Exclusive | OOH, on a growth path: PMR's Roopesh Khangaonkar

Primetime has the vision to be the most preferred provider of innovative cost effective media options to advertisers which meets their business objectives. Primetime was an early entrant in the Television media. It started by selling airtime on television serials and films on Doordarshan and other private satellite networks. From there, the company has grown in stature and size, from one office in Mumbai to four  offices today.

By virtue of diversification, they have expanded their business to include international marketing of airtime, Out-of-Home media solutions, and specialized mid-sized and small towns initiatives and more recently by launching initiatives in radio media.

Adgully caught up with Roopesh Khangaonkar, VP PMR to understand the growth strategies of the company and also to learn some key insights about Primetime. 
When asked about the growth and future plans for Prime Outdoors, Khangaonkar said, “Our agency is going through a transitional phase. Many new faces have joined the agency and we are looking to add some more. We are also  looking to grow in terms of  size and reach in the industry. With the new team, we are looking to double our revenue from what we did last year and we are confident of reaching our target.”

Their immediate plan is to increase their client network. “We already have a strong base of existing clients. We hope to add more clients by leveraging the good work we did for our existing clients. We are in the process of developing planning and monitoring tools to aid us service our clients better and help us win new/bigger accounts. We believe this is the way going forward for the industry , hence we are investing heavily in these tools.”

“We are looking to extend our associations with existing accounts and also look at regaining our lost accounts. Entering into the BTL front is another one of our priorities.. We hope to offer 360 degree “Out of home” solution under one roof. So far that was the only offering missing from our umbrella,” he added.
He believes that the OOH industry in India is rapidly evolving although OOH today is still unorganized and lack of any measuring mechanism is still an obstacle in the industry.  The industry is moving in the right direction and people are working together to organize this industry for the common good. Emergence of new regional players along with large media houses entering OOH has made this industry very competitive.

Prime Outdoors is already offering the entire service package from planning to implementation and monitoring as well. With regard to ensuring that the campaigns are optimized and cost efficient, Khangaonkar explained saying that Prime Outdoors currently offers bundled service that includes planning, buying, execution, monitoring & creative services. Although every client needs the entire bundled services, focusing on certain services also becomes a priority for them. Further within each service they need a customized solution. Each campaign is the collective effort from inputs from servicing, planning, operation and marketing. It goes through different people with expertise in their own field to customize the plan to the optimal level so as to derive most value to the plan.

It works in steps: once the sales team receives the brief, the sales, servicing & planning team  brain-storm on the brief to derive a plan most suited to the client. Next the planning and buying team work on how to optimize the plan to a cost-effectively and finally the client servicing and planning team review the plan. Often they work on two or  maybe three plans to present, an ideal plan, a threshold plan and a plan restricted to budget. This not only ensures cost-efficiency but also optimization of every plan.

The company’s strategies are really simple and Prime Outdoors is a very process driven organization. He says, “Our company approach evolves a lot around the process and emphasis on putting them into practice. From planning to execution & post-execution, all processes have been clearly pre-defined and captured. This helps us evaluate benchmark and eliminate non-value adding process. This helps us add more value, reduce turnaround time and cut cost wherever necessary.”

“Our focus is to derive value to every plan we deliver whether in terms of implementation, in terms of impact or in terms of costs.  Our goal is to deliver the most optimal plan at best costs,” Khangaonkar concluded. 

For information and records, Roopesh Khangaonkar has over 15 years of experience in different verticals of Media & Retail in his kitty. He has rendered his services with esteem agencies& organization with the likes of ARC (a division of Leo Burnett), Dainik Bhaskar (DBCL), Mudra Communication to name a few. His last assignment was with Touchpoint (a div. of OAP & Rediffusion Y&R) as Associate Vice President where he was key force behind bagging accounts such as ASUS Technology, Ddecor, Tata Housing, Mahindra Lifespaces, Birla cellulose (kara). | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal@adgully.com]