The Hindu Business Line : Lowe CEO calls for high standards in creatives

Goa, April 5 The Interpublic group’s Lowe Worldwide spent the highest sum of money in India last year compared to anywhere else in the world, said Mr Stephen Gatfield, CEO, speaking at the Goafest. This year, Lowe will concentrate on building the acquired business organically. He was happy with the way the Indian creative team was performing, but said that setting a standard in place by the industry would help.

“You want a standard in place for the Indian industry. Research systems, technologies should be co-developed. The Indian mobile phone scene in the ad space has really taken off, and you cannot say now that the country lacks in technology. It is fast catching up,” he said.

India was ranked 15 by the Gunn report last year in the most awarded countries of the world category. The ranking may not be too ambitious, but it was encouraging, he said, as India had gained almost 10 steps from the previous year.

Ogilvy & Mather and McCann Erickson were the only two Indian agencies to have found a slot in the top 50 agencies ranked in the Gunn Report. Mr David Gunn, in his presentation, said that India was seen as an emerging space for media and communications and it had great ideas to carry it through. Perfetti’s Happydent White Palace advertisement, created by McCann Erickson, was nominated for the Cannes Grand Prix and is an indicator of where the Indian ad industry might be heading, he said.

The communication was so good that Happydent had to build extra production lines to meet the unexpected spurt in demand.

Mr Craig Davis, Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide, JWT, felt that the quality of thinking and execution had gone up in the Indian ad space. “There are great ideas here and I believe India should not emulate anyone but bank on its Indianness to carry it through.”

Mr Davis does not believe in surrounding people with the 360-degree approach and JWT would never do that. “We believe in targeting the right people at the right time and place. Sometimes, you will see that it will only be a 17 degree approach,” he said. Last year, JWT regained some of its lost ground in agency rankings and it was gained by focusing on certain important key points. The agency followed a three-fold strategy of work, reputation and growth, with work as its core focus in all discussions. “We do some right things, some wrong things. What has happened is that we have consciously started doing more of the right things now. It takes a few years to build a solid base and the results show eventually.”