Mumbai, July 28, 2005:

Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), as part of its Diamond Jubilee Celebrations organized the Diamond Jubilee Seminar “Beyond the Horizon” on 21st and 22nd of July 2005 at Hotel Hilton Towers, Mumbai. Click Here to see the Photographs taken during the event.

On the eve of Thursday, 21st July 2005, with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp as the symbolic gesture, Mr Srinivasan K Swamy delivered a short welcome address (pdf link) replete with facts and figures.

Mr Swamy threw light on the origin of AAAI and breezed the audience through the journey of AAAI from its inception in the pre-independence days (21st September 1945 to be precise), and how the advertising body had contributed in shaping the advertising industry through its initiatives.

Going down memory lane, Mr Swamy said, “From a total billing of Rs 3.5 crore in 1953, the advertising industry has grown to a robust Rs 12,000 crore industry today. Through the years, the AAAI has addressed various relevant issues and also helped in formation of bodies like Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) as well as IBF. Most recently, AAAI took up the issue of fringed benefit tax, which subsequent to the initiative, was removed for advertising expenses.”

Among the many things that AAAI has on its agenda are launch of a book – History of Advertising – arranging four one-day seminars, a new code of best practices and promotion of talent by a campaign showing advertising as an interesting job prospect.

The occasion was also well-timed for the annual, much looked forward to AAAI-Premnarayen Award ceremony. The 17th AAAI-Premnarayen Award, for the year 2004, was conferred on Mr Goutam Rakshit, Managing Director, Advertising Avenues, for his outstanding contribution towards the growth and development of professionalism in the advertising industry in India.

Mr Rakshit has been a Past-President of the AAAI for three terms and also has the distinction of having been at the helm of key industry bodies like ABC, NRSC and ASCI. He is currently a trustee of STACA and was the first Indian to chair the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA). He also played a stellar role in steering Ad Asia (Jaipur) 2003.

Mr Rakshit, who started off as a management graduate at Cadbury’s joined Clarion Advertising as an account director in 1980. He formed his own home grown agency called Advertising Avenues in 1982 to help develop smaller brands, and has managed till date to keep to that vision. He was a key catalyst in changing the mind-sets between the advertiser, advertising professional and the media. “This is truly an honour, as it is coming from my own peers and my industry and this is one award that I will cherish for long.We’ve grown well from a cottage industry to a world-class industry today. This industry is a knowledge industry and we are in the business of creating brand ‘India’ and should endeavour to succeed in doing that,” Mr Rakshit said while accepting the award.

Mr Andrew Robertson, President & CEO, BBDO Worldwide, New York -- one of the youngest industry professionals to be elevated to this global position, and who took over as the CEO of BBDO Worldwide at the age of 43 -- then delivered his inaugural address to an elite gathering triggering off, on 21st July evening itself, the AAAI Diamond Jubilee Seminar with some thought provoking insights which set the tone for Seminar.

Mr Robertson was undoubtedly the highlight of the evening. He spoke about the digital economy which he referred to as the attention economy. “One can move from world to world at a touch of a buttun; its no more called multi-tasking but serial monotasking,” Mr Robertson said.

Throwing light on the fact that it was easier today that ever before to move between options for consumers, and hence the advertising industry today is posed with a major challenge. Robertson’s solution to beat the fast paced and bustling growth of digitalization was to provide compelling creative content. “It’s not the medium and the technology, but the quality of content; in fact the message is the medium.” Validating his point, Robertson cited examples of Rowling’s Harry Potter which was sold out in the first couple of hours after it hit the stands.

Referring to India, Mr Robertson cited the Cannes 2005 example; while Thailand won 26 lions, Brazil – 62, Africa – 25, India landed itself only 5. He said, “India has a vast pool of rich talent and I would like to see India making an impact by making its work comparable to global creativity standards. It has the potential and since the clients need it, I am sure India will prove itself.”

He concluded by saying, “I hope to come back for the AAAI – 75th anniversary”.

The next morning (22nd July 2005) Mr Bhaskar Das, Executive President of the Times of India, briefly introduced Mr Ranjan Kapur, Country Manager, WPP India, and thus started a veritable bouquet of sessions. In his keynote address Mr Kapur said, “someone once told me never to predict the future, because you’ll never be right. And if you feel you must, then predict far enough into the future so you won’t be around to face the embarrassment when you are proven wrong. But insanity has already begun to take hold and I am about to take a crack at forecasting what is in store for us in the next few years,” he quipped.

