Colgate has a healthy respect for competition: Red Fuse Communications' Shubha George

In 2012, WPP set up a dedicated unit to service packaged-goods giant, Colgate-Palmolive. Thus Red Fuse Communications was formed with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Mumbai, Kansas City, Sao Paulo, and Prague. Interestingly in India the Colgate-Palmolive account was with Rediffusion Y&R till 2010 following which it moved to Bates and then to Red Fuse. Recently, the agency has elevated, Shubha George, its CEO to the position of managing director for the Asia Pacific region. In an exclusive interview with ET's Pritha Mitra Dasgupta, George talks about the adventures of handling one client vis-a-vis a portfolio full of marketers. Excerpts.

In Asia, Red Fuse is only present in India and Hong Kong. Do you plan to expand to other markets? If no, then how viable is it for Colgate to operate in the entire Asia Pacific region only through two Red Fuse offices?

Red Fuse is a hub and spoke model. Our hubs in Asia are Hong Kong and India. Through these hubs we work with our agency partners – be it Y&R or MEC or others in the individual countries. At this point, we don’t foresee more hubs in Asia.

Tell us how Red Fuse operates.

It’s a team that includes various specialists and they come from any of the WPP companies and there is an independent management team for Red Fuse. However the difference is, we also work very closely with the stakeholder agencies like MEC and GroupM who are our partners in media. Y&R in Hong Kong handles the creative aspect and in India it is Bates. We work with Burson Masteller and Cohn & Wolfe across the region for PR and in India, we also work with Quasar & Dialogue Factory. We have our reporting lines but work closely with different WPP agencies. That’s the difference in structure for a Red Fuse kind of an organisation.

How receptive is Colgate as a client to suggestions?

I have worked with many clients and Colgate would be up there at the top. It’s not so much about a situation or a campaign, it’s just the way we work together. It’s a complete partnership and it’s something that exists and is practiced across and through New York, the regions and individual countries. The entire model of Red Fuse is built on a deep, full and thru-the-line partnership with the client. So unlike some other clients where the relationship is built between individuals in the agency and in the client team, Red Fuse/Colgate is an exception, where the process itself is built on institutional and systemic partnership. So even if you take out the people, the process works. We are party to every decision that is taken by the marketing team at Colgate. And because of the model of Red Fuse we work across different departments of Colgate like the rural team, the customer development team, the shopper programmes, the corporate communications team and so on.

Tell us about the competitive pressure Colgate is under with Sensodyne and Patanjali and the impact it has on Red Fuse.

In the course of the 75 years there have been different types of competition. Colgate has a healthy respect for competition. Our singular commitment has and will always be consumer delight. The strategies we formulate and deploy keep this in mind. We will obviously take into consideration competitive activities, but our direction and efforts will always be influenced by consumers.

Tell us about some of the work that was conceived in India for the regions.

There are some campaigns which are specific to some markets simply because the role and state of each of those brands in different markets could be different. So for instance, Colgate Strong Teeth is a huge brand in India. But in some other markets it may not be the lead brand for Colgate. So in that case, it is not a global campaign but more of a sub-regional campaign. So for Colgate Strong Teeth, the actual strategy and campaign is developed in India. Then there is definite opportunity to use the rural learnings from India to build strong strategies in markets not just in Asia, but also Africa.