In May 1997, when Nirvik Singh took over the late Ravi Gupta's mantle of CEO of Trikaya Grey, not many people gave Singh half a chance of keeping the financially unstable agency afloat. And when some senior creative people left the agency soon after, it didn't augur well at all. Criticisms that Trikaya had lost its famed creative sheen quickly followed. And the last nail on creativity was supposed to be the agency turning Grey Worldwide, last year. The doomsayers, however, should have had better faith in Gupta's judgement. Way back in 1990, Gupta himself had placed Trikaya's newly opened Kolkata office in Singh's custody, when Singh was all of 26 years old. Over the past four years, the ex-Lipton, ex-HTA man has slowly engineered a change within the agency, whereby the books have been put in order, and creativity has started flowering again. In this interview with N. Shatrujeet of agencyfaqs!, Singh, managing director, Grey Worldwide India, shares how the last four years have been, and his vision for Grey's future.

Q. Beginning with Ravi Gupta's passing away, to last year, when Trikaya finally turned Grey, you have been part of some radical transitions at the agency. What were the broad challenges you faced at the time of taking charge?

A. At that time, I think the first broad challenge that this agency faced was to deal emotionally with the death of Ravi Gupta. Second, I think most people did a grave injustice to Ravi by thinking Trikaya Grey was a one-man agency, and therefore, assuming there would be clients and people leaving, en mass. Therefore, the task I had was to put all clients at ease. The third big one was that financially, we were in a mess. And the idea was to recover some of that lost ground, and build on what had been left behind.

Q. I understand those were traumatic times… How did Grey Worldwide help the agency cope?

A. Well, like any shareholder, they had a point of view. They offered a lot of advice, and suggestions and examples of similar situations that they have faced in the network overseas. They showed me directions in which I could go… But finally, it was for me and my team to decide what we thought was right for the agency in India.

Q. Could you expand on this plan that you drew up, and where you are today vis-à-vis its implementation?

A. As I said, the first thing on our agenda was to literally hold every client's hand and say, 'While we understand that the loss of Ravi Gupta is irreparable, the fact is that we've all worked on all these businesses as a team, and that we are going to meet your needs to the best of our abilities.' The task was to make sure that no client left us. And I don't think anybody left us. Probably, at that time, one client fired us… it was Exide. But then, I don't think it had anything to do with Ravi's demise. I think it had got to do with things going wrong between the client and the agency. Otherwise, every other client stayed in place.

The next big challenge was dealing with finances. Yes, we were in a financial mess. That's when we decided it was time to re-look at how we looked at life. Unfortunately, in India, most people grow up chasing billing, and not necessarily profits. We looked at our client list and figured that we had about 95-odd clients. We figured that our agency's turnover was Rs 180 crore. But we also figured that 50 clients actually gave us Rs 150 crore, and the balance 45 gave us the remaining Rs 30 crore. Now, from a structure point of view, agencies do not distinguish between a Rs 50-lakh client and a Rs 5-crore client. So, for every client, you'd have an account director, an account supervisor, five more creative people…

What we did was ask ourselves, if we were to start life afresh, do we really want to chase small clients, do we want to spend our energies chasing clients who will not necessarily pay our bills, or people who are not interested in long-term brand building? I think the big cultural shift happens when you move away from billing and treat advertising like any other business. You're in this business to produce value and profit for your shareholders. So we said fine, let's get rid of these 35-40 clients, and by doing that, we realized that we could ease up our numbers, from a people point of view, by as much as 50 per cent.

That, again, was traumatic, for we got terrible PR for it. But in hindsight, I think we did the right thing. We let go of 45-odd clients, which means we reduced effectively by Rs 30 crore. But having done that, we were also able to let go of about 200 people. And that immediately changed the equation on our balance sheet.

Q. These were short-term challenges. What about the more long-term plans?

A. The immediate thing to fix was the numbers - which I think we've done. The next thing was addressing the image issue. We're an agency that, unfortunately, gets quite talked about… things like we've sold our souls and how we have stopped producing creative work. The next step was, therefore, to fix the creative product. Last year, we picked up 27 awards locally. We picked up lots of international awards too. So, I think that our creative product has also started coming back. We've hired some old people who used to work with us… Sippy (Sanjay Sipahimalani), Yayati (Godbole), Pats (Prathap Suthan), Sanjay Menon, Manu Chopra… I think we've now got a good bunch of people in creative as well.

The more long-term idea is to move the agency from being 'an advertising agency' to becoming 'a communications company'. Where we can offer, under one roof, public relations, advertising, direct marketing, interactive, events, healthcare… That's the broad direction in which we will now work.

Q. You mean 'total integrated solutions', don't you?

A. Yes.

Q. The way you see it, is 'total integrated solutions' just a buzzword, is it driven by the genuine desire to give clients better solutions, or is it an effort to keep the cash register ringing in bad times?

A. I think 'total integrated solutions' has been a buzzword all this while. And having been just a buzzword, there are lots of smokes-and-mirrors that most agencies have put up, saying we offer so-and-so service etc. Especially when they actually have very little expertise on this, and have departments that staff one or one-and-a-half people.

