Richard Pinder, 45, stepped up to take sole leadership of Publicis Worldwide in May 2009 which, with 9,000 employees in over 80 markets, is the largest Publicis Groupe agency network. With major investment in acquisitions and start-ups, subsidiary Publicis Modem has become the world’s third largest digital agency. Pinder, who was in India last week for the Goafest, speaks to Shahana Joshi. Excerpts:
Publicis is one of the largest advertising networks in the world and you had a big role to play in that. What’s your success formula?
Publicis group is now the third largest holding company. This happened in 2009, when we jumped from the fourth to the third spot. The part I am responsible for is Publicis Worldwide, which is the Publicis branded entities in the Publicis group. What we have been focusing on for the past three years are three things. Firstly we have put it all under ‘ contagious ideas that change the conversation’, which basically means that via us we want people to change the conversation about the brands. We are at the top three in creative here at the Goafest. And last year we were among the top five in the final results, so that’s good here in India. We want to be 30 per cent digital by 2012.
Could you tell us a bit about your acquisition strategies?
Our plan is to build and expand our business in fast growing markets, so clearly India falls into that. We’ve made four major acquisitions in the last 10 years, which is a fair clip. But more important is investing in talent ahead of the revenue, so that you can grow the business. In India we wouldn’t buy outside of digital or even outside of India. In the fast growing markets, we are really not interested in buying advertising agencies now.
Tell us about the Vivaki exchange. How different is it?
Vivaki is all about contact and where you find people . And we are all about content. So what these guys have done is put it both together, the understanding of where and how to find people digitally and offline. Vivaki is smaller here in India due to the strength of WPP media, but it is growing substantially from a revenue point of view.
How easy or difficult has it been to make a headway in India where rival WPP is so strong?
When I was leading Leo-Burnett here in India, where we handled Proctor and Gamble, we had to face the might of Unilever. And now, it’s exactly the same with us. WPP is strong not because they are strong in themselves, but because Unilever is strong. The P&G argument for a long time was basically an apprehension to come into India because of the strength of Unilever. So we tried to reason that if they came into India, they may not be able to be number one but they could do some serious damage to Unilever and make some good money on the way.
That has been our strategy since 1999, when we came to India. It might not be the scale of O&M and JWT, but it is year on year progress and we are doing well on that. After WPP, you are the second network to have organized various non- advertising initiatives under one umbrella. This includes media, public relations, events, digital direct marketing, CRM etc. As an aggregate, how much does this contribute to the overall business?
If you look at the media divisions, they contribute to about 20 per cent of the group, PR contributes to around 10 per cent. There is no group strategy for CRM. Leo-Burnett, Saatchi and Saatchi does CRM, so each piece is very individual. What is interesting is that unlike WPP, when we pitch as a group, we can share the account.
