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| Josy Paul |
This Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Wednesday, January 16, 2013.
Unusual is the business card of Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer of the Indian branch of BBDO, the global advertising major. It has neither office address nor landline telephone numbers. Even more surprising, it has his mobile number and email ID – things that VIPs usually prefer to keep private. The elegant black card even contains his Jet Privilege card number. Surprises don’t end there: the card gives away the registration number of his five-year-old Black Honda Civic. “I’m either on the road or on a flight travelling across the country. It’s practically a mobile office in my case. Hence, it made sense to have office coordinates replaced with these numbers.” In this discussion the adman speaks about Strategic design in communications, reality advertising, the digital medium, corporate campaigns. Edited excerpts...
You pioneered reality advertising in India, isn’t it?
Reality advertising as a concept was explored even before we experimented with it. It’s just that in our case the timing was very appropriate. We conceptualised an idea and designed a communication strategy around it when reality television programming was gaining momentum in the country. The Gillette ‘Women Against Lazy Stubble’ campaign for P&G not only became a huge movement in the country but also activity that created a world record in the Guinness Book and the Limca Book of Records. We have only built on what other good people have left behind.
While not taking credit for anything, it was just our response to a situation, opportunity or a problem. We feel that it has to be real and engage people in the real way that is authentic. If it happens to have some correlation with some work done before, we are more than happy. We accept that, maybe, things like this have been done before and hence would not claim to be pioneers. We have set up a philosophy for ourselves — that of creating ‘acts’ and not ‘ads’. In a way, we’ve laid down a set of principles which, maybe, the people before had not fully organised. Earlier, people were doing random ads while we’re taking a more organised approach to it.
Do you agree that advertising is closer to what the product / service stands for these days?
We’re living in a new world with a new kind of consciousness, that of a Facebook and Twitter, which is out there and driven by real people in a real world. That consciousness won’t allow the false and fakeism. Therefore, it’ll be very important that we only talk about what’s being achieved rather that what is going to be achieved. One can talk about ideas that are useful, something that is real and measurable; or you can be highly entertaining and help people be entertained for that moment. Ads could be illogical sometimes but should be highly entertaining. Having said that, nobody will be able to fake it in their communications any more because social media will kill you even before industry body takes you up. People these days are not shying away from speaking up, if they find something that’s objectionable. I’d say the consumers are the biggest industry regulators today.
Is the corporate sector getting more serious about campaigns?
I’m seeing greater consciousness among our clients for the simple reason that they also believe that’s the future. We aren’t telling them any new things. They are already in it and are trying to find a way to leverage a social context and still be sustainable at a commercial level. None of the work we do is CSR (corporate social responsibility) as companies are seeing direct benefits as well. The ecosystem is benefiting out of it and so are brands at sales and goodwill levels. It’s straddling both ways and can’t be one versus the other because then it’s not sustainable.
What kind of an impact will new media like online platforms and social networks have on television ads, in terms of reaching the target audience?
Television is still the lead medium to reach out to a larger set of people whom the corporate sector is targeting. Having said that, the way people are using television as a medium these days is changing significantly. Companies may decide to go with various available formats: that is, public relations, documentary, 30-second advertisements, etcetera. So, the corporate sector is still using the television medium, but the format is changing. Social media is playing its part by keeping the engagement alive and forcing everybody to think about interface and whether it will become a one-to-one transaction (which is a short-term thing) or a one-to-one interaction (which is a long-term thing).
How is 2013 looking for BBDO in terms of business?
We had a fantastic 2012 with interesting campaigns like the re-launch of Blackberry with ‘Action starts here’ where we made the star the hero. I think the challenge in 2013 is how to scale up these ideas and create greater impact. I think the base has been set — in the sense that this approach to appetising is here to stay for a while. Now we’ve to think about how to make it really big. The second challenge is, culturally, how do we get every one of us in the agency — we were two people earlier; now, we’re more than 100; and more will join — to understand and be with us equally and hunt for both the solution and craft and quality of solution. It’s a huge challenge and we are focusing on our reputation rather than our bottomline.
Consolidation is seeping into the Indian advertising industry. Is BBDO looking at any inorganic opportunity?
There are conversations at all times and the thing is, it’s not only about BBDO, which is part of a large organisation called Omnicom which is always looking for opportunities or possibilities to grow its objectives. I think it’s in that zone and we personally don’t get involved. We are content creators and like to remain that way.
