‘Online spend to surpass print in Pakistan by next year,’ CEO, Starcom Mediavest Group Pakistan

Having worked in various markets, Omar Abedin has a diverse experience of managing multinational portfolios including Reckitt Benckiser, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and IFFCO. He adds meaningful quantitative and qualitative dimensions to communications management done at Starcom Pakistan, working as the CEO.

BR Research recently sat down with Omar and discussed affairs surrounding Pakistan’s media and advertising sphere. Below is an edited excerpt of the conversation.

BR Research: Tell us about your journey and what made you come back to Pakistan?

Omar Abedin: My journey is very long, and most of it is in public domain, so I would not want to go into that. The decision to come back is driven by both professional and personal factors.

Pakistan is one of the few countries that despite all of its challenges are blessed with a vibrant economy and double-digit growth across segments, which made it an easier decision to come to Pakistan.

Another aspect was that I had never worked with media before. My entire career was on the brand side. The opportunity to run an established media agency of this size in Pakistan was not one I could pass up easily.

The third reason was Raihan Merchant himself, who wanted to ‘change the game.’ Anyone familiar with this industry knows that if Raihan says it, he means it. Instead of hiring a media industry insider, who would have accepted what was going on and continued on that path, he went for the other option of bringing in an outsider.

BRR: So what is it that you have changed at Starcom Mediavest already?

OA:  We are the ‘Agency Of The Future’ (AOTF) and I love this term. The idea driving is that if media agencies continue on the ‘business as usual’ path, the industry will cease to exist.

No matter how big your business is, at the end of the day you are working on very slim margins. So, the question is – where do you add value? What do you do to create something different? How do you build something that creates value? If media agencies continue to do what they are doing, the golden goose will sure be dead. So, we definitely are here to reinvent ourselves, and point out things that we will and already have started doing differently.

BRR: When you talk of the industry changing so dramatically, is it about the entire media-buying process, or is pricing the most important variable?

OA: It is both. There are issues on all sides if you look at the profit and loss statement.  There are clients who expect brilliance, innovation, and stuff never done before from us. My team is very creative and innovative, which is a good thing. The challenge is how we translate it into an ongoing process.

We did Coke Studio, which definitely was a game-changer. It is the biggest content asset to come out of Pakistan ever. But what do we do next? We are currently working on multiple things. But you will see things coming out from us, in the next 18 months, that you will look at and be able to relate to what we mean by changing the game.

I am trying to put my money where my mouth is. When I talk about ‘Agency Of The Future,’ I have created two agencies within our agency, of which one is a digital-focused entity. We are investing massively in digital content.

We now ask our clients to let us do the media strategy, before they go about producing their ads. Not everyone knows the target audience as well. The content should be developed once you know your audience and the way to reach them; not the other way around. Unfortunately, many companies in Pakistan, and sometimes sizeable ones, are not aware of the importance of building their brand identities in a consistent manner over time.

The key is that we have to start thinking like our clients, the brand owner. Every action you take in the market is the deposit into or a withdrawal from, what I call the ‘Bank of Brand Equity.

Once you start thinking like a brand owner, your decision-making process changes, and you start thinking holistically. There are only a few companies who have structured brand thinking in place. This is why we are now offering our clients brand identity consulting services.

BRR: What do you think has prompted the change? What exactly was the problem that you have now decided to do so many things differently?

OA: I do not think there was anything going wrong necessarily. The business was growing, so were the categories and media agencies. I think there is an opportunity to do something different and innovate a little. Otherwise, where is the fun?

BRR:  In terms of the branding and marketing sophistication, processes and skills, where do you see the Pakistani market? Also, are you going to replicate what other successful models are doing elsewhere in the world?

OA: Pakistan is way behind the curve in the branding and marketing space. There are a few multinationals that are an exception to the rule. On the media side, we are doing some things here that are being done in New York and London. But make no mistake – we are still a little bit behind the best of the best because of a number of factors, such as budgetary constraints, currency value, and attitudes and beliefs that exist in the industry at large. That said we are not far behind; if I were to put a number on it, I would say maybe a couple of years behind.

