IPG Mediabrands-owned Initiative India has been a tech industry favourite, having worked with brands such as Cred, Unacademy and Urban Company. Ranked the third-largest media agency in India by RECMA in 2022, it is tapping new opportunities in myriad sectors. Vaishali Verma, CEO of Initiative India, tells Christina Moniz how clients’ expectations from their agencies are changing and why she is hoping generative AI will help in tackling the talent crunch in the industry. Edited excerpts:

With the advertising ecosystem changing fast, how has the advertiser’s mandate for its media agency partners changed?Across sectors, we have observed that ROI is increasingly becoming an important focus area for brands. They look for agency partners who are nimble, agile and who will turn things around quickly for them. Tech brands have led the shift that we’ve seen among advertisers in recent times. In the past, advertisers focussed predominantly on top-of-the-funnel metrics, which are awareness and consideration. For tech brands, the objective was to move the needle at the middle and bottom of the funnel, with the accent on conversion, sales and other business outcomes. Other sectors are following suit, and though they continue to focus on awareness, they’re also looking at concrete business results. Naturally therefore, agencies like ours are keeping the focus on ROI and getting ad monies to work much harder.

Since advertising is a people-driven industry, one area in which I expect generative AI to make a real difference is talent acquisition. Ours is a talent-starved industry, and generative AI could help tackle this major concern by filtering the right profiles for the right job.

Aside from this, of course, generative AI and new technology will continue to help build greater efficiencies and minimise wastage in ad spending, and reduce turnaround time for campaigns. However, only time will show just how much it will disrupt the business. I believe that India will be ahead of the curve because our huge engineering and technology talent pool gives us a distinct advantage.

What steps are you taking to address the talent acquisition and retention challenge at Initiative?One key advantage is that the Initiative senior leadership has been with the agency at least for the last 10 years. This ensures stability and also keeps our clients happy. Our greater challenge is finding the right talent, particularly at junior and mid levels, something we expect to address in time with new technology. Retention is not a concern because we foster a liberal culture that puts people above processes.

You have many digital brands and tech start-ups on your roster. How did the slowdown in these sectors impact Initiative’s business?During the pandemic, we worked with several tech start-ups such as Cred, Unacademy and Urban Company. Despite the recent slowdown among these tech brands, we have managed to ensure stability and growth, which came on the back of several new account wins. One of our biggest wins was last year, when we picked up the ITC food business. ITC is now our second-biggest client, after Amazon. So we’ve managed to mitigate any impact from the start-up slowdown. We’ve been growing by 25-30% year-on-year and are working with brands across multiple sectors now. This year, we also became the global hub of Schneider Electric, which means that we manage its campaigns across the globe. We see a lot of potential growth opportunities emerging from B2B businesses.

Is it becoming difficult to acquire new businesses with so many new agencies springing up and many clients working with shops on a project basis?We operate with a philosophy of building long-term relationships with our clients, because that’s how we can ensure the best possible outcomes too. Amazon is one of our oldest businesses – we have been managing the brand since its launch in India in 2014. We’ve long-term partnerships with several other brands such as Bajaj, MRF, Samsonite and MG Motors. Having said that, organic growth is always limited so our endeavour is to convert as many business pitches as possible into wins. Our strengths have been technology and FMCG and we leverage that to explore new growth avenues in other sectors like healthcare, personal care and jewellery.

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