CORPORATE REPORT

A perfect copy
From a small advertising agency to a vibrant
entertainment, media and communication
conglomerate, Percept has scripted an inspiring tale.
SHRIVATSA JOSHI
Tamil film Kanchivaram and Hindi
movie Firaaq win critical acclaim
and national awards for their rivetting
content...
Indian animation film Hanuman
breaks new ground and the
mythological character emerges a
tough competitor to many iconic
Disney characters...
Sunburn, the heart-throbbing
music festival on the Goan beach,
captures the imagination of youth
and music buffs...
The UPA government’s Jai Ho
campaign, capturing flagship
social welfare schemes in India’s
villages, strikes a chord with the
people just before the last year’s
general elections...
From integrated advertising cam-
paigns, to embedded content and in-
novative media solutions, Percept
companies offer total media and
communication solutions to its vast
and diverse clientele. Besides, its
partners such as Hakuhodo (the
services company based in Mumbai
and New York) and Indivision India
Partners (a Mauritius-based fund
with globally renowned investors)
have taken Percept far and wide.
“The stress is on owning intellec-
tual space rather than mechanical
space. We have invested in ideas and
believe in owning the entire stretch
of the value chain to deliver
the best to our clients and stakehold-
ers,” points out Percept Vice-
Chairman and Managing Director
Harindra Singh.
The genesis
The birth of Percept is as inter-
esting as its exciting journey so
far. Way back in 1980, young
Harindra was just out of college
and was all set to fly to the US for
further studies.
But destiny had something else
in store for Harindra Singh. He
was asked by his friend’s father to
look after Interads, a Mumbai-
based advertising agency, for a

T
he above events and in- few months. In a short time, he was
stances appear uncon- able to tur around the advertising
nected. They seem to be agency, which began making roar-
randomly listed without any co- ing business.
herent relation. However, a closer The owner insisted talented
examination throws up interesting Harindra to stay on and run the
results. All these instances have a agency as he was floored by the
common thread running through way he had transformed the
them. They can be traced back to agency in a short span. The young
Percept, the Mumbai-based enter- man’s American dream did not
tainment, media and communica- materialise, even as he plunged
tion (EMC) company, the brain deep into the ad world.
behind all these events and many Within a few years, Harindra
more. Ideas are our driving force, admits quit Interads to start his own ad-
Founded in 1984 as a small ad- Harindra Singh. vertising agency, Percept, with a
vertising agency, the Rs 2,600-crore world’s ninth-largest advertising paltry capital of Rs 12,000. A first-
company has traversed uncharted ter- agency), Bennett, Coleman & Co generation entrepreneur and son of
ritories and branched out to diverse, (owners of the Times of India a technocrat, Harindra Singh faced
exciting segments of the EMC indus- Group), the Lal’s Group (a leading several challenges that any entrepre-
try. With over 1,200 people and pres- retail giant in West Aisa), Passport neur would face and came out suc-
ence in 62 offices in India and Capital (a San Francisco-based, glo- cessfully from every challenge.
abroad, Percept finds itself in an en- bal investment firm), Edelweiss Subseuqently, he roped in his
viable leadership position. Capital (one of the leading financial younger brother, Shailendra Singh,

24 MAY 2010 INDIA BUSINESS JOURNAL

the current joint managing director of Percept. The two
brothers, sportsmen themselves, took the hurdles in their THE PERCEPT EMPIRE
strides and grew Percept from strength to strength in E PERCEPT PICTURES
the Indian advertising world. N Film production, distribution and marketing
Branching out T
PERCEPT TALENT MANAGEMENT
In the years to come, Percept established itself as an E Celebrity and talent management
advertising agency to reckon with. Moving with times R
PDM INDIA
and embracing innovations, the advertising agency T Experiential marketing and brand activation
marched ahead confidently. In 2000, Percept struck an A
PDM GULF
alliance with Japanese advertising giant Hakuhodo, which I Experiential marketing and brand activation for
has proved to be a turning point for the company. N West Asia
The Japanese tie-up gave birth to Percept/H, the flag- M P9 INTEGRATED
ship company, which is a 50-50 joint venture of Per- E Entertainment branding and branded
cept and Hakuhodo. Ranked 12th by Brand Equity Agency N entertainment
Reckoner for 2009, Percept/H has to its credit some T
outstanding creative campaigns for the Union govern- SHARE IN THE TOTAL GROUP REVENUE: 41.2 %
ment, Toyota, Hero Honda, DLF, Canon, Electolux, Sa-
ALLIED MEDIA
hara Aamby Valley City and many others. M
Media planning, evaluation and buying
The pact with Hakuhodo also resulted in another ad-
E PERCEPT OUT-OF-HOME
vertising agency, Hakuhodo Percept, offering wide-rang- Outdoor, retail and rural media
ing advertising solutions exclusively to Japanese com- D PERCEPT KNORIGIN
New technology and future media
I
MEDIA AGENCY MIDDLE EAST
A Media solutions company for West Asia

