Clear-eyed & focussed

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Newfields Advertising continues to re-define value-driven communication in the PSU adspace

Fifty years ago a gentleman by the name of S. R. Gupta started an advertising agency called Newfields with three other partners in Delhi. It was the time when the very term – advertising – in this city, was not totally comprehended and as a profession was nowhere near the ‘preferred’ ones of an engineer, doctor, lawyer or Government service. Soon the other three partners backed off and he was the only person in-charge. His son, and the present Chairman & Managing Director, Raman Gupta, smiles wistfully while reminiscing, “What my father lacked in experience and professionalism, he made up through foresight, common sense and hard work.” Today Newfields Advertising Private Limited is a respected and established organisation, totally PSU-dedicated (with branches in Kolkata and Mumbai) moving up the value chain all along.

What is the basic philosophy that drives the organisation and what is its USP? Gupta is off in a flash. “Our philosophy has always been to provide personalised, focussed service to PSUs – a domain, which until recently was deemed both unfashionable and non-lucrative by the biggies. Our USP is to engage with them in a professional, need-based, assignment-specific manner that delivers value, without hype. PSUs have a different blueprint from FMCGs and other sectors, and demand a special skill-set to understand their communication needs. The very fact that many of our clients have been with us for over three decades bear testimony to our successful innings with them.” An acknowledged front runner in the PSU-communication space, Gupta has a ready answer as to why his agency is an only PSU-centric outfit? “The private sector has always seemed overtly enamoured with the glamorous multinational agencies and believed they are the best. We are automatically disqualified. Also, we have had a couple of disastrous experiences with them & have therefore consciously stuck to the safer PSU domain, where payments may be less and delayed, but never lost.” Coming to media usage, due to their client profile, the basic media deployed has largely been print and co-laterals, with minor forays into TV and new age, digital medias like the Internet or virals. In terms of turnover Gupta confesses he’s quite satisfied with his agency’s 15-20% growth and deliberately doesn’t want to accelerate beyond his means. “We are fully aware of our goals, strengths and limitations and have an agenda in place to take the agency forward.” A full service agency with a staff of around fifty and a gross billing of over Rs.20 crore, Gupta is all set to move to the next level, in his own way and at his own pace.

Looking back, Gupta bemoans the fact that advertising today has largely become a business where creativity is under siege, “Agencies seem to out do each other in grabbing business with means justifying the end.” He ends the interview with a bitter complaint against the establishment. “In recent times many PSUs have been demanding that only agencies above Rs.25-30 crore turnover be considered to pitch for business. Isn’t that both unfair and strange? Lots of agencies can (and do) artificially jack up their turnover and get into the list. Is that what they want? In a calling, which primarily deals with the ‘business of ideas’, how does turnover play such a critical part? I wish someone explains it to me, convincingly…”

Monojit Lahiri

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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