Mr Kapur made some very pertinent points on the estimated size of the marketing communications industry in India today, “the future is upon us and we don’t even know it”. Last year, China claimed that they were $35 billion, while India was a mere $3 billion. Are we underestimating our own Adex? questioned Mr Kapur, "And if so, by how much and are we missing something? I believe we are.

"I believe that non-traditional media has grown considerably faster than our ability to measure it. Some of the direct to consumer businesses like Amway, etc., are billion dollar businesses. And they use direct marketing tools which go largely unmeasured. As do rural brand building efforts and in-cinema branding."

“I believe that non-traditional media has grown considerably faster than our ability to measure it. I believe it accounts for at least another one billion that has not been measured,” Mr Kapur said. "Some of the direct to consumer businesses like Amway, etc., are billion dollar businesses. And they use direct marketing tools which go largely unmeasured. As do rural brand building efforts and in-cinema branding."

He also spoke of how advertising would continue to be the dominant medium for a long time to come, but its importance would continue to erode. The erosion would come from non-traditional, non-measured media. "Agencies will also have to examine their media neutral stance".

An important hypothesis of Mr Kapur was about brands built in the era of shortages vis-a vis today's brands which are built in the era of plenty. Plenty of choices, plenty of goods and services, plenty of financing options and plenty of disposable incomes. Mr Kapur warned that those brands which were built in times of shortages would do well to reassess their notion of brand loyalty.

Mr Kapur also said that 52 percent of India's GDP had grown up without the help of the advertising industry as companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and many others have become billion dollar enterprises almost without much help from agencies. He said the future belongs to the media independents whose financial models were in tune with the times predicted that the two big trends which would shape the advertising business of the future would be the retail boom and the mobile telephony phenomenon.

This was followed by a high voltage and intellectually stimulating series of discussions covering today’s hot sectors of FMCG, Services, Media & Entertainment and Evolving Sectors including Automotive/Lifestyle, Healthcare & Retail.

Mr Balsara, Chairman and MD, Madison Communications, expressed the concern that the share of the FMCG sector in advertising was declining from 76 per cent in 1999 to about 50 per cent last year. Thus, he said, it was necessary for the FMCG industry to have some conclusive findings in this area so that mistakes that might have been made leading to the decline of growth rates – with an exception of last year’s growth of 6 per cent – were not repeated.

Building on this, Mr Saugata Gupta, Chief of Marketing at Marico said, “The worst is over and this year, growth will be more than 19 per cent and there are a few trends that the industry will witness. As India is getting younger, increasing number of products will be directed towards the youth and youthful segment. Kids, too, pose as a strong segment with their pester power. There is a lot of scope out there as aspirations are high. Brands will thus need to encourage multiple personalities. There will be much stronger need for innovations.”

He further said that marketers would have to devise smaller packaging strategies to find place inside the purse. “There will be increased demand for brand consultants and strategic account planning people to drive the growth,” Mr Gupta pointed out.

The second speaker on FMCG was CavinKare CMD, Mr C K Ranganathan, focused his presentation largely at looking beyond television as an advertising medium to drive awareness and volumes. Thus, he underscored the need for experimentation by marketers. He also said, “Today’s consumers are looking for ways to look good and feel good, so it’s a great opportunity to drive per capita consumption. And instead of waiting for income levels to increase, marketers need to strategise to raise the bar of hygiene level. Smaller packs are and will be the way to go.”

Mr John Cahill of McCann Healthcare (Singapore) and Ms Sudipta Sen Gupta of Café Coffee Day were the speakers at the next session on the Evolving Sectors chaired by Mr Vivek Mohan of Abbott India. The session on the Services Sector chaired by Mr G Krishnan of TV Today provided insights from Mr S V Prasad of Birla Sun Life and Mr Atul Bindal of Airtel.

Mr Vivek Mohan laid the ground for discussion by saying that there were 200 million consuming class and this would double over the next five years or so. These consumers were willing to make decision for themselves and there were growing acceptance of lifestyle, automotive, healthcare and retail. “Consumers are demanding more from the market place, they need more value for money, there is a greater demand for better shopping experience. Debt no longer is a dirty word,” said Mr Mohan.

Taking over from here, Mr John Cahill, Regional Director, Asia-Pacific, McCann (Healthcare), presented his point of view on the healthcare communication industry. He said, “Even if needles, doctors, pills, etc., come to mind when one thinks of healthcare communication, actually the communication is surprisingly like other creative expressions. It’s about real people and things affecting them. Though the state of healthcare communication in India has not been easy, driven by the evolution of need and the state of health, healthcare communication will look at more meaningful contacts.”

