Bhavana Bhatia in her 6th Episode of 19 Influencers talk on COVID-19 conversed with a well-known personality in the Advertising & Media industry in the Asia Pacific for over 32 years none other than CEO APAC and Chairman India at Dentsu Aegis Network - MR ASHISH BHASIN
In her 11 minutes interview, Ashish feels that this quarter and next quarter are going to be bad for the advertising industry and this is going to be a tough year owing to the adverse impact the ongoing pandemic has had on the Industry as advertising is the easiest expense to cut. Liquidity is going to be a big problem which every business is going to say. For Dentsu Aegis, 14,000 employees all over APAC are working from home and in India 3700 of the employees are working from home. Having learnt that it is possible to work from home bring the biggest innovation in the style and way they work. Dentsu Aegis have been big believers of Digital. For Dentsu Aegis Network India nearly half of our revenue is digital. Digital has been growing 2 and a half to 3 times that of traditional advertising. In this year, since entire advertising pie is shrunk everything will feel the pinch. Apart from Digital, most of the other mediums will have a negative growth this year
To conclude Ashish Bhasin says that the last 2 generation’s we haven’t faced anything like this. Nobody in the last 2 generations has seen a global health pandemic which then leads to a financial crisis. In such times of social distancing, It becomes very important to practice virtual proximity. Ashish Bhasin is pretty bullish about India in the medium term and long - term, though he suggests everyone with the concluding statement, “Its time to sharpen your axe".
View the 11 minutes episode here :