Industry Observations: Impactful Shifts in Advertising

The last 21 years have been an interesting time to grow an ad agency. These past two decades brought with them so many big changes in technology and media, opening the industry up to different approaches, as well as to more diversity within the team. It has been a constant process of reevaluation, with a steady stream of new changes to factor in before revising the course of the agency.

While there have been a multitude of changes to the advertising industry in India, there are some shifts worth noting.

The “English Hangover” Period

When I joined this industry in the 90s, it was dominated by the likes of Alyque Padamsee, Mohammed Khan, Gerson DaCunha. The focus was on mainline advertising in English. If you had good command of the English language, and liked to write, you could do advertising. Crafting clever copy that fit the writer’s vision was given priority over connecting with the audience.

The copywriter was at the helm of creative planning at this point. The art department played a supportive role, helping the copywriter visualize their ideas. Developing the idea itself was the writer’s domain.

The creative prowess of the art department came to life in the finishing studio, which manually made the artwork. This was a detailed, “real art” process, where artists used paints, brushes, and even airbrushes to make the required layouts and backgrounds. All print ads needed processing - positives and plates - before they could be printed.

Technology at that time demanded a long and inflexible process. A single ad was saved on multiple connected floppies (the precursor to CDs), and if a single floppy got corrupted, one had to redo the entire copying process.

Client Servicing was, by definition, client-focused, working as the liaison between the client and the agency, following up with internal and external teams on their tasks. 

Agency culture was “cool”, seen as exclusive, young and “happening”. At this time, Lintas (Levers International Advertising Services) was the leading agency along with a number of Indian agencies such as ULKA (later FCB ULKA), Enterprise, Nexus Equity, Speer, R.K.Swamy, Mudra, and Contract.

Advertising itself was the privilege of multinational companies and large Indian companies. If you had big budgets you could do advertising. Media plans were focused to ensure that the MD/Chairman of the company could see the ads. Consumers didn't have too many options - either in terms of brands or media - hence it was not difficult to reach them.

Overall, exclusivity pervaded the system, and because there were few options for the consumer, the effectiveness of the ads was not compromised.

The Dotcom Rush

Towards the late 90s, with the liberalisation of the Indian economy, the ‘dotcom boom’, came the first real democratisation of advertising. Suddenly, a number of dotcom companies (many of them died soon thereafter) burst into the Indian scene. Hindi also started to make its inroads felt. The language writer began to move out from the studio to the front end of the advertising agency. People like Piyush Pandey started making their presence felt.

With priorities expanding from the primary goal of well-written copy, great campaigns by Fevicol, Cadbury that were heavy on emotion, connect, and ideas began their climb.

Client Servicing slowly began to evolve into Account Management as the need to understand the several Indias beyond the cities became important.

Advertising began to open up in many ways during this period, incorporating more diversity into the team, as well as into target audiences.

The Growth Years

The early 2000s and onwards saw significant development in advertising in India. Though it was still the domain of large companies, the increasing media vehicles, and the growth of consumption in smaller towns of India created an increasingly complex advertising environment. Media departments of agencies began separating from the agencies, and specialist media planners became important.

With media planning being separated, the 15% commission model came under intense scrutiny, and the agency remuneration model began to crumble. Since then, and till today, the agency remuneration model is still uncertain and a cause for concern for many an agency.

In terms of creative output, this period brought with it the famous Bollywood + cricket combination, packaged in 30-second TV commercials in Hindi, which became the mantra for most advertising campaigns. Exceptions such as the Hutch pug and the Vodafone zoo zoos, magnificently executed, were the stars of the period. Both these campaigns, conceived by O&M, received national and international acclaim, and propelled O&M to a market leadership position that it holds even today.

Increasing Complexity Since the World Financial Collapse

The last 10 years since the global financial collapse have been the most challenging for the industry. Never has the industry been faced with such a difficult situation - declining consumer sentiments, media uncertainty, hyper-intense competition within client industry, new internet-based competition for all, transparency & power to consumers, and so much more. The industry as we knew it before just doesn't exist. What an advertising agency does, or what it should do, is just not clear anymore. In fact, what advertising itself means is no longer clear.

This period began with the increasing power of Internet advertising. Google and Facebook made their entry with questioning the role of television and newspapers. ‘The death of the 30 second commercial’ debate, followed by accountable ‘pay-per-click’ advertising model of Google, the collapse of print media in various parts of the world, the increased penetration of social media & smartphones, and at the same time the growth of every single medium’s reach in India - television, radio, newspapers & internet - has made this industry extremely difficult to navigate.

The demand on every person in the agency is tremendous. There is also a lack of clarity to contend with, caused by the continuous debate of creativity over technology, emotional appeal over rationality, reach over micro-targeting, acquisition over lead-nurturing, branding awareness over sales promotion, and so on.

This uncertainty about what to prioritise has had a direct impact on our understanding of who really forms the advertising agency. Is it the creative people, the media planners, the account planners, the techies, the event managers? Adding to this is the fact that the responsibilities of an advertising agency are now less defined. What does an advertising agency do and not do? And what really is the responsibility of an agency - is the agency responsible for business results and sales?

In light of this, there is a question worth asking: what happened to the likeability that advertising is supposed to produce? Those famous Fevicol & Cadbury ads that we all love watching? Or is the measure of all advertising now the number of likes & shares it gets on social media?

Is advertising about reacting, becoming "reactvertising", and not being patient in building brands? Is advertising only about sales & sales promotion? Is brand-building out of the window?

Next Up: Uncertain Future, or Period of Data-Driven Storytelling?

The future for advertising is tricky, yet promising. From creative ideas, to business growth partners, to incubators of new business ideas, to design, to storytellers, to digital marketers - there are many things that one needs to consider.

However the increasing need to do effective advertising that is measured is a reality that we all need to face and gear up for. Modern marketing that considers the unification of message simultaneously across several screens (media), based on the screen preference of the consumer is how media will play out. Just capturing attention and acquiring the customer for the first time will not be sufficient; nurturing the customer relationship will be required. A mass bombing approach will not last for long. A micro-targeting approach, which is accountable and can be tracked, will become the norm.

Agencies will adapt to technology, social media, multiple screens and managing relationships. Agency professionals will thrive on social media, and enjoy conversations with consumers.

The future is uncertain. But one thing that will remain at the core of the industry is ideas and telling them with wonderful stories.