NEW DELHI :
A digital entrepreneur taking over a legacy advertising firm speaks a lot about the changing face of the industry. Anusha Shetty— who founded digital agency Autumn Worldwide (called AutumnGrey after acquisition by Grey) in 2005—was recently appointed chairman and group chief executive officer (CEO) of WPP Plc-owned Grey Group India.
The firm has clients such as Pfizer, Procter and Gamble, Britannia Industries Ltd and Dell. During her two decades in marketing and advertising across India and the Silicon Valley, Shetty has worked with multiple brands including Intel, Titan and Honeywell at Lintas and Euro RSCG.
In an interview, she talks about key areas of growth, changing Grey’s image of a traditional agency and how local language will change the way brands connect with the next generation of consumers in India. Edited excerpts:
What are the key changes that you want to bring in the group?
I have been using this word “convergence” in my digital ecosystem and that’s what I believe will drive the Grey Group culture going forward. The consumer has converged with internet and mobile devices, playing a major role.
The same consumer is spending different amounts of time on television, print, outdoor and digital.
We have also seen marketing teams in large enterprises collapsing into one. Earlier, there were separate brand managers for both traditional and digital media platforms for each brand, which is not the case anymore.
Therefore, it is natural for agencies like us to converge as well.
By bringing AutumnGrey and Grey together in an integrated format to call it Grey Group, we have created a platform where capabilities both from mainline and digital have come together to create convergence.
What are the key areas of growth that you’ve identified for Grey Group India?
We need to create value for the clients (brands) and end consumers. If we create value, growth will automatically follow. Grey has identified four key pillars of growth—data, digital, technology and great creative work.
How do you plan to change Grey’s perception of being a traditional advertising firm?
Integrating AutumnGrey with creative agency Grey is the first step towards changing those perceptions. Second, our work will speak for itself.
Which are the key technology changes that are shaping up Indian advertising today?
Marketing, as an industry, has been way behind in adopting technology. Now that the industry is adopting it, I’m seeing rapid changes.
Technology is helping make advertisements more dynamic and customized, voice becoming a strong marketing tool and data mining tools becoming superior so that we can get better insights in consumer behaviour.
With diminishing attention spans, how can brands engage with young consumers on digital platforms?
I believe the principles of brand building will remain the same irrespective of the media platform. The only thing that changes is the way creative content is executed and delivered to this audience. The beauty of digital platforms is that one can fragment the quantity of content by various filters such as age, geography or language. The content can be delivered in the way that is most relevant to that specific target audience.
The platforms available to marketers and agencies are unique, for instance, Instagram is so different from TikTok or YouTube.
On YouTube, one has to smartly manage the first five seconds of content to grab the attention of the viewer while no such thing is required for, let’s say, an Instagram post.
Any interesting consumer trends which will dominate 2020?
Local languages will connect India. Marketers have done well primarily with English and Hindi, but I strongly feel that the next India is waiting to be discovered through local languages.
Deeper mobile and internet penetration is aiding this phenomenon.
Source: Livemint
