Creating value is most important: Mindshare South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar

In his first full-length interview to the media after taking charge as CEO of Mindshare South Asia, Prasanth Kumar talks to Pradyuman Maheshwari and Dyanne Coelho about being delighted to be #1 media agency in the RECMA qualitative ratings, the new structure that he has set up, the focus on e-commerce and that Mindshare isn’t just a rich client’s shop and how he hopes to bring back the Emvies crown. Excerpts from a free-wheeling interview…

Being No 1 in RECMA is a big achievement… 
Of course, especially since this is more qualitative. Quantitatively, we have been doing well all through as a part of the GroupM network, with Mindshare being the largest. I think we’ve also grown a bit. But qualitative looks at momentum, at business, talent structure, business diversification etc. So for the last 4-5 years I think we have been leading. We have a high profile, but we were No. 2 or 3 from that context. After five years, we’re back to being No. 1. So it’s a great win for everybody at Mindshare. 

On a lighter note, is this a win sweeter given that you’ve gone ahead of Maxus? 
I don’t think it’s Maxus vs Mindshare. Each agency has its own perspective about how it wants to shape up, the structure, focus, how to concentrate on each business, etc. Internally for us, Mindshare has always been leading in the market. But these days, you find there are lots of agencies that want to notch up on qualitative aspects. It’s also about the margin between us and the second best which is around four points….

But you’re still not ranked as Dominant in the ratings?
If you score 20, you become Dominant. We’re 19, so close enough that I hope we will become Dominant the next time. I don’t think it’s about crossing over Maxus, but crossing over whoever was No 2 to become No 1 is a great achievement  A lot of this measurement is based on parameters before you took charge, but what do you think has really led to this change from last year, where you were not the No 1?

Fundamentally, what we’ve done is [onboarded] lots of talent. Strategically looking at the analytics team, the digital team, and how they are getting shaped. Another point is winning some new businesses. Also, whether it’s Mindshare West, North or South, getting a clear focus has really helped because we have four units -- Fulcrum, West, North and South -- and each of them need to innovate the practices and come with new products, the right structure and talent, not just for today, but for tomorrow as well. The journey did not start two or three months back; it has always been there. 

But businesses come and businesses go. Recently Mindshare lost Century Ply. Is there any definite measure you’re looking at to ensure that you don’t lose business? 
We don’t want to lose any business, but at the same time, we understand there will be certain necessities, certain other areas that the client may want to look at. In the RECMA perspective, one important factor is how you’ve retained clients. We’ve celebrated five to 20 years with many different clients. That stands as a strong point in being able to continuously deliver the best. 

At the recently held ZeeMelt2015, one did see some new things you are doing, like the Loop Room. For somebody who started out a decade-and-a-half back, has the business changed dramatically? 
Yes, business insights have also changed. The sources of data have increased and more exciting is how do you take all of that data, put it into one particular place and how real-time can you make it for marketers to keep changing their strategy and therefore come up with better results. It’s become more challenging for people to get more real-time, and that’s why we have the Loop Room where we get all the sources of data and our stakeholders who run the entire strategy or the campaign, together. Decisions get taken faster and more in real-time. Therefore, we are able to do the right things much faster. 

As someone who’s led buying centrally for GroupM, etc, does the science of all of this really mean much or is it all about beating down media entities on price and getting the best bang on buck for your clients? 
No, so in any form even in my earlier role or now, I think creating value is the most important. And in creating value there are two parts. One is efficiency, and the other one is effectiveness. If you’re able to create more effectiveness, you can create value. If you’re able to create more efficiency, it again enhances the value. It’s not about beating down on entities and aspects like that. 

You just completed 20 years of Fulcrum. How are your businesses doing right now? 
Our businesses are going fantastically well, and we just had the Content Day for Hindustan Unilever, an initiative which generated a large number of ideas and provided a platform the initiatives for different brands. So there are innovative aspects which we are on to, in terms of how we want to shape this market for the client. Similarly, if you look at our other clients like GSK, Pepsi, and the entire ABG group, there are different tasks, categories and business challenges which we are looking to. We looked at some of our clients in the south like Lenovo, USL, UB Diageo, and there’s some great innovative work being done. So with all our large, medium and smaller clients, we want to see what is the next disruptive thing that we can do. 

What are the growth areas you see in terms of clients? 
From a category perspective, I think we will focus more on e-commerce. It is a dynamic, fast-moving practice where a lot is on. We ourselves have many clients, from shopping to real estate, medical, grocery etc. 

You don’t have the Big Two,
Yeah, so we don’t handle Amazon or Flipkart. But at the same time, there are many different aspects of e-commerce where we have almost eight to ten clients.  Clients from the e-commerce space typically start out small. The perception is that you only go to a Mindshare when you have X crores of business…Should Roger Federer play any other ATP tournament when he has been winning Grand Slams? The reason you play is because you want to win all the matches in the tournament… It’s an incorrect perception.

it’s not like your meter starts ticking only when there is a eight-figure involved?
Not at all. To share some statistics, probably 85-90 per cent of our clients, are under Rs 20 to 30 crore. These are also clients who we’ve had for seven or eight years. That says it all.

