“Dentsu Aegis Network, Rediffusion-Y&R, WPP & Cheil were in talks with us for acquisition”: Manish Bhatt

Yesterday, we reported that Mumbai-based creative agency, Scarecrow, has been acquired by M&C Saatchi. The agency has sold 50 per cent of its stake to the London-based company. We spoke to Manish Bhatt, founder, Scarecrow-M&C Saatchi, to understand the role that M&C Saatchi would play, post this acquisition and the reason behind this move.

From left-right - Arunava Sengupta, Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat and Richard MorewoodBhatt says, “When it comes to acquisition, there are multiple stages. Till the time it really gets stamped and signed, it takes a long time and at any stage, it may be aborted. You are kind of parting with something that you made with your sweat and blood and it is a little tricky because you don’t know what may go wrong. In these three years, there were thousands of stages of talks.”

While Scarecrow was in talks with M&C Saatchi for a period of three long years, Bhatt tells afaqs! that during this period, the Dentsu Aegis Network, Rediffusion-Y&R, WPP and Cheil had also approached them with regards to an acquisition.

We asked him if there were debates among his other partners (Raghu Bhat and Arunava Sengupta). He responded, “Yes, there were because we have our individualistic natures. All of us are different from each other, yet very similar in that sense. Of course, there is a perspective and point of view from all three of us, but what we see is the result of that.”

Talking about the biggest apprehension he has about this acquisition Bhatt says, “The biggest apprehension we have is that the acquisition has come very easily to us, like a dowry. We had total anxiety because none of our fathers is a shop owner. When we created Scarecrow, it gave us a feeling of a shop, with the hope that the customers will come in. That happened and creating a business is very flattering and when something comes like a dowry, so easily... that bothers us.”

Adding about M&C Saatchi and Scarecrow’s own philosophy, Bhatt says, “Their philosophy is simplicity and our philosophy is hard work. I think, in the time of this digital era, what will be precious is hard work. Hard work will be differentiated and I think everything can be equated to it, but the amount of hard work you put in to build something, nobody can equate that.”

Bhatt tells afaqs! that currently, the agency is looking more at strategic partnerships rather than financial partnership from M&C Saatchi. “If I am hiring 10-15 freshers, I can run that experiment and I don’t think M&C Saatchi would stop me from doing it. That is my instinct, as opposed to them enforcing something on me.”

Bhatt is looking forward to M&C Saatchi’s worldwide meeting in Madrid that is going to happen in May 2018. “Raghu and I would like to interact with them during those three days and bring back something for sure. We are so Indian, by nature, in our ads, but we would like to get some British humour into them, only in an Indian way. Maybe there are some Indian brands who would want us to make an ad that way. We may indulge them in that area and will add global colour to our campaigns.”