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Articles for Protalk

“Education and realistic belief are crucial in the modeling industry”- Marc Robinson

The fashion industry of country has not seen a lot of successful male super models. However the first generations of male supermodels that created and defined the Indian modeling industry and paved the way for its success include the name of the ace model turned choreographer Marc Robinson. Marc was present in Delhi as the jury for Max Presents Elite Model Look 2015 and in a candid conversation with EE he spoke about the competition, tips and tricks for being a model. Q- What brings you to Delhi and what are you looking for? A-I am looking for young, dynamic, beautiful looking and strong structured people, a boy and a girl, who have an identity of their own and the hunger to go internationally and make a career of being a model. Opportunity in the world of fashion are huge and along with it come fame, fortune and money and I am here to offer these to the most deserving candidates. Q- What can we expect from Max Presents Elite Model Look 2015? A-Max as a brand has been totally dedicated in promoting fashion and they believe that we need an international supermodel from India as India has the potential to deliver on it. Through this competition we want to reach out to everyone who aspires to be a model as after selection we will be training them and making them the fashion stars for tomorrow. After the Delhi auditions today we head out to Chandigarh, Bangalore, Kolkata, Bombay and Hyderabad and I am very positive that we are certainly going to find our next supermodels through this competition. Q- So after the regional castings have been done, how is the competition going to roll out then? A-So once the auditions are done we will have a national finale in Delhi on 30th September where we will be having an international casting agent flying down from Elite. They have their own perceptions of a supermodel so what we want to do is present to them around 30 contestants in each category of boys and girls and then we sit together and pick 8 boys and 8 girls out of that for a 10 day boot camp in Delhi where they will be trained by ramp walk trainers and photographers from Paris. Out of those we pick 1 boy and 1 girl who will be the winners and then we will train them for a month further and then they go to China, Milan or Paris where the final competition across the world will be held. Q- If you were to give 3 tips to all the aspiring models of the country what would they be? A-Definitely, the first thing is complete your education as that is the key. I had completed my education, I was working and I only had a fling with modeling when I realized that I was getting more work here and I was not able to balance it with my 9 to 5 job routine. Secondly, realistic belief is the key. I come across a lot of people everyday who have wrong mirrors in their homes and want to come and become models, they need to understand that you have to be realistic in the industry and always have a plan. Also setting a time frame is also very important. Ambitions are good but it is always better to plan your career graph accordingly. Q-A person getting compliments for their looks may not necessarily be a model material. So where does one draw the line between the two and realize that they have the potential to be a model? A-If you feel that you can be a model then there are many agencies that you can go to and take their advice on do they want you? It is similar to any aspiring cricketer, who will have to go to a sports camp and then play for district, zonal and then national level. So if at a point a cricketer is stuck at Ranji Trophy level then they get a fair idea that they are perhaps not going to play for the country. So similarly in modeling if you have been to 10-12 agencies and they all have said no then its time you get a reality check. Q- Any upcoming projects that interests you? A-Currently, I have a lot of IPRs in my hands. After this competition I will be doing India fashion icon and I am currently busy with India Bridal Week so for now these things have kept me completely occupied.

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Collective intelligence of the internet is too often sullied by a collective unintelligence

