Adgully Exclusive | Crystal Gazing- Media in 2011

The first working day of the year 2011 is here. To commence the new year with a pepped up leader talk, Adgully caught up with industry torch-bearers to know their plans for the new year. Starting today, we bring to you a week long series of opnions from experts across the field of media, advertising, brand, television, radio and print divulging into the year's possible trends.

Today we bring to you two leaders from the field of media sharing with us their plans for the year and some of the trends they foresee across the media industry. Given the cluttered media space and the lack of adequate measuring tools for each of the medium, it will be interesting to note where do these respected leaders see growth coming from:

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman India & CEO South East Asia, Aegis Media India Pvt. Ltd.

Plans for 2011:

We see Aegis Media India as a group claiming its rightful leadership position in India, as it enjoys in Europe and other markets. This year will be a step in that direction which will strengthen the group's position. We are also looking at high growth across our 8 companies in India in terms of geographical expansion, aggressive recruitment and extensive training.

Key trends to see in 2011:

I see a rapid growth of digital communication, particularly Search. Moreover, there will be a rapid evolution of OOH industry in terms of professionalizing, digitalization and shake out of weak agencies.

Gowthaman Ragothaman, Leader, South Asia, Mindshare:

Plans for 2011:

Our primary focus will be to raise our quality of products that helps us to "de-commoditise" our services. We would like to focus on increasing the value added services to our clients across a suite of services. In 2010 we have invested in this space with successful adoption with a few clients. We would like to expand our net across all our 14 client clusters. Our Value Added Services are spread across Analytics, Consulting, Intelligence/Dashboards, Social Media, Search, Mobile, Content/Branded Entertainment and Experiential Marketing.

At the basic level, we believe the industry is becoming unduly obsessed with TV as a medium whatever little research we have is predominantly focussed on the execution side of the TV plan implementation. We would like to therefore focus on getting into the core of this issue and invest in superior consumer understanding and sharper understanding of the way key consumer clusters consume media.

We would like to bring in a diverse set of talent into our eco-system who would challenge our existing beliefs on the industry which will help us to be on the "go" and alert in the marketplace.

Key trends to see in 2011:

With the first half dominated by Cricket on the back of a slew of "new reality" shows, I believe fiction based TV serials will get a new lease of life. TV viewing will go through a change in habits, extension of Prime Time in the evenings and late nights along with weekend viewing is likely to undergo some changes.

Social Media and how to use the same will be questioned but with no specific answers. Marketers and Advertisers will try many things in this space and it is good for the industry. Social Media is also likely to bring the Creative and the Media Agencies, closer, forcing them to collaborate more. Clients will require more than one media managers to manage the portfolio of media channels

Mobile medium is likely to explode on the back of price drops on smartphones, accelerated by World Cup in India in 2011 and IPL.Content on the phone and therefore smarter applications and gaming will become a significant trend.

Print as a medium will move towards engagement as their core offering. Besides, Adex is likely to maintain the same level of growth in 2011 as much as in 2010 and which augurs well for this industry.

Keep watching this space for more, as tomorrow we get you Crystal Gazing: Advertising 2011 with Josy Paul and Agnello Dias | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]