Adgully Exclusive | Brand integration is the focal point: Manhattan Comm's Adris Chakraborty

Traditional media alone cannot grab the consumers' attention any longer. There is a definite requirement to captivate the audience with other innovative means. Manhattan Communications understands this changing consumer behavior and attempts to reach out to their audience through its 360 degree communication firm.

Apart from the standard offerings like advertising, branding, marketing in India, Manhattan Communications also offers the same to target the South Asian Diaspora in US, Canada and UK through our US Operations. It is a complete synergized wholesome marketing solution company.

Adris Chakraborty, Managing Director & Chairman of Manhattan Communications talks exclusively to Adgully about the strengths of his team and challenges in this space.

"We are integrated advertising agency which operates in India. We are 2.5 yrs old in India . We have our agency operations in US and Canada, also have a satellites operations in UK. The Indian business was created primarily to target clients who want to reach out to South Asian diasporas outside India, primarily in North America, UK, Europe. That's where we want to be a market leader. Currently we also operates as a domestic player in India; We aim to be a full service agency operations in India like many other players. We also have a strong online expertise and offer a full spectrum of services apart from owning our own AD Network Ethnic Online Network. In India, we offer brand activation, outdoor and OOH and digital services currently.

Brand integration is the focal point of our services in India.

"We believe that brand activation is something which has a huge potential in India, primarily because the decision making processes among different age groups are really becoming very significant. The way you can to reach out to your target audiences is no longer just traditional media but through non traditional media like activations in retail outlets including digital, through which today you can reach out to a significant size of your target audience. As such Brand Activation through non traditional media is going go to be a major tool for the clients to reach out to their target audience," Chakraborty further added.

Manhattan Communications' core strength is their large operations in North America and the intent is to leverage on that. "Apart being a domestic agency, we intend to be a market leader in targeting the South Asian Diaspora outside India. Anyone thinking about reaching out to South Asian Diaspora outside India, they should think about us," he explained.

Currently Manhattan Communications work on 3 main vertical - primarily band activation, outdoor/out of home and digital. "We intend to grow these verticals over time. We also want to add other verticals to grow as a 360 degree communication company. The entire Indian initiative is been driven by Shantonu Aditya who is the Director & CEO for the India business" said Chakraborty

Commenting on India related plans, he said, "The market is very poignant. There are some plans which are currently in brainstorming stage which this business strowuld help us to build this business strong in India and thereby help us to grow in the neighboring markets."

The association with BCCL has given Manhattan Communications the foothold in the Indian market and we are indebted to BCCL for considering as one of their Private Treaty partners and the association turned out invaluable in getting us known in India.

"We are currently the only agency which falls under the Times private initiative. We are really privileged that private treaties took stake in our business which gave us recognition in the market and gave a strong foothold. We could go and talk to people and helped us enhance our relationships within Times of India too," he said.

Manhattan Communications truly believes that with a committed team, hard work and persistence would help the company grow.

"We believe in client servicing and we believe in 24/7 turn around. We believe that we live for our clients and they help us to survive and grow. Our endeavor is to continue improvising on our ability to service our clients with more creative and out of the box strategy and execution with the highest level of client servicing and pursue to always over perform. We believe in being transparent with our clients and in long term relationships. We have an aggressive team with the right kind of leadership from Shanotonu Aditya in terms of conversion of new clients and maintaining the existing relationship because we are aware of fierceful competition in the market to retain and grow the client base. There is no guarantee of any client relationship unless we work very hard for it," Chakraborty said.

Every market has its own challenges; however a market like India that is considerably different from other markets has its own set of break through issues.

"India is a different market all together from the markets we operate right now. India has much bigger opportunities to offer but at the same time understanding the nuances of this market is a great challenge. I think retaining the best talent is another big challenge in India as it is a big and buoyant market with huge opportunities around," he said

Commenting upon the ways to strengthen Manhattan communications team, he said, "We currently have a 23 member team and have operations in Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta. We would continue to look for bright people in growing the team." | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]