Adgully Exclusive | Ratish Nair & the pulling capacity of Admagnet

Ratish Nair is the co-founder Admagnet, a full-service advertising network that empowers brands to reach online audiences on any platform. Admagnet is a bold creation, for it was launched in 2008, just when the economic boom was tapering off and a full-blown global recession was looming around the corner. The network's robust health today testifies to the vision of its founders. In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Nair tells us how he got where is his today.

"My first stint in a job lasted two years after which I completed a post-graduate course," Nair said. "Then I joined Ogilvy in the media-planning department. After two years at O&M, I moved to Euro RSCG. In 2000, a lot of people were joining the dotcom business and I planned to do likewise. My boss, Ramani, was starting a new company ” Media Turfs ” and he asked me to join him. He said, "We are an online space so you might want to join us.' I moved from Kolkata to Mumbai and I was probably the second or the third employee."

Nair's courage to be at the frontier of developments in the business spurred another movement in 2006. "Five of us ” Sunil, Amar, Shantanu, Anjali and myself” got together to start Interactive Avenues," he said. "We thought it was a good time to do so. There is always this inherent feeling in all of us that we should try to do something on our own. So we thought even if it didn't work, we should give it a shot. And it is never too early or too late to try things out." That quiet self-confidence served the five pioneers well. "On the third day after the launch, we broke our first campaign," Nair said. "And in the company's first month, we opened two other offices, in Delhi and Bangalore. And within just two years, we grew quite big, securing a lot of clients. We don't have any audited numbers, but we reached the number one digital agency spot in India, with clients like, ICICI, NIIT, ITC, Dell and many more."

Despite the accomplishments, Nair ready for another leap. "In 2008, I moved out and we started Admagnet," he said. "Now we are the fourth largest property in India after Google and Yahoo."

What accounts for Nair's incredible score of successes? "Luck plays a part," he said. "Though hard work is crucial, without luck we could not have achieved what we have today."

Nair said that consumer goods companies have not embraced the internet very enthusiastically.

Adgully asked Nair what it would take to align clients' thinking with the e-reality. "One, on the research front, for example, what is on offer is much cheaper than TAM," he said. "So at least you are not planning anything based only on gut feelings. But that approach restricts itself to direct market-performance parameter. So the best thing to do is to tell clients that branding is possible on the internet; and then more brands will come on board."

Nair said if broadband services were to become better or if 3G were to be introduced, the access speed would be boosted. "Currently, a lot of people think internet is a waste of time because of the speed issue," he said. "When the number of people in cyberspace grows, there will be serious business. And finally, different formats are going to make a considerable difference to the business. Today, there is only so much you can do on the banners. It is much more difficult to capture the attention of consumers with banners than with a commercial."

However, Nair does see a brighter future. "In about five years, the digital option will become one of the mainline media routes," he said. "You will see far more activity then and far more urgency from advertisers." Admagnet itself has doubled its growth from last year.

But what about mobile business? Does Nair think it will surpass the internet business? "There are two ways of looking at it," he said. "There are 600 million mobile users, and maybe the number is more than that of the people who watch TV in the country. 3G can be the biggest game-changer, especially for a lot of people who do not have a PC. For them, the first form of access can be a mobile. From an application point of view, mobile seems to be a good proposition. From the advertising point of view, I am not too sure that mobile is going to be big."

Today, some mobile-internet companies are offering their media options by assuring performance. We asked Nair if that was a good idea. "If you push too much, the business will go the internet way," he said. "I think the current situation is that everyone has ended up doing it. It is not the right way. It may come back and bite them sooner or later."