This year, India is our third-most successful market for new biz: Hamish Davies, Wavemaker

Hamish Davies, Global Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, Wavemaker, spoke exclusively to exchange4media on how the process of pitching has changed in the last six years. According to him, while the fundamentals remain the same, the complexity has increased.

Davies threw light on client expectations from a network agency and why delivering true value is the key proposition that today’s clients look for. He also explained why he believes Wavemaker was the destination of new economy clients within GroupM and why he saw India as ‘a power in the industry’ in the coming years.

Edited excerpts:

You are closely involved in the pitching process globally at Wavemaker. In your view, how has the process changed over the last few years?

I have been doing this for over six years and over that time I have seen quite a major evolution in the way things are done. The fundamentals are still the same, people want to have a great progressive offer; they want to work with those they like talent wise and they need to get good value. Those fundamentals have not changed, what has changed is with the technological advancements the sheer pivot of our business from very standard planning and buying through to a very progressive offer – very digitally centric, end-to-end solutions and importantly increasingly consultancy services. So, higher grade needs which weren’t on the radar five years ago. The fundamentals are the same but, actually, it is getting more complex.

What does the client expect from an agency now?

For a big network provider like us (Wavemaker) – we are part of GroupM and the largest by far in India. Wavemaker India is a very big network in its own right and holds the same position elsewhere – the expectation is to provide all services that are likely to be required. So, obviously core planning and buying, end-to-end solutions in terms of audience and data work, inter-platforms, then seamless delivery, true end-to-end solutions and then consultancy services – anything from addressability or content or applied innovation, a lot of the progressive areas – AI, how to use the Metaverse effectively, all those higher-grade needs that didn’t exist three or four years ago. Now there is an expectation that we as a network should and can deliver those as well.

A big part of the pitching process is the price point. So is price still the biggest consideration when it comes to the pitching process?

It’s not about price, it’s about value.  We have to deliver the true value, and an element of the value is obviously media pricing. GroupM is in a fortunate position as the market share allows us to provide that hygiene of great pricing but it is about value too.

It is about the overall value - the talent we provide, the calibre and cost of that talent, the commercials and also the opportunities we can provide in terms of outcome-based solutions as well. Historically, it has been about ensuring the price is as low as possible. As a business, we are pivoting now to outcome-based models, so don’t pay us for what the offer is, pay us for what we deliver to you. It’s early days still but as more digitises and there is a more direct link made between the investment made in advertising and the delivery of sales or whatever the matrix is for that campaign, we can join those things up better in a digital environment and shift to an outcome-based model.

With tighter budgets and the focus more on ROI or now on delivery, how do you deliver the value?

The challenge is how we can actually measure that - the cause-and-effect dynamic. In an old analogue world that was pretty much impossible, you could do retrospective economics to show M&M modelling and it could show to a degree what had happened in the past and what made the action happen. So, it was cause and effect but it was all retrospective.

In a digital world, you can do that in real time i.e. connecting up in the performance world now what activity you do and what response you get. As we get smarter with that, we can actually build business models based on outcomes which is ultimately what the client wants. The client wants to get maximum return from their investment, so if we can guarantee an outcome and if we can be remunerated on an outcome basis then that’s a win-win for both parties. The ultimate goal of an activity is to drive outcomes.

With technology such as ChatGPT and AI being the centre of conversations, what excites you?

It’s early days, we’ve been working with AI for several years now, in terms of our optimisation systems. We have an amazing tool called Architect which helps craft audiences and optimises them to media channels and comes out with great optimised media plans and solutions. We have been working on that from a functional basis but a very important mix is the core business for us. We’ve been doing that for years.

In the short term, for now, we see huge efficiencies and effectiveness gains by allowing machines to do things that are better done by machines than humans. What that allows us to do is take out some of the functional roles that used to be done by humans, is now done better by computers but allows the humans we have to use their time to do more creativity and more of the differentiators that is really going to make a difference in terms of effectiveness – more creativity, more time for strategic solutions. It allows us to spend less time on the operation and function aspects and more time on the thinking and creativity. That’s the first big change for us as a business.

In terms of how AI can really fundamentally change the business, in terms of creation of addressable content, creative and all the other areas that it can get involved in, it’s very early days for us but we are seeing some very exciting opportunities come through with the initial campaigns that we are deploying AI in its new sense. One example of that we are doing is now for the British Royal Navy. They had a real challenge in recruiting diverse audiences to the Navy - more women, ethnic minorities, people from different socio-economic groups. The Navy was quite a bastion of white male and the Royal Navy were very keen to diversify that to really embrace and reflect British society now. They now deploy with the help of Wavemaker in the UK a bot which basically helps the recruitment process over a 12-months period. 

