‘India can really be the test case for Dentsu globally’

“We're trying to see if we're able to overcome the loss of the two big businesses last year,” says Anita Kotwani, CEO, Media, South Asia as she sat down for a candid chat with e4m’s Neeta Nair at Dentsu’s Worli office in the presence of two of Dentsu’s global leaders – Amanda Morrissey, Global President iProspect & Chief Growth Officer Media; Shenda Loughnane, Global Brand President, Dentsu X; and an APAC leader - Prerna Mehrotra, Chief Client Officer & CEO, Media, Asia Pacific, Dentsu.

After losing two major accounts, Maruti and Reckitt last year, the new business wins by the Group’s Media Practice seem to be gaining momentum at Dentsu. The leadership claims that the India arm has already clocked 80 new accounts in the current year with two of their agencies – iProspect and Carat - witnessing a growth of 80% and 40% each, in 2023.

This is the second big visit by the global leadership team of Dentsu in five months, after Jean Lin and William Swayne visited the country in April. Morrissey specified that they are here to push forward certain propositions. “We think India can really be our test case,” she adds with a smile. India clearly seems to have a place of significance on the global map for Dentsu, as evident by a recent announcement about 2 out of 5 Dentsu Labs - the network’s innovation proposition - being in India.

Excerpts from the conversation:

From saying no to creativity in silos when you merged the agencies - Webchutney, Isobar, Taproot, Mcgarrybowen to bringing back Webchutney and Isobar as your two creative brands, what is the moot principle at work here? Is something similar expected even on the media side, where there may be more bifurcations - perhaps Vizeum may return too?

Anita: At the moment, we don't have any plan to bring in any of our older brands. And the five brands that I manage within the media practice - iProspect, Carat, Dentsu X, Posterscope, Sokrati - are all staying.

Prerna: We moved from 160 companies to about five or six globally. The whole endeavour has always been about moving from a collection of brands to creating business - the business of creative, media, and customer experience management. The whole purpose of the transformation that we went through was also to ensure that we were moving to become a client-centric organization. And as we were implementing the plan, we realized, particularly on the creative side, that there was a desire to bring some of the brands back as clients were demanding it. So, it was more a client pull rather than a push from our side because of which we tweaked the direction, particularly on the creative side.

As per COMvergence 2023 New Business Barometer for India, none of the Dentsu media agencies came even in the top 5, ditto for Dentsu Media globally, how long before rebuilding starts bearing fruit?

Amanda: It's a really interesting question. So, iProspect is surging and we've had ridiculous amount of growth over the last three years, winning almost every global business that we went to pitch for. For the last three years, we've geared up specifically around iProspect, because it's a new proposition. We wanted to push it out into the market. Because we behave as sister brands, we're not competitive against each other. We work together, share people and ideas. Lots of other big networks have copied us with similar integrations, so we have to keep our foot on the gas to stay ahead. When you start to think about how creative and media are coming together in the media landscape, I feel there is a big playground for Dentsu X to play. Carat, on the other hand, is the mother of the media agencies and has all of our big global network clients sitting within it. So, a real focus for Carat is to stabilize the existing big global clients. Meanwhile, we get flexibility in iProspect and DX. And what's really exciting about India is that we've also got Sokrati to play in that portfolio, unlike other countries. So, we are here because we really want to push forward certain propositions and we think India can really be our test case. We will build it here, test it and then globally dive in with the team rolling it out across the rest of the world.

So, just to simplify this, would you say that it's easier for Dentsu India or for Dentsu Global to get into the top three of the new business wins list, faster?

Amanda: It's really hard on a global stage. I'll leave it to Anita to talk about India, but when you look at the individual markets, it's actually easier to move faster because you're more in control of your destiny within that market, whereas at a global level, we're playing a game across markets, which is often times harder.