However, I also think that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to read a client's balance sheet and figure that out of every Rs 10 he spends on what he describes as advertising and sales promotion, only Rs 5 or 6 goes through the agency. The balance Rs 4 goes through other people because (a) the agency has so far not been interested, and (b) the agency doesn't have those skills. Now, internationally, probably 40 per cent of Grey's business comes from non-classical advertising. And as long as you are within the best of class - or at least within striking distance of best of class - it's no more smokes-and-mirrors. That's when you can genuinely offer that service to the client. The benefit for the client is fairly obvious - he gets one single window to see this thing through, and he gets somebody who understands his brand perfectly well.

In our case, for one, Grey doesn't use the term 'advertising' in its name any more… it's the Grey Global Group, and the advertising business is Grey Worldwide. That, I think, is the true reflection that these are now best-of-class businesses. The second - and there is nothing wrong in that - is the fact that you have to look for incremental sources of revenue while running your business. And, if you can provide best-of-class services in those particular disciplines, I'm sure it's a worthwhile conversation to have with any client.

Q. Fine, but how is Grey's offering different?

A. We at Grey are structured very differently. When we went into this process, we looked at what the pitfalls have been for some of the others. One of the big pitfalls has been that people have opened up 'companies' - with separate P&Ls, separate CEOs - that have all gone and chased separate dreams. For instance, when you have separate companies for each service, it's the starting point of not being integrated at all. So, if I were running direct marketing, and I am being judged on a P&L of direct marketing, I would much rather chase 'direct marketing-only' clients. But by doing that, I'd probably be ignoring the larger picture of having an integrated client within the company.

The way we've designed our internal system is that much like there is a creative department and a media department, there will be a PR department, a direct marketing department, an event department… all under one roof. Which means there are no turf wars, and depending upon the client's need, the brand custodian may or may not come out from mass media advertising. If there's a client who requires much more of public relations and less of advertising, the agency's brand champion on that brand will be somebody from the public relations business, and not from advertising. This is one big difference that Grey brings to the table.

Internationally, Grey has been doing this successfully - otherwise it wouldn't be a $10-billion company, where 40 per cent of revenues come from non-advertising. Grey has wonderful processes that ask questions of the client, and brings the integration and the brand idea together brilliantly. The Grey processes that we follow also sets us apart from the rest of the industry.

Q. But aren't there benefits in having independent P&L units? That way, there's a pressure to perform on every unit, which adds to the bottomline.

A. That, by itself, is an argument for why it shouldn't be that way. In effect, what that means is that if there is a PR company, let the PR guy chase a short-term dream to fill in a balance sheet. But in the process, he ends up screwing the long-term business of the agency. Which is completely wrong. Also, the word 'integration' suggests that everyone is in it together. The moment you have separate companies, you've broken the spirit of the word into something that doesn't make sense. I have very clear points of view on which way we're working.

Q. Of these services, in how many have you got your act together?

A. In PR, we have now got a fairly decent setup in Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Ahmedabad, and we're working closely with most of Grey's existing clients… Kotak Mahindra, Britannia… Currently, we are not encouraging our PR people to go out and get non-Grey business. I still think we have a bit of catching up to do. Having said that, I think we are delivering decent-to-more-than-decent results to our clients. Exhibit - which does exhibitions and events - has handled work for ITC Foods, a Grey client. On Interactive, we're working with Marico, with General Motors… again Grey clients. Clearly, we are cross-selling some of our services to our clients.

I'm in no hurry. The moment you get into new P&Ls, you get into a hurry. 'Let's pick up 25 more clients, let's do more short-term things…' We don't want to get into that game. Currently, I do not want these divisions to go in pursuit of new businesses, individually. We have some 85 clients across India, and if we can sell our services across the length and breadth of these 85 clients, I think we'll have more than our hands full - with adequate representation across product categories.

Q. Your specialist media arm, MediaCom, has been operational in India for some time now. What are your future plans, now that Big Daddy MindShare is getting its act together?

A. Our position on MediaCom hasn't changed for many years. There are enough markets in the world where MediaCom competes with MindShare… competes with millions of other people. In mature markets, being the largest is not necessarily being the best. And MediaCom is clearly positioned as not the largest. We are large enough, so we get good volumes. But, I think our difference and our edge is that we are 'a thinking person's media department'. Our media department's philosophy has always been 'Don't outspend competition, outwit competition.' And you outwit competition not by putting large sums of money on a table, but by better media planning, by better analysis and better research. And that will continue to be our stance, irrespective of whether five other people merge, consolidate and become larger or not. As I said, in mature markets, being the largest is not necessarily being the answer to getting business.

Sure being large - and being in a playing field that's large enough - is important, and I think we're there. We buy media independently for Marico, Sony, Johnson & Johnson (J&J)… for most of Grey's clients. And the very fact that most of Grey's clients have chosen to buy media through MediaCom makes the point further that our planning skills and some of the proprietary tools we use go a long way in making the client's budget stretch even further.

Q. Coming back to creative, it is often suggested that, over the past few years, Grey has willingly forsaken the mandate to do great creative work. That the focus has shifted to chasing big business.

