IIPM ARTICLE AND EDITORIAL: Planman Media

Showing posts with label Planman Media. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

ADVILLE STARS OR JUST GLAM TRIVIA?

Pia Sen, the Paris-based designer, believes that the whole issue is simply making a mountain-out-of-a-mole hill. “While some of them are talented, they are unfortunately made out to be some kind of Renaissance Men; creatures who are geniuses with minds that are truly sublime. Actually a dumbed-down media coverages, frequently making giants of dwarfs, is the culprit. The danger of this kind of blind, uninformed lionizing is that it is misleading and frequently dismissive of real, solid creative talent that is publicity-shy,” says Sen.

Siddharth Roy of Response, Kolkata, tempers his take with reason, as he says, “I can see from where both Bharat and Pia are coming. I guess both are right from their perspectives. For me, adbiz has always been a personality-based profession.” Reality is: Yesterday, it was Padamsee & gang; today it is Piyush & company. And in principle, these are personalities with a proven track record. Therefore, they will attract young eyes wanting to join the profession and emulate them. However, he agrees that many times, the brand value of the products/services advertised is compromised due to the awe or intimidation factor. “I have heard of the head [CEO, Chairman & MD of organisations] rushing out to welcome the ad guru visiting their office. Clearly, their reputation has preceded their presence,” says Roy. By his thoughts, the fact that people who choose to be wowed or awed by whoever for whatever reason is simply their own privilege or problem. Rohit Ohri, JWT North’s Managing Partner also has a thought to share. According to him, the issue of making supermen out of mere mortals in adland has special relevance to his organisation, which has always prospered, untouched by the ‘Personality Cult’ syndrome under discussion, something which according to him has dominated some of the other (Ogilvy, Lowe, McCann et al) organisations. “When clients come to us, they buy into a culture & DNA that traditionally has single-mindedly propagated market-driven, client-specific and result-oriented work,” Ohri says. It is perhaps because of this that JWT can boast of some of its clients that have stayed with it for over 50 years. “We work as a team and deliver in-sync with the needs. Period,” says Ohri, while voicing apprehension about larger-than-life personas, “I am told that Unilever has had to be specially honed to Balki so as to not lose him. He is for all practical reasons the public face of Lowe. The same is true with Prasoon of McCann.” At the end of the day, Ohri believes, that this crazy dependence on that one big guy in the ad-world, can be tricky. It’s a risk though, and as all risks do, this one too has very often paid off well.

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).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
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IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

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Wednesday, December 01, 2010

While foreign banks outpaced their Indian peers on all parameters including loans, deposits & CASA, their credit related activities took a beating

In February 2005, the RBI had released the ‘Roadmap for presence of foreign banks in India’ laying out a two-track and gradualist approach aimed at increasing the efficiency and stability of the banking sector in India. The first track was the consolidation of the domestic banking system, both in the private & public sectors. The second track involved the gradual enhancement of foreign banks in a synchronised manner. This roadmap was divided into two phases, the first phase spanning the period March 2005 – March 2009, and the second phase following the review of the first phase experience.

In the first phase, foreign banks wishing to establish presence in India for the first time could either choose to operate through branch presence or set up a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary (WOS), following the one-mode presence criterion. Foreign banks already operating in India were also allowed to convert their existing branches to WOS while following the one-mode presence criterion. The WOS was to be treated on par with the existing branches of foreign banks for branch expansion in India. No foreign bank, however, applied to establish itself as a WOS or to convert to a WOS during the first phase.

Just when the revision of presence of foreign banks in India was due in April 2009, the global financial markets went in turmoil and uncertainties plagued the financial strength of banks around the world.

Accordingly, the Annual Policy statement of April 2009 indicated the intent to continue with the current policy and procedures governing the presence of foreign banks in India and to review its roadmap after due consultation with the stakeholders once there was greater clarity regarding stability and recovery of the global financial system. Accordingly the annual monetary policy 2010, directed to prepare a discussion paper on the mode of presence of foreign banks through branch or WOS by September 2010. In all probability, the outcome is likely to encourage more investments in India. The next four years promise a launch pad to foreign banks for substantial business expansion.

Amar Ambani, Head of Research (Private Client Group), IIFL – India Infoline Group

Monday, November 15, 2010

OMG, NOKIA’S CHANGING THE PR AGENCY! OR ARE THEY?

This could perhaps be termed as one of the biggest PR account shift in recent times. The news doing the round is that the Nokia account, which is being handled by Text 100, is up for grabs between leading PR giants like IPAN, ICPAR, Perfect Relations, The Practice etc. Text 100 has been handling Nokia’s global account for close to a decade now. But the real twist in the tale here is that it is not Nokia that has called for a pitch. It is perhaps Text 100 that’s itself decided to let go of the Nokia account. One Text 100 insider working on the Nokia account lets go off a shocker to us, “The corporate team of Nokia over a period of time has become very demanding and difficult to manage.” The problem could also lie in the fact that the Finnish giant, which has had a dream run in India, has upped the client benchmarks with Text 100 after noticing competitor Samsung rising in market shares in 2009 with its robust value-for-money touch phones apart from an onslaught from local handset manufacturers that were slowly eating into Nokia’s entry-level market. Nokia creditably has been looking at establishing itself as not just a handset company but a service company through its Ovi offering. And with higher PR service demands from Nokia, the result was that there were far too many Text 100 personnel getting involved to service the Nokia account – and as the juice goes, some key people in the agency over the last couple of years had started to feel that the returns were no longer good.

But one also gets information that the current move could be purely because recently, the public relations firm had signed up globally with the Samsung account (the entire consumer electronics division including the handset division), which was being handled by Integral previously. This also fits well with the ethical rules of the game in the PR industry, as Shikha Ghosh, President ICPAR shares, “It’s quite compliant in good corporate governance for a telecommunication giant to choose not to work with a PR agency expected to handle a competitor’s business – and vice versa too.” Well, it’s the PR industry, and everybody knows that there’s only a thin line between public relations and crisis management... and we’ve not even started talking about relations management, eh!