Anita: The RECMA ratings ranked us at no. 4 in 2023 among the overall operating groups (based on our overall activities). In India, Carat and iProspect have shown remarkable growth in 2023, with iProspect achieving a staggering 80% growth and claiming the top spot. Carat followed with a strong 40% growth, securing the no. 2 position. Over the past three years, iProspect has led the charge with an exceptional growth rate of 388%, while Carat has closely trailed with an impressive 305% growth, outpacing much of the competition. One brand needs to reshape, try and build a lot more businesses. But there's a lot of momentum there as well. So, we've had a series of pitches this year, which we're pretty confident about. Some we've won, on some we are still awaiting the results. We will, however, be more focussed on whether we have been able to deliver the business results for our existing clients.

Prerna: I want to highlight that globally, and even regionally, there is a lot of emphasis around delighting existing clients. Because there are so many areas for you to expand your relationship within media to creative, to CX, to commerce, to retail. So, the idea is to deepen that connection and to make sure you're more entrenched in that business to drive client satisfaction and be connected with larger stakeholders. We want to strike a balance between how we retain, grow, and also drive new clients. It has been a two-pronged plan always.

Like Prerna said, client retention has been the biggest struggle at some agencies, pitches are also becoming more and more frequent. Which are the oldest clients of Dentsu Media, globally and in India that you have a strong relationship with right now?

Amanda: Having worked with different networks, I was amazed at how long clients have been with Dentsu, for e.g., Microsoft has exceeded 15 years, Mastercard has spent 10 years with us. Similarly, there are a lot of leaders at Dentsu who know this network really well because they have been here for such a long time and were part of the original acquisitions too.

Shenda: Some of our decade-old clients globally include Microsoft, Kellanova, P&G and Mastercard. We have long-standing relationships with clients like Toyota and Honda. A Procter & Gamble leader once said to us, “What we love is that you challenge us”. Dentsu has an entrepreneurial or innovating spirit because of which both the clients and our employees want to stay with us for longer.

Anita: From an Indian standpoint, we have strong sector experiences in BFSI, auto, and the startup ecosystem, so those are the ones that we obviously gun for at a larger level. The big clients from a Dentsu X standpoint include Berger, Dabur, Suzuki, AMFI, UB Group etc. At Carat, we have quite a few Tata brands like Croma, Tata Neu and Air India Express. Apart from that there is Hero Vida, which we won roughly a year ago in Delhi. Also, Intel, Microsoft, Mastercard - all global accounts are aligned to Carat. At iProspect, we have Dr. Lal PathLabs and many more in the BFSI category because they play more in that sector. And then even at Sokrati, we have Flipkart, Myntra, Bajaj etc. We are trying to get into vertical specializations because we think that's our calling card. Overall, the momentum has been good. Quite a few of these relationships are a decade long, some are, of course, new because most of the leadership team here is relatively new.

What kind of growth has the media practice seen in India in the past year?

Anita: We've added about 80-odd logos this year, which is across performance and integrated practices that we have had. We're obviously, trying to see if we're able to overcome the loss of the two big businesses last year. The growth number will definitely be a higher single-digit one. Our tools and technology are a great differentiator in the marketplace in India.

Lines are blurring at agencies, how long till the divisions between media, creative, digital, PR etc. last, what new opportunities are you seeing as far as growing revenue is concerned?

Shenda: I’d like to say that media and creative are back together again. In the algorithmic world that we're in now where AI is the gatekeeper, it's all about understanding that relationship between the two. Creative impacts almost 50 per cent of performance marketing. And thus, bringing those two things together at speed and in scale is really important. We made a big investment a number of years ago in a company called Tag, which is also present here in India. It is allowing us to deliver the content and the assets at speed and scale for our clients. So, the two coming together and being able to produce those assets at that volume and scale is really quite critical.

What is the value that a media agency brings to a client’s business today?

Prerna: Media agencies of today should be about ‘business partnering’. Clients want to bring on board partners that can work with them from inception of an idea to delivery and that’s why they come to us. And the ease and the expertise with which you help them manage that process is what they are looking for. So, they don't care about what happens within your world, they're bothered about their brands their business and their growth. It's about value creation and therefore, the business partnering becomes really important. What excites me about the new world is that there are no boundaries. And for me, what's really gratifying is to see the shape that India is going to take for us as a country, and having these lovely ladies here in town, is a testament of that. We believe that Asia is going to now set the example or become the test case for what we drive globally.