Ms Sudipta Sen Gupta, Senior General Manager (Marketing), Café Coffee Day, gave her analyses of retail emerging as an evolving sector. According to her, “The growth of retail outlets like Café Coffee Day and others has got a great push from technology babies, aspiring youth, balance seekers and retired affluents. These retail outlets will have to build strong brands.” She gave the example of how Café Coffee Day had built a brand without investing in above the line advertising in its initial days as well as the tie-ups with TVS Scooty and Levis.

The last session in the pre-lunch segment deliberated on the services sector, where the chairman was TV Today’s CEO, G Krishnan. He said that services today had transgressed all boundaries like banks, which was unimaginable a decade ago, but had now become a simple reality. “The discerning consumer of today is willing to pay for quality, but is greatly intangible. So there are issues as to how to measure quality and manage it. Having said this, the services sector will help India emerge a global leader in next 10 years,” affirmed Mr Krishnan.

Presenting at breathless speed, Mr S V Prasad, CEO of Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co., said, “There is a rising affordability due to urbanization and rising per capita income, but the consumers are getting under-leveraged. We have a reservoir of intellectual capital and this is India’s greatest strength, which is making the country one of the fastest growing economies. So, there is consumption-led growth, mobile telephony boom, tourism is witnessing a strong growth as there is easy availability of finance. India’s equity market is also getting bigger and Corporate India is in far better shape today. All this is enabling Indian services sector to grow.”

Mr Atul Bindal, CMO of Airtel, spoke of branding in context of telecom services. He said that there would be some key shifts and trends like brands would now equal experience, there will be less rivalry and more competition, there will be challenges of the next scoop, there will need to be buyer behaviour paradigm shift, non-voice will be the differentiator, there content as strategic partnership and the last technology led media planning and delivery will important to note".

In the post-lunch session on the Media & Entertainment Sector chaired by Mr Arvind Sharma of Leo Burnett saw Mr N Ram of The Hindu and Mr Peter Mukerjea CEO of Star India debate and discuss issues and challenges faced by the Media and Entertainment industry, as well as their impact on Ad agencies and related streams.

Mr Sharma spoke more about the growing media and the various platforms to advertisers today to build brands. Establishing the base, he invited his first panelist, Mr N Ram, who spoke about the value of good content in journalism.

In an upfront presentation, Mr Ram pointed the problems that the print industry was facing. “The newspaper industry faces a full fledged crisis today,” he said. He enumerated various encouraging signs also pertaining to the industry, speaking about Asia being in the top three countries, which had the highest number of readers, India being No 2 in the list. Mr Ram also referred to literature, highlighted the buoyancy in Indian language papers, concluding that literacy, good transport and communication, and finally the existence of political events, have lead to the growth in the medium.

Bringing out the pressures that advertising brings on editorial and the readers evolving drastically at the same time, Ram cautioned, “Newspapers will decline rapidly unless there are radical changes to connect with the reader. Good journalism can laugh at concepts of the ‘give the reader what they want’ and ‘Infotainment’, but the bottom line is that we have to see these issues seriously now.”

Apart from these concerns, he also pointed out that presence of a paper on the web, even though it hadn't eaten into the readership much presently, going forward it would. Leaving the audience with all these issues, he concluded on the note, “We have to value good journalism, quality content if the medium has to survive.”

Even as the audience was worrying on this set of issues, Mr Peter Mukerjea brought out another set of concerns. He began his Internet-linked presentation with the quoting of Don Schultz from the foreword of the book Life After 30-second Spot. He said, “Consumer is different today, but advertising is not. It is still 30-second ads format for a consumer, who cannot be formatted.”

He pointed out the gradual movement to consumer-generated content and the emergence of concepts like Direct Marketing and PR for the marketing success of a product.

To the shatter myths that we faced today, Mr Mukerjea brought out points that were issues earlier, but over time had ceased – whether it was the prediction of television never taking off or consumers turning into ‘serial clickers’ ending the advertising era, as soon as the remote control was invented. He pointed that people still kept coming back.

Nonetheless, the medium was transforming now. From a situation, where media was controlled, a technological revolution had led to the consumer controlling the media. Mr Mukerjea explained that with the growth of digital communication, the nature of production, distribution and finally consumption of TV had changed, and so would TV advertising.

He cited the examples of IPTV and BT delivering content over phone lines, Interactive TV like SKY News Active, PVRs, X TV and so on, emphasizing that competition only got accentuated going forward, pressure on programmers intensifying to actually leading to a scene where only the best would survive.

Throwing light on some future trends, Mr Mukerjea said, “There would be complete technological convergence, product integration, sponsorships would be more meaningful. Even if the digital immigrants will not become native, there is a need to be accustomed to the digital culture and then, only sky is the limit.”