Over 120 writers are expected to visit the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest, which will run from November 14 to November 17, 2013 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai. In conversation with EE, Anil Dharker, Festival Director, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2013, talks about the role of Litfests in the society today and how has the concept evolved over the years. What is the USP of Tata Literature Live! Mumbai Litfest, 2013? TATA Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest retains its individuality by being true to its own values. As a small team, we put in what we think is interesting, rather than our idea of what the audience wants. At the same time, we have tried at Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest to bring in new ideas and directions from all over the world, every year. That stimulates us as much as it stimulates the audience. How has this festival grown over the years? The audience keeps evolving and has been getting progressive over the years. For instance, when the concept of litfests evolved in India, most of the people who attended were older, serious readers and collectors of books. They still continue to come, but they have been joined by quite a large number of younger people, many of them new to the world of books. Tata literature Live counted 12,000 people at the inaugural edition, and 22,000 last year and we are expecting around 25,000 people this year. Which are the top attractions for this event? As is the festival’s tradition, the Landmark Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award will honour a legend – Khushwant Singh and the Tata First Book Award which will recognise promising talent. This year, there will be a First Book Award each for Fiction and Non-Fiction. Besides, the festival will present for the first time an art and photography exhibition which investigates the relationship between literature and art by inviting artists to create art works inspired by Khushwant Singh’s autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice. On display will be paintings and photographs from illustrious artists. In addition to this, there will be an exhibition of unique cricket memorabilia by Boria Majumdar to coincide with Sachin Tendulkar’s participation in his career’s 200th and last Test match. Additionally, on the centenary of Tagore’s Nobel prize, Prof Sugata Bose from Harvard will launch his new translation of Gitanjali while psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar’s book, Young Tagore will also be released on the occasion. We also have evening performances that promise to be a great blend of literature and theatre. What are your efforts to drive a larger footfall to this event? Which are the marketing strategies you are concentrating on to connect with the target group? The festival will present various verticals of literature — fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays. They will be presented in a way that appeals to the academic and the lay reader, the bookworm and the occasional browser, the experienced writer and the aspiring author. Various activations like social media, communication the message through our networks, outdoor publicity are activated to spread the message of the festival this year. In the larger scheme of things, what can you say about the role played by Litfests in the society? Collective intelligence of the internet is too often sullied by a collective unintelligence, the tendency of people to shoot off unconsidered and ignorant reactions, encouraged by the instant nature of the medium and the cloak of anonymity it gives the user. Public discourse, as witnessed at a literary festival, is a completely different kettle of fish. To start with, experts speak to experts, writers to writers, all of them on a subject they know well, and have worked on for years. The level of conversation and debate, therefore, is at a pretty high level. Interaction with the audience is also well-informed, simply because the people who attend litfests are generally well read, and attend particular sessions because they have a special interest in that subject. The intellectual stimulation that participants and audience derive from a literary festival, not only acts as a spur to further intellectual growth, but it also acts as a catalyst to strike off on diverse and often unplanned intellectual paths.

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“The real ROI is Return on Interaction”, Sameer Tobaccowala on the impact of experiences

When his events were hit by the by 26/11 tragedy, death of a political supremo in Mumbai, or while he organised a road show spanning across 36 cities in just 26 days, Sameer Tobaccowala, the CEO of Shobiz Experiential Communications, is known to brave challenges. In conversation with EE, he talks about the evolution of BTL space and how hurdles can be converted into opportunity areas. In the years since your inception, what is the change that you have seen with brands approaching you for BTL activations? We have witnessed the evolution of the BTL space over the last 2 decades. Some of our first few initiatives marked the entry of Coke as well as IBM, into the Indian market. The evolution of this space owes itself to the learning curve which clients and agencies have traversed through, along with socio-economic and political catalysts such as liberation, the explosion of modern retail and the burgeoning Indian middle class. Today, unlike the past, there is a plethora of spaces where one can experience a brand. Brands are rapidly waking up to the value of positive conversation and are realising that no matter whether you are an impulse purchase like an ice cream or a high value consumer durable like a refrigerator, much attention must be paid to the ‘aura’ of the brand. More mature marketeers today will look far beyond the bottom line and include return on interaction, return on engagement, return on experience as factors that all contribute to return on investment. Which sector experiments most with BTL activations? From among our spectrum of clientele, FMCG, auto and mobile have been the verticals most open to exploring radical innovation in the BTL space. However, BTL is not for everyone. Sectors like pharma, engineering, technology are a difficult fit for BTL, which only means that the creative brains at the agency need to work that much harder. According to you, what is the role of experiential marketing in the whole brand building exercise? Experiential marketing is a potent element in the overall marketing mix, one that is measurable, one that is two-way and gives your audience a chance to speak back, one that can be a gateway for a more prolonged and deeper engagement with your audience. I do not believe that these strengths can be found in traditional media. Therefore experiential media needs to be considered as a key ingredient in the overall marketing mix. Do you think experiential marketing is underutilized in India? For sure I agree with this statement. And this fact belies a number of fallacious attitudes: for example, I think that a large number of big spenders indulge in way too much hedging, they love their print ads, their TVCs, their traditional toolsets of market research and focus groups. This also points to the fact that the big established global players have not cracked the experiential play in India. I hope the day is not too far when we see experiential agencies being brought on board with the same level of confidence and privy to the same information as advertising agencies. Till then the mutual admiration circle of client – ad agency – buying agency – market research agency will continue. What are some of the major challenges of implementing experiential marketing in India? In the past, we were in the middle of delivering a ticketed experience for over 3000 people when Mumbai’s 26/11 hit us. We were 48 hours away from a VVIP cultural experience when a political supremo passed away, throwing the city into chaos. Such were some unforeseen challenges that we experienced. In general, in this industry, collaborating with the client to craft the brand experience is probably the biggest hurdle. Most marketers think in terms of product experience and if you actually look at the traditional brand key there is no space for brand experience. The sooner players in this space keep their gaze firmly fixed on the potential rather than the challenges, the richer both clients and agencies will be for this focus. Can you talk about your most challenging experience in all these years? We’ve been privileged to partner with Tata Motors to conceptualise & deliver the two editions of ‘Tata Nano Superdrive’, earning us the prestigious Exhibitor Magazine’s Corporate Event Award ‘Best Road Show/Multi Venue Event’. For quite possibly the first time here was an initiative which reached out to an ecosystem of auto journalists, bloggers, customers, prospects and urban communities across the country, activated them through a stimulus program which included radio and outdoor, and delivered unparalleled reach and engagement at a cost per contact that was scarcely more than a 30 second prime time slot. For the team working on this project, the ideation was as challenging as the delivery – with the entire exercise spanning across 36 cities and 15000 km in just 26 days.

