Subhash Kamath, Group CEO, Bates 141

Vinay Kamath

It’s been five years since the WPP group took over Bates worldwide and India has emerged as one more prong of the vast agency network that WPP has in the country. Bates Enterprise earlier transitioned to Bates 141 after a merger with 141 Sercon (one-for-one, its erstwhile below-the-line marketing services agency, gave it the appellation) and emerged as an agency which offers a comprehensive complement of services from creative services to out-of-home and direct marketing. Subhash Kamath, who took over as CEO of Bates three years ago, is gung-ho about the business and the direction the agency is taking. Kamath is an ad industry veteran who’s been in the business 23 years. Starting his career with Ogilvy he moved on to Trikaya and later Ambience Publicis till he joined Bates as CEO. Recently in Chennai, Kamath took time off to speak to BrandLine on new clients and on the concepts that are driving the agency. Excerpts:

Who are the new clients from Chennai that Bates 141 has bagged?

We have expanded our office in Chennai and taken on more clients. Prominent among them is CavinKare which we bagged around six months ago. We are handling the entire haircare range for them: Chik, Nyle and Meera herbal. Out of the Chennai office we also handle the advertising for the East African group Watanmal; the creative for their in-house brands which comprise their entire range of foods is done out of Chennai. This is a real, live example of creative outsourcing; not only do they find it cheaper at one-third of the cost of doing it out of the UK but we have been able to give them very relevant and appropriate creative ideas.

Another recent client we bagged is the Muthoot group’s new radio FM station, Chennai Live 104.8 FM. Not only in Chennai but nationally too we are doing good work for quite a few top brands: Virgin Mobile, Fiat, AIG, Dabur, ITC, the ABP group, ICICI credit cards and Leela hotels.

Has Bates 141 benefited in any way by being part of the WPP network now in terms of realignment of accounts?

We have just started an allied agency in Bangalore called Enfatico which will be dedicated to servicing the Dell account. They handle Dell’s account worldwide. Earlier Euro RSCG was handling the account in India but now it has been realigned with our group; while it will be a separate agency with its own team, Bates will manage it in the Asia region. WPP took over Bates worldwide five years ago and along the way realised that it needed an agency which is Asian in culture and that’s how Bates Asia was born. The group identified Asia as the region which would see exponential change and we needed an agency whose philosophy was rooted in Asia and which could leverage the rapid change in these economies far better.

A shot from the campaign for Virgin Mobile, for which the agency used ‘change point planning’.

The trends one sees are only at the surface; we are looking to unravel fundamental change in society and then leverage it for our clients. This we do not only through focus groups but by talking to sociologists, anthropologists and by simply observing and living a consumer’s life.

Let me illustrate through an example. We were working on creatives for retirement solutions from Tata AIG. Researching this proposition we unearthed a fascinating nugget. The concept of retirement has changed. In our fathers’ generation they stayed in one job, retired at 60, bought a house for which they had saved up for and lived the rest of their life contentedly. Not now; you have this generation retiring at 40, having made a fortune and then going on to start something afresh. Retirement is actually the beginning of a new life for them; it’s a fundamental change in thinking. So, we didn’t call it retirement solutions but new life solutions.

Or, take Virgin Mobile, for which we used ‘change point planning’. During our study we came across a nice change point. For today’s youth it’s not about overwhelming the system, but manipulating or bypassing it to their advantage. They don’t want to rebel against their parents but want parental approval while having their own way. Out of this research came the TV commercial about a young girl not wanting to go to Goa with the boys but being persuaded to go by her father. So, the planning we do is not just from a category perspective but from a life perspective. Change is about seeing things differently.

So, how are you developing these insights? Does your agency have the capabilities to glean these insights into consumers’ lives?

We have our own process called change point planning which helps us go far beyond mere trends to uncover more fundamental changes in society and culture. We are committed to investing in at least three thought leadership papers a year. Our approach has changed and developing creatives is not from a category perspective but from life and society.

The old simplistic vision has changed and won’t work today. We have to find a way to link up with societal change. Furthermore, we have invested in 360-degree capabilities to influence behaviour and not just attitudes. People from different disciplines and walks of life can bring new perspectives to our business. Today, non-advertising revenues are close to 45 per cent for the group.

What are the greater long-term trends that you see?

Advertising will have to be idea-centric rather than media-centric, as the trends at Cannes too showed. The future is not about pure advertising but about ideas to business problems. It will take a while because that’s how we’ve grown up. The advertising business too will start becoming more accountable and increasingly agencies will get compensated on the business results they have achieved and not on media spend. So you need to be able to provide varied services that would solve the marketing problem. We walk the talk and have invested far more than other agencies in developing our 360-degree capabilities. Today our non-advertising staff is nearly 200 out of an employee base of 450 people.

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