You have been in the industry for 30 years now. How has the journey been?

We started in 1973. At that time advertising industry was not so large. Our core objective, then, was to be an agency with a turnover of Rs one crore. I think that Thompson, the largest agency at that point in time, was not worth more than Rs three crore. That does not mean that talent was any less. Two things that were really different in those days were the economic environment and the kind of advertisers.

You had multinational companies like Levers and Colgate on one side. They were professional advertisers. You also had a second set of advertisers who did not have brand management and marketing setups but were large advertisers, primarily headed by the textile mills like Mafatlal and Khatau.

Then there were third kind of advertisers who came in once in a way to get self image. Many of these second and third kind of advertisers gave business actually to friends and relatives and not to professionals.

Who were the people who came in with you when you started Rediff?

Mohammed khan, Ajit Balakrishnan, Arun Kale and we took two or three people from outside.

It must have been tough.

We did not have money. Each of us – the three shareholders borrowed money. We started with a capital of 1 lac – Rs 33,000 each. Most of the money went in buying an office. In those days in Mumbai you could not rent a place. The reason being that no one vacated rented property. We bought a place in this old run down building, Ready Money Terrace, in Worli. It used to be called Bhut Bangla. Worli at that time was not a happening place. Thompson and Lintas had swanky offices at Express Towers, one of the best addresses in town.

As for business, getting it from a multinational like Levers was not possible due to their worldwide alignment. We had to try and get business from mills or other such organisations. It was anything but easy.

A Year and a half after we began Mohammed left…

He left to set up Enterprise?

No, he went away to Hyderabad. We stared in July 73, February 75 he left. He started a jackpot type operation in Hyderabad. He had left advertising for the moment. We carried on and 1976 proved to be the year of two very interesting account wins. Both of them out of Calcutta.

Which were these accounts?

Union Carbide, it was a big name at that time. Their account had been with Thompson for over 10 years, and then they put it up for a pitch. The agencies they invited were Thompson, Lintas and O&M. We came to know of it later and approached Union Carbide.

At that time we were handling advertising for a company called Geep. They were Eveready’s competitors and we had done some very interesting work for them. Union Carbide had been observing our work on Geep and they found it very interesting. And so, though they had invited the three big agencies almost two months back, they decided to give us an opportunity. But we got just two weeks time to get our presentations ready.

We went to Calcutta to make our presentation. We were allotted three hours time. However, we had a captivated audience and we presented for more than seven hours. We showed them many alternative marketing routes with completely fleshed out strategies along the way. They liked what we had to offer and wanted to give us part of the account. But they needed an approval from the US as they were a global company. And US wanted asked them, ‘Who is this Indian agency? Have you seen their office?’ They obviously had not because we did not have an office in Calcutta.

I was travelling at that point in time. Ajit (Balakrishnan) called me up and asked me to return urgently because Union Carbide management was to come to our office the very next day. Sure enough, next day in our small office with hired tables and chairs, the team from Union Carbide landed. There weren’t enough chairs to sit, so their chief Gokhale sat on my desk. He said, ‘well, we have seen your office. You actually have an office.’ We all were apologetic about it. And I still remember what he said. He said, ‘We are not hiring you for your furniture, we are hiring you for your intellect.’ They decided to give us the most difficult part of the business. We started with a battery brand and with next three - four years we were handling their other batteries as well. These batteries were earlier with Lintas. Then we got the torches as well – they came to us from O&M. So we had the entire account. Unfortunately, Bhopal happened and things changed for Union Carbide.

Second account I mentioned was Jenson and Nicholson. There was only Doordarshan at that time as far as television goes. In print advertising agencies either used newspapers or Filmfare, Femina and Star & Style. All paint advertisers used colour ads in these glossy magazines. These ads usually featured film stars’ bunglows. When we pitched for the account, we presented a black & white campaign to be run in the daily newspapers. It was a totally different concept and it won us the business.

You were perhaps the first ad agency in India to be doing political advertising in a big way.

Yes. We ventured into political advertising in 1980s. In 1983, end 82 actually, Rajiv Gandhi entered politics and became the general secretary of the party. He wanted us to work with him. We started working on the campaign a year and a half before the elections. We read every single book on political analysis. Followed every single election campaign in the US starting 1962. Every single campaign of Margaret Thatcher in England was also studied. Till the time Rajiv Gandhi was there we worked with him. Unfortunately, he did not live long.

What would you say about political advertising in the country? It has not really taken off.

We did it from 84 to 91. After Rajeev died, we backed out. For me it was a strong emotional thing, and I did not want to be involved in it any more. Should the others be into it? They absolutely should. Political parties definitely require professionals to highlight their strengths and issues they stand for. They also need to put across right communication strategies.

How interesting is political advertising? Is it different from brand advertising?

