Advertising agencies are inward-looking

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Prem Kamath,
Vice President, Marketing, Star India

“Advertising agencies are inward-looking”

“In India, the advertising industry is incredibly inward looking. For most agencies the focus is not ‘how do I add more value to my client’s business; the focus is on how do I make better advertisements. And the definition of those better advertisements is also extremely questionable. There is the entire awards culture that has permeated Indian advertising, which is doing more harm than good. The awards are certainly a motivation to do better work, but they are not an end in itself. And it is common knowledge that what finally wins an award in most international or Indian shows is something that most people cannot relate to. More energy is being spent within agencies in India on these things rather than on ‘How do I add value to my clients?’ And therein lies the answer. If an agency does add value to the client’s business, the client would not be inclined to change agency and would be even willing to pay them more than what they are being paid today. And that is perhaps what is needed for agencies to emerge from being a mere commodity to create value for their own brand.

While I don’t subscribe to changing agencies too often, the trend comes from a specific client mindset. Either the client is over reliant on what the agency is doing for them; or else clients don’t value their agency’s work/ creativity at all. Both are not good. Over reliance on agencies means that you call for a review and a multiple-agency pitch only to ‘fish’ for new brand building ideas. This can only happen if the client itself is heavily dependent in a particular agency for ideas, business plan, strategy, new insights, et al. Alternatively, if the agency is adding no value at all, the client is perhaps still taking agency services as a commodity and in calling for a pitch, is taking the brand it to the market again, to see if there is a better bet to get new ideas.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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