Media Factory receives backing of Sri Lanka’s first media planner
Media Factory is a specialized media entity that had pioneered the concept of consolidating a client’s media budget and utilizing the economies of scalein order to achieve returns on investment (ROI) for the client.
Having been instigated 13 years ago, Media Factory has come a long way and still ensures that the best minds come behind the framework in order to allow for the proper implementation of global best practices and mould this knowhow to suit the local viewpoint.
Rohith Hettiaratchi joined Media Factory on 1st May 2018 as their Business Strategy and Planning Director. Prior to joining Media Factory, Rohith was also a part of Starcom, another leading agency in the country. Having been present in the industry for over 24 years, he also happens to be the very first Media Planner in Sri Lanka, having had embarked onto this career in 1994. The position was created for a revered client at the time, Unilever Sri Lanka.
Rohith began his career in media in 1994 and at the time, a leading multi-national company, Unilever happened to be a client for the company he joined. He disclosed, “I had noticed a vacancy in the paper and decided to apply for it. Luckily, I was selected and that is when my career in media planning began. There is this concept called Media Buying which means that the creative aspect could be done by a separate agency but the media buying part could be done by another agency. So, I worked at an agency in 1999 where we had the very first media buying assignment done.”
Along the way, he worked to set up what is today, one of the largest media buying agencies in Sri Lanka, Groupm. Rohith was instrumental in initiating Mindshare Groupm as per the client’s requirement. So, the first multi-national media agency started in Sri Lanka by Groupm because Unilever regarded the need for a separate media planning and buying entity in Sri Lanka.
“Since I have been in the industry for a very long time, many of the people who are in leading agencies today have worked under me and I have provided leadership development and training for many of them. Along the years, I have also been active in terms of publishing many articles and research based write-ups with regards to media planning and many of these have appeared in leading papers and magazines in Sri Lanka,” he further added.
In the past there were these traditional advertising agencies which used to provide communication solutions for their clientele. Part of that is buying media for those communication needs. When we say buying media, this pertains to placing advertisementson TV channels, the radio or even print media for example. Previously there used to be this concept called advertising agencies that existed and these used to be denoted as fullservice agencies.
Now, full service agencies would produce the commercial, buy the media for their particular client and then ensure that it goes on air or that to the publisher. With the growing complexities and the choices and the cost of media, there became a need of a specialized agency who would take care of the media planning and buying aspects.
Therefore, these media agencies started coming up and what they do is understand the communication needs of the client, use whatever available research in terms of audience choices and then provide a recommendation to the client indicating the places that the client needs to be present in if to attract the right target audience. If a client agrees on it, media personnel would then visit media houses, negotiate and purchase relevant media on behalf of the client.
The work that Media Factory conducts resembles that of a consultant’s for the advertising space of their client. Media agencies hence evolved due to the many choices that were available, the complexities and the cost factors which keeps going up on a daily basis. The agency is part of a specialized media agency. Rohith further stated, “Media Factory has been the pioneer in setting up a specialized media agency in Sri Lanka, 13 years ago. The aim of this concept is to establish better ROI for the client on their investmentsand apart from that, there should be the need to have an innovative presence in media which would cut through the clutter. So, what we have been giving them is that solution.”
Rohith commenced his career as Sri Lanka’s first Media Planner at Lowe Lintas and forayed to other leading agencies such as Grey Worldwide and JWT in Sri Lanka. Gradually, moving forward, he worked for Unilever Sri Lanka as the Communication Channel Manager and instrumented the role of changing the game of media buying for both Unilever and Sri Lanka as a whole. Prior to joining Media Factory, he was CEO/ MD for Emerging Markets of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal and managed the Starcom Media Vest Group (SMG) franchise under Brainchild Communications in Dubai, UAE.