Shibani Gharat In Conversation With Peter Mears, Paul Segre & John Saunders | EXCLUSIVE | CNBC-TV18

team hello and welcome to storyboard I'm Shabani garath Peter Muir see you at hours Media Group was visiting India around this Festival Time Peter who has spent over two decades in a media agency setup has a very optimistic outlook for the India market I spoke to him about many things including the growth strategy and investment plans for the country how has the business paid in terms of growth during these uncertain times what are the challenges of running a media agency set up today and much more Peter welcome to CNBC TV 18. thanks for having me of us in the country has transformed quite a bit over the past few years it was I believe about 150 to 200 people in the country and now it has grown to over thousand employees so how does that feel and what are your growth plans yeah I'm very very proud of the the local leadership team they've done a great job over the last three years in not only developing the product but also expanding the breadth of offer that we have in the market and I think we've done a great job in attracting new and different capability Partners into the family which has really helped our client relationships and and created a stickier and deeper relationship with many client Partners so I'm I'm super proud of the team here I'm super proud of the progress we've made and it's great to be now a thousand member family in India as you say we're only 300 a couple of years ago yeah so and globally so much has changed the biggest one has been the pandemic that has impacted our day-to-day lives uh currency Market fluctuation ongoing War uh inflationary headwinds how is all of this Peter impacting your business well it's a law isn't it as you you know the list that you've just gone through is is significant and that's just in the last three years and I think that it's a constant you know change is a constant in our lives in business in this industry and also transformation therefore is a necessity I'm really proud of the way that we're able to manage the pandemic now we've got a conflict in Eastern Europe which continues to cause problems across not only the the very micro region but also across the rest of Europe and the you know the effects of that I think are being felt globally we've got inflation happening in many parts of the world we're on the edge of recession in many in many parts of the world as well so there's there are a lot of pressures that our clients are facing in different markets around the world and our job is to help them navigate those pressures and help them understand how they can make an impact through media and through Communications so to stay ahead of that requires us to be thinking not just about 2022 2023 but what does the world look like in 2025 and I think India is a great case for us to be thinking about what the world looks like in 2025 in what way well the the influx of new technology and new technology adoption in this market way outpaces much of the rest of the world you know we've focused a lot over the last couple of years on our Commerce on our e-commerce practice and you know the potential for you know e-commerce transaction in India is incredible you know that already in 200 million transactions happening already by 2030 it looks like India is going to be you know the third largest market in the world there's a massive opportunity for clients and for us therefore to help those clients navigate the e-commerce Marketplace in this country and a lot of the lessons that we're learning already in India are being exported to other markets around the world so you know the importance of India has just become even greater for us having said that what will be the key Focus areas for HMG in the India market yeah I mean we I think I mean again I'm really proud of the way the team have have built a very strong core products which we're offering our clients today and we have great client relationships we're doing great work we've got great talent here um the focus for us for the next three years or three key areas in the areas of content Commerce and and developing and building our data practice and we believe those areas globally and in India are going to be what differentiate us and really help us drive stickier and deeper client relationships yeah no it comes to Nam has happened at HMG over the past couple of years and how are you taking uh this forward what will be the next story or the next journey of this transformation phase the influx of of the e-commerce channel has transformed everything that everything every way that clients engage with their consumers and we we've built a practice over the last couple of years called Havas Market which we now have active in over 20 markets which really helps us harness that potential for clients so not just inactivation in e-commerce activation or social activation but also a consultancy around helping clients understand how they can navigate the entire Commerce ecosystem and that I think is is already starting to help change the way that we engage with our clients but for the next three to five years is going to be a massive Focus for us and particularly in India given the just the scale of the population here and the you know all of those people having amazing computers in their hands to be able to to buy stuff is a great opportunity for us and also if you can throw in some light on how do you maintain a profitable uh media group during these uncertain times because typically when things get tough for you know these big fmcg companies automakers uh the first thing that gets hit of course is the marketing and the advertising budget and which in turn will definitely impact your business so how do you maintain that during these tough times yeah I mean I think the the you know what we've been able to do