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Story of the week

Volume 3 Issue 9 August 21 - August 27, 2006

Impact Track

Quiz

Cover

Cover Story

Vikram Sakhuja: “I’ll do what I have to do.”

He was studying to be an engineer, but realized his heart beat for marketing and everything connected with it. He was one of the two persons who commissioned India’s first AOR in late 1993, and later, again, was one of two persons handpicked by Andre Nair to shepherd the two biggest agencies of Group M when they launched.

Ever since he took over as MD of MindShare Fulcrum India when it launched in 2001, Vikram Sakhuja has come a long way.

Impact caught up with Vikram Sakhuja, now in his first month as CEO, GroupM, India and South Asia, and entrusted with the mandate of taking all of Group M to the next level in the entire region. Sakhuja, who saw the need for communications-oriented planning based on interactive brand activation, and much more, is a firm believer in the Fame and Money approach, and the 20-by-6 vision.

In conversation with Impact Editor Pavan R Chawla, Sakhuja talks of all these plus his early, formative years of his career and much more.

(Full story on Impact) more...

INTERVIEW:

‘GET TO KNOW THE SWEET SPOT’

Arun Sinha, Chief Marketing Officer of Pitney Bowes Inc., a US$5.5 billion Fortune 500 Company, was on a visit to India in mid-July. A winner of the Marketer of the Year award from the American Marketing Association, he is currently penning a book on marketing, slated to hit stores the world over this fall.

Prior to Pitney Bowes, he has put in stints handling many marquee global brands, and his past assignments include those in advertising in India. Impact’s Gokul Krishnamurthy posed a few questions to Sinha over e-mail, post a brief meeting with him in Bangalore. Excerpts…

Delivering targeted audiences seems to be the mantra for several new players in the media space. What do you see as the future of the classical mass media - from a marketer’s stand point?

Just think about the changes we’ve seen over the past three decades in marketing and branding strategies. In the 1970s and 1980s, the emphasis was on mass marketing. Pepsi and Nike are two examples of this. Both companies aimed their messages across demographic groups so broadly, that it seemed that the challenge was nothing more than “how do we translate the message for this nationality?” It was a one-size-fits-all era; the aim being to ship the same products to customers across the globe. Just translate the label. In fact, at the time, it was “cool” to be seen as pushing the same products, the same styles, to an ever-wider phalanx of buyers. Differentiation on the basis of customer segments wasn’t that important in the 80s (although differentiation between brands was). Mass marketing was king. All the marketer had to do was pump out the same message to everyone. And if sales stalled? Simple, turn up the volume!

(Full report in Impact)

BY INVITATION:

OMAR ESSACK, Executive Director – Broadcasting, Kagiso Media Ltd., South Africa

Within 12 months, most radio broadcasters will be facing a challenge that is unprecedented in radio worldwide. As some 300 new radio stations take to the airwaves, many will find themselves in cities with six or more competitors targeting the same audiences, playing the same music, and offering no real choice to the listeners.

The only difference between stations will be in their names.

We know that when packaging differs, but the product is the same -- as in boxes of washing powder on the shelf of a grocery store, what we will be experiencing is the commoditisation of the radio industry.

This is where media buyers are able to drive down the price of radio, because they have many alternatives for reaching the same audiences. The resultant price war means weak bargaining power on the part of radio owners, reduced margins, and lower revenues.

(Full report in Impact)

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