New Delhi: 2020 has been an extremely challenging year for the advertising industry — in the wake of the pandemic, marketing budgets were slashed, teams had to adapt to new ways of working from home in no time and deliver to clients, and business priorities and plans had to be redefined because no planner and strategists could foresee the Covid impact on businesses.
Despite all the odds, industry professionals have relentlessly worked hard and come up with great campaigns that have been able to move the masses and change brand perceptions.
Indiantelevision.com’s Devesh Gupta spoke to dentsu Impact president Amit Wadhwa on what he thinks about 2020, how advertising industry has adapted to new norms, client expectations during this time, how pandemic has impacted creativity and what is the way forward.
Excerpts:
On year 2020 for advertising agencies.
It has been a year that no one ever imagined and for not the best of reasons. It’s been a year where a lot of things were tried and tested not because people wanted to but because they had no options. Ironically, a lot of our presentations had ‘Vision 2020’ but it soon turned into ‘Mission 2020’. It’s been a tough year but good in a sense that it pushed people to think, try and do new things.
On seeking positivity.
Nothing we had planned happened the way we had planned. So the question was, if you have to sail through in the best possible way, how would you do that and in the bargain see what all you need as an individual to get better, learn new things and get the organisation moving. There was some fire-fighting and a bit of self-reflection.
dentsu Impact was already moving into the digital space and that helped us as we hastened the process far more quickly and almost 95 per cent workforce is digitally savvy. We now handle the digital mandate of all our businesses, and that actually helped us sail through this year.
On the new normal for agency businesses,
There is nothing normal, everyday is different.
From a business point of view, managing the numbers itself and the innovative ways we are deploying to do that. We are not sitting in but are aggressively going after the businesses. We are looking at growing the business in a different vertical. For instance, we were handling creative and media, then decided to also take care of digital creative and media and use this opportunity to strengthen and grow.
On the people front, work from home seems like bliss but it is tough. Working hours have crept into late nights and weekends. We are trying to do whatever we can at our end to ensure people are taken care of in whatever way we can — that’s another big challenge faced by organisations.
On pandemic changing the creative business.
There are two sides to it. We are running our business very creatively as we never thought we would operate with everyone sitting at home. And even with such challenges, we put a strong performance. We found creative ways of tackling things.
Initially, it was a bit of a daze, that what has hit us, and the idea was to survive and stay afloat. Slowly, people got into a rhythm, started figuring things out, and realised that it is creativity that will keep us going. One good idea from the team brings happiness for the group (even more than what we used to feel in the pre-Covid days). These times have propelled us to push more for it.
I agree that creative business is about sitting together and brainstorming ideas. Having said that I think that creative people have taken bigger onus for themselves to ensure they crack great ideas. We have seen some great concepts of late and I think that it’s because they are pushing themselves to do it. They are also figuring out ways of brainstorming – calls, crash on ideas, feedback, but I think they pushed a lot and a lot of respect for that.
On client expectations.
At the end of the day, they are also running a business. Having said that everyone has a human side to him or her and they also realise the situation. For instance, we did a no-work Wednesday at dentsu Impact and informed the clients before hand, and they supported it. We managed to give an off to people. Had they not supported us, it would have not been possible.
They have expectations from us. There is a dire need from our end to deliver on that. The good part is that there are people on both sides who understand each other. So, we are figuring out our own balance.
On the year 2020 for dentsu Impact.
It has been a good year. We have managed some new businesses and consolidated some great wins. We extended our relationship clients on different fronts. Initially, April and May was tough then slowly things picked up. During the lockdown too, we won a business, which was great. We have been aggressive and held on to our existing businesses.
So, approximately 15 per cent of the total revenue this year is coming from the new business wins.
On margins for creative agencies this year.
For the first two months (April – May), margins took a dip but we took cost-control measures and overall we have done a good job. Now, more or less, we are back to the pre-Covid levels.
On top priorities for dentsu Impact this year (once Covid hit).
Business continuity and people were our biggest priority. We have a way of working in advertising which was not going to be the same as people were moving home. We had to set up connectivity, machines in people’s houses, and most importantly had to deliver to clients because we are committed to them.
The second was people as they were going into different scenarios of work as to how you could keep everyone engaged.
On the future of agency culture.
If I say everything is normal and right, it would not be true. Some people who joined after lockdown, I have only seen them on video calls but haven’t met them in person. I love to meet, interact and discuss things with people and I honestly miss that. We are finding ways to do different things. For instance, we had some amazing pitches during this time and I could not imagine us pitching so fantastically where everything went like clockwork. For sure its not 100 per cent normal but the fun is in inventing new things right now.
