CEO Chakrabarty says GroupM is focused on shaping the next era of media communications where advertising works better for people.
PETALING JAYA: Despite the local economy showing some signs of strength, media communications agency GroupM Malaysia is not resting on its laurels as it moves to identify new revenue streams.
To garner a stronger revenue growth amid uncertainties at the global front, the agency is looking at launching new products in the market as part of its strategy to spur growth.
GroupM Malaysia chief executive officer Chanchal Chakrabarty told StarBiz the agency’s growth has and would always be at the core.
“We need to continue to drive growth through new business acquisitions and identifying new revenue streams for growth like the recent introduction of the two first mover products – Finecast and Sightline.
“The former is the agency’s addressable TV product with state-of-the-art planning and sharp targeting capability. While the latter is our programmatic digital out-of-home planning, measurement, and execution product.
“Both of these are extremely unique and relevant to the times and would help our clients achieve their objectives more effectively,” he added.
He said the other continued areas of growth for the agency would be the rapidly growing eCommerce solutions and small and medium enterprise and consulting services.
Chanchal, the former Media Specialists Association president, said other priority focus areas for the agency would be to continue providing clients with the best advice in context of the demanding external environment and the business challenge being faced by them.
It is now even more paramount for the agency to stay close to its clients after the Covid-19 pandemic and during challenging times.
“We will work with media partners to further enhance the value of our media investments and explore opportunities for cross-brand collaborations to help deliver the multiplier effect.
“The other critical aspect, especially in the light of the mass tech layoffs would be to ensure that people who are our only assets in our teams are taken care of and that we’re highly empathetic towards their needs and challenges,” Chanchal pointed out.
He said GroupM is focused on shaping the next era of media communications where advertising works better for people.
“Our people expertise, our cutting edge artificial intelligence driven portfolio of products and our strong partnerships is what helps us deliver effective campaigns and numerous awards for clients, and drive the industry forward,” he added.
On the macro aspect, he said while the recessionary headwinds are expected to hit the Malaysian shores as well, Asia-Pacific is expected to have a much lesser impact than the West.
This is so, especially, with China borders opening up and India showing resilience, and the hope is that the country may even dodge it.
The sentiments across the South-East Asia markets including Malaysia are getting more positive with economic growth projected to grow at the least double of that of the global economy in 2023, he noted. All these bodes well for the media communications and advertising businesses, he said.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund recently cautioned that it expects more than a third of the global economy to contract this year. The World Bank projects the global economy to grow by 1.7% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2024.
Most economists expect the local economy to grow by 6.5% to 7% this year. Based on official estimates, the domestic economy is anticipated to grow by 4% to 5% in 2023.
Furthermore, Chanchal noted that the unity government has added to the people’s hopes and is expected to provide the much needed tailwinds to the consumer sentiments, and hence the economy.
“The marketing ecosystem which the media and ad industry is a part of, has a very close correlation to these two factors (consumer sentiment and economic growth) and hence all other factors remaining constant, we are looking forward to sustained resilient growth as well.
“However, the unprecedented uncertainties of the past couple of years have taught us well that the media and market are ever evolving and at a rapid pace so the biggest precaution should be, we should not get complacent and assume whatever worked a year ago would still work the same now.
“So in this dynamic and ever changing landscape, we need to keep an open mind to the next and the new mantra – explore, test and learn,” he said.
He said it is also time for the media communications and ad industry to ensure it forge collaborations between multi-function teams within client organisations and with partner agencies.
This would facilitate diversity of ideas as well as help optimise the marketing investment which is the first to get under pressure, across different budget pools of media, creative, production, commerce and public relations, Chanchal stressed.
“Last but not least, he said it would be useful to draw learnings from the various valuable lessons that the unprecedented Covid-19 period has taught us like, how we need to be agile, quick to respond, to pivot, to adapt and to change marketing and communication plans around the situation,” he added.
