 Welcome to Ifalim Creative Zone. For my guest today, having met her and haven't seen the kind of work she does, I would just say that she is unstoppable. We are pleased to have with us today Pallavi Chakravadi, the Executive Director of Taproom Cancer. Hi Pallavi, how have you been doing? I am as well as well as can be in these times. Firstly, we just want to speak to you about this entire experience of creating of its remote captivity. How is it for a creative? See, the fundamental of the creative process, actually the real boardroom of the creative process is in here. On paper it should not matter whether you are sitting in office or whether you are sitting at home. But because theorem and practical is different when it comes down to actually working, there are things that are sorely missed. So while it is possible, it is possibly one of the functions that can be carried out no matter where a person is. So to that end we have an advantage because there is no reason for people to actually be together and hold hands when creating and thinking. But there is no denying that being together and being in the spirit of an agency atmosphere, dealing with your clients, actually face to face, it sort of catalyzes the process. So I would say that ours is a line of work which hasn't come to a standstill but definitely we are adapting. It is a new way of doing the same thing. So things that would take two or three hours to do, if you were to just sit down and thrash things out, get into a room with a bunch of people, all the people who were responsible for a particular project, things would just move. And today it takes a lot more, you will go and think, maybe you will be crying, somebody will have something to prepare, somebody to do the dishes. And you know it's taught us, this lockdown has taught us that I need to log off now because I have not washed dishes in three days. So the flow may have been interrupted but at the end I'd like to think that we have managed to still create via technology, we still managed to be in touch, still brainstorm, it may be longer and it may be a slightly more tedious process but it is still doable. But is turnaround time lesser now that you're working from home, creating from home? I would say it's about the same. I don't think client turnaround times as far as thinking, execution, brainstorming, presenting have been affected. What of course has been affected is the ultimate output which is shooting or actually going on then creating something is obviously still, I mean things are far better now than they were four months ago. But having said that, it's still, that has been affected but the pre, the run up to actually creating something, I would not, I think the back end work may have the processes, the internal processes may have gotten a little more tedious but in terms of presenting to clients, I don't think we've really suffered much of a backlog there. Right. So a lot of people tell me now that with the virtual conversations and all that, they end up calling each other only for work. So it's just made relationships and working transactional. What would you say about that? I don't know. I'll tell you one thing. I don't necessarily agree with that because I think what has happened is you can't do unscheduled calls anyway. So I think spontaneity may have gone out of the window. I felt like talking to a friend. I felt like talking to an old client. I felt like talking to somebody, an ex-colleague. We take that sort of thing for granted. You'd pick up the phone if you suddenly read something about a person or saw something that reminded you of a person and that doesn't hold to just for your work circle. It holds true for everything in your life today because a lot of our living, our calendars are now around home chores and working from home. Maybe spontaneity has gone out of the window but I don't think that our calls are only transactional. On the contrary, I would say to overcompensate, maybe what we have not been able to do via meeting people or just the impromptu ad hoc call or meeting or whatever, we are trying to cover up for with Zoom and Skype and everything else. So I have seen now birthday parties, anniversary parties, baby showers, campaign celebrations, all of this. So work is professional, personal, everything has just taken on a different tune. You have people sitting around on a Friday night raising a toast to someone who's having their second child. Or you have people, even client calls, I think at least the first 10 or 15 minutes are just then catching up. Of course, in the initial months of the lockdown, it was about, and what's the scene in your gully? Is your mohalla locked? What about your city? How many people dead? Luckily, and I think for all of us, it's the human condition. When something happens over a period of time, you sort of get, it becomes old news in that sense. So now we know that this is the surrounding. Corona doesn't dominate our everyday conversation except for the occasional, when do you think we'll be getting back to work? That sort of thing. But I don't think relationships have become transactional. I think we're making do with what we can at the moment. That's nice to hear. So I also want to speak to you about your date work for Airtel that you always do and what this work created on its lockdown. So what actually prompted that? Did the client come to you with a brief? Or did you just go with an idea and how did it all come together? So it was actually the film for Airtel that we did on their recharge. On the way they have revamped, recharging for their prepaid customers It could not actually have been done at any other time but the lockdown because it was the lockdown that prompted it. So yes, it was very much, it was not a brief generated because it's Corona time, one must do something. It wasn't that. It was something that had