When you are looking to go into the Armed Forces, it is a very long recruitment process but we have developed is a bot that helps first attract and engage new audiences but then keeps a dialogue going with the prospects throughout the 12-months recruitment process. I can’t go into specifics for confidentiality reasons but that is proving to be hugely effective for initial recruitment but then importantly keeping people throughout the process. Their ROIs in the areas we have focussed on have just gone through the roof, which is amazing, but importantly it is also generating so many more insights that the Royal Navy is using throughout their organisation. These are just a few of the initial campaigns that we are truly unleashing the power of AI and what we are seeing now is very exciting. So, smart application for different types of communication challenges is really going to have a step change in effectiveness and the way we do things going forward.

Are there any examples from India or APAC region that you would like to share with us?

Our best case study worldwide is the work we did with Shah Rukh Khan for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk during the pandemic. The work he did in terms of optimisable addressable solutions to a very micro level across India promoting small businesses, it won the Titanium Lion in 2022 at Cannes and won again for ROI Effectiveness in 2023. It was great to see that some of the very best work is coming out of India through Wavemaker and Ogilvy in partnership. That’s probably our best example.

From being a media agency, Wavemaker is now positioned as a brand consultant. How does this positioning help Wavemaker and your clients?

A modern media agency needs to cover all areas of communication and where things are going. So, we have set up a consultancy community which is headquartered between New York and London but every major market including India has the services which are areas outside the core business but absolutely fundamental to the growth. Applied innovation would be a good example of one of the key areas of the consultancy club where we work with clients to experiment in new areas of media and tech that are really going to make a difference. Last year obviously a lot of work about the Metaverse, this year it has been a lot about AI but it’s a division that is always looking what’s next and we always encourage our clients to experiment at the earliest opportunity. The consultancy group look at this and also content, addressability, all types of data tools and technology and we are finding that helps us to stay ahead and make sure that we can get in there first and get the learnings because those learnings – the timeline between innovation and a mass activation is getting shorter and shorter. We need to be in there quick and we need to scale up fast.

You hold dual roles – of the Global Chief Growth & Marketing Officer - how do both the roles complement each other?

We work in a very competitive category – in terms of clients and talent as well. It is really important that every effort we do is focused on making sure that Wavemaker is seen as an amazing destination for clients and talent. As such we wanted to make sure that everything we do from a marketing perspective is 100% focused on driving growth for our talent, clients and new business. So, by putting those two roles together the initiatives I do, I know are going to be right to drive talent – to get more talent in and retain the talent we have -   and also make sure that when we do initiatives for at a public level, in terms of PR and other elements, they are very much focused on the type of client partners we want in the future. So, by bringing those two together it allows you to have a single message across all areas.

What is the growth that you are looking at – in the short term and the long term?

We tend to focus on two areas – traditional categories, we are very strong in FMCG and we want to extend across more of the traditional categories. Where we have been particularly successful is going for new economy clients that need to scale up globally or on a local level. We are very good at all the core business categories but where we have seen most growth in recent years has been with new economy clients and where they come to us is when they are ready to scale up, that’s new markets and new territories. So, for example we have been looking after Netflix since Day One of Netflix when they were sending out DVDs in the mail and obviously things have changed now. We look after Netflix across 30 odd markets. DoorDash is one of the biggest food delivery businesses in the world. We started a relationship with them and are now extending that relationship as it expands to international territories. Other businesses like Coinbase where we get them when they are already relatively successful in a domestic setting and then require rapid scale up across the network. That’s where we have found a sweet spot. We like to think we are the destination within GroupM for new economy clients.

A word on your team in India?

We have an amazing business in India. We have mentioned the Shah Rukh Khan Cadbury’s work and they do exceptional work. India is responsible for a big chunk of our awards globally. They are one of the most successful in terms of great work and I always say to all the other countries, ‘You need to be more Indian when it comes to celebrating great work’ because they are benchmarked. In terms of new business, we’ve always been a major player in India and this year has been no exception. This year they have already picked up Reckitt, they have retained Pernod Ricard which is a hugely prestigious piece of business for us that we are very happy to have retained and grow from there. There’s KRBL – the big basmati rice, local champion which is very important to a lot of Indians but also they have picked up a long tail of smaller pieces of business, there’s work for Johnson & Johnson and others. Those guys are on a roll right now and they are one of the markets I get most excited about. I was down in Mumbai a few weeks ago and just learning how they do things because they have a unique way of doing things but they are highly successful.

What’s the challenge in maintaining the momentum when it comes to retaining clients and winning new business?

I would like to talk about opportunities first because India is now the most populous nation in the world. I think in the next few years India is going to join the Premier League when it comes to just a power in the industry, just pure demographics if nothing else alone. Already, I am seeing this year India has been our third most successful market in terms of new business. The US is first, obviously the volume of business is high, then China, no great surprise, but India now ranks number three in terms of new business growth for us worldwide. I see a lot more potential not only because of the demographics, which are hugely important, but also in the progressive mentality of the country. I am seeing a lot of entrepreneurialism, a lot of exciting things happening in the digital space. It’s a very exciting country. There’s a downside as well, it tends to be quite bureaucratic but overall the outlook for India is very positive. I look at it as a market where I think it is just going to grow and grow for us in future years. Very excited about it.