Think Tank

MBA

Lecture by CEO, Mindshare

Event:             "Enter the world of media planning"

CEO Series lecture by Mr. Gowthaman Ragothaman, CEO & India Head -  MindShare, India

Date:               2 Nov 07, Friday (4.45 pm ' 6.15 pm)

Venue:            Room # 21

The CEO was around only 35, and again brought us to the realities of the world, far from the glamorous roles that we dream of and imagine. His presentation was about the overview of the media industry in India, the innovative trends and the future path and insights. And that was followed by a Q&A session.

About the speaker:

o       Former head of MindShare-Fulcrum, the dedicated Communication Channel Management unit for Unilever in India. Fulcrum is handling the media business of Unilever in India for the past 10 years.

o       Worked with various blue-chip clients across different categories like HPC, Foods, Cigarettes, Paints, Camera & Rolls, Financial Instruments, Adhesives, Chocolates, Bicycles, Two-wheelers & Pens.

o       Played an active role in the last two pitches that retained the Media business for MindShare-Fulcrum and in his recent role as a General Manager has secured this business till 2007.

About Mindshare

o       Global team of 6000 people across 67 countries

o       Illustrious parent companies like GroupM and WPP

o       Created in 1997 as the first global media-service company

o       Delivers national, regional and worldwide solutions to clients across all media, in all categories and to all target audiences.

o       Works with 13 of the world’s top 20 advertisers

o       Clients include Unilever (Dove, Rexona Deo), Wrigley, Kotex, Sprint, Pepsi India (’Oye Bubly’ campaign), Motorola, HSBC, BP

Some snapshots from his talk:

o       There is no better time to be in the media industry. The industry is expected to grow @ 15% for the next three years.

o       India will have 500 TV channels by 2008.

o       Television is a 15,400 crore industry, but out of that 7,500 crore goes towards subscription, which is a grey market, almost like a black market.

o       We can think of four different Indias; the 'global India' contains 6 million Indians, and they are like any other developed country in terms of their thinking, attitude and lifestyle.

o       Total internet users in India are more than that of UK or Germany

I asked him a question: what is the way in which TV advertisers can prevent the growing trend of viewers being 'put off' by the large number of advertisements in between programs and how we can learn from the developed markets in this regard. He answered that the main difference between the India and the developed markets is that here the alternate channels are not fully developed. In the west, customers have already moved out of TV. And for India, the greatest problem is that companies don't invest enough in 'market research'.

He also talked about some innovative initiatives by Indian advertisers, like Sunsilk's gangofgirls.com and Wheel's Smart Srimati campaign. Last week, we had CEO of Perspectrum visiting our campus, and these sessions are the best forum to get the 'views from the top'.