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Sachin’s retirement set to be ‘a whole new ballgame’

Sachin Tendulkar appeals emotionally to at least four generations if not more. Gearing up for his 200th test capping a 24 year career at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium from 14 to 18 November, ticket sales are soaring as people realise this may be their last opportunity to see the legendary player in action. In conversation with Mr. Vinit Karnik, National Director, Sports and Live Events , GroupM ESP, we measure the repercussions of what could possibly be the biggest development in Indian sports history over the last few decades. EE: How do you suppose brand sponsorship would be affected by Sachin’s retirement? These are people who have grown watching Sachin play and do not mind more of him. Post retirement, if he is seen endorsing a brand, these people would love ‘catching up’ on him even if it is in the ‘brand’ space. EE: How are brands capitalizing on Sachin’s last match There surely will be a lot of buzz from in the brand space. There will be brands who want to be in the middle of the action, while some might chose to be away from the clutter. Star Sports is the official broadcaster for the match and is expecting a 50% increase in advertising rates owing to anticipated viewership. EE: How would the business of cricket be impacted with this new development? Pele retired, football grew. Maradona retired football grew. Schumacher retired, F1 grew. Gavaskar, Kapil Dev retired, cricket grew. Sachin will retire and I am sure cricket will grow even more. EE: In what ways do you reckon it is lucrative for brands to associate themselves with sporting events? Association is just step one. The most important part in leveraging any sponsorship is activating the association. Sponsorship provides a distinct imagery and experience for the associating brands. If that is utilized to brand’s advantage, that provides real value back to the brand. EE: What sort of experiential activities are propagating around sports? Match tickets, player meet and greets, guided tours, shoot days, award giveaways are a few experiential activities that are being packaged around a sports property.

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Nikhil Chinapa bids adieu to Sunburn, joins hands with Vh1 Supersonic

