Customise solutions and deliver targetedly: Mindshare South Asia COO

The principle is to serve the consumer in the best possible manner, says Mindshare's South Asia COO Amin Lakhani

Challenge the status quo but don't throw a brand into a trend just for the sake of joining it, Lakhani tells Shubhomoy Sikdar

Since many social media trends take birth, shape and die the same day, how do you blend a client’s brand with a trend seamlessly?

That comes with the ability to working with a lot of data. We have to continuously challenge the status quo. We use our tools where we bring data from multiple sets — business, brand and media — and put them all together to see what is working and what is not. And in doing so, we ensure that we don’t throw a brand into a trend just for the sake of joining it but it happens through the right filters. So you bring all these with the stakeholders, including the client, and then co-create a journey.

How is data helping in the media planning and also in the creative process?

A classic example can be the Lifebuoy campaign for which we won an award at Cannes recently. That showed how we could use data to deliver the right kind of relevant message in a creative manner. The challenge for us was how to reach media dark markets or markets where the traditional media penetration wasn't great. We realised that smartphones were present even in these areas and mobile play for our client HUL had been historically big enough for us to leverage that. We then partnered with big data companies and gathered data about social clusters from districts where incidents of typhoid and diarrhoea happened more. And we utilised these insights in real time and sent out relevant messages to these people about how a simple act of handwash could save lives and take care of your health. So recent and authentic data helped us with the creative messaging also and the impact has been massive. Basically data helps you in understanding where the consumer is, what is he thinking what his needs are.

What are the unique challenges in managing an account such as Facebook which itself is a media platform?

Each client has unique challenges and opportunities and our solutions are customised to deliver the objectives set out by them. So their goals need to be mirrored by our methods and of course, there is eventually a need to deliver in terms of business growth. So more than the medium, we look at the campaign objective. It can be a promotion activity, it can be an equity building initiative and in each case, we try to provide customised solutions.

With OTT platforms chipping away broadcast viewership, do you feel the whole concept of “prime time” for television needs a relook?

I don't think that time has come yet. The principle is to serve the consumer in the best possible manner. If the definition needs to be changed for that, we will change it. Mindshare is tracking the entire journey of the consumer's eyeballs in the multi-screen era and the core to us still remains the same, building relevance and building return on investment with the right media buying and planning. We are trying to effectively meet this demand.

Slowdown is a talking point now and media spends are usually an early casualty. Your take.

As for the current scenario, I can say that the auto sector is going through a difficult phase largely due to structural issues. But for FMCG, despite the slowdown, there is volume growth. We have also seen a good monsoon and with the festival season and some other effects coming into play, it’s a mixed bag right now. We are hopeful that we will have a decent year ahead. We might have to rework some strategies but we also see e-commerce in a good shape, even FMCG is investing towards volume growth.

Tell us about Mindshare’s recent initiative of assigning younger mentors for senior executives. 

We are in an age of digital adopters where one lives one's entire life leaving digital footprints. So for us, the digital immigrants, the scenario is different from digital natives who have lived here all their lives — for them this is a way of life and not adoption. So we felt it was important for us to understand the whole millennial mindset as we grew into our businesses. To understand and decode their needs and aspirations, we decided to implement this programme. The second reason is the need for constant upskilling and the constant need for learning and unlearning.