Looking back: 2011, Going ahead: 2012 - Gowthaman Ragothaman

Looking back: What have been the macro-level gains for India in 2011? 

I think there are only a very few macro level gains for India in 2011. I would like believe that it is in the communications space with rising levels of inter-connectedness.

What kind of work / campaigns  / events impressed you the most in 2011; and why?

While there were a few good and takable campaigns, personally my pick of the lot will be Airtel's ‘har friend zaroorat hai’ campaign which had a sense of freshness in its treatment and communication.

They say growth in India will be driven by rural markets, the 350 small towns spread across the country and PSUs. True or false? And why or why not?

The growth in India will be driven by rural markets but in all my interactions various marketers and communications companies, we are still doing lip service to this untapped potential – everybody is waiting for somebody to come and provide infrastructure facility readymade to plug and play. And in the process we are missing great opportunities.

How can we sustain a strong and diverse talent pool in ad land which has equity across the globe?

Our strong and diverse talent pool in our business can only be sustained if there is enough local and regional exposure with like-minded emerging markets like Latin America, Russia and China. We need to get more global exposure.

Harish Manwani, the COO of Unilever said: India is the future of the world. Does this statement reflect the reality? Your comment.

India is the future of the world, but our bureaucracy is stalling growth. Under current political conditions, we cannot talk about this till 2020.

If you had to start this business all over again in 2011, you would ...

If I had to start this business all over again, I would have been more frugal in the first half of the year.

If you could design the Indian business for 2012 with a clean sheet of paper, what were the three things you would do? 

If I could design the Indian business for 2012 with a clean sheet of paper I will focus on Infrastructure development, consumer insight/confidence building and build/capitalise on interconnectedness.

What do you ask the person in the mirror every morning ?

The only thing I ask the person in the mirror in the morning is to take this day as a fresh day without any past baggage and without any future anxieties!