Come December, and festival goers have a brand new reason to celebrate. Nikhil Chinapa in association with LIVE Viacom 18 is all set to launch a new EDM festival in Goa this December – Supersonic – a five-day-long dance party, heavy on its community aspect, one that’s super safe for women, and with some solid international and local talent. All of that is now in the face of Sunburn, the Goa edition of which is also set to take place around the same time. Mr. Jaideep Singh, Sr. Vice President and Business Head – INS, Viacom18 Pvt. Ltd., tells EE what the audience can look forward to this December. EE: We are really excited about the EDM festival. Can you tell us a bit about it? Since the inception of Integrated Network Solutions, we have ventured into live events and successfully concluded properties. MTV VMAI, EMERGE (in association with VH1) and Comedy Central Chuckle Festival have been the first few initiatives of this division under Youth and English Cluster. ETV Kannada & Bangla Sangeet Samman marked the launch of Kids and Regional Cluster of LIVE Viacom18. Since EDM has been gaining immense popularity and has turned into the new favourite for today’s young millennials, it was a natural decision to create an EDM festival. Hence, we roped in DJ Nikhil Chinapa as the festival director and have also collaborated with world’s leading electronic dance music festival organizers to launch a truly world-class dance music festival. Vh1 Supersonic will take place in North Goa from 26th to 30th December. The five day festival will offer music lovers an unparalleled, immersive experience coupled with great music across popular underground electronic music genres. We have been working tirelessly to put together a fabulous line up of artists who will draw lots of attention from the Indian audience. Given Viacom18’s huge broadcast strength, we will leverage the popularity of the iconic music brand Vh1 and other youth & music brands in the network. With considerable knowledge of events across all platforms and in-depth understanding of the Indian dance music industry, the festival will definitely create an unforgettable experience on the sands of Goa. EE: So Nikhil Chinapa, formerly with Sunburn, is now associated with you. What do you see him bringing to the table? Nikhil has been with our network for a very long time, he is like family to the group and we share a fantastic relationship with him both personally & professionally. Not only has he developed the Electronic Dance Music scene in India, but has also become synonymous with it. Given his immense knowledge of EDM and deep understanding of the consumers’ needs, Nikhil was the ideal choice for being our festival director. EE: How is this festival going to be differentiated from the rest of the electronic music festivals? The aim of the festival is to restore the spirit of community and passion for music. It will target devoted music lovers by featuring a mix of Indian and international artists – popular and underground. The festival will have a strong local focus, creating a platform to nurture and promote some of India’s best DJs on the same stages as the international artists. Through, Supersonic we will completely focus on delivering a quality experience. With this festival, we will leave no stone unturned to provide a larger than life experience. Over and above everything else, we are also devising a strong plan for the security of women. EE: What is the artist line-up? Any first timers visiting India? We have a very energetic line up which will excite the audience. 60-70% of the artists will be international while 30% will be Indian artists. We have signed a mix of top international headliners plus newcomers. The idea here is to promote both established and new talent. We are in the process of finalizing the lineup which will be announced soon. EE: Why Goa? Goa has always been a confluence of cultures. The beautiful state is home to massive beaches, great food and hospitable people. Not only do the sandy beaches give enough space to accommodate large crowds, but also provide a relaxed vibe that will transport the crowd to stress free mindset. EE: Who are your sponsors going to be? Viacom18 network has a fantastic reach across various categories of clients that are willing to collaborate with us on our new initiatives. We will announce their names soon when we launch Supersonic formally. EE: Has the sales of tickets begun? What is the price of tickets? Not yet. Ticket sales would be announced at the official event launch. Keep your eyes peeled. EE: How many people are you expecting? Since it’s the first year of the festival our primary focus is to deliver quality experience hence we are not targeting huge crowds. EE: What kind of revenue do you think it should be able to generate? This year our only agenda is to concentrate on establishing the festival but we are confident that the subsequent years would generate great business.

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“The buzzword has moved from USP to UExP – Unique Experience Proposition” Says Sanjeev Pasricha, MD, CS Direkt

