(Re)defusing a problem

The situation is hardly new, but trust 38-year-old Mahesh ‘Mash’ Chauhan, President, Rediffusion DYR to actually spin it differently. Fairly circumspect though his approach has been, since he took charge in October 2006, he’s been busy attempting to generate a healthy buzz for his agency.

“GoaFest (the annual jamboree of the Advertising Agencies Association of India) this year was the inflection point. Very few were planning a trip, but I decided to take over 100! We hosted a party there, and invited who ever wanted to join in. It kept swelling and people took notice,” he says.

Sounds flippant? But for an agency that’s down in the dumps, it has had a desired effect. “He knows how to generate buzz and that was a clever way of getting people to talk. This, when the agency was at its lowest and nobody really knew what was happening there,” says an adman who’s been associated with the agency in the past.

Rediffusion has been feeling the pain from two body-blows. Like most of the industry, it is reeling because of an exodus of talent; however, what threatens to bring Rediffusion down to its knees is the simultaneous exodus of business. For instance, its most-prized account of Bharti Airtel (for valueadded services, estimated to be worth Rs 1.5 crore) is now with JWT. That’s not all; Bharti’s DTH venture and, more recently, Bharti-Wal-Mart have also gone JWT’s way.

Other high-profile accounts lost include Citibank, DNA, Onida, and General Motors. All together these businesses were estimated to be worth nearly Rs 10 crore. “The move of Bharti Airtel, any which way you look at it, is a loss. Until now no one but Rediffusion handled the business. But they have also suffered with other accounts. So certainly it’s something to get worried.

But Mash, being Mash, he’ll make it happen,” says Aniruddha Banerjee, President & COO, Publicis Ambience. Banerjee was closely associated with Chauhan and Rediffusion as he was with its sister concern Everest for two years as its COO from November ’04; this was when Chauhan himself was President at Everest from April 2004 to September 2006.

Rediffusion has also been hit by a revolving chair syndrome right at the top. There was Sandeep Goyal in the Nineties followed by Preet Bedi till September 2006. But it’s the continuous flight of talent that’s finally taken its toll. “I would say Chax’s leaving (K.S. Chakravarthy, former National Creative Director) is a big loss. He’s one of the brightest creative talents and was responsible for the agency’s creative resurgence and it did win major awards under him,” says Banerjee.

The other things that set tongues wagging on most community chat pages is Chauhan’s move to ‘remove client servicing’ from the agency. “Discussion on the subject’s still on since we aired our view on this in May this year. But truth is that we have not removed the slot from the agency; we are just of the view that this role needs re-orientation—people here have to be high on strategy and thought,” says Chauhan.

The gains are now trickling in— both in terms of talent and accounts. “They are restructuring and have taken some good people on board. However, getting new business will be the real test,” says Preet Bedi, CEO, Percept Picture Company and the former head of Rediffusion. Its prize catch, of course, is the talented duo of Ramanuj Shastry and Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, who’ve come in as Chief Creative Officers. “I see no reason why the agency should not do well. Mash is very ambitious and he aims high,” says Chakravarthy who’s now on his own.

So the agency strength is back to where it was a year ago—300-people strong. Of this, there are 102 creative people in the system as of now. That should go a long way in helping Chauhan pull it off. “After all, he did turn around the fuddyduddy Everest and positioned it as a challenger brand,” says Shavon Barua, VP & Client Services director, who was earlier associated with Rediffusion.

Industry watchers do point out that Rediffusion still has huge equity in the market and it’s a question of how much patience, skill and leeway Chauhan has to actually make it happen.