actually been done and we wanted to talk about what had actually been done so that if by chance there were prepaid, there's millions of prepaid customers out there whose ability to recharge was seriously hit because every store is shut or was shut. When I said the earliest, I chose to talk about this film because I think it was the first film that Taproot Mumbai did during lockdown. So we knew nothing. We, the production house, the client, all of us were like, okay, new times, unprecedented times, what to do? How does one navigate this? But it was very real. The brief was very, it was tangible. They had changed the way recharging could be done for people. So the only, I mean, if you take adversity to turn it into opportunity, if the only thing that are open are medical stores, our ATMs, is the post office, then they turn those into recharge points, right? Or even empower anybody with a connection to recharge for somebody else. So they ran these one-on-one programs. So there was a lot happening which could permit people or allow people or encourage people to stay connected because staying connected, I think all of us have discovered whether we are prepaid, postpaid, no matter what kind of customer we are, we realize that connectivity is of the essence when you're cooped up in your house. Imagine you didn't, you and I could not be on this call today without technology, without some, without our broadband. Right. So staying connected is of the essence and that is what we had to work with. That was our brief. How do you put out there what we have actually done to enable recharge? Right. Of course, execution of it, like as you brought out, yeah, this was the first piece we had done. So it was a learning for all of us. Like what is possible? What are the glitches that will come up with? Things we learned along the way. Happy to say that it worked out well. Right. So also this entire scenario has brought in a great deal of approval in the way we work. So where do you see the green shoots of opportunity? Of the situation. Yeah, no, I mean, in terms of opportunities that have cropped up for the ad world in the way you're working because now I see a lot of people, a lot of creatives work on their own, on domestic violence or on anything on depression, then I see a great good digital acceleration. So on those lines. Digital acceleration is bound to happen in a period like this. It was anyway on the upswing. As a medium, it is where a lot of people spend their time. I've always maintained that we should look at it. We should digital is and has continued to be in the last couple of years definitely more so as we go forward to very important media. But that has work done for I think ideas are still medium agnostic. That's my view. So in a situation like the lockdown where maybe television or radio was not such a possibility and then of course like as time passed you saw that even that people found ways. People will find a way. That is the essence. But of course digital is something that is readily available to us in the sense of work can be turned out for the digital media while you are at home as is the case even for static media. Of course it's a different matter now that OH and all etc. is going to be on the downswing because people are not out and about yet. But I think we are taking baby steps albeit towards normalcy. So as we go along and I'm not saying that life will be exactly what we knew it. We don't know. Nobody has any way of knowing that. But advertising as we know it will pretty much go back to it will find its own level as it was before the lockdown. So more work, less work. I mean it's creative people will always find a way to indeed I think this industry will find a way to stay relevant no matter what the period of time. So even during the lockdown people found either there were real briefs or there were people just creating work to stay top of mind. Right and I think even when as in as in when things get back to normal I think it will be pretty much we'll be debating brands will probably be debating how much of the COVID or corona context should reflect in the communication as opposed to oh can we be doing this is TV still relevant is digital more relevant should we be doing outdoor. I don't think that this was a pause as far as I'm concerned. I think it was a pause button and not a rejake. So as we as we resume normalcy the way advertising was done the way money was channeled I don't see that as being any different and not do I see the ideation being any different. It was it was just at the moment you take what you got and you create work around it and that's always been the case. Right so when we started off we saw a lot of you seen a lot of short using the phone we see a lot of user generated content that don't you think that there's been a saturation and have you seen that craft evolved now over time. Phone short content is going to be phone short content. I have seen what I have seen over time are production hacks. So for instance when we start out because it was people it was people who had iPhones like for instance the Airtel film one thing that happened which could not have happened if we were shooting let's say in Bombay or in Delhi or in Bangalore we could not perhaps have sourced like you know budget and everything being what it is you could maybe not go to five cities to look for your cast members so our Airtel casting came from Jharkhand came from Moida came from UP right so it was very diverse actually very often for regular projects you don't do that you at best you fly in one or two people from Bangalore or Delhi or something your entire cast spread around the country locations being around the country is not something that you would have done if it was an ordinary shoot so that's something that remote shooting allows you to do which actually if you were to put everything