Boasting of clients like Tag Heuer, LG, Canon, Nikon, Hyundai and a host of others, the CS Direkt provides complete 360 degree marketing tools, combining creativity with latest technologies. Sanjeev Pasricha, MD, CS Direkt, shares his views on achieving an effective brand-consumer connect: EE: Which are the means to create experiential campaigns to showcase brand benefits? Today, consumers are more informed, intelligent and want to experience a brand and its products before reaching any decision to buy it. Experiencing the brand in real time and engaging in dialogues with the brand is a recent trend driving the market. As such, the need of the hour is to create such experiences that surpass customer expectations and create brand loyalists. EE: What are your goals to combat the challenges that lie ahead in the field of experiential marketing? The biggest challenge is the ratio of advertising budget assigned to experiential marketing by the companies. Experiential marketing enables a company to establish a dialogue with its customers and deliver results in the product’s most important moments of truth – when a customer interacts with the product and brand in real time. The right communication, delivered in an effective way will not only help build a loyal customer database, but also ensure that the customers turn into brand advocates. We wish to redefine the way organisations look at marketing. We want to change the way companies connect with their customers. We want to create a paradigm where companies can grow their business by adopting new and effective ways of connecting and networking. We are constantly in search for new and innovative methods of communication. We want brands to understand the true potential of experiential marketing and turn it into a powerful tool. EE: How have events become the face of marketing today? Consumers today are more informed, intelligent and inquisitive. The market has moved from the world of USP – Unique Selling Proposition, to UExP – Unique Experience Proposition where stakeholders want to experience the brands before they make any decision. The pivotal moment of truth for a brand is when its customers interact with it in real-time. The right communication, strategy and experience are vital to sustain as well as nurture customer relationships in this scenario. This is why events have become the face of marketing as they help brands establish a one-to-one relationship and share a dialogue with the customers. EE: In which different ways are you able to reach the consumers? We are the consultative partners of communication for our clients. We provide a gamut of services that are tailored specifically for each client, keeping the objectives, industry, past precedence and competitive scenario in mind. We understand the client’s needs and create pathbreaking experiences for his customers through a spectrum of different mediums like events, exhibitions, activations, mice, retail and films. EE: What facets of a product make you choose your projects? We work with brands that strongly believe in themselves. We have worked across a plethora of industries like power, technology, automobiles, cameras, medical, consumer durables, lifestyle products, smartphones, and many more. The brands that we have worked with are committed to delivering the best to their customers, are innovative and oriented towards creating the best experiences for their customers both with their products and services, and through their brand communications. EE: Please tell us about your latest work? Our strength lies in giving a unique personalised experience that is specific to the client’s objectives and surpasses his expectations, irrespective of the location. Some of our recent campaigns are Schneider Xperience Efficiency Tour that brings Schneider directly to its customers and spans across 50 cities across the North, South, East and West regions of India; Microsoft Partner Summit that will be held across three metropolitan cities; Canon Leadership Summit at Goa. These are but a few of the campaigns that were delivered successfully by us. EE: You are a proud winner of awards : Best Brand Builder Award from CMO Council, Singapore. Do you feel that the awards that you received on a personal level for entrepreneurship have contributed towards Corporate reputation building of CS Direkt? The rewards I have received on a personal level are also a reflection of my organisation’s achievements. They are a representation of how my team and I have achieved accolades for our clients. While awards are a good reflection of the milestones we have crossed, our true visibility is showcased in the results our clients achieve. Our client’s appreciation of our work, and the long term partnerships we build with them are worth a lot more. Our goals is to always do the best for our clients, surpass all expectations and create new benchmarks of success, not just for us, but also for our clients.

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Through the Looking Glass: Sameer Tobaccowala, CEO, Shobiz Experiential Communications

