The growth rate ofthe MR industry has come down to more sensible levels.

In September 2000, Thomas Puliyel quietly moved into the corner room at the IMRB headquarters in mid-town Mumbai. The move put an end to speculation about possible successors raised when IMRB's old warhorse and the incumbent president Ramesh Thadani passed away just a month prior to that. A year and a half on, Thomas Puliyel, president, IMRB, says India's second largest research outfit is "comfortable" despite the economic slowdown. Puliyel, who began his research career with ORG after graduating from IIM Calcutta in 1977, joined IMRB in 1981 as manager of its overseas projects. In 1984, Puliyel was back in India to head the agency's Mumbai office, before moving over to another WPP agency Research International. But unknown to most, Puliyel was, in fact, groomed by Thadani for the top job at IMRB. In this interview to Sabil Francis of agencyfaqs!, he explains how the agency has grown despite the slowdown being "very real". He also says there is great potential in the urban market, with a lot of it still untapped.

Edited Excerpts

It is inappropriate to attribute the successes of a company to the efforts of one person. IMRB has grown considerably in the last one year, defying the economic slowdown. This growth is the result of the efforts of all our staff. Our managers have grown the business and together with that, have also invested for the future by developing new brands, investing in training and building the capacity for future growth. We have over 300 of the best research and analysis talent in the country. Our field infrastructure is among the best in the region. We have also invested a great deal in developing our field resource through training, quality enhancement procedures and senior management attention.

IMRB is today one of the premier sources for market research and consultancy services throughout South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. We operate through offices in 20 cities across eight countries. We have our own offices in India, joint ventures in Singapore and Hong Kong and associates in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This network, along with fieldwork associates in several other countries, makes IMRB one of the largest market research organisations in the region.

Ramesh had great business vision. He was an able leader and one of the best research minds I have known. It is difficult to think of any other person who has all these qualities in such abundant measure.

The size of the research industry in India is about Rs 300 crore, and the growth, I would say, is in high single digit. It has been used to more substantial growth rates in the past - in the vicinity of 20 per cent or 30 per cent. The rate of growth has come down, but these are more sensible growth rates. So, in a way, it has helped to put in place a lot of things that you could not do when you were catering to steep growth rates. We now have more breathing space. Of course, 9 per cent is not so low that you have to worry about the growth in the industry. But are we stagnating? No, it is a sensible growth rate.

About the debate, what I have to say is: Much ado about nothing.

Each of these methodologies provide different insights. You cannot do without one or the other. You need expert advice on what would be the most appropriate methodology and in many cases you may need to use both tools to answer your marketing needs. I think this is an old debate that stretches back to the 1970s, but that has lost its relevance now. Right now, there is not much difference between the international and the Indian scenario, with the world statistics being 83 per cent quantitative to 17 per cent qualitative. In India, you might have the ratio as 80 per cent quantitative to 20 per cent qualitative.

I think that the strength of IMRB is in its specialist units. We have a whole network of offices, and the specialist offices have a wealth of experience. We do a whole lot of things - qualitative, social research, tracking and monitoring, eTechnology. That is our strength.

A temporary slowdown of urban markets does not mean that the urban market is saturated. In the short term you will see a relatively greater growth in rural markets, due to increasing conversion to branded products and upgradation from home-made products. However, there is still a great deal of untapped potential in urban India.

There is no manufacturer who is actually catering to the whole family, across all categories - whether it is health, or education or transport. And since each one of them is addressing a very limited number of sectors within the family budget, it means that even if there is a limited shift across categories, it will seem as a recession in one sector or the other.

If you look at the sales figures, a clearer indication of how the market is actually behaving is to track the value of sales, rather than the actual units sold. Even then, if the value of goods sold in the FMCG sector has grown, in most cases there would have been very low positive value growth, and, in many categories negative growth. It is hard to make a comparison across categories, like electronics and automobiles, because the sources of data are different. But we tend to think that the FMCG sector was considerably affected.

We maintain regular contact with over 15,000 households in rural India who provide information on many of the FMCG products that they purchase. Longitudinal analysis of the data can yield insights based on shifting consumer purchases and preferences. If you look at the purchase behaviour in 1999, and compare households in 2001, and track their behaviour, you would get a fair view of what they are buying; are they buying more or less; are they buying more premium products or less premium products. That is what I mean by longitudinal. You are looking at a long-term analysis of patterns - a tracking across time.

