“Independent agencies keep everyone on their toes”

Prasanna Sankhe quit the post of national creative director at Publicis Ambience in January this year. Soon, he announced his new brand engagement and private label venture ?Hyphen? with Alok Nanda, founder of Alok Nanda & Company (ANC). After a little more than six months at his new outfit, Sankhe has an exclusive chat with FE Brandwagon?s Payal Khandelwal about his experiences so far. Sankhe talks about how it?s the right time for independent agencies to flourish in India, his experience at Publicis, the disadvantages of network agencies and about his other venture Brand Canvas. Edited excerpts.

How has been your experience at Hyphen so far?

In advertising, once you reach the status of a national creative director, you get into the management aspect of things too. I was missing the stimulus of creating something on my own. Alok and I had been talking about the brand engagement space since a long time and we knew that it was a unique and new space.

We find out what the consumer wants, conceptualise products on the basis of that and then think of the brands which would associate with those products. That is why we call ourselves Hyphen. In advertising, a campaign may or may not get approved. Also, once a campaign is out, the entire cycle is over in a few months. In our case, the actual product comes out much later. It is mainly about mapping trends, seeing consumer behaviour, figuring out where you can make the connect and what product can come out. We are currently working on four projects.

Hyphen’s work is divided into brand engagement and launching private labels for brands. Could you elaborate on that?

Our endeavour is to figure out products that consumers are asking for. For example, kitchen utility devices play a huge role as women look for work-life balance. We are looking at developing some solutions for retailers in this space. Brand engagement is targeted at people who are concerned about their mother brand. Private labels are a nice value proposition for retailers as they can be made at 30% of the cost of other brands and can give huge profits. Hyphen tells retailers how can they demand premium for private labels, for which the cost is already under control.

Could you tell us a bit more about the core team at Hyphen?

Alok and I are the core team as of now and we are not going for rapid expansion. When we have a product idea to be executed, we collaborate with various fabricators, etc. If we expand further, the ideal expansion is to have a senior creative person and a good strategist. We do take resources from ANC as it has a mixed bag of talent. Similarly, if ANC needs help, I am happy to contribute because advertising has been my first love.

What are the challenges for an independent outfit?

If you are in a network agency, it is hard to step out on your own. It was a bit easier for me since I have known Alok for 15 years. Also, today’s clients are seeking more innovations and this makes our task easier. The tough part was to figure out how the business plan is going to work.

What do you think about the culture of independent agencies in India?

A lot of mid-size players want to advertise their brands now. They are disappointed with big agencies when they figure out that the senior resources are not involved and therefore, prefer to deal with a senior person in a small agency.

From the point of view of senior ad guys, in a big structure, even the best solution for the client can get altered at the top level due to various reasons and thus creativity gets compromised. However, if senior ad guys are on their own, they would rather be more direct. A lot of independent agencies have been launched because of this. It is a healthy thing because it is keeping everyone on their toes, clients are getting value for money and the quality of the creative product is going up.

You had two stints at Publicis. How was your experience?

Both times I joined Publicis because of Elsie. I gravitate more towards people rather than networks or places. Even when I went to Trikaya, it was because of Alok. The good thing about working with networks such as Publicis is that you have resources and talent across the network. You have learnings, multinational clients and your campaigns can have a global roll-out.

The disadvantage of network agencies is that unless the top management has an agenda, you cannot drive to a certain point. The agenda could be creative or finance. For example, Publicis was not known to be a creative network. Fortunately, at the time I became the NCD, they said ?we have got good results/monies, what do we do about the creative now?. That is the time when we transformed Publicis Ambience.

Tell us a bit more about your venture ?Brand Canvas?.

Usually, the architect working on a particular building is not really interested in the art that goes on the walls. We, at Brand Canvas, figure out if art can subtly and subliminally give messages which are in consonance to the brands. We are currently working on a project at the Bandra-Kurla complex, Mumbai headquarters and on a major installation in an atrium.