Mindshare Sri Lanka won the coveted gold award at the recent Media Agency of the Year 2021 awards for its overall performance during the 2020/2021 period, beating all other media agencies in Sri Lanka and across the South Asian region. The nation’s most awarded media agency has credited its strategic approach as the driving force behind this achievement and others. Elaborating, Mindshare noted that it was their aggressive performance backed by thorough planning, foresight, state-of-the-art tools and investment in people that propelled the organization forward through the challenging 2020/2021 period.
Mindshare’s outstanding success could be attributed to the agency’s strategic approach when planning media for brands that fall into one of two categories: ‘Decline’ or ‘Growth’. For brands in declining categories, Mindshare set out to arrest degrowth by helping customers through innovation navigate turbulent times, while for brands in growing categories, Mindshare aimed to exceed expectations of organic growth by identifying and doubling down on rapidly emerging and evolving category drivers and media trends. .
In the year under review, Mindshare managed to minimize decline/achieve growth in the ‘declining’ category, which is responsible for 51% of the agency’s revenue. The remaining 49% of revenue came from 5 product categories and in each of these categories, Mindshare alone accounted for more than half of the advertising. Mindshare managed to beat organic growth rates in categories where they had little room for growth.
Additionally, Mindshare also managed to outperform the media industry by 17 percentage points, posting a 37% growth in billings from January to September 2021 compared to the same period the previous year in which the industry only grew by 25%. Currently, GroupM controls 30% of ATL’s advertising market in Sri Lanka, split between Mindshare and its sister company, Wavemaker.
This growth was achieved through a complete “redesign” involving a multitude of areas, including re-evaluating media reach, optimizing the media mix for greater efficiency, multi-screen placements realigning both the agency’s communication and commercial objectives according to the evolution of the media. landscape especially in times of pandemic.
Adhering to strict advertising standards has ensured the quality and effectiveness of every piece of communication, while stakeholder relations with Google and Facebook have reached new heights, resulting in better engagement and, by hence better yields.
GroupM CEO Sabry Haniz said, “The numbers and results weren’t just limited to growth and sustainability, but other important facets as well. Talent retention has been exemplary with periodic training, development and intervention where needed.
“Mindshare’s performance in Sri Lanka is in line with its overall strategy and new corporate philosophy. Mindshare defines ‘good growth’ as the belief that growth is no longer geographical and that new nations and new markets are emerging,” he said.
