times. Before HP's 'The computer is personal again' campaign, laptops were just boring grey boxes. However, following the campaign, the conversation steered to how laptops were imperative and the consumer needed to have the best one.

Fast food brand Maggi, too, was an example in point, where, after 25 years of the brand's presence in India, one time young consumers are the mothers of new consumers today – and each of them have a Maggi story to tell.

Brands must have a leadership point of view. Moving up from being a passive part of consumer conversations, a brand must steer the conversation with its communication. Examples of such brands are Coca-Cola, Apple and Toyota. The conversations will happen only when the idea moves beyond being creative to being contagious. In order to create contagious ideas, one needs to test ideas, and this is only the simple part. The hard part is achieving conversation speed through a TV commercial.

What is your message to advertising agencies ?
One needs to listen to the kind of conversations that take place about a brand – and listen every day. Secondly, agencies should find out whether or not a brand has a leadership point of view. Finally, each time one sees a new concept, does one think that it's co-creatable, does it have a story and will it make for great conversation ?