over the last couple of years is really focus on our core thankfully you know we'd spent 2018 2019 really focusing on what our product is for our clients and and we really invested heavily in the whole meaningful media space so our belief is that certain clients and certain consumers have media which is more influential for them so we really focused in on that space and we built a whole planning system around that called MX so having a having a planning system and a way of working with our clients going into the pandemic has really helped us through the pandemic but also has helped us coming out of it as well because it's made those client relationships stickier but it's also helped us understand which is the most influential media that clients should be using and I think that's really helped us you know secure those relationships and also ensure that the investment that we're making on our clients behalf is having the greatest impact earlier yeah it used to be your wpp omnic ipg you know these were the groups that you know had like you know significant say and stake when it comes to the business in the India market and avas has grown significantly over the past couple of years so what according to you has led to that yeah I mean I think the team locally has done a great job I think the way that we've been able to build and grow the network globally has helped as well so we've been able to develop and bring some new clients into the group which are active in India so having more clients helps you build more activity build greater impacts with the local media supplier community so that's definitely helped us and also I think that you know whereas this used to be the media business used to be about scale I think that scale is less important today than it has been in the past I think there are so many different choices of available for advertisers in terms of Media Partners that this just being a scale player doesn't necessarily help you achieve what you're trying to achieve and and that's that's helped us as well if you can share your growth strategy for the India market you know in the coming days yeah so I mean is it going to be acquisition-led so I mean I'm not going to give anything away about specifics but you know we've been very active on the acquisition front in many markets over the last three years including India so you know you can expect more of that the group has an appetite to focus and invest in India so we're investing in Talent we're investing in the product and you know we're going to invest in building capabilities or acquiring capabilities when and where it makes sense for the group so you know we're committed to India and we're committed to seeing the growth that we've experienced over the last couple of years continue up until 2030. and what is the kind of investment that we will see from HMG for the India market in the coming months yeah I mean we you know we're investing in the products uh we're building a center of excellence here in India which we'll be using in in the data space for the rest of the world this is going to be in Mumbai yeah and so we're you know we're building out capabilities here and also we're looking at different acquisition opportunities around specific capability areas I mean you know like Commerce like data and like content those are the areas that we're interested in we're going to continue investigating all different partners in the market and and see what opportunities there are for growth thank you so much all the best for that thank you so much for having me it is time for a short break on the other side we have seen our media CEO Paul segrey speaking about the media landscape in India and the impact of password sharing by users on Ott platforms [Music] welcome back cinemedia is a video technology provider which has products that cover content distribution and delivery security advertising and Broadband Solutions this UK headquartered company helps service providers and content owners to protect enrich and deliver video in a better manner Cena media CEO Paul segre was visiting Mumbai recently and I spoke to him about the media landscape in the country what are the kind of solutions that Ott platforms and broadcasters are looking for best way to arrest piracy in the country and the impact of password sharing by users on Ott platforms and much more Paul welcome to CNBC TV 18. thank you piracy is something which has been a big concern how do you address that issue in a country like ours and what is the technology that you have that will ensure that uh the content remains with the authorized users right well as you said it's it's a huge problem and it's only getting bigger as you know content rights for sports and and the amount of money people are spending on Originals goes up uh we have a family of products um one focused on you know detecting if there's leakage to Pirates and then remediation we call it monitoring and takedown uh so it has to do with you know something called watermarking which you can put a mark on a video that a human eye can't see so you can trace you know the source of video uh we have another product that stops uh pirates from stealing uh both the content as well as the service you can steal an entire Service as well and then we have services around that um that provide intelligence of you know who the Pirates are what they're doing what content they're stealing and things like that it's really a family of products no one thing solves a problem you need to come at it from multiple angles yeah yeah and you're meeting your clients in the country what are their key requirements yeah I'd say we have some big traditional uh providers of video so for example we're meeting with bartierto we're meeting on tat to play and then we have some of the new entrants as well so meeting with uh today with with Z we're meeting