BRR: So is the workforce competence a big factor in where the industry currently is?

OA: I think it is more a matter of the workforce attitude than competence. Pakistan has its fair share of innovators who need to be brought to the front. We are trying to inculcate a culture of professionalism over personality. You can call it a transition from Facebook to LinkedIn. We need to start thinking as custodians of the clients’ brands, just as their own brand teams do. That is the Agency Of The Future.

BRR: So, what does it take to be the AOTF? Is it just an attitude change or does it also require time and effort investment for training purposes?

OA: It is more of an attitude shift than an attitude change. You need to feel a sense of ownership for the brand you are working with. You need to invest in the attitude shift from being a mercenary working for money to being someone working out of passion. You give me a 25-year-old with passion versus a smarter, better-educated guy who does not bother much; I will go for the person with passion.

BRR: What are your ideas for innovation in terms of content and strategy?

OA: It is a pretty big question and I wish I could narrow it down and answer it right now. I cannot talk about the kind of things in the pipeline. But what I can tell you is that it is stuff that you have never seen before. You have to push the borders to falter, learn, improve, and then succeed. We are focusing a lot on content and we will develop content that is not run-of-the-mill.

We have a dedicated research team and our decision-making and recommendations are driven by data and research. There is a belief that research in Pakistan is often not true. This belief exists on both the client and industry sides. Many people even today view research as an expense, when in fact it should be treated as an investment.

If you use research wisely, the insight that you can develop has the power to alter your business. We are investing heavily in research, people, technology, dashboards, and so on. An advantage of having an international affiliation is that we have access to a lot of tools, used at both the buying and consumer research ends, and we are leveraging that heavily at this point.

BRR: You spoke of research not being perceived as correct all the time. What is your and the stakeholders’ view on the authenticity of TV ratings, which have long been considered controversial?

 OA: Ratings is a very sensitive issue. The industry is working on expanding the base of rating meters, which includes all stakeholders. Right now, there are around 900 meters in the whole country, spread around ten cities. The plan is to expand that, and make it even more robust. The fact remains that it is the only data that we have, and we have to use whatever is available. The idea is to include semi-urban Pakistan as well going forward, and ensure it is a representative sample.

BRR: Digital is the buzzword. Is it also the future of the whole industry and is it going to dictate who stays relevant and who does not?

OA: You have to resist the temptation for it to become a buzzword, because it is much more than that. To me, digital is a reflection of our lifestyle. You have 35 million smartphones, 38 million Facebook accounts, massive growth on Twitter, good growth on LinkedIn, and so on. The penetration of Internet is growing, and that of mobile Internet is growing in leaps and bounds.

What we are seeing is not an evolution – it is a revolution in the way people access content. You can call it digital because it is not a billboard or a magazine, but it does not end there. The battle for content is directly linked to the transition to online. Online is a better description than digital, because it clearly tells you are inside the virtual world. If you want to talk about the Agency Of The Future, “business as usual” will surely not work in this world.

Creativity and innovation are the key going forward, but it is more effective when it carries the entire organisation from one phase to another. We want to create a process that can be replicated and reproduced on demand. It is a thought process that involves an attitude and mindset change.

Our clients are going ballistic right now. We have been pitching innovative ideas to our clients and the acceptance rate has exceeded 90 percent. Such is the impact of online and digital, which by the way also tends to be cheaper than the traditional media. Digital is targeted and ROI driven and you can’t fool the servers.

BRR: Do you see the online ad spend increasing manifolds in the near future? What is the current share of online advertising in the pie?

OA:  Last year was the first time in the history of TV that the year-on-year ad spend went down. The print spend held more or less flat, so no marks for guessing where the spend went.  The share of digital spend is not in the double digits yet, but it will get there by as early as next year, when online spend will be bigger than print in Pakistan.