The more things change, thanks to emerging technologies, the more advertising’s raison d’etre remains the same, says Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, FCB Group India & South Asia. In this interview to Alokananda Chakraborty, he speaks of the changes the advertising industry is going through and the trends that might have a lasting impact. Edited excerpts:
The Cannes Festival of Creativity is in full swing but what do awards really bring to the table?
I think awards are important because they help you benchmark your work globally. They tell you how creative your work is because as an agency we believe that creativity is an economic multiplier. The more creative your work is, the more the client gets a bang for their buck on the media. So, I think awards are important. Having said that, we never chase awards as a strategy, so we will not try to do something just to win awards. We want to do great work on our brands, and great work should deliver great business impact and results for our clients. And we want to win awards for that. Some years you win more, some years you win less. But we don’t chase awards but if you want to be the best athlete in the world, you have to compete in the Olympics. I think from a benchmarking perspective, awards are great.
Technology is changing the advertising business rapidly. Of the recent changes, which ones do you believe will have a lasting impact?
I think technology has brought a great dimension to the idea of advertising. Say about two decades ago, the entire palette of advertising was words and images. So you could write a print ad, you could do a hoarding, you could make a film but now you can use technology to solve a problem. You can use technology to create a piece of utility. For example, last year we did a campaign for Dark Fantasy where we said, using AI, “You can star, with the content of your choice, with Shah Rukh Khan”.
So technology has now become a “material” which brands can use to create a utility, to build campaigns, to solve problems, to make a programme, and therefore it has added a huge new dimension to the way advertising works, to the way consumers react to content, and to the way brands are being built. Obviously, the biggest conversation right now is AI, and I feel that AI will be a game-changer not just for advertising, marketing, or brand building, but for everything — for medicine, for health, for the way cars are driven. We are moving to the next level of operating system as far as tech is concerned and that will impact the work that marketing and advertising does as well.
How can advertising agencies make the most of the digital tools they have? How can they get the biggest bang for a brand’s digital marketing budget?
The interesting — or the strange — thing is, with so much data intake coming in, what’s becoming increasingly more and more important is the human connect, the stories that we tell. So much content is available — in short form, long form, on YouTube, on ShareChat, on Instagram — but not all of that content will stick. What sticks is what is relevant to people, to consumers. What sticks is a story that is well told. What sticks is emotional. So when we’re looking at a digital media marketing budget, we have to make sure that (a) it’s being spent on platforms where our consumers are; and (b) it’s spent on content that is native to the mood of the consumer on that platform. So if you’re on Instagram, you have to be visual. If you’re on LinkedIn, you have to be professional. If you’re on Twitter, you have to be provocative. So the content has to be native to the expectations of people from that platform, to the mood of the people on that platform.
Finally, you have to still tell stories that are engaging, that are human. Despite all the proliferation of data and technology, all the tools that you have at hand, that human touch, that emotional connect is something that’s the biggest multiplier in our business… still. Like the more they change, the more things remain the same.
It used to be said culture differentiated one agency from another. Is agency culture equally relevant today? Are there any new elements giving culture a run for its money
Culture is still the biggest driver of the success of any organisation, including a creative organisation. If you look at a creative organisation like ours, it’s all about people. We don’t build cars, we don’t have platforms, we don’t deal in commodities. Everything about a creative agency revolves around people. And when it’s about people, it is about culture. But culture is a loose word, right? Does culture mean that at 4:00 o’clock, everybody gets together, takes a break for one hour, and goes to have tea and snacks? Is that what culture is all about? Or is culture about saying, you know, here’s a bunch of hugely talented people who are coming together, making each other better, learning, growing, and being successful? I believe in the culture of winning sports teams, where everybody is really, really good, but they know how to come together, play together, and win. And they’re willing to learn. And there’s no ego. That’s the culture of the future, and that is what I feel creative agencies need to inculcate.
There are many small independents today touting myriad technology. Most of them are more or less selling the same thing — technology. Do they give traditional agency structures any real competition?
I think the reason you’re seeing so many startups in our business is because the cost of entry is low. What do you need to start? You need a person and a laptop. There is no real cost of entry and therefore anybody who feels about being independent can start. Also there’s a lot of work going around — with new brands being launched. So everybody is getting assignments and doing well. From a large network agency point of view, do we look at startup agencies as big threats in terms of business? No, but are we inspired by some of the work that independent agencies do? Yes. And we have to be constantly on the lookout that our creativity is as sparkling and as cool as some of the independent agencies have.
Why do you say they aren’t a major competition? Because of the network structure that you have? Because of the deep pockets that you have?
There are a couple of things. One, clients come to us not just for one-off ideas. Clients come to us for business outcomes, and they know that when they come to FCB, the outcome is almost guaranteed because we start from business strategy. We can then go on to data research, we build a campaign, we know how to measure it. There are years and years of experience, having built large brands such as Amul, Mahindra, Tata Motors… So there’s a sense among clients that these guys know how to make us successful. That’s what they buy from us — it’s not just one campaign.
We have looked at technology, we have looked at new smaller digital agencies coming up. What are some of the other trends that will impact the future of creativity?
The role of creativity will become more and more important. How you’re creating content, how you’re creating ideas that stand out, that touch people, that people want to embrace — that’ll become more important as technology and data come into play. What will also become important is that you do marketing that is region-specific, you do marketing that is cohort-specific. The whole idea of one-size-fits-all will increasingly become weaker. So ground-up marketing — talking to an audience of one will become important.