The Covid pandemic has changed the way the advertising & marketing industry functions. The sector has undergone a huge transformation over the last two years, with there being a massive acceleration in digital growth. The medium has now taken centre stage, nudging companies to rework their strategies. We caught up with Prasanth Kumar, GroupM South Asia CEO, to understand how one of the biggest media agencies in the world is embracing the digital disruption, what are the challenges that this transformation has thrown up, how else has the pandemic changed the industry, and more.
Edited Excerpts
While the discussion around digital taking over TV has been on for many years, it’s for the first time that a report has made a definitive claim of ad spends on digital overtaking that on TV to become the largest medium in 2022. How are you at GroupM adapting to this change?
While everyone had expected digital to overtake TV in the near future, the pandemic, and the resultant shift of consumers to online channels, forced organisations to accelerate their digital transformation. Not only did the sales channels evolve but the entire supply chain of companies effectively underwent a transformation. This was accompanied by buoyant funding in the tech space that led to more start-ups and many unicorns. The small & medium businesses embraced digital. We have been witnessing the consumer and ecosystem trends and we are leading the change. We too had to pivot to digital to serve our clients and stay relevant in today’s world. This has been done with accelerated learning for our teams on e-commerce, data & martech, and attracting the right talent.
GroupM has transformed significantly over the last few years. The first transformation is structural. We have created a COE for digital implementation and expertise through GroupM Services (GMS). On one hand, this COE brings significant expertise through…