SHARE IN THE TOTAL GROUP REVENUE: 18.4 %

C PERCEPT/H
Flagship advertising agency
O HAKUHODO PERCEPT
Percept’s movies have won critical acclaim and awards. Advertising agency handling Japanese clients
M
AMO COMMUNICATIONS
panies like Maruti Suzuki, Citizen, Panasonic, Sharp and M End-to-end advertising solutions based on
many others. Moreover, Percept has three other adver- SCPC model
tising subsidiaries, namely, AMO Communications, IBD U
IBD
India and Percept Gulf (Dubai). N 360-degree solutions for advertising, films,
It was the early 1990s and the Indian economy was identity management and interactive media
thrown open to the world. Quick to pick up the chang- I
PERCEPT GULF
ing trends, Percept made a foray into public relations in C Advertising solutions for West Asia
1993. It has been extending its services to some of the
A PERCEPT PROFILE INDIA
best-known Indian and global companies. PR consultancy firm
“Percept Profile is doing great quality work. We are T PERCEPT PROFILE GULF
handling the Singapore Tourism account for the past five Media and PR consultancy services for West Asia
years. We have also drawn up a high-end business strat- I
PERSPECTRUM
egy for Nissan, which is being implemented in 115 coun- O Integrated marketing communications
tries across the globe,” reveals Harindra Singh. consultancy company
The growing economy and proliferation of media N
companies, ranging from the conventional to the most SHARE IN THE TOTAL GROUP REVENUE: 37.4 %
modern, brought about a profound change in the dynam- It set up a slew of companies to cater to varying advertis-
ics of advertising. New approaches and strategies were ing needs of its clients. Thus was born Allied Media Net-
needed to put clients’ messages across in an effective work (the media planning, evaluation and buying agency),
manner. Percept Out-of-Home (outdoor media advertising), Per-
Percept was quick to adapt itself to the new changes. cept Knorigin (digital media advertising) and P9 Integrated

