 creative zone. My guest today is someone who has done multiple acts across his career from being a hockey player to having a journalism stance and now being the star creative that he is. We are pleased to have Russell Barrett the managing partner and chief creative officer of BBH India. Hi Russell, how have you been following up amidst the lockdown and everything that's happening? Not bad. Yes, not bad. Like I keep saying to people on calls, I could be better and I could be worse. So that's more or less the situation in last year. You know, not as bad as it could be for you personally and you know, obviously isn't an ideal situation of any perspective. You know, an attempt to make the best out of what's going on around you, both personally and professionally. So tell us about how creatively satisfying this experience has been, you know, creating amidst the remote captivity because the ad world, the agency world is used to a lot of banter, a lot of team chemistry, cups of tea and coffee and a lot of fun creating very differently than they do right now. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, so, see, before, before today, there was no other way of working that any of us knew or didn't see right before the pandemic hit us before we were before it, you know, led to the kind of life that we're doing today. This was the only life that we knew and therefore we felt, you know, this was the only way that there was to do things. I think the pandemic has taught us a lot of, you know, a lot of new skills that we didn't realize we had. And it's also, you know, it's also shown us the mirror in many ways of where it is that we could be a lot better. I'm not necessarily, you know, I'm not, again, like I said, I would never be thankful for what it is. But I do feel that it's important to be positive and sort of look to see what you can learn from every situation. So I think that the pandemic has allowed us to do that in a way that we've never had cause to learn in the past. So you're right. When you say, you know, the chemistry in a room, especially when you're, you know, when you're meeting a client for the first time or you're pitching for the first time, the chemistry was really has always been really important. And it's extremely difficult to capture the chemistry over a Zoom call or a Microsoft Teams meeting or a Google Meet. It's difficult to capture the chemistry. So therefore, you know, you have to you have to do other things. The way that we interact with work has also changed, you know, personally, I've never been a fan of the brainstorm. I don't think great work comes out of a brainstorm at all. I think good or slightly average work comes out of a brainstorm. That's just my perspective. Of course, there'll be people who disagree with me because I feel that ideas come from an individual and then others collaborate to make them better. And that can still happen remotely, you know, an idea necessarily, and if you have to be honest with yourself, an idea will come from an individual, the germ of the idea, the seed of the idea comes from one person. And then the others sort of sort of like, you know, build on it and say like, you know, what if you have, what if you have it from, you know, look at it from that perspective instead, and that is still possible. You know, it's still possible online, so it's still possible to do it over a call. But, you know, the banter, the cups of coffee, some of the time that we need to sort of like, you know, to break from the, you know, from the pressure of work, that is not there. It's, I think, in a sense, made us a little more mindful about time. And that's a good thing for the world of advertising. I think we've, you know, we've got that to learn and to take forward with us when we go back in whatever way we go back to, you know, to work, be more mindful about time, our own time, and others as well. You know, because I think that that's been a really important learning, especially, you know, when you're running an agency and running up the creative department. You need to understand that, you know, people's time, the work from home aspect, sometimes you forget that it's from home and then you have to work for the home. So, you know, you have to, you can't expect people to, you know, have the same kind of hours that they would have had when they were in an agency. So they will have to cook for them, they have to clean the care of their families. So you're a lot more mindful about time, I believe, and I think that's a good thing. It's a good thing for the advertising world as well. Being mindful about your time and other people's time as well. So how is this entire thing of remote shooting being? Because we are used to flying, we are used to a lot of wreckies, we are used to being there and seeing that there is proper light. So what has come out of that experience? Yes. Yes, so again, it's not like we've done a lot of it. I don't think anybody has done a lot of it, but I have a personal perspective on shoots as well. You know, and I feel it's something that I've learned over a period of time. Some of the greats in advertising who I've worked with have, you know, had this point of view as well. So it's not like my unique perspective, but I've come to accept it's wisdom more so over this period of time. You know that if you have a really locked down PPM as a creative person, there isn't that much for you to do on the shoot. If your PPM is slightly loose and it's slightly unstructured and there are decisions that need to be taken, then being present at the shoot is super important. So I think it puts the pressure on both the production house and director and the agency to have, you know, to have a lockdown PPM because, you know, thinking on the fly at the shoot, hey, what if we do it this way, etc. That's not going to be possible, especially in this situation where, you know, you're sometimes in another time zone and sometimes very often in another city. And even if you're in the same city, not present at that shoot. So having a lockdown PPM where every element of the film is thought through is super important. And I think that, you know, it's a good, again, it's a good thing. It's a good thing to go into a shoot prepared. It's a good thing to go into a shoot knowing exactly what you want out of it. And, you know, sure you are missing some of the, you know, experiments happen all the way. And I think you can still do that to a small extent, but it's not as, you know, it's not as hands-on as it used to be in the past. But I feel that if you lock down your PPM really tightly, it shouldn't be that much of an issue. We are about to get into a fairly big production now. And so I'll be able to give you more learnings, you know, post that project. But the conversations that I've had with the clients as well, and to reassure them about, you know, the supervision and the kind of shoot that we need to have has been worked really hard on the PPM to ensure that all the questions, all the people that we need, we'll have a much more fluid shoot. So PC, a lot of work in terms of, you know, a lot of ad campaigns being shot on the phone because obviously we have limited resources and all that. And also there's a lot of UGC format work that's going up. But don't you think that, you know, there'll be a saturation soon in terms of that, in terms of consumers? Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah. Again, this may not be a widely shared opinion, but I'm not a great fan of, you know, of the person in the first film that did it. Great, fantastic, which, you know, they did something that people had not done before. And subsequent to that, I don't, I'm not impressed with another, and I don't think the audience even forget about me. I'm not the most important, the audience is the most important. You're not that impressed anymore because it's not new, you know, there are lots of people doing it. You come back to the heart of the matter, which is how compelling is the idea? How, you know, how touching is that piece of filmmaking? And whether or not it's been shot at home, it becomes less relevant. The hype about, oh, we did this at home. So therefore, you know, we should get a medal is not is not necessarily, you know, the place that people are coming from anymore. You know, again, you're being asked to look at the basic fundamentals of like, you know, what's the idea? And how well is it being told? I'm sure you're doing it from home, but you can still do it really well. And sure you're doing it from home, but you can still have a sparkling idea. And I think that, you know, that initial first mover advantage is now done. You know, what's the idea? How well is it being told? So if you can take us to, you know, some of the work that you've done at BBH, I mean, the lockdown, that'd be very interesting. Also, the lockdown took us all by surprise. So how did you, you know, what was your reaction initially and, you know, overcoming the initial hiccups? How was, how was all of that? Tell us about that. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll talk about the second part of the question first, because I'm sure that, you know, you know, we can, we can share the work that we've done. You know, with you as well, through links, et cetera, and you can see that. But the second part of the question, I think, is, it's fairly interesting because, you know, my, so my son was, and I'm digressing a little bit here. My eldest son was, you know, his 10th son, he was getting admitted into this 11th grade in the school, high school, junior college that he was going to, had a meeting with the parents and talked about, you know, what do you think is the most important skill that your child should have for the future? And this is before the whole pandemic shut down, et cetera. And, you know, all of the parents were going, like, hard work and perseverance and, you know, all of those things. And he said, yeah, you know, that's all good. But what do you think is the most important skill? And we kept going back with, like, you know, it's, it's this, it's that, it's, and his, his answer to us really actually, you know, I kept thinking about it through the pandemic and through the, through the, through the different reveals and different stages of the pandemic. And his answer really was the biggest skill that we need for the world going forward is adaptability. And, and his point was, you know, from a point of view of education, you know, you might study to be an engineer and you might study to be a computer engineer, you might study to be like, you know, everything that is current at the time, by the time you graduate, suddenly the world has changed again. So being adaptable is, is really key. And I kept thinking about that, you know, every time, you know, every time one of these big announcements happen and like, you know, locked on has been pushed and locked. And, and if I look back at the early stages, the people who are more adaptable and adapted faster were the people who's, you know, were better at it. And that's, I think, that I think is going to be more key than ever going forward. Having adaptability both as an agency and as a, as an individual in advertising on an individual, especially in the creative business being adaptable is both far more important than it was before. And it's also going to be the difference between success or, you know, catching up. Right. So, so to answer your question, back in the day when, you know, when, when lockdowns were announced and extensions happened and then, you know, different things happen around it. Being adaptable and being adapting to that and saying, okay, fine. So now this is the new reality. How do we, you know, how do we move from here? How do we react to this? How do we, you know, how do we change some things that we were doing earlier into, into another thing? And having that mindset, I think is going to be extremely critical going forward, extremely critical. And if you're, yeah, like, you know, if you're, if you're going to be kicking and screaming against the changes, you're going to find it a lot tough because change is going to change is the only constant. It's the only agency model of the future, like, you know, one that's continuously changing. And if you're not going to accept that, you're going to be battered by the, by the changes that life and the world are going to throw at you. And so, yeah, coming back to that educational, that education I received at my son's, you know, junior college interview, I think that that is, that is absolutely true for all of us today. Being adaptable to the changes that will occur and are going to continue to occur. So now if you can just take us through some of your most creatively satisfying bump that we've done at DBH. Yeah, yeah. I'll start off with actually a film that, you know, a film that an ex DBH has made, and we, I