Exclusive In chat with Society Magazine - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
He’s living in the same house for the last 40 years; and claims that even his food habits, friends and hours of work have remained mostly unchanged. The only changes that excite Sam are the ones he’s implementing at Madison. Excerpts from our interview:
4Ps: You once believed that a good agency is one that is small with a select clientele. Looking at Madison’s billings today, we assume that you’ve changed your mind about that?
SB: (shrugs) I always wanted to be a craftsman, not a manager. Today, I have inadvertently become a manager. I left Mudra because Mudra wanted to become the largest and the best agency and I did not relate to the agency’s objective. I believed that a good agency should be small with a few large clients.
4Ps: Today, however, is different?
SB: (laughs) Consistency is the virtue of fools! I started Madison with just two clients – Godrej and Nelco. For the first 5 years, I did not even look at any other client because I was so afraid of letting down existing clients. Today, I view things differently as I am certainly better resourced than in 1988.
4Ps: The Ambani flavour had spread in Mudra during your stint there? Your key takeaway from there?
SB: I learnt a lot from the Ambani’s – especially that every job must be done and done on time. I’ll narrate one incident of more than 26 years ago when remote phones had just about started appearing. One weekend I was away on vacation. I was in a swimming pool in this resort and Anil Ambani managed to reach me even there over some urgent matter that he wanted to discuss. This really told me that the word impossible did not exist in the Ambani dictionary.
4Ps: And TV as an advertising media became your passion during those years at Mudra.
SB: In the early days there was simply no television content available. So we not only had to think of advertising but also in terms of organising relevant programming. Remember, I’m talking about the time when only DD was there. So unlike today, when channels like Star and Zee look after their own viewership, back then we had to slog to create viewership.
4Ps: And you carried that learning to Madison...
SB: In Madison, I was involved in creating Shanti on DD during the afternoon slot. It was a risk. At a time when advertising was mostly restricted between 8:30-10:30pm, we had the nerve to ask DD to give us 325 afternoon slots between Monday and Friday. Nobody bothered to watch TV on weekdays and that too in the afternoon. We changed that with Shanti and brought in P&G and Godrej as advertisers. The clients were happy because we bought them air time at cost effective rates. Most people make the mistake of not fully understanding that clients/ advertisers actually hate advertising. It is only media owners and ad agencies who love advertising. Our search at Madison therefore has always been to find cost effective solutions for clients that help build brands.
4Ps: Are you saying that cost effective solutions are a prerequisite to brand building?
SB: Absolutely! Advertising per se has become so expensive that most brands have to do big time jugglery to have affordable and workable plans. But to get to that elusive El Dorado of a perfect fit one needs cost effective solutions. We are standing on shifting stands. We have to keep doing new and different things to catch attention and grab consumer’s mind.
4Ps: Is that why you are diversifying your offerings? Given the quicksand world of advertising, where you yourself have sometimes suffered big lows, what’s your risk assessment on this expansion?
SB: Madison’s lowest point till date was in 1998, when our partnership with DMB&B broke. They were a huge billion dollar enterprise and we were the size of a pin compared to them. They were asking for something that we did not agree with. So we parted ways with them and also some big accounts (like P&G and Phillips) in creatives. Almost 60-70% of our revenues vanished overnight. I was disheartened but even then I knew that I’ll never give up.
4Ps: Where does Lara fit into the picture? Are you grooming her to step into your shoes?
SB: Yes. I think that today the person who runs Madison World needs to have skill sets that go beyond advertising and its craft. You need specialist managerial skills and Lara fits in beautifully. She is not as dogmatic as I can be and so both of us are able to look at newer opportunities, identify gaps and fill them.
4Ps: But are you not expanding too fast? I mean, from 5-6 units in 2004, you’ve almost 20 units today.
SB: See, we are constantly making some successful and some not so successful attempts at predicting the future. Remember, advertisers do not come to us because they like advertising. They come because they want a solution to a marketing problem. Our specialist units in entertainment, outdoor, rural and mobile marketing will help us do just that. My dream is to be the agency of choice for every large client, not every client.
4Ps: But these other units are not really doing much to enhance the Madison bottomline yet?
SB: Madison World’s billings have today crossed Rs.2,000 crores and most of it is brought in by Media and MOMS (outdoor unit). My dream is that every unit should be as highly regarded as media is. In terms of billings – Media will obviously remain the highest because it’s a Rs.20,000 crore market. In comparison, the other units cater to still nascent markets. Outdoor and PR are doing rather well, but they can never match up to media billings.
4Ps: What about selling out to a global player. The industry is constantly speculating along that lines?
SB: I do not have any philosophical disagreement with global collaboration or partnership. But the partner must respect what we bring to the table. It must be a win-win partnership and serve the interests of our clients, employees and shareholders – in that order.
4Ps: For now, what do the challenges ahead look like?
SB: Decline in profits, not enough money and cash flow problems – but we can make that sacrifice to deliver to our clients. Following that model, if we have survived for 22 years, I know we have a viable business model. Besides, one of these days, I’ll prove the industry wrong about MC2’s ability to churn out great creatives.
4Ps: Madison World’s billings today stand at Rs.2,700 crore. How soon do you hope to reach Rs.5,000 crore?
SB: I don’t dream of becoming a Rs.5,000 crore company. That’s not a part of our DNA. But if tomorrow there is an opportunity, we will not let go. Our primary purpose is to improve our ability to provide cost effective solutions to advertisers. If we do that honestly, Madison World’s growth will be a by-product. If we focus only on Madison’s growth, we will lose the plot!
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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