A. I disagree completely. People keep making this comparison that there was Trikaya Grey, and now there is Grey. Let me tell you, the people who ran Trikaya and the people who run Grey are the same people. Sure, there have been people who have left. On the other hand, there have been people who left, and who have joined back.

Grey hasn't sent me a memo saying, 'Don't produce creative work.' That's one thing. Number two, within Grey, there is a huge emphasis on creatives and the creative product in the region. And the fact that it is happening across the region means that even we are trying to up the creative standard.

I also disagree when people say that big clients don't allow you to do creative work. What is creative work… that which wins awards? Or is it that which works in the marketplace? Or is it both. Lots of creative work is scam work, which we all know about. That's bullshit, and we are not going to do that kind of work. Has Marico relaunched Saffola successfully? The answer is yes. Do people think the advertising is good? Yes. Is it creative? I don't know… I know it's working wonderfully for the client. I know we're very proud of that work. And it's doing marvelous things in the marketplace. If it wins us an award, it's a bonus. I don't think a client dictates creative to an agency, irrespective of whether it's a big client or a small one. I think agencies come up with whatever creative they want to come up with, and what finally goes out is that which the agency and the client believe is best for the brand.

Let me add that among the Top Ten agencies, we have the lowest ratio of globally aligned business. Most of the Top Ten agencies here have upwards of 35 per cent of business come from globally aligned clients. In my case, only 12 per cent of business comes from aligned sources. The rest 88 per cent is ours. So, is Grey dictating creative? The answer is, no! And Grey is passionate about creative. So whatever we produce from here is either our fault, or our good fortune.

Q. You did mention that you had to 'fix the creative product'. So you do admit there was a slump somewhere.

A. I think, first of all, you need to ensure that your agency does not close down… that it is around to do creative work. Sure, there was the first 12-to-18 months where we were completely focused on fixing the bottomline. Having fixed the bottomline, we started looking at fixing the product. And by fixing the product, we've managed bringing back some of the people who had worked for us. I think our creative standards are definitely improving. Otherwise, how would you explain the 27 awards we won last year? Unfortunately, in this country, winning awards has become a yardstick for judging an agency's creativity.

Q. Year 2001 has been bemoaned by the entire industry. What about Grey?

A. I think we've had a better year than most people. It's been a fantastic year, actually. We grew by 27 per cent in an environment where agencies grew by 5 or 6 per cent. Which means we entered 2002 at Rs 285 crore. Touchwood, we've done well.

We've had a sensational year when it comes to new business. In Bangalore we won Blaupunkt and Britannia awarded us the Quality Biscuit business. In Delhi we won Hindustan Times, Indian Airlines, Revlon, and we've just won Carrier. In Mumbai we won ITC Greeting Cards (Expressions), ITC Foods (Dal Bukhara), Sunkist Orange Juice, we won the AOR for Marico… lots and lots of businesses. We pitched for some 45 businesses, and if I recall correctly, we won 36 of them. So we've had a great year.

And I think we are in every pitch list in this country. And that, I think, indicates the health of my agency. That clients see us worthy enough.

Q. Last year's slowdown also had to do with the coming apart of the 'Internet Economy'. How come this doesn't seem to have impacted Grey, considering you had a big dotcom client in Go4i?

A. Last year, if I remember correctly, 12 per cent of my forecast was from dotcom, which included Go4i, easybuymusic, billjunction (from ICICI) and lots of others we had won. We were lucky that because of aggressive pitching, we were able to recover that 12 per cent. Otherwise, that 12 per cent would have gone up in smoke.

Q. This I've got to ask you… What's this about your leaving Grey and joining Sony?

A. It's a rumour, it's a rumour… it's a wonderful little rumour.

Q. Now that we're into 2002, what are the projections for the year - vis-à-vis the business and vis-à-vis the creative product?

A. The business objective is easy. Because we've always said that we would want to grow at a rate double that of the industry. So if the industry is going to grow at 3 per cent in 2002, we'd like to grow at 6 per cent. Of course, all my business managers would laugh when they read this, for they know that the targets are much higher.

As far as the creative process goes… See, you don't wake up one fine morning and say, 'Let's fix the creative product.' I think fixing the creative product is something that has to come from within every single person in the agency. I think it's a culture, and I would like to believe that we are trying - and that we shall continue to try - to make sure that the product is top-of-the-line. I'm quite proud of some of last year's work. The films for Kotak Insurance, Ambuja, Marico, Britannia, SBI Cards… I think there's some very nice work that we've done. And I hope in the coming year we will better that.

Q. And these business targets have been set despite the fact that no one's sure which way the economy will go?

A. Yes. We're fortunate that we have no one client that controls 50 per cent of our budget. That's been a blessing. We've also come to the conclusion that since we are not a Lever agency, we can never be the largest agency in the country - which is fine with us. So we might as well be in the Top Ten, and be one of the most profitable ones around.

Also, the fact that we pitch for new business more aggressively than most will play a role. If last year we won 36 new clients, I'm sure we'll try and win a little more this year, so that the numbers look a little better.

January 28, 2002
Mumbai
You can write to Nirvik Singh at
nirvik_singh@greyindia.com