‘Ad’-ding it all up: From agency job to a media buying conglomerate

Advertisement mogul talks of his career trajectory.

KARACHI: 21 years ago, Raihan Merchant made a career choice that surprised his friends. When he graduated from the Institute of Business Administration in 1991, he chose a job at an advertisement agency instead of a more promising career in investment banking.

Two decades on, Merchant sits at the helm of M Holdings: a conglomerate of media companies that holds the second largest share in Pakistan’s advertisement industry; the total size of which is estimated to be around Rs28 billion.

“Nothing succeeds like success,” he says enigmatically, while talking to The Express Tribune. “Investment bankers trade in shares based on their research, and that’s about the same what we do at a media buying house.”

A media buying house procures advertisement space on different media on behalf of its clients and attempts to create maximum value by optimising the ad placement and pricing.

After working for Interflow Communications for five years, Merchant embarked upon an entrepreneurial spree and established several media companies over the years. From content creation for TV, to media consultancy; there are few advertisement-related fields that Merchant has yet to explore.

He prides himself on the fact that he introduced the concept of media buying in the country in the 90s. Not only that, he says that it was his constant efforts that finally brought the concept of a “people meter” to Pakistan’s TV industry. A people meter is an audience measurement tool that records the viewing habits of TV audiences. A small device installed in television sets of about 800 TV viewers records the duration, channels, and programmes that people of different age groups watch every day. Subsequently, the company shares collected data with TV channels and ad agencies; which allows programme ratings and a better allocation of advertisement funds.

According to Merchant, the idea of Coke Studio – a TV series featuring live musical performances – was also floated by his company. “It was the CEO of one of our companies who came up with the concept in 2006. The result was a phenomenal success. The market share of Coca Cola increased 15%-20% subsequently, which is a big achievement.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2012.