When you joined Shobiz back in 1990, what was your role? Well, I actually joined as a production manager and we were a staging company at that time. My father (Rehmatali Tobaccowala) started the brand Shobiz in 1982 and we were basically a set-making company. I joined the company to learn how to make sets and spent about two years in the carpentry workshop and then took it from there. So, at that time was it just about joining the family business? I thought I was joining my father’s company. I was just about 18 years old and had started my under-graduation. My college used to run from 7 to 10 in the morning and it was like let’s do something after that. It was quite exciting to get up and say I’m going to be at my father’s office… and have a Thums Up and sit and enjoy. Obviously it turned out to be very different because he made me sit in the workshop for two whole years. In the hot… in the heat… learning the business. The expectation was to have fun but it turned out to be very hard work. Many a time it was like what am I doing! But it got exciting over time and I thank my father today for putting me through that process because it really helped me understand the business. As a kid growing up were you aware of your father’s achievements? I think I was very aware. He was such a larger than life figure in this business. From the big weddings of the Ambanis to the Mahindras to the who’s who of Mumbai. In 1956 he had done the wedding of Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu! You can imagine his history. Plus his association with theatre… Alyque (Padamsee) used to come over to the house, sit and talk about his new productions! So, I was very much aware of the great work he was doing. I remember in the 1980s all the Filmfares (award ceremonies) he used to do. The first time they moved out of the Shanmukhananda Hall and did it at the Centaur… I think it was in the late 80s and I hadn’t joined the organisation then… and he had built the entire stage over the swimming pool of the hotel! What changes did you bring in as you grew in the company? I was the first employee that my father had from an executive point of view. He always worked with the labourers and the carpenters… people who used to make things. I think what I did – through learning of the basic business and then obviously wanting to do more (which is always a good thing when a young person joins the organisation) – was to get into the equipment rental business, where I started to take in a few people. And then in the mid 1990s I started employing more executives in the organisation. Boys who could help me do more shows at one time. Multi-city things had started coming into the picture. In 1997, we moved from a partnership to a private limited company and that’s when I took over as the CEO of the organisation. And then I started thinking what more. We opened in Delhi, we opened in Bangalore and we started moving to other places and by the end of the 1990s we started changing the face of the company from a stage management to an event management company. Through all this change has the ethos behind Shobiz remained the same? We were always taught that when it’s 6 o’clock in the evening things have to go right. And that you cannot say no to clients. It’s very important to deliver what we do. You cannot get into discussions about pricing later on into a project with your clients. We were taught all this and that has really helped us along the journey. Say with Unilever, now that’s a company Mr Rehmatali has been working with since 1973, with the launch of Rexona when Alyque was the CEO of Lintas. And I’m sure there’s a Unilever show happening right now in the organisation. We have lived these relationships. I think one of the reasons behind the big success story for our brand for 31 years is the fact that we have been able to live up to our original ethos of being able to deliver what we’ve promised on paper. Your motto has been to be the best and to be the biggest. If you can elaborate on this… Being the best is very important. Especially in our industry where you are as good as your last event. Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you look at it. If something goes wrong, they don’t think of what you have done for the last 20 years. You have to really work hard to keep your reputation up. And Murphy’s Law hits every one of us. I cannot possibly say that any of us have never had a problematic show. It happens… at home you’re wanting to watch a movie and that day your DVD will not work. But yes being the best is very important to be able to sustain in this industry. And it’s also important that your clients feel that you are giving them the best. About being the biggest, it’s just happened over time to be able to grow the company to what it is today. It is a large organisation without a doubt and it’s been a good journey. You said somewhere that Shobiz has been into experiential marketing long before the term came into vogue. Tell us about that… You know, it’s very strange… recently we were into this EEMA (Event & Entertainment Management Association) meeting a week or two weeks back and everybody started saying that we should now be called the experience industry. And I changed my name from Shobiz Events Management to Shobiz Experiential Communications about five-six-seven years back. I think over time and a little bit exposure to the world, I did realise that one of the biggest things our industry is doing is providing experiences to the audience that comes and providing experience to our clients’ clients, who are basically the final users. A lot of our thinking has been as to how we can provide a great memory, a great experience rather than a great event to the audience. Do you think it’s time that experiential marketing became the essential element of mainstream marketing in India? It is a very important part which has been accepted by a large amount of clients. Any kind of 1-on-1 communication has become very important. People do waive a little depending on whether the economy is going up or down. Some times when there is less money to spend, some industries go back to mass communication in a larger way because it’s still trusted in their minds. Like last year when automotive got hit a little bit, a lot of money moved back from experiential communication to big ads of launches, etc. So it fluctuates but one thing is for sure that marketing people have now started adding the experiential part of it to their marketing mix. That’s a positive sign and it’s happened many years back in the western countries. What has been your favourite experiential marketing events from Shobiz? The Nano Superdrive was very good. We also won an international award for that. That was a good campaign we did. Generally for many of our IT client campaigns that we do, we catch the audience very early into the space and we are able to add microsite work to that, digital work to that, EDMs to that. And we have been running these campaigns for year-on-year. You are getting into social media in a major way. Is that where the future of marketing lies? I think social media is there in a combined way. One is that the clients are looking at social media for their own brands and are using the digital agencies to do that. But what is happening is that in many, many pitches that we do is bring the social media part of it into the thinking process. What clients are positively looking at agencies like our’s is to come up with thought-process campaigns for their launch or event space in a larger 360 degrees. They ask us to add things like radio. Yes, social media is becoming a very important part of it. If it’s anything that needs to go out to mass, it is one of the larger ways of going out and you know the response is much faster than whether someone saw an ad in the papers or not. Finally, where do you see Shobiz in the next five or ten years? You know in our industry it’s very tough to project five or ten years down the line but you know, we have grown internationally now. We’ve got offices in Singapore and Dubai. I’d probably look at opening a few more offices around the world without a doubt. India seems to be on the right track. IT, automotive, FMCG, pharmaceuticals… we are into lots of industries and I’m sure we can add more industries in the time to come. You can get up and say that there are too many fluctuations but it’s been 23 years for me personally and I can say there are always ups and downs. There are a lot of new players in the industry and that always adds to the interesting mix of how you are going to go about the future of the larger organisation. But I don’t see a major hurdle down the line.