with Sony live and we're meeting with votes what we're focused on is a couple of things first of all uh we're focused on the end customers needs and and what consumers want and what they want is you know they want to um they want aggregation so they want a services that provide them the content they want they want ease of Discovery so you know once they get in can they find it or are they on you know searching for what service provides it on on you know on the internet so we have a focus on that we have focus on Advertising and advertising important to service providers but it's also important to Consumers because consumers you know they want um they want an experience at a price point they can afford and only through advertising can you either offer it for free or lower cost we have anti-piracy and that's important for you know people generating content rights or buying content rights and as you've seen in the Indian market there have been some very you know high prices paid for the IPO for example um and then we're focused on data analytics understanding you know who your subscribers are do they have a good experience so sort of the experience side of thing who they are what do you advertise to them um and then a whole series of products um focused on delivering good video um high quality content over streaming so things like low latency which is important if you're watching uh if you're watching particularly sporting event you you'd rather see it at the same time yeah versus you know a minute later which which can happen over a a streaming service with with you know not optimized for good latency so you know from this conversation I can gauge that you know you're trying to fill in a lot of lagunas that currently exist yes we have seen a lot of growth and penetration over the past few years uh like what is your outlook for the Indian media landscape Paul you know we look uh and we just see tremendous opportunity there's uh to so much Innovation here um and um so we you know in a dynamic Market um especially a market where there's so much content you know so you think about um the you know the Indian landscape you have you know Bollywood so lots of content there you're pretty Sports crazy I think we need to agree yeah and so between those two things there's a lot of competition um for you know who is going to be the predominant you know provider of of video entertainment and that type of competition uh as well as just new people coming into the ecosystem you know when you look at how many people have Broadband here how many people have TVs they're still I think 150 million homes that are still primarily over over the you know watching video over their smartphones so there's there's both Innovation as well as just a lot of new uh you know new people in the population who are you know getting TVs or get coming online a ball over uh like over the past couple of years we have seen how platforms such as Netflix are raising concerns over how sharing of passwords is impacting their revenue and it's impacting the numbers of users that they have the user base uh what do you think of you know this particular matter so we have a a product specifically focused on that and it it can identify the amount of sharing so it can identify whether there is sharing casually that's more likely to be within a family group or if something's fraud right so we've seen some cases where people are sharing with 50 000 people that's that we I think can agree that's quite fraud and that's bad and that's not friends and family other people are sharing with friends and family and and for that I think it's a business decision for a provider what they want to do with it so what our tool does is you know it provides information on these or people are sharing these are the extent of the sharing and then we feed That Into You know the the sort of marketing Departments of our customers and they can decide do they want to create packages that are sort of like you know friends and family packages so for a little bit more you can participate in the sharing so that's a good thing it's a way to Market do they want to say well you know have a password reset because I think it's inappropriate or if they see something that's clearly fraud they can turn it off but I think the key point is it's sort of a business decision of do you want to allow sharing to get your service out more broadly what level of sharing do you want to allow and and then how do you leverage knowledge about that sharing to turn it into an opportunity to enhance Revenue thanks for joining us today my pleasure break on the aside freshman menu John Saunders who has been a veteran in the pr business speaks to us about some of the top things to consider while making a company's PR strategy in today's Times foreign [Music] visiting India was another Global cxo Flashman Hiller's Global CEO John Saunders John is a veteran in Communications and public relations I caught up with him and spoke to him about how the role of a PR agency has changed some of the top things to consider while making a company's PR strategy in today's times and the way forward for this industry John welcome to CNBC TV 18. thank you very much it's great pleasure to be here you're looking Dapper in akura I must say it's my favorite color good to know uh so John you you are visiting India after a couple of years I believe what excites you about the India market today well first of all I always love coming here for many reasons but on a personal level while I represent a firm that's headquartered in America I am Irish and I think there are there are very deep connections between Ireland and India both in a contemporary and historical context but most of all when I come to India um what I find that I don't find in any other country is a sense of humor that's very akin to that of the Irish and nowhere