When most of my family were dabbling with their left brain I was skewed towards the right. Gandhi Jayanti liberated me! On that very day I decided that becoming a CA was not my cup of tea and promptly told my mother that all I wanted to do was paint. Her answer was as conventional as I had expected, “Beta! We are middle class South Indians! We know nothing about business. Who will you sell your paintings to?”After a yearlong war she finally relented and I enrolled myself for commercial arts. (It was the commercial side of art which convinced my mother that I will at least have a job.)
Now, after almost 12 years in advertising, out of which 10.5 wonderful years at Leo Burnett, which have seen my journey from a trainee to a creative director, I love every bit of my life in advertising.
I am also very passionate about all the other forms of art apart from advertising. It reflects in my blog ‘WindowSeat’ which is all about life and design. My home (which I decorated myself) was chosen as the top 5 studio homes in Asia by Apartment Therapy and this encouraged me to become a contributing writer to an Interior Magazine in its DIY and colour features. Editorial Photography is my other interest and this has taken shape as a face book page called ‘No Makeup story’. I am also involved in the revival of art and craft in India with the ‘Happy Hands Foundation’.
Apart from all this I also give my best shot at being a good mother to my two wonderful children, a good wife to my caring husband, learn sitar and watch movies.
I also step in to help my husband and friends as a colour and production consultant for their films, Chillar Party and few McDonald’s commercials are there just to illustrate an example.
Why are you in Advertising?
Solving client’s problems gives me a high. Understanding the human mind and its behavior intrigues me a lot. A combination of both is what keeps me glued to advertising, even after so many years. Very challenging yet very rewarding.
Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications?
I have done Commercial Arts from Sophia Polytechnic.
Tell us about your most recent campaign?
The most recent work is for Indian Idol Season 6. It was a challenge for us since there are too many singing shows and the question was how do we differentiate ourselves from the others and most of all how would it strike a chord with the nation. The idea came from a simple human truth – parents, siblings, friends, teachers, neighbours, well-wishers have always been a guiding and supporting force behind what one wants to achieve, however small or big. Which was then captured beautifully by my writer Neeraj into ‘Har idol ke peeche hote hain na jaane kitne idol’. And then the idea was captured through various heart-warming stories written by my team and brought to life by the director Hemant Bhandari of Chrome Pictures.
Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
Undoubtedly, my mother for her forever positive outlook towards life and her sister (my aunt) who believes that you are never too old to learn anything new. Even at the age of sixty she wants to do a PHD.
Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising?
I have been blessed to learn the best from the best in my career. I learnt good design and typography skills from Vikram Gaikwad. The credit for my grooming in brand building goes to Kumuda Rao and Aggi. Paddy taught me how to be good at art direction. Pops, for believing in me and always encouraging me to think out of the box and guiding me in my career and life. And Nitesh Tiwari, who has influenced me the most to write stories, think big ideas and he is also my biggest critic.
Where do you get inspiration from?
Life experiences and conversations.
Tell us something about ‘Talking Books’ which won bronze at Cannes.
This was an idea which was with me for a long time but I always found something missing in it. Till I discussed it with Nitesh. He gave me a direction and actually forced me to think through it because I had almost given up on the idea.
Today’s Children are so much more interested in games and technology that they hardly read books. On the other hand, you just don’t read a book, you actually live it and interact with it. The idea of ‘conversations’ started from this very insight. Children get influenced by anything they are exposed to and great books are the best conversations children can have to learn from. We created 3 radio spots for Strand Book Stall where we showed kids benefiting from their conversations with Gandhiji, Nelson Mandela and Helen Keller.
Do you have any kind of a program to nurture and train young talent?
I don’t have any set agenda or program to encourage young talent. I don’t believe in hierarchy. So everyone in my team is involved in everything including meeting clients. Of course, as a team leader I nurture and identify each individual’s talent and push him or her in that direction. I hear them out and take their suggestions and make them equal partners in the process of creating.
Tell us something about the leo Burnett environment.
It’s a fun place. A home without closed doors. We have a flat structure in LB which makes everyone work together in a perfect harmony.
Tell us about your biggest challenge as a Creative Director?
Taking tough calls and being a task master even when I don’t want to be and most importantly I am a bit scared about the fact that I shouldn’t end up missing gem of an idea from my team by negating it. Which does not happen! Because if I negate it, my team has the freedom to discuss it with Pops and Nitesh.
