AgTalk | It is really exciting for Indian professionals in the communication space: Engine's Robin Wight

Robin Wight, President, Engine Group has worked for over two decades in the communication space. In an exclusive interview with Adgully he talks about neuro-science enabling consumer insight and about how India is the new exciting market for the communication space. Excerpts:

Adgully (AG): Globally and in terms of the Indian market how are you seeing the advertising space evolving?

Robin Wight (RW): The way I see the advertising space evolving is that it wont be just advertising anymore, and that the communication will have to be integrated with the new media. So I see a balance between the new media and the traditional media. And I see this happening in the rest of the world and also in India. One more thing that is gradually evolving is that brands will look at engaging the consumers more and more and also trying to interact with the consumers increasingly. Moreover everything a brand says is not going to be transparent, there are consumers online and they are going to be fast enough to express their positive or negative feedback and we have to respect that and learn to take the conversation forward.

AG: Can you tell us a bit about Engine?

RW: The Engine Group was set up seven years ago, and we have always told our clients- "Do not give us a brief, give us a problem.' So we have got 10 different companies covering everything from E-commerce to sponsorship to advertising. All our companies do not work in silos, they are perfectly running in co-ordination with each other.

AG: What are some of the focus areas for Engine at this point in time?

RW: We started off our operations in UK, since then we grew our reach to USA. We are also looking at expanding our base in the Asian markets. We are going to look at China and India as potential markets within Asia. India is growing at 27% year on year and has 300 million plus population which can converse in English, so it is a market which we are very carefully looking at.

AG: You have worked closely on understanding the consumer's preferences with the help of neuro-science, can you tell us a bit more about it?

RW: I have been particularly studying this over the last five years. Some of the things are just common sense and some of it is pure instinct. For example, we now know that brain is not a rational mind and lots of our marketing soltuions are designed for a rational mind. It is important that every marketing solution should allow space for emotional communication. It is also very important to understand that it is very difficult to get the brain to change its decision. So we have to learn what we can do and what we cannot do. We should also learn how the brain bestowes reputation to a brand.

AG: Any message for the Indian marketers

RW: I think Indian marketers have a tremendous opportunity and they can always learn from our mistakes. Moreover it is really an exciting thing to be an Indian person in the communication space when you have got an opportunity to lead the world.