collaborated with him. It came from a very personal space, you know, where early on in the lockdown where, you know, people were trying to trying to change the narrative or shift the focus of the narrative to the wrong, you know, to the wrong or distract people with the wrong information. And, you know, WhatsApp was being used in lots of, in lots of dramatic ways. A lot of hate was being spread. And was, you know, the attention was, there was an attempt to divert the attention to people. And we saw that happening at the early stage of the lockdown and it's something that this, this ex colleague of mine who I worked very closely with for, I think over 12 years, a young, a really young filmmaker now because he's just started making films called Kunal Sawan. And he and I have worked together across three agencies. And so he reached out to me with this idea that he had, and he asked what I thought about it and, you know, how it should be, how we should end it, what should the lines be. And I really liked where he was coming from with the idea. And I said, you know what, listen, we'll help you produce it. And here are like, you know, five line options. This is what I think you should say. And then we said, listen, we'll help you, you know, put it out there as a message as well. And the learning from that idea, besides the fact that it came from a very real place and it's something that affected him deeply and me as well, which is what immediately, you know, resonates with you when you see that film. It's a very real message that talks to what's happening in culture around us at that time. And the other thing that I wanted to say is that that really for me is creativity at work. Because if you see the emoji film that, you know, that Kunal Sawan and we like, you know, put out there, it was using absolutely minuscule resources. But telling the story, okay, let me put it to you this way. If you had this idea and you could go out and shoot, or you could do it in this way, it would still be better done this way. You know, so it was an idea devised and created for the skills that you have at hand, not as a compromise because you couldn't shoot. I thought that that was the beauty of that idea. You know, it was beautifully crafted. There was no, you know, there's nothing that you'd want to change with it, even if you could go out and shoot. This is the way that you should actually be looking at that film. So I liked it for that reason that it used the limited tools that lockdown gave us, but used them in the most dramatic and the most creative way. So if you see the emoji film, you know what I'm talking about. It is the language of forwards. It is the language of social media. And it had a really, you know, had a really profound point to make, which is at that point of time, I think, you know, essential. So that was one film that, you know, we did at the early part of lockdown. We also went on to sort of launch for Audi, the whole, you know, the showroom from your living room idea that you could, you know, obviously Audi is like every other brand, you know, showrooms are shut down, footfalls are non-existent. And so we launched this whole, you know, building the showroom from your, or having a showroom experience from your living room, right. And that was really interesting because it used new media and it used, you know, it was a lot more interactive than you would have, you know, then you would have been, you know, in a normal situation where you'd have done a film or a print ad or, you know, a static. So that was an interesting project, which I thought was quite cool. Then I think we did something really, really interesting on Taco Bell, where it's probably India's first outsourced menu, you know, menu selection where we got, we actually put the idea was the first supper, quite unlike the last supper. It's the first supper back after lockdown lifts, what would you want to eat, right. And we created this whole, sort of this whole activity where, you know, items from the Taco Bell menu competed against each other and the people chose which one would be more to their taste. And so we had thousands and thousands of, like, you know, interactions, people were voting, people saying, you know, I like the naked chicken taco more than something else and the cheesy gorita was in the nature. So, you know, arguments and sort of interactions and voting that happened online to then be revealed as the, you know, a crowdsourced first supper meal, which we thought was like, you know, really cool and really interesting and really different. Using, again, using the place that people were in and using the motivation that people were looking forward to, like, you know, we've all fantasized about that meal that we're going to have once lockdown lifts. This is what I'm going to have. And actually using that idea for a brand itself was quite fulfilling. Then, of course, we did a lot of, we shot the films on Vivo, the new Vivo campaign before lockdown, but we did a lot of the post production and a lot of the putting together of those films during lockdown, etc. And they're doing quite well. The new Anurkan films, it's a campaign that we've done, we've made four films to have been released. Two others hopefully will come out soon. But that was another campaign that's done really well for us and has got a lot of traction in the market. That was done by Adele office and headed by Vasuda. But yeah, that too, again, was quite a challenge because as you'd know, you know, post production is where a lot of the big decisions get taken. You know, you've got the footage and now you're putting it together and a lot of flips could happen. And again, done remotely and heavy files being sent across computers, decisions being taken late at night, etc. I think we were able to put together a really nice campaign. And like I said, really happy to hear that it's doing really well out there in the market. Those are a few, obviously we're doing like, we did a really interesting, you know, social campaign for Tata Suns, which is the numbers of hope. Again, at the time where we were just getting heavily sort of depressed with the wrong kind of numbers, we did this little video that talked about the numbers of hope. Where Tata talked about all of the positive numbers of this lockdown. The amount of people coming forward to help, the numbers of doctors on the streets, the amount of PPE kits that were being sponsored, the amount of money