in the world do I go that I find that people celebrate irony in a way that you do here in India as we do in Ireland most other countries don't get irony but but you do to a spectacular degree and I very much identify with that but from a business point of view it's imperative to be here in India I mean India politically is one of the most important countries in the world today but economically increasingly so uh so much has changed uh John over the past couple of years how has the role of a PR agency changed especially you know post the pandemic as compared to what it was Prior first one is that the need to the imperative to communicate with one's staff one's employees has changed and and probably changed forever in that quite literally everyone's staff was a captive audience because they turned up in the workplace every day and so throughout the pandemic there's been a great call on firms like ours to help our clients as they figure it out how do you communicate with a Workforce that often maybe a hundred thousand people 200 000 people are even more when they are all working remotely so that presents um very different challenges and now here we are today where it looks like for the foreseeable future who knows what's going to happen in five years time but it's going to be a hybrid Workforce um and a Workforce that has increasing power um in other words the power today resides very much with employees rather than the employer that's internal and what about external externally I think the CEOs um were very keen to remain neutral and all of the issues of the day whereas both employees and customers are increasingly expecting CEOs to take of a stand or have a view on the issues of the day whether they're to do with politics or do it the environment or a whole range of other subjects including mental health for example and that is uncomfortable for a lot of CEOs whose primary primary focus has been the bottom line but they now need to be able to communicate on a range of other issues great uh you have been you know ever since uh you stepped up or you know stepped into the business you have been with Flashman for a very long time now I believe you were 26 or 27 when you joined the agency what has changed and what has evolved in this business over the past so many years and what have been the key Milestones of your journey well when when I came into this business from journalism uh public relations was largely a subset of marketing at its best now marketing is really a subset of communications broader Communications and what we see today is that the role of the chief Communications officer is one that reports directly into the CEO so it's very much a c-suite conversation in a way that it wasn't in the past and and CEOs realize that um Communications is a integral part of the business success and business culture today and so that has really changed I think going back 20 30 years ago um a lot of people who came into the business came from my top type of background they were former journalists um increasingly we're seeing Specialists coming in from all kinds of other areas of business life and and research and data is now a key component of what we do so I mean today Fleischman Hilliard employs uh dozens if not hundreds of individuals who are data scientists uh what are the things though John that one should consider while making the pr strategy for an organization with social media with you know so much uh up in uh down roller coaster kind of a macroeconomic situation that you know organizations are dealing with with everything happening yeah it's a it's a it's a really good question particularly when you add the dimension of uh social media uh to me if if there's one word uh that's that's pivotal to this conversation that is the word earned ultimately we all whether as individuals or as corporations you have to earn your reputation um and I I believe at the at the center of everything we do every campaign it's about how is this building the reputation of the brand building the reputation of of the company um and there's no easy way to doing that and I think that those those companies that somehow believe that their PR activity can be some kind of sweet sugar that you pour over a sour situation or it's camouflaging bad behaviors there's no real future in in that today even very small Brands even very like a startup pick anywhere pick a startup in Kerala can become a global sensation very quickly by having a smart social strategy and can very quickly Garner an audience that could be from anywhere in the world heretofore that was absolutely impossible so um spending money wisely uh with a very good social strategy can make an enormous difference to to business and so the I I see that the the role of influencers within our within our business for example specifically in areas like healthcare can make and will make a very big difference in in in the years to come and and we can now count the impact thanks to what I mentioned earlier on about the the data scientists we have we can now count the impact in a way that public relations was quite unable to do again only a short few years ago thank you so much thanks for joining us today it's my great pleasure thank you Shabani

Channel: CNBC-TV18

Views: 169

Keywords: havas media group, havas media group brand strategy, Havas Media Group's Transformational Journey, havas media group key focus areas, brand strategy of havas media group, FleishmanHillard, FleishmanHillard PR strategy, building successful PR strategy, building successful PR strategy for your brand, Synamedia's Client's Requirements, CNBC TV18, Business News, Indian Economy, Business News Today, CNBC TV18 English, CNBC English, CNBC India, Business News In English, Stock Market

Id: Wp3rr5A6SDU

Length: 26min 46sec (1606 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 30 2022