The Hindu Business Line : Swamy and his times

Last week saw the release of R K Swamy - His Life and Times, the biography of a legend of Indian advertising. Named after its founder and known today as R K Swamy BBDO, the firm came on to the advertising scene in the early '70s, distinguishing itself with many notable campaigns and becoming one of the top ten ad agencies in the country within just a few years of its birth. Founder R K Swamy passed away in 2003. R K Swamy BBDO commissioned this book to record his contribution to the industry and to the company. The following are excerpts from the chapter Standing Tall:

When JWT overlooked Swamy's unimpeachable credentials for the top position in JWT India, it was time for him to recast his life. His friend and long-time associate KSK summed up the situation thus: "A time comes in every man's life when he has to make difficult decisions. In Mr Swamy's life, he had to decide on enlarging the scope of his entrepreneurial strength, guided by his inner vision. At age 50, in 1973 he ventured out on his own, to start the agency, R K Swamy Advertising Associates, with a capital of Rs 1 lakh, a sum perhaps greater than his life savings. In this, he took a calculated risk, but since his faith in his intuition and trust in colleagues were beyond doubt, the agency grew from strength to strength and today it is among the top agencies in the country."

Coincidentally, this was one of the lowest periods in Indian history, politically, economically, socially. After nationalising 14 of the leading banks and the general insurance companies, the Indian government was plunging headlong into a path of continued licensing and controls, strengthening Nehruvian socialism and its mixed economy model. It was a time of strikes, power cuts, coal shortages, bottlenecks of every kind in the infrastructure sector, and very little incentive for growth and increased productivity.

Concentration of power in the hands of the ruling party and catchy slogans became the order of the day, and a restless youth was beginning to unify under the inspiring leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan. The opposition was becoming vocal and several questions were being raised in Parliament about the government's populist schemes, especially the functioning of the public sector. It was not known then, but the Emergency was barely two years away. Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) under the chairmanship of Dr V Krishnamurthy was a performing PSU, but it was equally under attack on the floor of the House. Its image needed sprucing up, as the public remained hugely ignorant of its accomplishments.

As widely quoted in the media, Swamy saw a door where others saw only a wall. Even while at JWT, he had seen an opportunity in PSU advertising, and with the help of `Kalki' Vaidyanathan, approached V. Krishnamurthy and unfurled his plans for improved communication by the power sector giant.

His approach to the PSUs (public sector undertakings) was simple. He emphasised that advertising is an expression of the economic system and that performance has to be consistently presented in the right light to counter unfounded criticism. Advertising also helps to establish and maintain a distinct personality of the corporation. All of these were radical concepts for the time.

The work done for BHEL by the fledging agency was outstanding. It was bold, different and set a whole new trend. BHEL was an important case study of a successful organisation in the 1980s in the Advanced Management Programme of AIMA and Mr Swamy's contribution to the institution was acknowledged and appreciated.

A workaholic

Swamy was the motivator behind most of the campaigns, and he was a workaholic. He often worked through the night, coming back with his family to the office at 11.30 p.m. after dinner at home. He liked to show his wife the work his team was doing. All the tension and hard work caught up with Swamy and he suffered a massive heart attack in 1979. When he was admitted in HM Hospital, Dr Pratap Reddy, who later founded Apollo Hospitals, treated him. When he was a little better, and Bilimoria (the agency's creative chief) visited him at the hospital, he was already discussing office work. Years later, Swamy helped write a business plan for Apollo Hospitals, and that led to government approval of the project. R. Raman, who now runs the advertising agency Aspirations Communications in Chennai, was among the first people to join Swamy when he left HTA to start his own agency. He remembers that Swamy always contributed ideas to every campaign.

K. S. Krishnamoorthy, K. R. Bilimoria, N. S. Rajagopalan, N. Padmanabhan and Sumit Chatterjee were some of the colleagues to join in the early days of the agency. All the TVS accounts had moved over from HTA — Lucas TVS, Brakes India, Sundaram Clayton, Wheels India, Sundaram Industries, TVS & Sons, Madras Auto Service, IMPAL and so on. TT (Pvt) Ltd, the makers of Prestige pressure cookers, and Hindustan Photo Films were among the earliest accounts. Soon BHEL and HMT became the new agency's clients.

Most senior professionals in the advertising industry in Chennai today would have worked in JWT or R K Swamy at one time or other. "Trained in R K Swamy" was a popular brand!

Trend-setting work

The major campaigns in which Swamy was involved, starting from his JWT days and continuing into the years of his own agency, carried powerful messages, based on hard-nosed research and a deep understanding of the consumer's mind, and were creative trendsetters. Even when photography was not yet a popular tool in Indian press advertising for technical reasons, the visual appeal of most of these illustration-based advertisements was compelling and the copy was telling and to the point. What is of vital importance is that the advertisements did the job expected of them. They created product awareness where none existed earlier, combining brand-building and corporate image-building, something hitherto unheard of in the realm of the public sector.

