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| Sunday, 29 January 2006 |
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Consumers bear $ 400b annual expenditure on ads by Elmo Leonard Global expenditure on advertising is $400 billion per year, while the majority of viewers, listeners and readers, disregard, audio and print ads, including visuals, CEO, Starcom South Asia (Mumbai) Ravi Kiran told the media in Colombo. Thus, the colossal waste of money is borne by the consumer, but, Kiran argued that in the process, the ad also reaches the potential customer. In this backdrop, Starcom MediaVest Group, claimed the world's largest media agency network, Tuesday last, began operations here, as Starcom Worldwide Sri Lanka. The new company will be chaired by Ms Shiromal Cooray of Jetwing fame. Shiromal started her career in advertising. The company's MD is Ranil de Silva, now, heading Leo Burnett. Burnett is part of the Starcom MediaVest Group. Sushruta Samantha, its CEO, will head the company, complying with standards set by regional headquarters. Samanta, a young graduate in engineering with an MBA, had a brilliant career in the ad industry, in India. It will be Starcom's 111th worldwide network, comprising 68 countries. "Starcom is Sri Lanka's first truly international media specialist company offering the promise of fuelling brand power", it is claimed. Answering questions, de Silva said that in today's competitive market others could enter the industry, with like competency and the ad industry will become more sophisticated. With the development of the Sri Lankan media environment, advertisers need the know-how to reach their audiences efficiently and effectively, Shiromal said. Starcom, with its global strength and its experience in markets, closer home, could add value to its brands. "They can now have the services of a locally sensitive yet, international savvy network with Starcom Worldwide in Sri Lanka," Shiromal said. The international market was also expressing its need for Sri Lanka to have global media network representation. De Silva said that there was a need for media specialists in Sri Lanka, so that the local market and international entrants could flourish with the help of an experienced advocate to aggregate all media spending to more effectively negotiate for buying media while at the same time managing media contracts through creative and tested methodologies and processes. It would be a win-win situation for all parties involved, including the country as a whole as in the long term it will further reduce barriers for international companies entering Sri Lanka while strengthening business infrastructure, de Silva said. Under the Starcom umbrella, clients would experience several offerings such as an increased focus on discovering the insights that drive consumer behaviour. The new media agency will use its international proprietary processes and tools, which have enhanced its credibility in the global marketplace, to determine people's passion and their interaction with contact points in Sri Lanka. Kiran said that from how people spend their time and money to how they define themselves. "This process termed, "Passion Group Marketing" is Starcom's strategy to answering many important questions necessary for a better understanding of targeted customer groups prior to communicating with them. Once such groups are understood (who they are, what they want, and what they do) interacting, will be the next task." Starcom prides itself on being able to adapt or create solutions and develop unique media properties to present the right brands to the right people at the right time in the right way, Samantha said. The media conference noted that as accuracy is an important requirement of the media buying and consultancy field, the gold standard for rating Starcom's service always had to be Did they deliver the target group? Did the brand capture more momentum? Did they achieve a greater market share? Did they achieve more power in the marketplace? Starcom's ultimate measure of success is for clients to feel their
presence on their balance sheets and in their sales reports, Samanta said. |
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