that was being given willingly and freely to help fight and combat these horrible times that we find ourselves in. And the great thing is like, you know, the BMC retweeted that video and pushed that out even further. There was a lot of traction that that video had for us as well. So like I said, I think there's, and of course there are tons of work that we're doing on a daily basis on social for all of our brands and a bunch of innovations that we're working on as well. And we've developed a lot of work, you know, we've used this time actually to develop a lot of, you know, for many of our brands, a ton of work that will hopefully now start to come out. So the thinking and the hard work from the creative, you know, from the creation part has already been done, already been approved, already been like, you know, we're now talking to directors and we are getting into production. As as it opens up. So the some some businesses that had the ability to sort of like, you know, give it a break, use that time to create. And have timed it so that now that as things are opening up slowly, we are going to be able to produce. So we've been working extremely hard, extremely hard. So even my family were like, you know, asking me, listen, we don't think you work as hard, you know, before lockdown, as we see you're working, or is it only because you're at home, you're making it seem that you're working this hard. But actually, it is, has been that there's been a ton of work, a lot of creative development has happened in this period of time, so we hope to see like a year's worth of work start to come out as we as we open up more and more. Right. So last thing, so COVID-19 is, is a humanitarian crisis. And a lot of what shows all over are talking about not factoring work created for these times. And also tricky for clients these days to, you know, kind of understand what to say and how much to say, because you know, the idea is to know how do you not be very exploitative or opportunistic and still make a conversation, rather than using it as a mere marketing ploy. So what would be your advice to creatives and brands when making a conversation on COVID-19? Yeah. So firstly, I feel that, you know, ignoring the fact that we've, you know, been in lockdown for over 100 days, and ignoring the fact that this horrible crisis has hit humanity across the world, ignoring it is, you know, doing this service to yourself as a marketer and as an advertising person. You know, you cannot ignore this because it is part of culture. It is part of the life that the audience is living. So to ignore it would be, would be a travesty of sorts, you know, because you're just imagining that this never happened. And if you're locking yourself up in, you know, in a room thinking, you know, whereas your audience is deeply affected by what's happening around them. So I don't think ignoring it is the right answer to your other question. And I think it's an important question for each individual to answer is, you know, how do you, how do you say stuff without being exploitative? And how do you say stuff without being, my point would be the point that I would make to any market or any advertising person be honest, be honest about what it is that you're doing. You know, and if it feels like it's dishonest, don't do it. I mean, it's really, really very simple. Don't be, don't say stuff that's untrue. Don't say stuff that does not have, you know, some element of honesty attached to it. I think it's important to talk about and it's important to consider the world that we have been left with because of this pandemic. So you can't ignore it. But you know, you'll be, you'll be eventually caught out if you're, and people aren't forgiving of brands that try attempt to fool them or attempt to, you know, pull the wool over their eyes and it's and most importantly, it's visible from, from a, from a mile away, you know, especially if you're, if you're paying lip service to, to the world that are, you know, you're trying to be exploitative, it's very visible from, from, from, you know, from everybody's perspective. So it will, if you probably do more damage to the brand than good, be honest about what it is that you want to do, be honest about what it is that you, that you hope to achieve, be mindful of the fact that people have, have had a really, really tough life right now. And, you know, create messaging that keeps that keeps that in mind, I think it's extremely important to, to carry that forward, as opposed to, you know, either a ignoring that this has ever happened and carrying on like, you know, like nothing is, nothing has changed, everything has changed. You know, you have to, you have to accept it. But, you know, yeah, but don't, don't pretend to do things that you're not doing. The good thing is a lot of brands have stepped up and done amazing stuff during this time, you know, from contributions to actual initiatives, a lot of brands have actually done things because I feel that it's an, you know, it's something that has affected every single person from, from the CEO of that company down to, you know, down to the distributors, everyone has been affected by it. So, you know, when you're being, if you're being dishonest, you're being, you know, dishonest from within as well. I think a lot of brands have genuinely been moved to do, you know, to act in really positive ways. And, you know, it's important to communicate that without being, you know, without wanting to give yourself a pat on the back or anything, but it's important to, it's important to go out there and talk about, you know, issues that actually affect people and what you might be doing about it. Right. So, I think the positive part of it, if at all, you can look at a positive is that a lot of sensitive marketers and a lot of sensitive brands have taken it upon themselves to make a difference in some way or the other to the world out there. And I think the audience recognizes that you don't have to, you know, you don't have to make up stuff to tell them the audience is already seeing what it is that, you know, some brands are doing and some individuals are doing and some, you know, groups of citizens are doing even. I think the audience is aware of it and yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much Russell for your time and for sharing some amazing creative insights. Take care. Stay connected. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.