Tell us about your 1st work as a Creative Director.
Launch of Wella Kolestint hair colour & launching Bigg Boss on Sony.
Pick and tell us about one of all your past campaigns, your personal favourite…
Every piece of work I have done is my favorite.
What do you think of the state of Print advertising right now. At least
here in India, the released work is most often too sad?
Print advertising is not sad at all. It’s what the brands require and where the ad spends are. All beauty, automobile, apparels, media categories have great looking print and outdoor campaign. We do a whole lot of print and outdoor for Sony. Yes! Print and outdoor for some categories have become more of a reminder medium. More of the icing on the cake than the cake itself.
Do you think brands who’s advertising wins awards, do well in the market?
Let me put it this way. Brands whose advertising doesn’t win awards need not necessarily do well in the market. Ad industry has plenty of examples with of brands whose advertising has won awards and done well in the market too. KBC and Indian Idol has done that for us.
What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals?
As creative people we have to continuously upgrade ourselves and find our true calling in any one art of advertising. We cannot afford to lose sight of why we are in advertising. Most of the times I hear young professionals telling me that they want to do big campaigns but they are not ready to go through the rigor. Put your heart and soul in whatever you do and you will see the difference it makes. Focus on your strengths than worry about your weaknesses. Don’t fall in love with whatever you create, it will only make you biased. Lastly, don’t get in comparisons with other creative guys because everyone is different.
Mac or PC?
Mac.
Who would you like to take out for dinner?
Rabindranath Tagore & Van Gogh
…And I wonder what the conversation would be like.
What’s on your iPod?
Amit Trivedi , Dido, Jack Jhonson.
Your upcoming campaigns if any?
KBC 6.
One of the most talented people I have ever known. Best wishes Ash. Still remember doing the project with you for Kaleidoscope years ago. Keep rocking! Shanty.
🙂
Hi Ashwiny! It was good reading your interview but whats amazing is the incredulous inertness in some of the issues that you have addressed. Rather, a lack of creative vision, if I may be allowed to say such.
You say ‘Print advertising is not sad at all’. Please buy the latest issue of Outlook or India Today or any other regular Indian publication and go through the print advertising work. It sucks. It sucks beyond belief. One reason could be that agencies have to make print themselves (unlike TV, which is outsourced). How can you ignore the ocean of bad print floating around?
Then you say ‘Brands whose advertising doesn’t win awards need not necessarily do well in the market.’. The Philips TV Digital work won many an award (including at Cannes, the most fashionable self-esteem booster for agency creatives), and a couple of years down the line Philips shut down its TV business. Great brands of today, like Apple, Facebook, Tesla, Twitter etc have been built without any overtly visible advertising.
I know you will give me examples like Fevicol, Cadbury’s etc. Fevicol was a market leader and generic with the category before they started advertising. Same with Cadbury’s.
Vodafone advertising is much liked by agency creatives, and the kutta-billi-anda manoosh (ZooZoo) became poster campaigns for all agency creative arguments. It did not make Vodafone India’s largest telecom service provider. Airtel is, with its run of the mill advertising.
The contribution of advertising to contemporary brands, in contemporary India, is negligible. I write this as a brand manager. Agencies have little or no input to give apart from ‘lets do TV, because TV has reach’. Unfortunately for many premium brands, the TG spends more time online than watching TV, but agencies are ill educated to handle digital.
When it comes to digital, agencies feel ‘lets do a viral’, which basically means, lets do a film. Maybe agencies should become fiction film producers like Yash Raj etc, and spare the clients.
Dear Suresh,
Why so serious? Digital isn’t the only medium of advertising. And if you are looking for an agency to provide digital solutions for your brands then you really don’t know what to expect from your agency. You should be more worried about getting an IDEA from the agency which can travel across all the mediums. Looks like you’ve got your priorities placed wrongly. Why would brands like Fevicol, Rin, Wheel, Tide, Castrol CRB Plus, Mahindra Tractors and many many others maximize their spends on digital when their TG doesn’t even give a damn about internet. So what’s wrong when brands like these spend maximum on TV and other mediums? Contemporary brands need digital solutions but how can TV and other mediums be discounted? And maybe you should dig deeper and see some of the digital work that’s happening in India. It’s not just virals. If you have got only virals from your agency then you have no right to generalize it for the ad industry as a whole. Philips shut down because it did a Cannes winning campaign? Lol. That’s too much of an accusation to digest. Airtel is market leader despite mediocre advertising? That’s too much credit you are giving to the advertising. Brands are not built only through advertising. Clients need to do solid work from their end as well. If you want advertising to do everything for you then why should you be the brand manager? And why on earth would Facebook and Twitter need advertising? You say Apple doesn’t advertise. Really? Are you forgetting their cannes winning launch commercial? The brands that need advertising advertise, the brands that don’t need advertising indulge in PR. It’s that simple. And I agree with you, print work in India is not up to the mark. It’s because brand managers like you sit and write copy. And I agree with you that bad advertising still sells because brand managers like you hide behind research to save your jobs and push for the safest work that can be done on your brands. An ad agency is as good or bad as what it’s client allows it to be. And in your case, the ad agency happens to be bad. We all know why.
