The Hindu Business Line : JWT's creative quest

COLVYN Harris, JWT India's CEO, who's been at the job for three months now, knows he has an onerous task at hand. In some sense, things have been moving fast forward for Harris every since he took charge at the country's largest agency early this year. Now, not only does Harris have to preside over an image makeover for JWT, which happened end February, but also ignite a fundamental change in the agency's thinking as well as in the way it approaches the advertising for its several big-ticket clients.

JWT's much heralded change in its corporate colours as well as the compression in its name to just the three alphabets from the longer moniker of J. Walter Thompson, Harris insists, is only symbolic of the change that is being attempted across the 75-year-old agency. Says Harris: "JWT has always been know for being a strong suit-led and a planning-led agency for many years; now we are trying to put creativity at the centre of it — the planner and the creative person must be equally responsible for a piece of work. And, the only mandate we have now is great work."

Harris, who brings with him the creative energy that JWT's affiliate Contract has, says that creativity will now be at the centre of what JWT does. "We will change the paradigm by how our advertisers — and consumers — consume advertising. The task of advertising now is to get consumers of our brands to spend more time with the work we do," Harris told Catalyst in an interview at JWT's gleaming glass and steel office at Peninsula Towers in Lower Parel.

That could be a pretty tall ask. If advertising doesn't interest a consumer adequately and is not of a standard which gets them involved, chances are that they're going to turn the page or switch a channel. But if the work is good, he or she could well stay with it. "Our task is to get more people to stay with our clients' brands. To do that we have a couple of metrics, what we call the health check (see interview on page 3), which evaluates the work we do.

So, as Harris emphasises, what the company is undergoing is huge change. And, this change, he says, isn't just to with the Indian affiliate of the WPP-owned JWT, but worldwide. "We want to transform JWT to be one of the world's leading creative agencies. For many years it did lead this market, and now we want to do things that will make us lead."

The Chairman of a Mumbai-based ad agency believes that JWT, or the erstwhile HTA, lost its way somewhere along the way and putting the zing back in creative is a recognition that it has to get back on track. "It's been years since JWT won the `agency of the year' at the Abby awards. The creative image of agencies like O&M is beginning to hurt JWT too. But Harris has a background from Contract where creative is hot so he should help get the focus back," says he.

A senior executive of a large advertiser with JWT says the realisation is there within the agency that it needs to get its creative focus back but whether it can do it fast enough is the question. "Of late," points out this executive, "the best creative talent don't want to join JWT, scared perhaps of its size. But, if they're putting the focus back on creative, it's good for clients." He points out that JWT's creative output for the brands it handles, though adequate, hasn't been outstanding and if the agency doesn't get back on track within the next couple of years, it will lose focus.

Harris knows that. As he says, "Most of our clients are market leaders and lead their markets with huge margins. They are ambitious; we have clients who others would give an arm and a leg for (large advertisers like Pepsi, HLL and Ford). If our clients are ambitious, we are equally ambitious for them; we believe creativity is the marketing mantra which will get them deliver results. Our clients want to be market leaders and we want them to be that and we will look at delivering it more effectively."

This, Harris says, can be delivered by building an offering which goes beyond the traditional model of a 30-second TV spot and press ad, which traditionally agencies have always done. "We want new-age insights and want to reach people differently," explains Harris. JWT's new thinking is create advertising which is a lot more participatory. "In the old thinking we thought we should have ads which are more clutter breaking; that's one way, that's not incorrect, but now we want consumers of our clients' brands to live and breathe their brands, so it will last longer that way." Harris points to Pepsi's recent music video with the Indian cricket team and Amitabh Bachhan as an example of how advertising and branding can be less intrusive and more as entertainment.

Jayraj Rau, the Chennai-based VP of JWT, who, like Harris, has spent close to 25 years with the agency, says there's a huge audience out there which is able to emote with brands on a new wavelength. "Interactive communication is the key," he says, "and we need to blend our advertising with entertainment, with editorial, make it less obtrusive, less overt." Rau says that consumers today appreciate advertising which is less obtrusive and overt. He talks about the recent TV campaign of LifeStyle International, which he says is more an entertaining film than a commercial. "When we sought feedback from the consumers about the campaign, most of them said the film was entertaining and there was not much mention about the brand connect per se. The film talks about youth who are `high on life' and that's what the brand is all about." Harris insists that growth is not going to flag at the country's largest agency. JWT is looking at a topline growth of over 10 per cent, "and for us a growth of 10 per cent means that we have to add another agency every year, we are not a niche agency, we work in the popular India market, and with brands across India."

JWT India turned 75 years old on March 23, a fact not lost on Harris. "We have a huge tradition of successful brands; we have a rich legacy, we have a very consistent team, they have made recommendations on clients' strategies and seen the outcome of that, we are a very consistent company from that perspective." With the agenda clear set, he's now hoping that the name change for JWT will be a lot more deeper and rejuvenate the agency right across.

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