Adgully Exclusive | Allied Media is all set for year ahead with its M3 model: Shripad Kulkarni

Allied Media Network Pvt. Ltd. is a company that offers true 3600media solutions to clients across conventional as well as traditional media. It has a dedicated multi-city intranet network which helps the centralized planning and buying process with the capability to "execute & activate' at a localized level, it also provide a unique media service delivery platform through its micro-marketing infrastructure. This ensures reduced national and regional response time apart from increased speed and efficiency for clients.

Allied Media is the media planning, evaluation and buying arm of Percept Limited. Some of Allied Media's esteemed clientele includes brands like Future Group, BSNL, Panasonic, Canon, DLF and Sahara, to name a few.

With experience of more than 23 years in the media industry, Shripad Kulkarni has managed every aspect of the advertising media. He has worked with Contract, Clarion and O&M, where he has handled and helped build a wide spectrum of brands like Pillsbury Atta, Vicks, Hamam, Fevicol, Philips, Zandu Balm, Moov, Sahara Group, Johnny Walker and Kalnirnay, to name a few. Kulkarni has conducted over 200 workshops in Media Planning, Media Buying as well as Ad Sales and teaches regularly to management students at MICA and other institutes. He has also advised many a media in Strategy, Content and Ad Sales. At present Kulkarni is on board as CEO at Allied Media Pvt. Ltd.

In conversation with Adgully, Kulkarni shared insights on their future expansion plan and M3 model.

On elaborating about their relationship with Point logic, he said, "Point logic has a special analytic and research based Model called M3 model. M3 stands for Message, Media and Market. On Message - we focuses on the drivers for the category. Media means all 3600 degree communication channels including the word of mouth. The Simulation part of the M3 Suite gives us ROI - possible impact on the market share. M3 model software is a kind of decision support system which helps to understand, what combination of message and communication channel is expected to deliver the best market share."

For Allied Media, Delhi is the fastest growing market with growth of 50 percent and, at present Bombay and Delhi are similar in business volume..

At present Allied Media is already there in client based market as Chennai, Bangalore, Luck now and Pune. On asking about the future expansion plans, Kulkarni said, "We would want to expand in two 'three more metros depending on the business potential. As a group we are always open for any non-organic growth. With our Point logic alignment we now have the best tools, and now we are ready to compete with best of the best."

The biggest advantage that the company has is that they are the right maturity level on the agency life cycle. The media AOR business is stuck in a time warp, but now we are in the position to redefine the various structures of our business model. Allied Media believes that, with this orientation and re-structuring of the business perspectives that has been planned will give them an edge that would be seen soon in the market.

On digital media front, Kulkarni said, "Digital media is a very big industry and we have specialist Company as Percept, and we are moving ahead with it by having digital planners in every major group of ours so, that digital planning would be intrinsic to the whole planning process."

For the plans ahead, he continued, "Like last year we will concentrate on specific segments, specific markets and with our new thrust on tools we will target the challenger brands. We would show to the leading brands that how we can create success for the challenger brands. That is our game plan not only for this year but for next 18 months. We already have huge strength in 360 degree area of the groups which we would leverage like never before."

Due to slowdown period, 2012 could be the tough year than the last year for many industries, but according to Kulkarni, "These economic issues like recession are global in nature. We are strong fundamentally, so if we focus right and the companies which would innovate in this period with right mix of investment and focuses on relevant opportunities will do well for some time to come. We would be amongst one of those companies for sure. Clients spend will be at similar level, some categories will be affected but as seen in the last few years, certain sunrise categories, would cover the loss. Because as a market we are still vibrant growing market."

The core expertise of Allied Media is that they like to challenge and redefine themselves. We understand advertisers need, and quickly adapt and change ourselves to deliver. Besides this, due to our Group Pedigree we offer true holistic 3600 in real time and real terms.

My word of advice for young Media professionals, "In life you often need unimaginable level of resilience and patience in many a situation." Concluded, Kulkarni. | By Ranjana Gupta [ranjana(at)adgully.com]