MiQ scouts for a CEO to lead its Indian operations

MiQ’s co-founder and global CEO, Lee Puri, has long enjoyed his visits to India. These trips offer him a chance to engage with the company’s 225 clients, a relationship base built steadily over the last decade and a half. India also serves as a listening post for Puri, allowing him to gauge what agencies and clients expect from the company, particularly as MiQ shifts its focus from client acquisition to client retention.

"We're definitely ambitious in terms of growing in the market. But we want to have a sustainable, value-driven growth by ensuring that our clients are happy," Puri told Campaign on a recent trip to Mumbai.

This particular visit, however, had a different focus. For the first time, MiQ is seeking to appoint a chief executive officer for India, marking a significant step in the company’s commitment to expanding its operations in the region.

The move to recruit a local CEO underscores the growing importance of India within MiQ’s global business strategy. "We work with companies like Google in India as well as local players within APAC, in addition to collaborating with organisations on an agency basis," explained Puri. "This is one of the reasons why, for the first time, we want to bring a CEO for the country. It is a signal about how serious we are about the kind of partnerships we want to establish commercially with agencies."

In September 2024, MiQ made key appointments to bolster its leadership in India. Ribhu Mishra was brought in as associate vice president—revenue and agency partnerships, focusing on business operations for the western region. Additionally, Meenal Gupta was promoted to regional director for the South region, and Juhi Lalchandani was appointed as regional director for the North region. These changes came in the wake of the departure of Siddharth Dabhade, who had served as MiQ’s managing director for India for over four years.

India is a critical market for MiQ, with operations based in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore. However, its largest presence in the country is its technology hub in Bengaluru.

A global play

MiQ, co-founded by Puri and Gurman Hundal in 2010 as a programmatic marketing agency, has grown significantly since its inception. In 2018, MiQ rebranded from Media iQ; a year after it raised capital from UK-based private equity investor ECI Partners. In September 2022, Bridgepoint acquired MiQ in a majority investment that valued the company at close to $1 billion. This investment helped the company to pursue new clients and expand internationally.

This Centre of Excellence (COE), established 12 years ago, employs around 450 people, representing nearly a third of MiQ’s global workforce. The decision to set up the Bengaluru COE was one of the first major expansions for the company, and it has since become a vital part of MiQ’s global operations, playing a central role in the company’s growth strategy, particularly in terms of technological innovation and data management.

Puri and Hundal, both with experience in the traditional ad network model, foresaw a shift in the display ad space due to the rise of technology. They decided to license tools such as AppNexus, Xandr, and later Google’s DV360, to stay ahead of the curve.

"Our business model was never one where we told clients that we've got a platform, so come with us. Instead, it was to become a programmatic independent company that can connect brands with the best technologies, platforms, and data providers that exist," Puri explained.

To remain competitive and deliver greater value to clients, MiQ realised it needed access to more comprehensive data insights. This would enable them to trade more effectively on behalf of clients, which prompted the establishment of the Bengaluru COE. According to Puri, the decision has paid off handsomely.

"We needed to scale and have a point of differentiation as well as build technology that can unify the platforms. That's what the COE has effectively done—it has built technology that allows us to connect data, surface insights, and drive execution," he added.

MiQ’s platform-agnostic approach, positioning itself as a managed service provider (MSP) rather than a technology platform, has been a key differentiator. This strategy has allowed the company to remain agile in the fast-changing programmatic marketing landscape. Puri noted that the supply of programmatic ad space has grown rapidly in recent years, with significant investments flowing into connected TV (CTV) and automatic content recognition (ACR) data, particularly in the United States.

The company has capitalised on this shift by making strategic mergers and acquisitions in the ACR space, which has become one of MiQ’s most prominent offerings in markets like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Puri sees significant potential for this technology in India, where the CTV market is still in its early stages. With five years of experience in CTV in other markets, MiQ is well-positioned to replicate its success in India, particularly as the market for programmatic advertising begins to catch up with its digital maturity.

A market in a growth spurt

India’s advertising market is digitally advanced, but programmatic advertising still lags behind. A e4m-GroupM report expects the country’s programmatic ad revenue to reach Rs 394 billion by 2024. The India's programmatic advertising platform market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% from 2024 to 2030.

This significant expansion is driven by multiple factors—the ongoing digital transformation, marked by rising internet penetration and increased smartphone usage, is a major contributor. Additionally, the growing popularity of programmatic advertising stems from its cost-efficiency, real-time optimisation, and improved return on investment.

Advertisers are also leveraging the digital shift to more precisely reach their target audiences, further fuelling market growth. Puri believes CTV will be the driving force behind programmatic growth, as marketing budgets shift from traditional linear TV to connected devices.

According to a 2023 WARC report, the majority of advertisers and agencies plan to increase their investment in programmatic advertising over the next year. The study, which highlights key trends in programmatic and adtech, reveals that 74% of advertisers and 80% of agencies expect to boost their programmatic spend within the next 12 months, based on data from IAB Europe.

Additionally, research from Dentsu indicates that 71% of digital ad spending will be executed programmatically across multiple platforms in 2023. The rise of new channels like connected TV, gaming, programmatic audio, retail, and digital out-of-home is also driving the expansion of the programmatic ecosystem.

As more brands become comfortable with programmatic advertising, publishers will follow suit, driving demand for CTV solutions. "It will probably follow a similar path to what we're seeing in other markets, but it could be highly nuanced. Local players will have their own predefined rules about how to operate it," he stated.

MiQ’s experience in the US, where the programmatic ecosystem is highly fragmented, has taught the company how to navigate and scale in such environments. Puri sees similar opportunities in India, where local OTT platforms, set-top box manufacturers, and broadcasters all play a role in shaping the CTV landscape. MiQ is already in talks with a major brand in India to scale TV insights using ACR technology, which Puri believes will become a crucial tool for brands in the programmatic space.

ACR data, gathered from chips embedded in smart TVs, provides detailed insights into what viewers are watching, both on linear TV and CTV platforms. MiQ is leveraging this technology to offer brands a deeper level of audience targeting, which Puri sees as the future of programmatic advertising. However, he acknowledges that the Indian market is still in the early stages of understanding and adopting these new trading methods.

Price versus value

One of the challenges MiQ faces in India is the market’s price sensitivity. Conversations with clients often revolve around procurement costs, but MiQ is working to shift the focus from price to value.

"Our business hasn't necessarily been built on being the cheapest, but rather on delivering value. And this value appears differently to different people," Puri said. For some, value is measured in return on investment, while for others, it might be in service quality or data insights.

As MiQ continues to expand its presence in India, the new CEO’s first task will be to lead discussions about how the company can offer the same pricing as it does globally, while also adding value through a focus on client outcomes and key performance indicators. With a clear growth strategy and a focus on programmatic innovation, MiQ is poised to play a significant role in shaping India’s digital advertising landscape.