Haresh Nayak revisits seven years of Posterscope

The Leading Out of Home communication agency and location expert Posterscope has completed seven-year journey in India. The agency, a part of Dentsu Aegis Network, has made its strong presence felt in offering clients specialised and differentiated out-of-home offerings.

Adgully caught up with Haresh Nayak, Regional Director, Posterscope Asia Pacific & Managing Director, Posterscope Group India to talk about the journey so far, the ups and down that have been faced by the Company and the future roadmap.

Adgully (AG) :How has the journey been for the last seven years?
Harek Nayak (HN): With regards to our journey for last seven years now, we have been going in the right direction. In last four years we have got some of the big clients. We have done a major improvement in terms of our pitching for new clients. After seven years, I feel that we have got far more depth as a company than our competitors in terms of our insights, our products and most importantly the people. We have got a good mix of experienced people from the domain and fresh creative mind from the trade. I feel that it has been a very good journey so far.

AG: If you could talk about the three key milestones, what would that be?
HN: First would be having a great team in place because good people make for a great business. Interestingly, about two months back we won two businesses worth about Rs 75 cr and needed a few more hands on the deck, we got 402 people applying for a couple of jobs in two days’ time by just advertising on Facebook! If people are so keen to join our company, it simply means that it is a good place to work and this is where, I feel, the first milestone is achieved.

Secondly, our product is far more improved and we have got very good planning tools in place.
Third would be our futuristic offering because we are a unique agency within the country, where we have global footprint. I am directly involved in the markets of China, Japan and Australia. A lot of good learnings are there which can be adapted to Indian market. Also, most of our clients believe we are delivering what they are asking for, and that is important too.

AG: Are there any categories of clients that you wish to work with in the future?
HN: We have a good mix of clients across categories and defining such a category would be very difficult. We have good mix of consumer durable, mobile handsets and others.

The only category we have been away from so far is telecom because it is a different genre altogether. It requires a different kind of infrastructure. Having said that, in the last few months we have started building our infrastructure in a manner to also serve the telecom category. Soon we would have telecom service providers on board too!

AG:What are the key areas that you are looking at to make Posterscope grow further?
HN :"We have got a good mix of people but as a good company you always look out for bright new talent coming in because it’s an ever evolving medium.

Also, as you are aware, one of our pioneering initiatives is that we have tied up with Northpoint whereas we have started India’s first Post Management Course in Out of Home where we will teach students things that are important to make an excellent career in OOH industry.

We are also investing on better operational efficiency. Right now we have got online monitoring but we are looking at people who can help our vendors to improve the payment cycle and to bring in more transparency in the medium.

AG:What does the future roadmap look like?
HN:The future looks very bright. We are looking at various initiatives in terms of our growth. Today we have around 35% market share as a group. We have couple of other initiatives in various directions as well; we ensure futuristic growth in Indian out of home and digital out of home. Our initiatives in those directions are pioneering and we ensure that even after seven years we have a growth rate of 50-60%. We feel that these initiatives will help us to grow at the similar rate for the next three years.

AG:What targets you have set for the coming year?
HN:By 2017 we are looking at doing well on all fronts, to bring in clients from different categories and to optimise operational efficiencies for ourselves as well as for our clients. We intend entrenching ourselves even further as the best in the category.