Unusual is the business card of Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer of the Indian branch of BBDO, the global advertising major. It has neither office address nor landline telephone numbers. Even more surprising, it has his mobile number and email ID – things that VIPs usually prefer to keep private. The elegant black card even contains his Jet Privilege card number. Surprises don’t end there: the card gives away the registration number of his five-year-old Black Honda Civic. “I’m either on the road or on a flight travelling across the country. It’s practically a mobile office in my case. Hence, it made sense to have office coordinates replaced with these numbers.” In this discussion the adman speaks about Strategic design in communications, reality advertising, the digital medium, corporate campaigns. Edited excerpts...
You pioneered reality advertising in India, isn’t it?
Reality advertising as a concept was explored even before we experimented with it. It’s just that in our case the timing was very appropriate. We conceptualised an idea and designed a communication strategy around it when reality television programming was gaining momentum in the country. The Gillette ‘Women Against Lazy Stubble’ campaign for P&G not only became a huge movement in the country but also activity that created a world record in the Guinness Book and the Limca Book of Records. We have only built on what other good people have left behind.
While not taking credit for anything, it was just our response to a situation, opportunity or a problem. We feel that it has to be real and engage people in the real way that is authentic. If it happens to have some correlation with some work done before, we are more than happy. We accept that, maybe, things like this have been done before and hence would not claim to be pioneers. We have set up a philosophy for ourselves — that of creating ‘acts’ and not ‘ads’. In a way, we’ve laid down a set of principles which, maybe, the people before had not fully organised. Earlier, people were doing random ads while we’re taking a more organised approach to it.
Do you agree that advertising is closer to what the product / service stands for these days?
We’re living in a new world with a new kind of consciousness, that of a Facebook and Twitter, which is out there and driven by real people in a real world. That consciousness won’t allow the false and fakeism. Therefore, it’ll be very important that we only talk about what’s being achieved rather that what is going to be achieved. One can talk about ideas that are useful, something that is real and measurable; or you can be highly entertaining and help people be entertained for that moment. Ads could be illogical sometimes but should be highly entertaining. Having said that, nobody will be able to fake it in their communications any more because social media will kill you even before industry body takes you up. People these days are not shying away from speaking up, if they find something that’s objectionable. I’d say the consumers are the biggest industry regulators today.
Is the corporate sector getting more serious about campaigns?
I’m seeing greater consciousness among our clients for the simple reason that they also believe that’s the future. We aren’t telling them any new things. They are already in it and are trying to find a way to leverage a social context and still be sustainable at a commercial level. None of the work we do is CSR (corporate social responsibility) as companies are seeing direct benefits as well. The ecosystem is benefiting out of it and so are brands at sales and goodwill levels. It’s straddling both ways and can’t be one versus the other because then it’s not sustainable.
What kind of an impact will new media like online platforms and social networks have on television ads, in terms of reaching the target audience?
Television is still the lead medium to reach out to a larger set of people whom the corporate sector is targeting. Having said that, the way people are using television as a medium these days is changing significantly. Companies may decide to go with various available formats: that is, public relations, documentary, 30-second advertisements, etcetera. So, the corporate sector is still using the television medium, but the format is changing. Social media is playing its part by keeping the engagement alive and forcing everybody to think about interface and whether it will become a one-to-one transaction (which is a short-term thing) or a one-to-one interaction (which is a long-term thing).
How is 2013 looking for BBDO in terms of business?
We had a fantastic 2012 with interesting campaigns like the re-launch of Blackberry with ‘Action starts here’ where we made the star the hero. I think the challenge in 2013 is how to scale up these ideas and create greater impact. I think the base has been set — in the sense that this approach to appetising is here to stay for a while. Now we’ve to think about how to make it really big. The second challenge is, culturally, how do we get every one of us in the agency — we were two people earlier; now, we’re more than 100; and more will join — to understand and be with us equally and hunt for both the solution and craft and quality of solution. It’s a huge challenge and we are focusing on our reputation rather than our bottomline.
Consolidation is seeping into the Indian advertising industry. Is BBDO looking at any inorganic opportunity?
There are conversations at all times and the thing is, it’s not only about BBDO, which is part of a large organisation called Omnicom which is always looking for opportunities or possibilities to grow its objectives. I think it’s in that zone and we personally don’t get involved. We are content creators and like to remain that way.
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