Adgully Exclusive | We plan to introduce many more specialised units in 2011: Creative Thinks Media's Ritesh Malik

Ritesh Malik, Founder, Creative Thinks Media(CTM) has over 14 years of experience in media sales in various organizations, starting out at Videocon as an ad sales executive in 1995, then moving on to Tata Donnelley Ltd., where he quickly rose to head the ad sales division for there "SEARCH MAGAZINE" for a part of the Delhi Region.

In, August' 2003 he moved to RED FM, where he was Head of Sales for North and East India and rose to become National Head for their activation division.

Gradually from there he worked closely on launching the only specialized Radio Advertising Agency in the country and keeping it at a leadership position in terms of creativity and turnover both for the past 3 years of its existence.

In his role of strategic advisor to other departments like marketing communications, content development, and business Development, Malik has acquired significant expertise in every aspect of running the day to day operations of a media company (like hiring and training of key personnel, identifying and setting goals, preparing and achieving business plan targets, etc..) while providing a strategic direction to the growth and expansion plans of the organization.

Adgully caught up with the focused leader to find out more about his plans for CTM in 2011 and how has he seen the industry evolving over the years.

Malik says, "The advertising industry has started opening up a lot of opportunities to talented individuals and the clients are supporting in a big way by giving start ups and individuals a chance to prove their mettle."

Talking about some of the work he and his team has carried out over the years at CTM, he says, "Radio as a medium is very challenging, the biggest disadvantage over TV and Print, is that in radio creatives you cannot show colours or pictures, you only have to rely on the power of audio to grab attention and response both for any campaign."

Malik further adds that the agency has been successful mainly because of the way he and his team understands how to use the medium to its fullest capacity in terms of buying and using space as well as a getting the right creatives produced for specific clients, products or services.

"Last year more than 80% of the market share was serviced and controlled by our organization for the entire DELHI/NCR region put together for categories like real estate, education, retail and SME's. This might be an indicator of our client's happiness quotient with us," he adds confidently.

Malik says that the key strengths of the organization are New Business Development (CTM has more than 150 active clients now), retention of the old business (90% retention rate for the past 3 years) and a supreme understanding about the radio medium.

"And a plus to our strengths is the fact that we offer the most innovative and best in class creative at lowest rates. Our willingness and zeal to keep on being the students of this trade and our ability to continuously be flexible for our clients and the changing market requirements are the key differentiators," he adds.

When asked about the agency's approach while handling its clients Malik says that it is the agency's ability and resources to get surveys and analysis at a reliable span of time which helps the team plan perfectly for the clients.

"I am not a believer of making plans based on various softwares available, not that they do not solve a purpose, but in my view all the data that comes across through surveys is secondary data with very little credibility to it or with a very small sample size against which you cannot plan for the entire region or nation," he further contends.

CTM has branched out into new business this year, chitraclinic.com which is an image portal and will be launched soon. Malik says, "MEDIA CLINIC is a new entity that has been launched, it will work only in the print media space and has started performing as well. On the other hand an event division under the brand CTMMEDALLION events has also been launched."

When asked if the agency is looking at strengthening its digital offerings?

Malik says, "We have already done that considering the importance of the digital and online media in the coming years. We have an in house team working under the Creative Thinks Media brand and offering services such as Google adwords, SEOs, sms campaigns, mobile campaigns, website development and maintenance, domain registration, online email campaigns, software development etc."

While signing off we ask him for his view on the separation of the media and the creative duties, Malik says, "I do not think there are any negatives to it, more flexibility to both entities has actually made them more autonomous resulting in better productivity and coordination. Moreover that is why we see a lot more Indian work getting recognised across the world." | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]