Mohit, you sound like a classic contemporary copywriter. Incoherent. And lacking any analytical skills.
Firstly I never said digital is the only medium.
Secondly, I said, to quote myself, “Unfortunately for many premium (premium is the keyword here) brands, the TG spends more time online than watching TV, but agencies are ill educated to handle digital.”
Most of the younger lot too spend more time online and on mobiles than on TV. If I had to advertise a hard core youth brand, perhaps TV would be my last choice.
And I never said Fevicol should NOT be on TV. What I said was, Fevicol was a market leader, generic with the category, BEFORE its advertising won awards. I gave examples of Fevicol and Philips TV to suggest that trade awards dont do much to build a brand. What is required is to create excitement around the brand.
You say “The brands that need advertising advertise, the brands that don’t need advertising indulge in PR” : How ignorant you are. The business of an agency is to build a brand. Whether that happens through your beloved money spinner : The TV, or through PR, shouldnt matter. You should focus on building brands, not fulfilling a spineless fantasy of becoming a back seat film maker.
You say “It’s because brand managers like you sit and write copy”: We are forced to write the copy because your agency writers cant spell their own names right and because, as I mentioned above, they spend client money living their fantazies. If brand managers can write copy, what cant ‘creatives’ analyze research data?
You say “brand managers like you hide behind research to save your jobs and push for the safest work that can be done on your brands”: Of course we want to be safe. We have multi-million rupees worth businesses and the livelihoods of many employees at stake. Whats your stake? The scam awards nights? The totally unnecessary shoot in Europe at client’s expense? And yes, since you lack the education to understand research, you will continue to detest it. Because it asks for logic and coherence, terms which are alien to you.
But I have seen TV is often the first choice of agencies. And lets be honest why. TV is big money. It glamourous for agencies to indulge in. They get to travel to places at the expense of the client. Some agencies are known to take huge kickbacks from producers to desperately hold on to their sinking bottomlines. The creatives often extort kickbacks from film producers too.
Print is relatively unglamourous, low money for the agency. So is digital. Most agencies are clueless about what they should be doing in the wake of the growing time consumers spend on their mobiles.
You say “An ad agency is as good or bad as what it’s client allows it to be.”: Winning incestuos trade awards on scam ads doesnt make you capable of building brands. Show me a good contemporary comprehensive advertising campaign that built a great brand from scratch, that consumers are willing to pay a premium for.
Agencies today are not worth money to a client. We all know it. Hence the agency fee has been repeatedly slashed, year on year. 20 years ago, top brains from the IIMs and IITs wanted to join advertising. Not today. The brains have left. The scam remains.
(Facebook, Twitter and many contemporary brands are also BRANDS, which have been built. But not through the unidimensional way a typical agency would suggest : “Lets do lots of TV, some reminder medium print, and some youtube virals, and voila, there you are’! Apple’s advertising won that award in 1984, a few years before it almost shut down, and when many of you agency-wallahs sold your Macs to get PCs in your studios. And when Steve Jobs’ single minded focus rebuilt the great brand, you agency wallahs quickly bought the iPhones as a visual symbol of your ‘creativity’, when actually you are just the huge ocean of sheep who consume the latest fad, instead of creating it.)
Nice work…
Ah Suresh,
Stop sulking please. If you have so many problems with the agencies then why don’t you do it yourself for the brands you handle? I am sure you will make a mess of it there also (like the way you write here) because if you can’t spot an idea when it’s presented to you by others, chances are you will be terrible when it comes to conceiving them. All the very best to you and the agencies you work with. I really pity them. And spare me the reply coz I don’t want to waste my time arguing with a person of an IQ level as low as you.