"We are targetting the top five in India:" Publicis' Pinder

Publicis head Richard Pinder was in the city and spoke to Campaign India on the sidelines of network reviews on the challenges facing Publicis in India today and why he believes Incredible India is an apt term to describe the unique position that India occupies in today’s challenging times. Pinder recently took sole leadership over the Publicis network, from his earlier role as COO.

“I use the term Incredible India, and I think we have to be clear that in some ways it is more Incredible India today than yesterday because yesterday most countries were overgrowing and India happened to be at the top of that pile. That was the global sentiment all these years but that was yesterday’s conversation. The change in the conversation is quite simple, which is that you go from being the top of the pile of lots of people doing quite well to being one of only 3 or 4 countries showing some scale. It may be less well than before, of course. So, in some ways it stands out much more than before.”

Pinder says the role of India in their portfolio is that of a growth engine. “My mandate to the team here is- double your team, what is it that you need in terms of investments, to dramatically change the scale. We are now in the top ten, which is great if you put all of our brands together. How do we get to the top five; that's what we are targetting. How do we ensure that?”

He believes their biggest challenge will be to ensure that they maximise the India opportunity. “The real focus is on maximising that opportunity. How do I really leverage it and be sure that we are getting our returns and also allowing our business to invest in creativity, digital and geography. Are we in the right place? Do we have enough market presence? Each network has its own challenges and ours is that we came late but we have become strong and we are growing fast. We are probably the newest big arrival among the top ten- that’s Publicis and Capital. We now need to leverage that, keep the momentum going.”