INDIA BUSINESS JOURNAL MAY 2010 25

 CORPORATE REPORT
After changing the face of Indian boxing, Percept is betting big on other sports too.
(in-film marketing). In 2005, the
company also established
Perspectrum, an integrated market-
ing communication consultancy, of-
fering consumer insights and market
intelligence.
The Percept chiefs were bubbling
with energy and enthusiasm. They
were in no mood to limit themselves
to advertising and PR. Event manage-
ment was proving to be a huge po-
tential area. Percept promptly en-
tered the event management arena in
1995 with the formation of Percept
D’Mark (PDM).
In the years after its genesis,
PDM has established itself as the
country’s leading experiential brand
marketing company. It has managed
over 3,500 brand experiences and
created intellectual properties, in-
cluding the Indian Cricket Team
Sponsorship, Wills Lifestyle India
Fashion Week, Airtel One India Chal-
lenge (Asia’s largest car rally) and the
Sunburn Festival, the annual, high-
octane musical extravaganza on Goan
beaches. PDM leads in the core do-
mains of managing sports, wedding,
fashion and entertainment, among
others.
“Three years down the line, we
have converted the Sunburn Festival
from a product to an experience and
it is now a brand, much along the lines
of the Glastonbury Festival in
Somerset, England. In the next sea-
son, we plan to take Sunburn beyond
26 MAY 2010
India to Dubai, Malaysia and Hong
Kong,” discloses Shailendra Singh.
The Percept promoters seemed
unstoppable. Meanwhile, the silver
screen was passing through an excit-
ing phase. Arrival of multiplexes and
entry of corporate houses into pro-
duction had changed the face of
Bollywood. The Singh brothers
walked into the tinsel town, with the
birth of Percept Picture Company
(PPC) in the year 2002. One of the
group companies, launched in 1993
for making ad films, Tyger Produc-
tions, was consolidated and restruc-
tured into a movie production com-
pany and was rechristened as PPC.
"Percept is in the business of com-
An avid sportsman, Shailendra Singh
is spearheading Percept’s sports
endeavours.
munication and we thought that we
could communicate to a greater au-
dience by entering films. We have
consciously focused on quality films
based on social causes. Branded con-
tent, that is placing brands in mov-
ies, was also a motivation for Per-
cept to foray into movies," explains
Harindra Singh.
Over the years, PPC has grown to
be a fully-integrated content cre-
ation, aggregation and distribution
company. PPC has produced a num-
ber of quality films like Firaaq,
Kanchivaram, Hanuman, Traffic
Signal, Corporate and Phir
Milenge, to name only a few, which
have won critical acclaim and awards.
In 2007, PPC forayed into distribu-
tion with Sony Pictures’ Spiderman
3. Last year, the company launched
PPC Horrotainment, solely
dedicated to production of the hor-
ror film genre.
“Cause Cinema is a genre that we
repeatedly want to tap into. Movies
like this touch a million hearts and
our successful journey with such cin-
ema started a long time ago when we
made films on social causes like
Phir Milenge, Firaaq and
Ramchand Pakistani. Kanchivaram
has further proved the point that
meaningful, engaging content tran-
scends all demographic and geo-
graphical boundaries,” adds
Shailendra Singh.
In 2007, PDM’s Celebrity Man-
agement Services (CMS) and PPC’s
Talent Management (TM) converged
to form a separate entity, Percept
Talent Management (PTM). The com-
pany marks a confluence between
creating, inculcating, honing and pro-
moting talent. It acquires celebrities
across all genres and provides ser-
vices by value offerings through en-
dorsements, merchandising, media
tie-ups, PR and so on.
Winning all the way
Last year, Percept celebrated its sil-
ver jubilee. The journey has been
highly exciting for Percept and its
INDIA BUSINESS JOURNAL
 “Our inclusive sports strategy will work wonders”
F or the last 25 years, Harindra
Singh has been the driving
force behind Percept’s success.
Teaming up with his brother
Shailendra Singh, they have nur-
tured Percept and grown it into a
robust conglomerate. In an exclu-
sive interview with India Business
Journal, Mr Singh speaks about
Percept, its growth over the years
and future plans. Excerpts:
How will you sum up
Percept’s journey so far?
It has been exciting. I shall not
hesitate to add that we have been
lucky too. We found ourselves in
right places at right times. There
have been ups and downs and at the
end of it all, I can say that we have
been quite successful.
How was the going for Per-
cept during the recent economic
slowdown?
We registered a 100 per cent
growth during the recent slow-
down. There was no retrenchment.
On the contrary, we added new per-
sonnel and offices in many of our
sister companies.
Looking forward, Percept is bet-
ting big on the new media and sports
to drive its future growth. The digi-
tal media revolution, which is un-
folding in the country, is set to
change the face of advertising and
entertainment. The internet and mo-
bile phones offer unimaginable op-
portunities to reach out to millions
of people.
Percept is gearing up to seize
these opportunities as they come by.
Percept Knorigin has drawn up am-
bitious plans to service Indian and
global clients by leveraging digital
media technology like the internet,
mobile phone, gaming and other up-
coming platforms. Percept also be-
lieves that the future is all about ideas
INDIA BUSINESS JOURNAL
group companies.
How is Percept Pictures doing?
Percept has produced some good
films in the past. But we have also
burnt our fingers with some. We are
Singh: In right places at right times
now focusing on the entire value
chain of film-making. Though we are
not producing any movies for the
time being, you will see about 6-8
releases from us this year.
After Commonwealth Boxing
and is hence building a huge portfo-
lio of intellectual properties (IPs).
Sport is another arena that has
immense potential. There are many
GROWING REVENUE
Figures in Rs cr
Capitalised billing
2,598
Revenue
1,773
1,330
172
175
167
FY08 FY09 FY10
Championship, what other
sports events are there on your
agenda?
Percept has drawn up an inclu-
sive sports strategy, where the
youth will be encouraged to engage
in such sporting activities that
have limited entry-level barriers.
We are trying to popularise sports
like wrestling. We will be promot-
ing it through sporting events on
the lines of the IPL. Our inclusive
sports strategy will work wonders
for the youth and the country as
well.
Today, the Indian advertising
is domintated by global majors...
True. But I fail to understand
why an Indian agency cannot grow
big enough to acquire a foreign
peer. Given the right opportunity,
Percept will be pleased to do so.
With markets rebounding,
are there any plans for an IPO?
There is definitely a plan to tap
the market to unlock the share-
holder value. We may go public
sometime in 2011-12.
sports that are dying to get their due.
It is here that Percept believes that it
can make a perceptible change.
Percept recently changed the face
of Indian boxing by joining the Indian
Boxing Federation (IBF) as its exclu-
sive marketing partner for four years.
The IBF, which was struggling to get
sponsors, managed to rope in a score
of sponsors such as XXX energy
drink, DLF, Siyaram and Hero Honda,
among others, after Percept tied up
with it.
The secret behind Percept’s
growth is its constant endeavour to
be in sync with the time and innovate.
Fired by sportsman spirit, the Singh
brothers, Percept is all prepared for
a long play.
MAY 2010 27