Very interesting. Biggest difference between the two is that you just have one chance – you cannot relaunch, while in brand advertising you can change the combinations and relaunch. When you go for elections you have all of four to six weeks, in which you have to convince the fence sitting voter that he or she should vote for a political party or person. I think no brand in India would have done as intensive research as we did on voters, issues, voting areas for the congress party.

So one of the most interesting things for Rediffusion in 80s was political advertising. What about the nineties?

Nineties were the years of economic growth and intense competition among agencies. In most markets in the world products mature over years. New brands get launched – some mature, while some others die. It happens over a span of 30 to 40 years. In India, the entire thing is being compressed in two –three years time. Twenty brands will come within a gap of six months or so and jostle for the market space. When there is intense competition amongst the clients, and they find it very hard to sustain their brands, pressure on the agencies increases a lot.

Any areas where you think the industry needs to improve tremendously?

Well, I think the time has come for all of us in this industry to hold ourselves a little more accountable for the work we are doing. We do get the trust of the client to spend a lot of his or her money. Unless we look at being more accountable ourselves, we would be forced by the advertisers to do that.

Why, in your view, is the accountability not so high in our industry?

When the industry is at a high growth stage, you are growing at a pace and the issues that you need to address don’t always come upfront to you. However, in the long run it starts showing in what you deliver.

Are clients not to be blamed for the mediocre work to some extent? Agencies are always under pressure.

I don’t buy this logic! A client comes to you because he believes you know advertising. You are supposed to be the expert. He does not come to you to say manufacture my product or handle my logistics. He comes to us for advertising, explains what he has and what he wants. At that time even if we know we can’t deliver we take up the job. So many times people compromise — they change the creative to please the client in spite of knowing it would not work.

Perhaps, the fear of losing the business forces them to do so.

Exactly. But the business goes away anyways if you do not perform. You are losing either ways. Some day it will go, if not today, tomorrow. Therefore, is it not better to give the client the right advice? They would be far more receptive if we become more accountable.

Moving back to Rediffusion, did the work culture in the agency change a lot after Dentsu, Young & Rubicam came in?

In 1994, we brought in two partners in the agency –Dentsu and Young & Rubicam. Together they hold 40%. As for work culture, we refuse to change it. We are still the majority stakeholders and anyway no tie-ups happen with change of work culture in mind. We have got a lot of inputs in terms of access to systems and to worldwide data. Somewhere in the world DYR is likely to handle every product category that we are handling here. You can cross fertilize and share ideas. You don’t want to be in a position where you make a mistake somebody else made somewhere else in the world earlier.

All together seventeen country heads report to you. What are the major differences that you witness in India and other countries?

They are very similar. One possible difference I find in this market and South East Asia, is that there servicing people want to own their brand. I am not saying that here we do not have commitment but you really have to feel for your brand – it has to be a part of your blood. It has to be your own child – you can’t do your best for someone else’s child.

Aren’t there any variances in advertising evident due to socio-cultural differences?

Yes. That would always be. First of all, there is too little of humour used in advertising in India. Light heartedness in commercials is missing. But as we would see more and more of it in Indian commercials, we would find that people really like it. Center Shock, for instance – its ads are well appreciated. And secondly, people use a lot of stronger single stark images in print in South East Asia. Here we tend to give the customer long discourses on everything.

Are there any specific reasons for this?

We as the advertising professionals have the habit of underestimating the consumers. We sometimes speak from an air of intellectual superiority because we think we are very smart people. No doubt we are very smart people – but it does not mean that the consumer is not smart. Time and again we hear ad guys saying well this campaign will work for people living at Malabar Hill, but will the C and D category understand it? The moment you say that, either you are saying, idea is not good enough universally, or else, even worse, you are implying that the consumer belonging to sec C or D SEC is inferior intellectually. Just not true! In fact I find them smarter. Their money is at a premium. They think more practically – and all this makes them really smart.

Moving to media, what is your take on the emergence of independent media houses?

I think media in the past was subjugated. If media continued to remain a part of an advertising agency, it would never be able to fly on its own. Media has become far more complicated than it was ten or even five years back. Media independents require independent control by the people who understand it.

But hasn’t their emergence made life difficult?

It definitely does make life difficult. Coordination between creative and executors of the media becomes a problem. It would take some time for that bonding and integration to happen. Media has just come on its own. When you have been under somebody and suddenly you are set free and empowered, there are bound to be attitudinal issues.

Media people are constantly looking at various media options to reach various demographic and psychographic profiles. How does creative handle this?

You look for the common factor, instead of the differentiating factor. If a Hindi film can be a hit with the balcony and the lower class – why can’t the same be a case with the ads? There is something in it that is appealing to all of us. In this business there is no sure shot formula. The need is to try and understand consumers better and better.