The Hindu Business Line : ‘BBDO India will be a challenger’

With the new 7UP campaign, BBDO India has taken its first steps. Chairman and National Creative Director Josy Paul says one can expect the same creative benchmarks from the Indian arm of the agency judged one of the world’s most creative ones, from day one. “It’s best that I don’t talk, and just show the work soon. There’s a lot to be done!” he says.

Paul who studied atomic physics in college before joining advertising, was born a rebel. With him, thinking out of the box is not an exception but a natural habit. After stints at Ogilvy and Lowe Lintas, he co-founded the ‘challenger’ agency rmg david (later known as david).

He left the agency when it merged with Bates. And now, after a short stint at JWT, he is back to setting up an agency, which he hopes will challenge brand leadership, question existing structures and set new creative excellence benchmarks. He tells BrandLine how BBDO will achieve that, and answers a few other questions.

What’s happening at BBDO? What’s going to be the agency’s motto or USP?

The agency is really in its formative stage ... it’s just the third month of pregnancy ... so things are pretty fluid. Work has already begun and the ambition, of course, is to make a mark with the same kind of legendary work that BBDO worldwide is well known for. It is all about the talent and work here. The work, the work, the work! That’s what we stand for.

What are the accounts that BBDO India is currently working on, and are you in time for this year’s award seasons?

In India, we are a start-up, and therefore a challenger! We are currently working on 7 Up and another very exciting project from PepsiCo. We are also in conversation with many other clients. But our focus right now is to make a difference to the 7 Up brand.

The 7 Up business was won by BBDO India some time in November. The combined strength of the worldwide BBDO network was put behind the pitch. The team included reputed names such as Danny Searle (Asia regional ECD) of BBDO Singapore, Pankaj Mridul (CEO of Collage, part of RK Swamy BBDO) and Seshadri Sampath (Regional Director, BBDO Singapore). We hope to make a creative difference from day one. We can’t afford to wait for a year, or for next year’s awards.

What do you think you will bring to the agency?

What attracted me to BBDO Worldwide was its focus on work and culture. I met Chris Thomas (Chairman and CEO, Asia Pacific) in Delhi and was amazed at how much he knew about david - the agency that I had founded along with Madhukar and Ogilvy. What really got me was when I got back to Mumbai, there was a book, Adam Morgan’s The Pirate Inside, awaiting me. It’s all about how large successful brands and companies are able to keep their pirate mindset alive in spite of their size. Inside was a scrawl that read ‘From a secret admirer’. I checked the FedEx cover in the wastepaper basket and knew from the address that it had come from someone in Singapore - Chris! I was really touched and felt that these guys at BBDO had really understood me.

A meeting with Andrew Robertson, the young Chairman and CEO of BBDO Worldwide, followed. He is a legend! All we spoke about was work, and all he wanted to see was the work we did at david. Something just clicked! He shook my hand and said he wanted me on board immediately. Chris and Andrew seem to know what I will bring to the agency.

Who is BBDO India’s biggest competitor?

At BBDO India, our biggest competitor is not JWT or Ogilvy, it’s CNN IBN and Aaj Tak and IBN7 and Star News. It’s news! That’s the one big threat to advertising. Today news has come packaged in such a sexy attractive manner that it’s not news anymore, it’s a reality circus. And viewers are hooked on to this new daily changing source of entertainment. Innovations like Citizen Journalist and two-way television are just making things more exciting than most advertising.

The big trend in the communications industry?

The most exciting thing - the confidence of people from the regions - their ability to express themselves powerfully and uniquely! The fantastic thing about confidence is that it speaks a language of its own. We were at a Pepsi social initiative in Panipat a few months ago, and there was this amazing lady, Ms Mangalam, speaking on waste management. She spoke in a combination of broken Hindi, broken English and broken Tamil. And she had the audience spellbound. Her passion, her work and her commitment spoke more purely than the purity of the language. She made absolute sense to the audience there. That’s the voice of a new India!

Where do we stand in advertising?

I think many of the bigger clients are more daring than their agencies. They take extremely brave decisions, while agencies are constantly looking over their shoulders. A lot of the poor work agencies produce is often blamed on the clients. It is actually the result of a frightened agency culture.

Clients and consumers are both running faster than agencies. Agencies are slow because they operate in an old-fashioned, linear sort of way. First the brief, then the research, then the revised brief, then the creative idea and so on. What we need is a more circular process; for people across disciplines to be sitting around at the same table and working on ideas together - in an inclusive environment.

Is talent a key issue?

There is also fantastic talent out there, but we don’t know how to draw it towards advertising. Many of our HR people come from rigid cultures - but in advertising you can’t be rigid about how you find talent. It has to come from a passion for the business. We should also try and get HR people from Google or Apple - guys who can revolutionise the business, who know how to scale up the talent, missionaries!

So what will the new office look like? I believe david’s office spaces were much talked about?

We are looking for more office space in Delhi and Mumbai. We have Cushman and Wakefield as our partners. I think our look and feel will evolve as we bring the best talent into the agency together.

More Stories on : Interview | Advertising

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Edgy-buzzy gender stuff

‘BBDO India will be a challenger’

Mega plans, mega brands