Over time we have observed that rural consumers are exhibiting a greater variety-seeking behaviour. In some markets and categories they are willing to experiment with new brands that provide value. Some of the notable successes in rural markets have been driven by this change. Also, we see greater use of the medium-sized and larger packs, than earlier.

Cedric wanted to take advantage of an international opportunity. It has nothing to do with the merger. The only hiccup in the merger was that it took longer than we had expected. Otherwise, it has been exceptionally smooth. What we have done is to view consolidated skill levels according to client needs. So you will find many ex-Ambience people on Burnett clients, for instance. We have taken special pains to ensure that we provide training opportunities to all. All integration has taken place at the middle and junior levels. All other principal parties involved and the heads of creative agencies - Arvind (Sharma), Ashok (Kurien) and other senior guys - have been extremely supportive.

I think the biggest constraint is the steady supply of power, and the sales and service infrastructure to support the purchase of these items. Too often one or the other is lacking - which can seriously limit sales.

First of all, scale is important. It is a hygiene condition, not necessarily a differentiating factor. Globally, the Top Five are in the same rungs as far as rates are concerned. What differentiates each is the quality of the media product. While we don't have the scale of MindShare, we also recognise that the one who buys the cheapest does not necessarily buy the best.

What we would want to do is narrow and eliminate the gains that scale brings to bigger players. That's where accountability comes in. In the short-term, sure, my client is looking at savings. So it is important for us. We will strive to get negotiating rates at level with bigger players. But you must remember that size can work against you also. You tend to overrule a negotiation. A large channel in India stopped approaching one of India's large advertisers (for sponsorship of its blockbuster movies) because it thought the advertiser was geared toward squeezing it. Second, for a large media outfit, the definition of what constitutes a large client also keeps on varying. A client may actually get a better rate in a smaller media agency than a large one.

The controversy regarding viewership data was 'settled' before the unified system was announced. All the three client bodies - the Indian Society of Advertisers, the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation - came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of tampering of data. The surreptitious manner in which the lists of TV panel members were leaked was enough evidence that the motive for the leak was to discredit the system to serve the business interests of the person behind the leak.

On the press medium, there are very few countries in the world where there are two readership surveys. In my view, this situation where there are two surveys is untenable in the long run. There can be only one currency in a market.

Market research is moving into the area of a single source - a single survey that looks at a wide range of data and subjects. For example, our Target Group Index (TGI) looks at buying behaviour in terms of what people buy and people's demographics, in terms of exposure or coverage. TGI also has tonnes of information on people's behaviour, attitude, interests, opinions and lifestyle. That is a new development in terms of research.

Where a single source is not able to cater to the demand, there are analytical surveys such as data fusion, which is actually formed by merging diverse sets of data. That is another kind of research that is coming up. Now, the tools that enable such research are available in the country - in the form of the TGI data and TAM data. Thus, you can find that people who have been buying these products are watching these kinds of programmes. This mathematical fusion of data sets helps you analyse much more. For example, you are taking an advertising slot in a press vehicle and you are also doing some advertising on television. And you want to see across both these schedules what is the sort of reach that you have got and the kind of frequency or exposure you have got. You can find all that through this kind of data banks.

It is very much in an experimental stage. Research agencies have developed the tools and experimented with them, but the market is not large enough to sustain the product yet. The point is that when advertisers are willing to put in money into that, there will be money to enable researchers to effectively monitor them too. At this point, we have a product that is expensive to set up.

No. I think that online advertising has not caught on because of the relatively lower reach of the medium itself. It is not so effective for products like FMCG for example. It is only specialised products that people like to see on the net. The problem is with the medium -it reaches so many people who may not be your target group. And then, it is difficult to create a panel of people who represent the universe of Internet users and to track their behaviour. For example, there are questions like are they exposed to the Internet at home or in office? Or in a cyber café? Three different people, going by computers, might be just one person using three different computers. And if that person has to be tracked uniquely such things have to be taken into account. With the existing system that is impossible. And to do so would be very expensive. The amount spend on Internet advertising itself is low. So why spend more to track it? There should be a balance. For example, I spend so much, so why not spend 2 per cent more to track it. Right now, that balance is not there.

No. Alignments are already in place. A few years ago, they were not there. Now almost all of them are here. Ten years ago, when we set up Research International that was the first international company to come here. Since then, there have been more. I don't expect any more. There are very few players that are not represented here.