“We have just unleashed the growth potential of the four agencies”

When AG Krishnamurthy, the founder of advertising and marketing communications network Mudra Group retired in 2003, Madhukar Kamath, the current group CEO and managing director, Mudra Group, was brought on board. His task was not only to strengthen the existing advertising business but also to grow it. And it took Kamath just eight years to do that. After restructuring the group into four agencies, on Mudra’s 30th anniversary, Kamath unveiled a new look for the agency.

In an exclusive interview with FE’s Pritha Mitra Dasgupta, Madhukar Kamath talks about the journey so far. Edited excerpts.

This is your second stint with Mudra. You left Mudra in 1999 to start Bates and then joined back in 2003. Do you think the Bates experience helped you rebuild Mudra?

Stepping out of Mudra gave me an opportunity to look into the agency from outside. That, coupled with my experience at Mudra, made me feel that the agency has a lot of potential. When I joined back it was not about rebuilding Mudra, but taking the agency forward. It was about setting a new agenda for the agency.

Bates was just three years old when you exited and under your leadership it was doing very well. It had won many prestigious accounts and had launched other marketing services as well. So what made you quit Bates and join Mudra?

Quitting Bates was a really tough decision. Here was a situation where I had brought in Bates, acquired Clarion, launched ZenithOptimedia and 141. But when this offer came up to succeed Krishnamurthy it seemed challenging. Both my personal and professional growth is to some extent intertwined with that of Mudra. It was the tremendous challenge of growing Mudra that motivated me to join back.

You turned Mudra from a mainline ad agency to a giant integrated communication network. How has the journey been?

How can I culminate 30 years in just two lines? All I can say, the first year when I joined back, that is, 2003, was spent in streamlining the organization and setting the goals for the agency. And the journey has been exciting. Challenges were there in terms of building the leadership, setting up the teams, changing the mindset. Mudra always had a tremendous set of clients and we simply built on them.

Industry watchers say that Mudra never suffered from any dearth of clients. But till about 4-5 years ago, it was the gaps in the creative side that was holding it back. Do you agree?

In the 1980s Mudra was the trendsetter and it had created many iconic communications like Vimal, Dhara and others. Even in the 1990s, quality work was happening. Twice in the 90s, Mudra became the agency of the year. It was in 2000 when we started growing, that there were new demands on the creative front. So we brought Bobby Pawar on board.

Mudra has also fostered many top creatives of the industry today ? starting from R Balakrishnan (Balki), Pratap Suthan, Anup Chitnis, Ramki (D Ramakrishna), Sajan Raj Kurup, Sonal Dabral, Amer Jaleel, Ryan Menezes ? would you agree that retaining talent has been a challenge for Mudra?

Every creative person goes through this churn and they try their luck somewhere else. Yes, it has been a good challenge for us.

The Rs 400-crore Reliance Communications media planning business has recently moved out. How has it affected Mudra Group, especially Mudra Max? Do you want to win it back?

It?s the loss of the business that has strengthened the goal to build a strong business for Mudra Max. Also, we are still working with them (Anil Ambani?s other businesses under ADAG). Only the Reliance Communications part went out. I think every business has its ups and downs. As the client has said, they wanted to review the operations. Of course, we would like to win it back. And I believe every business you lose is there to win back.

Within the Mudra Group, which business is the fastest growing?

We have just unleashed the growth potential of all the four agencies, that is, Mudra India, Mudra Max, DDB and Ignite. Every single agency is growing at a rate of 15-20%. So far, Mudra Max has been the largest as it has 14-15 clients and my estimation is that soon it will become 20. And this is more in line with its global partner Omnicom.

Despite your association with DDB, do you think you could not leverage it?

That was one of the tasks when I joined back Mudra in 2003. And over the last five years, the DDB business has grown tremendously. We have most of the DDB global units in India. Bobby Pawar is now on the creative council of DDB in the Asia Pacific region. I would say in the Mudra growth story, both DDB and Omnicom have been our major allies.

What was the idea behind the Mudra makeover?

The overall growth of Mudra has been a journey and there are certain steps that needed to be taken. There was a need to create a distinct identity for Mudra. We refreshed the brand when Mudra completed 25 years. But that was a small initiative. And now we have an identity that reflects the organization and sets the agenda for future.

What will be the strategy going forward?

Mudra has built itself into these four agencies. Each one has clarity in terms of direction. There are several areas where we would like to offer or strengthen our capabilities, such as sports marketing, public affairs, shopper marketing and others. Going forward, the growth will come in three ways, through partnerships, collaborations and acquisitions.