into Mehboob studio you would not be doing that right so that that's I would say it was interesting because for us we learned that casting can literally cast a very very wide net yeah it was that was that was good to see um yeah but overall saturation coming back to your question it will be reached beyond the point of this certain kind of ads and like I said the industry will find a way people will find a way as things started easing out we started doing we started going half way so you know earlier when we started out it was all remote everything is remote your DOP is sitting on one zoom frame your directors zoom frame client is there agency is there everyone is there producer is there and your cast is somewhere else someone's holding an iPhone that's how it was working these are early days so it's like the evolution process right then we came to a point where you started looking for entire families who could act earlier and this makes it even tougher so if you need so if you if I think you might find it if you plot a graph of the work that happened let's say in April visa we developed that happened in the end of May you will find a difference because people discovered what they could do differently early days man you took one person sat there looked into camera your DOP instructed you on the time of day had a look around the house decided which is the best spot all virtually right so you had single people talking into camera those baby steps then you move towards achha if we can have one person in frame can we have two people in frame which will mean can we have a child which will mean can we have three people all of whom can act big job for the casting director also after that can we have somebody going in with a tripod so it like sort of stays steady one person who's in the house right and it became okay the director can't travel but we found a great set of people in Bangalore who can do this who can act and we have a DOP who can go to that location so recently a job that we did had the director on remote and the crew in the house so you will not get your lock down you won't get your typical lock down look Vala film you'll get a finished film it's just that now so I think that's how the process has been and then I have evolved right I think so because beyond the point even the industry realizes that phone quality has phone quality at the end of the day and there's no no complaints with it I mean it is what we had to do and at that point communication is still important so I would say it's been steadily picking up and how are client budgets now as opposed to when we started off because now is the time August to December is the time the industry clocks most of its business so how have you seen things picking up because I hear that they're having green shoots and things are going better I would certainly hope so not my not my department at all but I would think that as a man more and more is possible to create that's when budgets will be commensurate with what is possible to actually create if so if you have very few means if you have very few resources if everybody is locked into the house then you're not you're going to find budgets which will match the level of output that you can expect and I would like to think that as things go on things will I think it's going to be a slow burn yeah we'll see how it goes down I don't think there will be any changes overnight we'll just have to see how well it could be wrong there could be a vaccine Astra Zeneca could surprise us by September we just hope so so also the COVID-19 as we know is a humanitarian crisis and a lot of our watchers globally have spoken about not factoring work created for these times so what would be your advice to brands and do agencies when making a conversation on COVID you know so that to be a conversation without being exploitative and without using it immediately as a marketing ploy or something what you said I think that's totally what we need to do as an industry I think enough has been said by people just because we happen to be in the middle of a pandemic I don't think that's I don't think that's necessary I don't think since you must be on the point will fight because I genuinely do feel your if you're doing something if you're making a point of this actually something that's going to help or you know it then put it out there by all means right even sometimes the message of hope right but there's such a thing I think as as too much hope because what tends to happen is that everybody then jumps onto the bandwagon and says we are here for you we are here with you we will go through this together as a consumer like let's put ourselves not in let's not wear marketing hats and agency hats let's put ourselves as consumers would we like to like would we wake up in the morning want to switch on our television or look at our phones and have everybody every person from my chewing gum to my car to you know my water purifier telling me that actually we are here for you no you're not there's actually a fatigue building up so yeah that's true I somehow like mindless work done by Amul or by by just brands who are not telling me that just some mindless cute nice work we should be cognizant as communicators of what we are saying there's no harm in being optimistic there's no harm in looking forward but generally just saying we are with you because it's the right thing to do it's quite meaningless and you will not just be lost in the noise you will make no sense to your consumer so whatever message I think we put out there must be because there is some kind of band truth product truth somewhere somewhere link to it I think that's important then it should resonate perfect thank you so much for your time Pallavi it was amazing speaking to you very very candid as usual and that's why we love speaking to you all the time so thank you so much