AgTalk | Will continue to improve Ad revenue: Dainik Bhaskar's Pradeep Dwivedi

The Dainik Bhaskar group has recently appointed Pradeep Dwivedi as its Chief Corporate Sales and Marketing Officer. Under his new role, he will be reporting to Sudhir Agarwal, managing director, Dainik Bhaskar Group. A seasoned marketing veteran with several years of experience behind him, Dwivedi has worked across industries. Prior to his current job, he was with Tata Teleservices as its regional chief operating officer and senior vice president.

Over the years Dwivedi has worked with GE Capital, Standard Chartered Bank and American Express Bank handling commercial automotive sales, commercial finance, asset-banking assignments and assignments in unsecured products (including credit cards & personal Loans).

Adgully spoke to Pradeep Dwivedi to understand his new role and responsibilities.

Adgully (AG): Firstly congratulations for your new role. Did you see this coming?

Pradeep Dwivedi (PD): Thanks for your kind wishes. I was always keen to work in the media industry as it is a very dynamic industry with wide diversity of exposure to practically all other industries. My prior experience in automotive, banking & financial services as well as telecom has also helped me to move in naturally into my new role at the Dainik Bhaskar Group.

AG: Can you briefly share with us your journey so far?

PD: My first job in 1993 was with Eicher Motors (part of Eicher Group), an automotive major in LCVs. I started out from Madhya Pradesh by establishing brand awareness & a leading market position for Eicher LCVs in state’s institutional business with significant sales volume growth in key profitable B2B market segments viz. commercial transportation, trade, health, central police organizations & municipal bodies. I tasted significant success with innovative product & promotional strategies and in a short span of two years moved on to manage their Eicher’s institutional sales & marketing business at the corporate office in Delhi.

The emerging opportunities and challenges in telecommunications sector led me to work for Tata Teleservices, where I headed various roles in sales, service, operations, besides a significant stint in marketing and product management for the enterprise business since its inception.

With extensive B2B background and having working with global as well as pan India partners, media industry appeared to be natural progression & choice. Since it allowed me to leverage my diverse experience into many more industries as the ‘medium of voice and choice’ for marketing communications.

AG: What are your role and responsibilities at Dainik Bhaskar Group?

PD: As chief corporate sales and marketing officer, advertising revenue generation and group brand management is a core responsibility for me. As a team, we drive business objective of profitable and sustainable revenue growth by partnering with our clients and media planners & buyers across our state markets and corporate centers. We have so far achieved Rs. 9100 million in 9 months till Dec. 2012, with growth of 5.2% YOY. We expect to continue to further improve our Ad growth, going forward, on the back of better ground sentiments, coupled with various policy reforms aspects, implemented and proposed by Central Govt.

AG: Can you throw some light on the strategies and plan of action you have in mind?

PD: We have managed to evolve a new partnership model with our client- advertisers and media-planners & buyers which put the client’s TG diversity, reach objectives and campaign effectiveness at the core of all that we do. Our credible demonstration of this approach has yielded great results for some of our automotive, FMCG & lifestyle customers. It has been very special for us at Bhaskar group since we see this as validation of our strategy to develop state and market specific strong competency of our corporate sales teams and leveraging the strength of our position in each market distinctly.

AG: Looking at the current scenario, where do think print industry stands? What strategies in terms of marketing and sales can help them grow bigger and better?

PD: The value drivers of the economy have certainly changed towards emerging India and this trend is likely to accelerate in 2013. Hence, advertisers are likely to increase their focus and ad-spends in Tier–II & III markets. We believe that the print medium will continue to merit a significant attention span of advertisers, planners and buyers in the coming year, simply due to its efficacy in delivering segment-specific ROI.

AG: Share with us some key challenges that you think would come in your way considering your new roles and responsibilities.

PD: As an industry challenge category in advertising this year, Education, Telecommunications, IT & BFSI have not performed at par with the trend seen in previous years in print media. Hence there are missed opportunities there. However, we believe that some of these categories will surely bounce back soon once the economic climate improves.

AG: What would be your key focus areas at the Bhaskar group?

PD: We believe that 2013 is likely to be significantly better than last two years given the government intent on economic reforms, driving investors sentiments besides propelling the economic growth across all sectors. This is already visible viz. FDI in retail, Sensex at 20K and the prospect of general elections in 2014 could also increase government spending on social and political messaging. With the ball set rolling by government, the private sector would certainly shrug off the uncertainty and look to grow across the board. All this implies increased advertising and communication spends which will certainly benefit us and will be our core focus area. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]