Neo@Ogilvy, the digital planning and buying arm of WPP’s direct and digital marketing arm, Ogilvy One, is making fresh investments in its India operations. Nasreen Madhany, global CEO, Neo@Ogilvy, who was recently in India, said that the agency will be making investments for acquisition of digital marketing agencies in India as well as for bringing in fresh talent. She said, ?We are looking to upgrade the talent across the board from a digital standpoint as well as looking to make some acquisitions. And then we hope that the growth we will see in India will be similar to what we have seen in other markets where we started at the stage we are in India now.?
Neo@Ogilvy had started with some very solid anchor clients like IBM, American Express, Cisco, Lenovo in other markets. And today, those anchor clients account for less than 14% of its business and instead, a robust local client business has grown. ?So we are expecting a similar development and evolution in India and, hopefully, five years from now Neo’s business in India would be not just from our anchor clients.?
And one way to make that happen is acquisitions. ?Looking at the level of development we want we will be looking to acquire a digital marketing company,? she said. However, the major share of the current investment is for acquiring talent.
The agency suffered a rough patch early this year when Subrata Roy, media director at Neo@Ogilvy moved out. And prior to this, Prasanth Mohanachandran, executive director, digital services, Neo@Ogilvy and OgilvyOne, and Kaizad Pardiwalla, president, OgilvyOne, also exited the agency.
?Some of the changes that we are making in India are not unique to India in terms of our senior level talent. We are consistent with our talent strategy in other parts of the world. So we built Neo on the basis of very senior level talent with a focus on client service,? says Madhany. In July this year, Ogilvy India promoted Kunal Jeswani, head, planning, new media, OgilvyAction and OgilvyOne as country head, OgilvyOne and Neo@Ogilvy.
Five years ago when Neo@Ogilvy was launched, the agency was a company of 70 people in two markets. Today, Neo employs 800 people in 25 markets around the world. Currently Neo@Ogilvy Asia contributes about 15-20% to the agency’s global revenues. However, it is expected to contribute at least 25-30% in the next 3-5 years. Some of its major clients include Nokia, Vodafone, Unilever, IBM, HDFC Bank, Cadbury, American Express among others.
?I would say clients in India today are probably at the same stage where clients at North America were five years ago, which is less than 5%. It varies from category to category. But on an average, it’s less than 5%. Five years ago, the technology clients were spending about 10% of their budgets on digital marketing and were not spending 40-45% of their budgets. But that growth has happened in the last five years. Packaged goods clients were spending about 1-2% five years ago are now spending 10-15%. I think one will see that kind of a transition in India as well for those different category of clients.?
Madhany believes that the digital marketing space in Asia, especially in India and China, will see a tremendous growth. ?I think digital marketing is just starting in India. However, I think the uniqueness of India, which I think would help the digital market place a lot, is the technical expertise that exists in India. I think technically India is a much more advanced market. For me, this means the growth curve for a digital landscape to develop in India will take less time. It took much longer for a market like the US to transform itself from a non-digital to a digital environment,? she said.
While Madhany says that the growth triggers in India are similar to that of other international markets the devices of growth could be different.
?If you look at digital as a landscape, you will find that the evolution of the importance of digital in communication will be similar in India as it is in other markets. I think the devices in the channels maybe different than other markets. If you look at a market like the US, mobile is not as developed as it is in India. But to me that’s just a device. And it’s a touchpoint. So there might be variations and differences in how the communication occurs. But the relevance of digital and the importance of digital will be similar.?