The response from the Agency Panel had Mr Sunil Alagh of SKA Advisors in the chair, while advertising industry’s heavyweights like Mr Piyush Pandey of O&M, Mr Madhukar Kamath of Mudra Group and Mr V Shantakumar of Saatchi & Saatchi provided their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Even before the session began, Mr Alagh informed the audience that the panelists would just voice a thought they regarded as relevant to the industry, and then opened the floor to the audience, a privilege not seen in some of the earlier sessions.

Mr Alagh began with the need to going to fundamentals for a problem, but not intellectualizing the issue and not being restricted by benchmarks. Mr Pandey was the first panelist to address the crowd, who began with a movie clip and the question, “Are we bugging consumers too much? In our excitement of new things, we are forgetting the basics and the result is that 85 per cent of what we see today is utter crap!”

He said that there was a need to correct the act immediately if the future had to be secure and that the key of great communication was in partnerships.

Following, this Mr Kamath took charge of the crowd. He said, “Today we are forcing ourselves to come up with a new idea. We mustn't forget that there are too many choices that consumers have in every field and that it is time for integration, across disciplines.”

One of the key points he brought out was that the unbundling of agencies into media and creative ones was one of the generators of today's problems, and that the solution now lay with agencies returning to full fledged, full-service agencies and strengthening partnerships with clients.

Mr Shantakumar took Mr Kamath’s point forward saying that all changes happened in a context and mere content could not be the driver of change. “Just because there is new technology doesn't mean we have to search for a way to use it,” he pointed out. “Can you bug someone to buy anything?” he asked.

He further said that in the long run, people believed in action rather than words and that advertisers were moving in the direction where they focused more on what they wanted to say rather than what they wanted to do.

“The relations between the agency and the client has been steadily deteriorating, and at the end of it, we are to be blamed. We haven't been able to provide clients with enough transformable ideas,” Mr Shantakumar admitted.

The Panel Response took the seminar closer to its completion, where 20 industry professionals had spoken on points of the media that were not seen or spoken of often. The culmination came in the valedictory address, delivered by Mr Prem Mehta, the recipient of the AAAI-Premnarayen Award last year.

One of the key events of this ‘Beyond The Horizon’ seminar was Mr Prem Mehta, Chairman and MD, Lintas India, delivering the valedictory note. Mr Mehta brought out the points that he was taking from the seminar, the foremost of which was the need to forge partnerships to take the business forward. On a positive note, he pointed that even as the concept of fragmentation was fast emerging, the fact was that it was accompanied with the phenomenon of an evolving consumer – both socially and economically.

He added, “Marketing has come of age, but the Indian industry is such that it has not seen the luxury of evolution. Aspects like pricing are becoming deciding factors. On the overall scene, this has led to the reduced ability to invest long term, which is a cause of concern.”

Mr Mehta concluded with a call for the need to re-look at the media-creative divide, moving towards integrated communications outfits and in all the need for the ad industry to re-establish. “The keyword of the evening, I believe is partnerships – that is the way forward,” was his parting shot.

Mr Neville Gomes, the Chairman of the AAAI Diamond Jubilee Seminar said “This was an action-packed, insightful Seminar. "With this event we wanted to bring out issues of the industry that do not always meet one’s eye, which is what came across to the participants – whether in the case of sectors like FMCGs, Services, Media (both Print and TV) and of course the response of the Advertising fraternity."

For Mr Srinivasan Swamy, President AAAI, “This Seminar, ‘Beyond the Horizon’ went as AAAI had planned" and this would be a huge encouragement for the other events that the Association was looking during it's Diamond Jubilee Year”.

Sam Balsara, Immediate Past-President of AAAI, validated this, “Right from Andrew (Robertson) to Ranjan (Kapur) – some very thought provoking insights have been brought forward. I would say full marks to Peter (Mukerjea) for really scaring us to some extent about all the technological challenges that we face.” On the flip side though Mr Balsara said, “I am disappointed to see that not as many marketers and agency heads have been a part of this. There are absolute pearls of knowledge which have come out of this meet and a lot more people should have taken advantage” .

Among other prominent industry names, O&M’s Mr Piyush Pandey, too, was content with the outcome of the event. “Such events are an excellent platform for people to come together and discuss concerns of the industry. AAAI has managed to put together a great event here and everyone who has come as benefited from this.”

Mr Arvind Sharma, Chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett also agreed, “I think this was an absolutely wonderful event. I want to thank AAAI for putting something like this together, which has brought out some valid points that industry leaders should look into”.