On 25th of March 1980, AG Krishnamurthy founded Mudra Communications with INR 35000 and one client. In 1989, precisely 9 years after its establishment, Mudra became India’s 3rd largest Indian advertising agency. And, almost two decades from its inception, it was a mammoth in the industry.
From beginning his career with Calico mills, Ahmedabad’s largest textile set-up in the late 60s to starting up his own business venture, Mudra, and academic venture, MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad), AGK Sir’s (as he’s fondly known) journey is a dream in itself.
YourStory got in touch with him on 29th April 2013, the day when he released his autobiography “If you can dream…”: a compilation of factual and emotional treasures that went behind creating two great brands: Mudra and MICA.
[Edited Excerpts]
YS: You started Mudra with 35000…what was the initial time like?
AGK: (laughs) Confusing. There was a lot of confusion because we had a huge mandate from Dhirubhai Ambani. And the mandate was to produce the best possible advertising for textile, for Vimal only. So, Vimal should be second to none, and should get the finest possible advertising in the country. The office was set up in Ahmedabad, my choice, not his choice, because you know, I love the place, I love the culture here, I like everything about Ahmedabad, and didn’t want to move out of this place. Although Mumbai is considered to be the Mecca of advertising, and was way too westernized then (and is now), I had different thoughts then.
I am a small town man; I have a huge respect for Indianness, Indian people, Indian language, and India as a country. So I thought if you’re going to do something for India, it better have an Indian basis. What do they want, what are their emotional responses? So with a belief system like this, I thought let’s set up in Ahmedabad which was a desi kind of a city at that time.
Now all this confusion happened because we started the agency with a lofty goal, a good Indian company like philosophy, but the problem was all support services were to be found in Mumbai; no writers, no art graduates, no models, no photographers, no ad film makers in Ahmedabad. These are the lifelines of an ad industry, and they weren’t there in the industry at the particular point of time in Ahmedabad, and they were all available in Mumbai.
This formed the set of initial hurdles that the Mudra team had to face.
YS: What gave you the idea of setting up MICA? What was the vision then?
AGK: By 1989, Mudra had become the third largest agency in the country. It is a phenomenal growth for an Indian company, and that too you know, not situated out of a city like Mumbai. And so for a regional company to become a national player, and that too the third largest in the country was not a small achievement.
Now when we talk about Indianness, gratitude is an integral part of Indianness; and we believe in not biting the hand that fed us. You want to give a smile and you want to say thank you very much. In the short span of nine years, Mudra grew so rapidly that we thought that we owe something to the advertising industry. We wanted to pay back. So on one side was this huge gratitude of paying back, and on the other side the industry was supposed to be some 2000 crore in 1990. It is phenomenally huge today, but for a 2000 crore industry no regular supply of talent was a major concern. The ad agencies had to go to business schools and get regular business graduates and then again spend time and effort in training them on the job. Added to this, advertising was not a major subject in any of the major business schools, and the industry severely lacked specialized talent.
Along with the fact that there was a need for talent, another issue needed to be addressed then: attrition. You know “I pinch you-you pinch me” kind of musical chair situation. People would come and go, come and go, come and go, and this would cause a lot of discomfort for the brands that the particular person or team worked with. Just imagine that this particular set of people that worked on a brand for, say, 4 years, suddenly left the ad agency. I have seen this happening a lot of times in my career, and it was really unnerving.
So all of this: the lack of talent, the attrition, and the undying desire to pay back to the industry, was what led to the formation of MICA.
YS: You started AGK Brand Consult after Omnicom acquired Mudra…what does it feel like starting all over?
AGK: So basically, AGK Brand Consult is something that I have been doing all my life.
When I started Mudra, it was not a full time job, it was a lifetime job. My life was dedicated to it. In the beginning, for the first nine or nine and half years, I used to go to work at nine o’clock in the morning, and return at 12 in the night, every day, six and half days a week. Sunday I used to take a half day. We were really full of Mudra at that time; it had become a part of our life.
So I thought, there should be life beyond Mudra. There was life before Mudra, I wasn’t born with Mudra, nor am I going to die with Mudra, so I thought why not explore my attraction towards NGOs. So I took up this part time consultancy that enabled me to spend some time with my family and also allowed me to stay in touch with the latest happenings in the industry.
But I do very selective work, I don’t take up every single assignment that comes my way. I pick and choose a handful of brands and advise them on various strategies
AG Krishnamurthy
YS: As an entrepreneur yourself, what are the 3 advices that you would like to give to young entrepreneurs?
AGK: I think it’s a very important question. You need to have a really clear understanding about the need-gap in the market and what do you want to provide. If you are going to offer “one more” that one more should have a reason basically. In the entire world there are two issues involved in marketing: one is, are you value for money or are you adding more value. Value for money is an existing product offered at a lower price, the other one is, I am moving the envelope, I am taking you forward by offering better features. So before you start anything, you must get a proper fix on this.
Number two is, what difference are you bringing to the table? Suppose in an existing category you’re planning to offer value for money, how’re you going to do that? You know, people buy products through a rational decision. And, a brand is a confluence of both, logical and emotional quotient. But, unless you’re happy on the logical side of it, your emotions will not assist you. I think the emotions come a little later on. Once you start using a product, then you get attached to it, and then you become loyal to it. But, when you start using it, you begin by thinking logically. Suppose I am going to buy X TV instead of Y TV, so somebody must ask, why are you doing it?
So you must be very clear about what you’re offering to the target customer.
- What is the business model that you want to get into?
- What exactly are you bringing to the table?
- Who is your customer?
It is because you can’t reach every person in the world, that this becomes very necessary.
These three questions you should put on a piece of paper and try to answer them, then you get a business model. Also, say in the technology space, a lot of young people come to me and say that “I got a great idea”, it’s then that I ask “who will buy this?”, “why will they buy this?”, “do you have the financial muscle?”, because you see, dreams are very expensive. Especially for an entrepreneur it’s a goddamn expensive dream, big money is involved, you’ve to have deep pockets, and for 2-3 years you have to see whether the idea’s working or not. And, it is because all this, most entrepreneurs need to develop a rational approach to their business.
On a concluding note he says, “Most products don’t fail because of lack of quality, products fail because of lack of proper marketing strategy.”
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