In the early days, Madras had few models for advertisements. Raman modelled for quite a few ads. Those were the days of illustrations and photographs were used only as references for the artist.

One such improvisation was the use of an employee, Srinivasan, as a model for an Amrutanjan campaign of five or six advertisements. "The first ad was about to be released, and you can imagine the amount of work that entailed in pre-computer days. Twelve different art works and blocks had to be made. Srinivasan suddenly developed cold feet and told us the ad could not be released, as according to local superstition, he would not get married if his photograph appeared in the newspapers!" Swamy had to persuade Srinivasan's father to prevail upon his son to let the campaign go ahead. Luckily, he succeeded in his efforts, and the campaign was a success.

When the BBDO partnership came about, the agency could no longer devote quality time to small accounts. TVS, for all their size and diversity, were small in terms of billing. Raman describes his departure thus: "TVS wanted the personal attention to continue and they were comfortable with me. So, with their support, I started Aspirations. My relationship with Mr Swamy continued till the end."

According to V. Ramasethu, who joined JWT in 1956 as a stenographer, one of the business strategies adopted by Swamy in the early days of his new agency was to run an independent creative studio under the name of Collage, which could do design work for other agencies as well. In organisations like the Rotary, he would ensure that his agency rendered excellent service in the area of publicity and display material.

His commitment to his clients was so complete that he would even order coffee for his office guests from India Coffee House, which belonged to a client, the Coffee Board! Swamy received tremendous support when he started his own agency, which formally opened its doors on April 2, 1973 and the Prestige pressure cooker advertisement appeared in The Hindu that very day. The honour for the agency's first advertisement must, however, go to a release on behalf of BHEL that appeared on January 26, 1973, even before the agency was incorporated. The Prestige pressure cooker account of Bangalore was one of the first accounts of the new agency. The TVS accounts came one after the other. Ramasethu remembers a half-page ad on behalf of MMA in memory of S. Anantaramakrishnan of Amalgamations, which was released by the new agency even before it had opened an office. Hindustan Photo Films became a client of R K Swamy in 1974. When HPF vacated the Film Chamber building in Chennai in 1976, R K Swamy moved in there and continues to function there even today.

Convincing ONGC

"We were pitching for the ONGC account in 1974-75," Banerjee (Surojoy Banerjee, Executive Vice-President, R K Swamy) speaks of one of the most exciting projects in his early days with the agency. "Those days, PSUs were very different from today. They did not believe in advertising and communication, other than statutory stuff. Most agencies were therefore not interested in them. They were not glamorous. Much mining work was involved in converting a customer into a business. R K Swamy did all of that. Clients who have grown today into large advertising accounts were at one time accounts other agencies would not even look at."

Swamy had met the Chairman and members of ONGC and suggested to them that though ONGC was doing so much basic work for the country's economy, there was lack of understanding among the people of what ONGC was doing. There were questions in Parliament about the money spent on exploration not resulting in oil finds. He met senior people and prevailed upon them to agree to look at their communication as a serious problem, at creating the right understanding of what ONGC stood for. Swamy told him: "Joy, we're doing this project, and we need to understand the entire oil industry in India, see what ONGC is doing, how it compares with the big players in the world." He dedicated Banerjee to the project and made him spend three months of company time and money on the study. The whole process took three months. Not a single rupee of the expenditure was funded by ONGC, nor was there any commitment on their part to work with R K Swamy.

The agency won the ONGC account. In 1980-81, the agency made its first major campaign pitch for the Hyderabad Allwyn account. It was the Seiko watch launch. Ajit Singh was chairman of Allwyn, and Swamy led the pitch. Ajit Singh was very impressed, but decided to give the business to the No. 1 agency, HTA. At the same time, he gave R K Swamy the business of other products like water-coolers, air-conditioners, and furniture, "because he did not want to not give us work". It was a consolation prize of sorts.

Swamy felt insulted, but on second thought accepted the accounts, as he felt it was better to be inside and fight rather than outside. Within six months to a year, HTA was removed and agency got the Seiko account. It was a very important lesson. Swamy felt, "Never lose heart and walk away from business. We can outlive our rival. Someone else may come into a decision making position and decide in our favour."

According to his younger son Shekar, Swamy started the agency, not as a one-man show, but as a full-fledged team, because he did not know any other way. He never played the small professional game. He could only operate on a reasonably large platform; he did not know whether he was creating a large or small canvas. He knew that he needed all these people to do his work.

R K Swamy
(2007)
Authors: V. S. Chakrapani
V. Ramnarayan
Publisher: Srinivasan K. Swamy
Price: Rs 1,800

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