<b><font color="#FF0033">AAAI Symposium</font></b>: “Ad agencies need to change from disintegrators to integrators” - Rama Bijapurkar

With the growth in the Indian Advertising sector, one question that keeps coming back again and again is whether there should be one single agency which is a 360 degree service provider to the clients?

Giving her views on this at the AAAI symposium, Rama Bijapurkar, an independent market strategy consultant, says, “Ad agencies need to redefine and reassert their role and relevance in the world today. This will help in better client partnering, brand custodian and nation building.”

She adds, “In the growing scenario new kinds of consumers are coming in. At the same time many of the clients are not aware of their bill of rights. However, agencies should take the initiative of guiding the clients but they often fail to do so because they do not provide 360 degree brand solutions.”

In today’s developing state, every day newer ways of brand building is developed. However, according to Bijapurkar, this is not enough. On also needs to articulate a vision for the country which goes beyond GDPs. She says, “I fail to understand why India Brand Equity is managed by CII and not by AAAI. The latter is far better equipped to handle the organisation.”

Bijapurkar points out the shortfalls which have set in the advertising industry. Due to the fragmentation of the services there has been a price cutting, which has actuated into financial decline. It has also given rise to an extremely complicated structure under which everyone appears to be doing everything. This is decreasing the benefits as due to this consumers are becoming a vibrant force.

“Agencies should improve client’s competence rather than bench marking creativity”, says Bijapurkar.

She also talks about the traumas that have set into the industry due to this fragmentation. She says, “The revenue model of the agency has broken down. Due to this ‘divide and rule’ customer is ruling. Ad agencies today have reduced to the state of a ‘stand alone’ creative service provider. Clients have become the service integrators and they are introducing new breed of integrators in to the fray everyday.”

“So as a solution to all this”, Bijapurkar says, “is for advertising agencies to change from disintegrators to integrators. At the end of the day a business is a value delivery service. It requires huge amount of clarity, churning and new initiative. We need to move to the future with a new delivery and business model. And I believe in the process of doing so the industry will find its soul.”

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