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“EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING STILL HAS IMMENSE POTENTIAL”, SAYS MIN CHANG OF DIVERSIFIED AGENCY SERVICES, OMNICOM GROUP

Min Chang is President – Asia Pacific at DAS (Diversified Agency Services), a division of Omnicom Group. She is leading business development and operational activities in the Asia Pacific region and works with all the group agencies in the region as well as globally. Prior to this position, she was EVP of Business Development and Client Relations Asia, SVP of Operations and VP of Operations at DAS. Prior to joining Omnicom, Chang led the Procurement organisation at Honeywell International as Vice President of Procurement Transformation. She was also Vice President of Purchasing at AstraZeneca. In addition, she has spent over eight years in the industry in various leadership roles globally with three of the largest Fortune 500 companies: Procter & Gamble, American Express and United Technologies. Do you think experiential marketing is being under-leveraged in India? It is such a large umbrella. Consumers may not respond to traditional conversation anymore, so you can start with in-store event and activation instead of a TVC; it is more cost effective with social media integration. I think India is at par with other countries, but experiential marketing still has immense potential that needs to be tapped. The need for CRM in India is very high. There are tons of data, but what are you doing with it? Analysing this data and then driving your campaign with the insights derived from it is critical. In your view and experience of the region, are clients today experimenting more with new media forms? Clients are hungry for innovative ideas and engagement, if you can show value in your approach or an idea, they are willing to take that on. How have you seen digital, social and mobile evolve in India? I have been to India a few times in the last two years and I have seen changes here. In terms of digital, social and mobile, there is work here that is leading the world, both in India and China; most of it is better that what we do in the US, it is ground breaking. So, you see India doing well in these areas? Yes, especially in mobile. The huge mobile user base in India is driving innovation; you don’t have some of the trappings of the US. The market there has reached maturity level, but here in India, digital, social and mobile have an edge of newness, freshness and more effectiveness. What are the other significant trends that you have observed? Indian brands such as Tata, Godrej, etc., which have a rich heritage, are expanding outside the Indian market and I see this as an increasing trend. These brands are really about how do I build my awareness broader with other consumers beyond India. What, according to you, are the challenges? I will speak more personally about Omnicom. Our biggest gap in India is in capabilities; sometimes, our clients are smarter than we are. They know the challenges and the marketing savviness of some of our clients has improved a lot. So, we need to ‘up’ our game and make our innovations not just on par, but better. The challenge for us is to build better skills and hire better talent and for that, we may need to bring some of the best practises and talent from the US or Europe. The other part of the equation is that I think we need to build some of that pool of resources and skill set here as well. How are you going to bridge this gap? Part of this involves taking some of the interesting thinking globally to India. Regarding the activation landscape in India, we need to take a step back and analyse what is really the purpose of the brand, besides also look at it from a consumer’s perspective as to what is the brand bringing to me. We need to look at activation as an opportunity to be with the consumer, touch the consumer and create an unforgettable experience for the consumer that is powerful – for instance, the Dove – Sketch campaign, and Dumb ways to Die campaign. We haven’t reached this level yet in India. A lot of our clients see mobile and digital as areas where they should be investing in, however, they are still somewhat sceptical as it is difficult to measure the RoI and impact. Hence, the budgets aren’t as large and the spends still go the traditional way. I don’t think brands and markets are utilising the medium as much as they should, but at the same time there is some great work happening in terms of quality.group/#sthash.QL3iatY0.dpuf

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