For Bates Asia, one of the smaller agencies under the WPP umbrella, next month will see the beginning of a new journey as Sanjay Thapar takes over as the new chief executive officer. The agency is hoping that with the ?turnaround specialist? at the helm, the Bates team will be able to leave behind the controversies of the past few months and move ahead.

?Thapar is aggressive, dynamic and likes to take up challenges head on,? says Ranjan Kapur, country head, WPP, India, and chairman, Bates India office. ?Bates needed an aggressive dynamic leader like him and we are hoping for the best.?

The top priority for Thapar, who has been credited with turning around several businesses, is to rebuild the advertising business of Bates that got derailed by the high-profile exits of Sonal Dabral, India chairman and regional creative director, Bates Asia, and Sandeep Pathak, group CEO, Bates Asia, early this year.

?Bates has a very strong BTL offer, something that most agencies struggle to build. So in one way, we have the foundation to become one of the best agencies that specializes in consumer engagement. Our challenge lies in rebuilding the advertising (above-the-line advertising) business as that’s what builds the image and reputation,? says Thapar.

All along, the BTL (below-the-line) business has been Bates’ strength. In 2007, the agency (known as Bates Enterprise, which was the merger between Bates India and Enterprise Nexus) was merged with David, the agency launched by Josy Paul, to become Bates David Enterprise. After this, the agency acquired the BTL agency Sercon and eventually became Bates 141. Last year, the agency got its current identity and its current name ‘Bates Asia’ and its new philosophy ‘changengage?.

Bates has had a chequered history. It has undergone many identity changes and resultant challenges over the years. If that was not enough, in January this year, first Dabral quit and then Pathak. This was followed by the resignation of its regional planning director Dheeraj Sinha.

?It was unnerving for people in the agency and for the clients when two senior people left together and thus I stepped in to provide that leadership role,? says Kapur who took over as the chairman of the India office of Bates to fill in the gap left by the exit of the two senior-most people in the agency.

The churn had started when Subhash Kamath, who was appointed as the CEO in 2005, called it quits in 2008 to join BBH India. Rajeev Raja had quit around the same time too to move to DDB Mudra. There were more exits from the senior team including Russell Barrett who also quit to join BBH India as executive creative director. Pathak was then promoted as CEO in 2008. The agency also hired a lot of senior creative people. In 2010, Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar joined as national creative director. Last year, the agency also announced that Dabral, India chairman and regional creative director, would re-locate to the India office for a renewed focus on the agency. At that time, Tim Isaac, chairman, Bates Asia had said, ?Sonal will be able to do so much more for India (which is growing at over 20% a year and is a jewel in the Bates network crown) and still maintain an influence over our other offices.? But then the exits of Pathak and Dabral this year thwarted any such plans.

Finally in May, the agency announced that it was bringing in Thapar, who was then group president (heading North and East) at Ogilvy India, to reverse the tide.

?Sanjay was one of our first choices. Whenever there has been a difficult situation, it was Sanjay who solved the problem,? says Kapur explaining the reasons behind choosing Thapar for this role. ?Kolkata was a pretty stagnating office in those days and when Sanjay came over, it became vibrant and there were new businesses. Then the Delhi office became a vibrant place because of him. After this, he came to Mumbai where he did remarkably well again. He then became the group director, and was given both north and east offices to handle.?

Ogilvy is Bates? sister agency and getting Thapar from there was not that difficult. ?We had to negotiate with Ogilvy. They were very kind and they said if it means furthering Sanjay?s career, then it is a good break for him,? says Kapur.

For Thapar, it had been 14 great years at Ogilvy and it was a difficult decision. ?It?s like moving away from the family. Thankfully for me it is like moving to another part of the family,? he says.

One of the biggest challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Bates is to derive growth from its advertising unit. Kapur says that last year Bates had about 30-40-50% growth in all its non-advertising units. Despite the churn at Bates in the recent past, the agency has been coming out with award-winning work regularly. The India Panga League campaign created for Virgin Mobile won Bates three awards at the 2011 Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia (PMAA) including a gold in the Best Use of the Internet in a Promotion Marketing Campaign category, a silver in the Best Small Budget Campaign category, and an Order of Merit in the Best Digital Promotion Marketing Campaign category. This campaign also got Bates a gold in the interactive digital category at Goafest 2012. At the 2011 Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, it (then called Bates 141) won two bronzes ? one in Cyber Lotus category for Virgin Mobile and another in print craft for Staedtler.

?So many changes obviously do affect the organisation but the good thing, especially in a business like advertising, is that you get a robust team of 4-5 people, win a few pitches and the positive energy is back in no time. I am very optimistic that everything will be great soon. We have a very strong Bates office in India, we have robust business in the shopper marketing, digital, activation and OOH sectors. These are very profitable,? says Sinha who quit Bates recently.

However Kapur believes that Bates will have to work on the perception that the market has about the agency. ?While Bates is growing phenomenally overall, its growth has been uneven, relative to how the market perceives it. The perception is that if there is no advertising growth, you are not growing. I want to dispel the notion that growth can come only from advertising,? says Kapur. He says that the company has to now figure out ways to get growth from advertising too. ?One of the challenges that Sagar faces right now is how to get that (ad growth) revived, to churn that back up to growth levels that we would expect of an agency like Bates. Double digit growth in the ad business is a must. It came down to single digit, but we will soon come to double digit, in line with the industry.?

In terms of talent, the company is now looking for someone to fill in the shoes of Sinha. They have already shortlisted six seven people and an announcement in this regard is expected soon. In terms of the creative team, the agency is just trying to hold on to all its good people across the board, and people who can work seamlessly across various mediums including digital.

Says Mahabaleshwarkar, ?If you see, there was big shift that happened when TV as a medium came on board, a lot of traditional print creative guys just vanished. They had to understand the importance of TV as a new media. We are in the same situation now as digital has taken over. Anyone, who came on board thinking they would just do TVC, print campaigns, etc., has realised that things are changing quickly. People who can adjust, are willing to learn and spend that much time to understand the medium are on board now and these people would last for the next 10-15 years.?

Another thing that the agency wants to focus on is integration. Even though Mahabaleshwarkar agrees that integration has been a much ?abused word? by agencies, Bates is trying to make a serious effort to implement it. ?We are trying to make everything media neutral. In our office, everybody sits together and that helps a lot. We crack the brief together, the idea together and then think which medium to use. And then everyone goes back to their respective departments. It is very important for every department to know their expertise really well. We can learn new things from each other and it is working well for us,? says Mahabaleshwarkar.

Points out Sinha, ?Bates has extremely strong Kolkata and Bangalore offices. The Delhi and Mumbai offices are only a bit weak in terms of the advertising business but that is absolutely fine. Each organisation needs challenges at any given time, otherwise it is not worth it. And these are the challenges for Bates, and I am sure, it will take these head on with the right team in place.?

Explaining the idea of the ?changengage? philosophy and the role of integration, Kapur says that Bates makes an offer of creating something that people can relate to, engage with and continue to be engage with. ?I have been a part of the larger WPP group and have had the luxury to have a worldwide view of what is happening in the industry and there is a lot of growth from digital, shopper marketing, OOH, rural, etc. A lot of marketing communications money is now going to places where the client feels there is engagement and where consumers can co-create. The whole prospect of being able to get audience engaged with your brand on an ongoing basis is undeniably attractive. I think about a year ago we were ahead of the curve in terms of offering these services, but now the curve is coming alongside us. We want to ride the crest of the wave and we have a scalable specialist approach.?

Bates Asia is on the cusp of another change.