But the bulk of your revenues come from the 10-15 per cent of your clients, right?
That is the case in any other business too, so you have your 10-15 per cent clients contributing to 80 per cent of the business in terms of spends. Even if you look at the markets for any business, you probably have four to five markets contributing to 60-70 per cent of the revenues. 

So, you’re not a rich clients’ shop only? 
No, not at all. We want to ensure that whichever client we work with, we want to ensure that we partner them to create success for them, irrespective of whether their spends are larger or medium or small.

Is it a greater aspiration for you to look at getting your existing clients to spend more, or is it to get new businesses?
Business is very important for our existing clients. But we are also open to working with more clients. What we handle right now -- we’re not going to drop the ball on that at all. It is critical and extremely important for us. There are teams which work both sides. There is a team to work for today, and one for tomorrow. And that’s how we manage the overall chemistry in the business of how we want to deal with the existing business as well as the future business. 

Is it a better idea, when you’re buying and planning media that you should be handling all parts of the business… 
Today, we look at a consumer perspective and how that consumer can be reached more effectively. There is simultaneous media consumption happening in a very vigorous form. People need to look at it from an integrated perspective and that’s what we do. Handling it all together, just gives that benefit for the media planner or expert who’s planning for the client. 

Is it an irritant when you don’t have one part of the business?
It is not an irritant, it is challenging. Ideally it should be done together. 

Sometimes do you feel that to be really effective for all your clients, it would have been better to have a full-service operation? 
We integrate with all parties. I gave you the example of Loop Room, which brings all stakeholders together. It becomes difficult when people don’t come in together. If we are taking initiatives to get people together, which means we just want to collaborate and get the client in the centre to get the best out of whatever we are doing. If we can practise that, if we can get it together, then it doesn’t matter.

But then that’s good in theory right, in actual practice?
No we do put in to practice for many of our clients. 

Moving on, how much of your revenues comes from digital currently?
We are quite huge. We believe we are the largest in terms of spends. Across mediums, and if you look at Mindshare’s shared perspective on spends, it will be the largest in that context. And if you look at it versus other media, we would be handling close to double digits. 

When do you see digital becoming the dominant media? 
It is in the process of becoming a dominant player. It has already become the No 3 media, just after TV and print. We would see this growing even at a much larger pace, almost in the region of 40-50 per cent year-on-year for us. Last year, we grew more than 55 per cent. 

Are you putting too much emphasis on digital given that the bucks aren’t really as big? 
No, the fact is that there is a lot pf progress happening in the digital space. We see that going into the future, the emphasis on digital as a behaviour is only going to increase from the consumer perspective because that’s what consumers are consuming via mobile, or other platforms. So it’s only right that we look at that and learn and then do the right things for the clients’ investments. In this journey, we may have to challenge status quo; we may have to question what we’re doing and probably bring it back and then see how things work. That’s exactly what we’re doing. 

You’ve spent over four months at the helm here. How’s the transition been?
Very good. 

Was it really a transition, given that you were involved in Mindshare’s business even earlier? 
It was an advantage that Mindshare was not new, nor were the clients or the teams. At the same time, there are also different people, different teams, different talents sitting across different locations. So connecting with them, trying to understand what each of them does for each client, required me to get a little deeper into each of the teams, etc. Of course from my earlier job, it’s also gone wider, because you have talent, clients, media, etc which you need to focus on. So from that context, trying to balance the last four-odd months getting everything together has had its own challenges and its own excitement. 

But the all-important thing is handling the P/L, right? 
Yes. So the P/L is a derivative of all the great work that we do. We need to look at which are the inputs, which are more attractive and which need to be maintained. Again, being a part of the system for the past 11 years, it is not a completely new aspect; you always knew what the business angles are. But getting into the clients’ business, doing it by yourself, getting the team to do the job, getting entirely different types of talent and getting into more new businesses, etc, that’s a different excitement.

So is there a change of course likely to happen at Mindshare? 
No. When I took over, the first thing I did was to have a clear structure in the organisation. We never had a head of product or head of digital. We also got the four units to work much more closely together. We had Maps (M A Parathasarthy) around. We also had Ruchi (Mathur) who stepped into heading North, and we have Saket (Sinha) who works with Ruchi on the Delhi business as well as focusing on East. There’s going to be a head in South, which we’ll announce soon. When I moved, the first thing I looked at was the structure, and then what the different businesses are, and what we need them to fetch in terms of what you want tomorrow. Therefore, there is an immense amount of focus and plan on product, which includes the Loop, the framework for clients and the different products and partners. So that has been going on for the last three to four months. That’s why at Melt, you saw a lot more innovative stuff and we want everyone to inhale and exhale those philosophies. 

And how do you think you’ll do at the Emvies this year?
I think we’ll do very well. We are very confident that we will get the Emvies back. There’s been lots of great work in the last year that Mindshare has done across clients, and a lot of effort into bringing in diversified and other business categories. So that focus will be there. I am very confident we will win it back. 

In Arrangement with MxMIndia.com