This year, GroupM formally launched its largest agency, EssenceMediacom, globally merging Essence, known for its expertise in performance, data, analytics, and creative technology, with MediaCom’s multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise. Leading the new entity in India is Navin Khemka, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), EssenceMediacom, South Asia.
“We are now within the top three agencies in the country and barely six months old. So, I think it’s been a fantastic launch for us. I think we’ve really setting up this future-facing, future-first agency, (and) future-proofing our people, future-proofing our clients,” said a proud Khemka in an exclusive interview with Storyboard18.
When asked about how the business has been for the new agency, Khemka said, “In the first six months from a new business point of view, I think we would have converted almost $70 to $80 million worth of new business, which is almost like Rs 700-800 crore worth of new business already converted.”
He expects the business to double in size in the next three to four years.
He feels it is a very healthy competition within the Group M set up. “All the top three media agencies are Group M agencies. Very healthy competition internally, but I definitely want to be number two very soon. I would say watch out both, Ajay Gupte and Amin Lakhani. Here is a new kid on the block.”
Speaking about his expectations about the festive season, Khemka feels two things have slowed down the growth in the first six months: freak summers and funding winter. “You have seen the way the rains have come in, and we have hardly had summers in the north. So, all the summer category brands in India in the first half of the season actually did not see the growth that they were expecting to see. The funding winter, on the other hand, was basically all the start-up clients who were getting heavily funded last year. This put the brakes on their spending because of the huge setback that they saw in some of the funds coming into their businesses. Because of this, we saw a slowdown in the first six months of the year. In the first six months of the year, I would say we did not see double-digit growth. In fact, we saw single-digit growth. Despite that, India was still growing. In the next half of the year, we are expecting overall the year to end at about 12 percent. So, in the second half of the year, we need to grow at 15-16 percent to be able to make up for the first half of the year. Also, July and August have not been very big months.”