Goafest 2014 Ad Conclave: Why marketing honchos love their ad agencies

PepsiCo's Deepika Warrier, HDFC Standard Life's Sanjay Tripathy and Britannia's Anuradha Narasimhan share their thoughts on why they enjoy a healthy and longstanding relationship with their creative agencies

Sarmistha Neogy | Goa | June 2, 2014

Apart from fun activities like rain dance, foot massage, salad counters, a selfie zone, alcohol, a popular Google hangout zone and beach hats and more, Day 2 of Goafest 2014, May 30, also saw top marketers taking centrestage at the Advertising Conclave, hosted by Discovery Channel.

There were five speakers who kept the audience engaged with their interesting presentations which were held right after the lunch session. And they didn't want to lose out on the opportunity to thank their agencies who helped them in achieving success. The theme for the session was 'Relationship of brands with agencies', which was moderated by Karthi Marshan, Head – Marketing, Kotak Mahindra Group.

Deepika Warrier

Deepika Warrier, VP - Marketing, PepsiCo India, said, “We share a great relationship with our agencies who understand us in and out. I feel that it is a two-way process with ample scope for communication. Empathy and active listening are the two essential traits for a good business sense. We stepped on to our 25^th year in India this May, and this was only possible because we adhered strictly to the principle of staying 'One Team'. The beautiful blend with our agencies has helped us to achieve this tremendous success.”

“However, having said all this, I would like to say that it was not an easy task. Today all the power is in the hands of the consumers and there are enough obstacles in the path of every marketer's road. Consumers are very socially active and they live and breathe in a real time world. For e.g., one negative feedback on the social networking sites will draw attention and will pull down the brand value. Therefore, there should be proper partnership with agencies to solve real time issues,” commented Warrier.

Warrier ended her presentation by saying that to encourage engagement with the agencies, they should set their goals and review the process together.

Sanjay Tripathy, EVP, HDFC Standard Life, spoke about three things which he liked most about agencies. Firstly, they help clients to stay young; they bring the life insights; and finally, they give diverse exposure by adding an outside perspective.

“The four areas where agencies need to get it right are accountability, capability, continuity and agility. The client-agency relationship is a diverse relationship. There will be conflicts, but it needs to be courageously dealt with,” explained Tripathy.

The enthusiasm level of the session got spiked up with Anuradha Narasimhan, Director - Marketing, Britannia Industries, taking the stage. She stated a very essential point: that brand managers come and go, but agencies stay for long. It is because of this insight which see calls a “crucial link”, Narasimhan doesn't take agencies lightly, and that is the reason she tries her best to attend all meetings at the agency's office only.

“I am guilty of giving my agency an unclear brief, too much opinion, lots of constraints and many messages in one single brief, we don't share ideas upstream enough, and we tend to keep our agencies task-based. I am thankful that in spite of all this, our agencies have always understood and loved our brand. I promise to convince my agencies – Lowe Lintas, McCann and Grey – to take part in Goafest next year,” said the enthusiastic Britannia marketing head.

Sarmistha@BestMediaInfo.com

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