Clients believe in the power of agency brand name: Grey India CMD and CEO

In a conversation with BS, Samat along with Nirvik Singh, chairman & CEO of Grey Group in the AMEA region, lists the priorities and the way forward for the agency

Yashaswini 'Yash' Samat has taken over as Grey India's first woman chairperson and MD this week, boosting a trend that is rapidly gaining ground in domestic ad agencies. She is the third woman in a year to be appointed as an agency head in India after Srija Chatterjee at Publicis Worldwide and Raji Ramaswamy at Contract Advertising. Samat will also continue leading Grey's biggest client Procter & Gamble in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and African (AMEA) region. In a conversation with Viveat Susan Pinto, Samat along with Nirvik Singh, chairman & CEO of Grey Group in the AMEA region, lists the priorities and the way forward for the agency. Edited Excerpts:

Being the first woman MD at Grey India is a huge elevation. But the domestic market is challenging. How do you propose to navigate it?

Yashaswini: My passion, interest and priorities lie in creating a new agency model. How do you think of the future of the business at a time when the industry is going through a tough time? How do you stay relevant, thrive and succeed? I think these are questions that have many answers. And we are sifting through them at this stage. There are legacy structures and processes that we need to rethink. The basic tenet of advertising—the great creative idea and product—have not gone away. But how you execute the idea has changed. We would therefore have to evolve in terms of our capability mix, the kind of technology we need to invest in, the services we need to put our might behind to capture the attention of the consumer. 

…And Nirvik, your expectations from the new MD? 

Nirvik: I expect Yash to focus more on the creative product and build on the foundation laid by Sunil (Lulla, former chairman & MD of Grey India). I also expect her to keep thinking regarding what the agency of the future will look like. The fact that she has been so long in the Grey system (25 years) and has been part of the India leadership team should help her.

How do you see digital sitting within this future-facing business?

Nirvik :Different markets have different challenges. India's challenge is its diversity. You have an India and a Bharat sitting together. The agency therefore will have to respond keeping in mind the target audience the brand wishes to reach.

Convergence appears to be the big theme in advertising today. Your thoughts on this?

Yashaswini: There are two parts to this: One is that we are already thinking from a 360-degree point of view, in a more integrated way and thereby bringing a more holistic approach to brand communication. Having said that, there is also deep discipline expertise that is needed to execute a 360-degree campaign and not everything can sit within an agency. You need specialists, who are great at media thinking, have the social media experience and technology expertise. These at times sit outside the (ad) agency. But you can certainly harness these resources and collaborate with the specialists.

Then why this debate on consolidation? PR, for instance, is seeing agency brands come together. Will advertising go down the same road?

Yashaswini: I think the debate will be about retaining the power of the agency brand name and achieving scale through consolidation. This is possible if some of the back-end functions such as HR, legal and administration come together.  However, the agency brands themselves can operate separately because there are clients who believe in the power of the agency brand name. It counts in advertising.