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| Q&A: Mainardo de Nardis, CEO, OMD | | 'We already have 80-85% of our global clients in India' |
| Sayantani Kar / Mumbai Nov 04, 2011, 00:55 IST |
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 OMD, one of the largest media agencies to rival Group M’s billings worldwide, has been late to the India party. Now, it is staring at an integration with the homegrown media units of Mudra after a majority stake purchase by its parent company, Omnicom. Mainardo de Nardis, the OMD Worldwide CEO, explains to Sayantani Kar why he is very happy with OMD India.
Has the global mandate for OMD India changed in the last one and half years?
Well, first of all, I would never dare to put Jas (Jasmine Sohrabji, Managing Director, OMD India ) and instructions in the same sentence. We don’t give instructions, but decide on ways that are compatible with global strategy and suit the local development. It is the same with Jas in India.
What is important for us is to have global consistency. We are the largest agency in the world and we owe it to our clients to deliver in every market using similar tools and have similar people with a shared vision.
What do OMD offices share across the globe?
Whenever there is any good coming out of one of the countries, it is shared with other countries. About a year ago, for Johnson & Johnson's Clean and Clear, OMD India did a campaign around university graduates. It built a totally different engagement for students when they were entering the new world of universities using online, offline and mobile. We have used that campaign in markets that are slower to adopt mobile solutions. What was a ‘test and learn’ for OMD India, later became mainstream activity.
Given your late entry, what are OMD’s challenges in India?
What others have done in 20 years, we had to do in five. But, as we were late, we have accelerated our development. The problem we had when we launched was, we could not have a baby OMD. It had to work like a big agency. Jas brought two things to the group. First, she knew where she wanted to be in the next 3-4 years and in the first 12-18 months, she put up a disproportionately large but talented management team. So, OMD India started from the top. Second, she converted all of the first 17 pitches into accounts.
Apart from Hewlett-Packard, are you hopeful of other global accounts of OMD moving to you in India as well?
We won 17 out of 17 of our pitches and, that is when we brought in many of our global clients. Our other global clients like J&J, Intel, Visa, within our first two-three years, moved to us in India as well. We already have 80-85 per cent of our global clients in India. We missed a couple of big ones which, one day, we will regain.
How much of your India strategy focuses on bringing your global accounts in-house?
We normally work with the same clients globally. So, not doing so in a country like India would not make sense as they let us scale up our processes and grow consistently. But, it is not all about global clients. Local clients let our staff be in touch with the local markets.
Do you think OMD is well-differentiated, especially in India, where it needs to challenge the leaders?
Media agencies do have different positioning. We have two things that differentiates us from others. The first, which is harder to measure, is the quality of people. People tend to stay in OMD much longer, and I mean the senior talent, not the footloose younger generation which has to move. The second aspect, which is measurable, is innovation. The only way to measure it is to win awards. For more than a decade, we have said that we want to win more awards than anybody else. There is a Gunn report, among many others, which says we won the maximum number of awards for the last six years.
How has Indian clients’ stress on return on their investments, has changed over the last one and a half years? What are you doing about it?
The big change in return on investments is that it is not just about measuring media metrics anymore. But, more about the sales or trials. Clients in India, more than other Asian countries, are stressing on the need to prove that our activities actually help sales. We are trying to understand new currencies which are not just ratings, but data which can connect activities we do in communities with the result of sales in those communities.
Do you see the structure of media agencies changing?
From specialised units, agencies are now consolidating operations, either across functions or brother agencies...There are at least 5-6 different roles in an agency which are extremely specialised, whether you look at mobile, search, buying or planning. But at the same time, our clients are asking for very integrated services. We tap centres of excellence for different parts of the same strategy. Take Visa, for example. We use London for anything to do with sponsorships (FIFA World Cup, Olympics etc.), for content it is Los Angeles, for mobile and social listening it is Asia. Within the group, it is the Visa team coordinating.
Digital is strong for OMD India, with many of your global clients first coming on board with their digital accounts. Has the digital arm grown stronger than traditional media for your Indian business?
Not yet, because the digital pie itself is small in India. However, compared to competitors and how our advertisers perceive us, we have a successful product. We have not added digital and new media to our DNA at a later stage, we were born with it. That is why we have a very strong digital operation in India so quickly. How can you have a TV campaign without working on online search, which is there to connect all of it? There is a huge difference between creating an agency with digital at the centre, to what others have done by create digital on the side. They had to change the way they were doing things. For clients that means talking to more departments or more people.
Will OMD’s India outlook change after integration with Mudra?
It is too early to comment but, I really look forward to the alliance. OMD has been less acquisitive than others. While others struggle with acquisitions of units that differ in mentalities and processes, we have mostly grown organically, based on the depth of our management.
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