Chris Foster, the newly appointed chairman and regional chief executive officer, Saatchi & Saatchi APAC, was in Mumbai recently, and we took the opportunity to ask him about his plans for Saatchi India and how he plans to make digital all pervasive in the organisation.
When asked whether Saatchi & Saatchi India will be aggressive now, following recent news of the Skoda win and new talent coming in, he said, "We have a great core base of clients to build on. Our number two focus area is creativity: that is our reason to exist. And number three for me is digital: digital is what everything is going to be about. You ask if we're going to be aggressive now, that is our core plan."
On a question about whether clients are asking for digital now, he said, "It varies client by client. Clients with younger target audiences are more inclined to go into the digital space naturally. In India, with half the population under the age of 25, talk about a great opportunity. And that's why I say, we have to be digital by nature, and not by discipline. Not in silos, but pervasive across everything that we do."
He went on to add that the ways to build Saatchi India's digital capabilities are to borrow from other agencies in the network, build from within by ensuring everyone who comes on board at the agency is digitally conversant and oriented, and buy competencies where the other two ways fall short.
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