 Welcome to E4M Creative Zone. My guest today is someone who loves the challenge of balancing the strategic needs of its client with the creative expression of their brand. Pleased to have with us today Venkata Giri Rao, the Chief Creative Officer of PML Vinehurst, South East Asia and India. Hi Venkata, how are you? How have you been holding up with the lockdown? Awesome, thank you for having me here. We've been holding up surprisingly good when we started off and got into this. None of us knew how it's going to shape up and nobody imagined that it would be going on for so long. So for that we adapted surprisingly quickly and got into group, so we're doing good. So first I want to start by speaking to you about how it's been creating amidst remote captivity and some lockdown lessons or learnings that you can share. Okay, so I can talk to you at multiple levels, at an agency level, things have never been better in fact. We've been on our best work streak in the last 3-4 months, which kind of surprised us also because the moment we got into what do you call work from home mode stuff started moving faster in fact. There have been a lot of campaigns that really went big for us, went viral, a lot of client appreciation mails, a lot of new challenges coming in and it's been quite incredible actually. It's also because I think we got into the lockdown and we've been onboarding a lot of clients, new clients that we've won. From Colgate to Adele to Pepsi Foods to Sipla and these are all huge clients, so the opportunities are huge and they also push you. So it's just that we entered this particular lockdown with momentum like never before and we've also managed to convert a lot of these opportunities into very interesting campaigns and bus worthy work. So that's been good for us. So that's at an agency level and I can tell you personally for me I've been like thriving. I'm enjoying the lockdown like I wouldn't say lockdown is work from home because firstly I'm a home body so that's a personal thing. But I think one of the things is it's made work far more focused when you're at office what happens is you tend to get involved in a lot of drive-by shooting kind of problem solving. You're just walking past and somebody robs you in and asks you a question and you get in and you solve the problem. So it's just interruptions throughout the day versus now you can kind of block off time between your meetings and you really kind of there's no interruptions in that sense. So you tend to be more productive and it's kind of cleaner so there's a lot less what do you call disruptions in that sense. So your thinking is more pure and your output is far better. So I've been like really endless of course normal stuff like no travel and Right. Tell me also speaking about clients how clients approach this entire situation. Yeah so I'll come to that. So clients are it's been a very interesting kind of like I said it is when we got in nobody kind of expected it to be so long right. And I think the one learning that everybody's been getting is that things are changing right. Literally you're expecting it OK fine so you get in and then you kind of say I need to react in a certain way. And then you realize a month down the line you realize this is going to be a little longer than I thought. I don't need me job right. And that's also from a major reaction it becomes a short term reaction to become then you start thinking midterm. Then suddenly you're hearing maybe this will continue for two years. Who knows how long right. Then you're thinking long term right. So I think like us I think even clients have been kind of trying to cope with this and purely from a work from home situation. It's kind of interesting. I think we kind of you end up having a lot of calls where you know you see it's like walk and your personal life colliding. And that happens in clients and that happens at your end. But of course everybody's kind of understanding you see you giggle you laugh and there's a kid that cries when there's a spouse that comes in. I mean at one point it used to seem like OK fine. It's still new right. But now it's kind of OK fine. It's just it's my ground so you get to the stuff the program right. So clients have adopted well and even teams for instance internally in the agency also it's been varied. I think frankly this is going to be because people are working from home. It is entirely a function of one is your personal preference. Do you try even what do you call a company or are you kind of do you thrive in solitude. Then it also depends on what where you're stuck. You're working and you're kind of got a lot of people at home. Then it's also whom you're stuck with. So I think it varies. That's one of the things so that that's one part to it. Then of course there are stresses. You can you can sense it. It is not easy people living on their own managing their without maids managing their home stuff. So you're having conversations every day. So what's also robbed. I think what has happened is that because because of the zoom fatigue and call fatigue people end up calling each other only for walk. So in office there's a naturally there's a bit of a pressure cooker gasket situation where the pressure gets released with these casual conversations. Wonderful conversations over tea. You just kind of interact as friends. So all that gets kind of reduced right. So so it becomes a little transactional. So you you detect those kind of stresses in the system and you're kind of trying to make it fun make it light catch up. But yes it is like I said if there's one thing that has kind of surprised me it's how productive we all managed to be inspired of everything else and how work seems to have kind of become bigger better. In this lockdown. Right. It's going to take us through some of your work work down amidst lockdown including your work for Colgate and how it all came together. Sure thing. Like I said I think the quite a few campaigns. I can talk for instance we did a recently we did a campaign for parachute advanced something called the chumpy beats challenge. So basically Indian youngsters are considered among the most stressed in the entire world. Even before lockdown and post covid it was it only got worse everybody was kind of nowhere to go your stack at home and parachute is a bit of a legacy band. So the challenge is how do you connect with them. So we kind of dug up this head massage ritual called the chumpy and we kind of repackage it for them as a tick tock challenge right. It's an old world ritual. We repackage it as a new age challenge and went to where the youth are on tick tock. So I think it just blew up right in just two three days. It kind of hit some 13 billion views right and now it's at last counted some 27 million views and the number of people in hundreds of millions in terms of hashtag videos and usage and stuff like that. So that's one of the things that kind of completely kind of just took off. We were also surprised. Then of course there's the Colgate dentist for me. That's a pretty interesting thing on the lockdown. That's one of the things that I was talking about midtown long term right when you get in of course Colgate was keen to do a film talking about spreading their smiles and stuff like that which we did of course. But what was interesting was that we had an inkling that this thing is going to go on long. So the question is yes you're not going to be able to produce much stuff but more importantly is there a this whole thing about essential services with what we're allowed and a lot of things and it's funny that dentist were not part of the essential services. And secondly if you need to look after your dental hardware and care for it with this Covid fear you're not going to be feel very comfortable going to a dentist. So we said basically how do you kind of allow it. We thought that seeing a dentist or caring for your teeth is essential. It can't be a non-essential service. It is essential as Colgate has a brand that's up to your smile. So we fundamentally we built a platform we kind of enabled people to consult dentists. So Colgate put in a whole panel of dentists hundreds of dentists across India and we kind of literally launched a platform within weeks where you could seek out consultancy on the phone, on video, reach out to a dentist, show them the teeth, have your teeth looked at. So it's a very good example of a product, an FMCG product suddenly behaving like a service which is what allows us to do. And it's a and BML does connections we are very what do you call hot driving on the connection piece where today's consumer is connected in a million different ways. We each have a brand. So everything becomes a touch point for us to push the brand service experience. And this kind of this came up. This was a proactive initiative, but the client kind of loved it and it just happened in two, three weeks. It kind of happened. So that's one for Colgate. And then we've done a couple. We just did a campaign for IDBI Federal Life Insurance. So they wanted to talk about children's insurance. So what contextually right now the fears people's fears are at an all time high. So while it does seem like you want to think about stuff like life insurance and in a more serious way and, you know, you're considering your options. But the question is, what is it? What is the positive message that you could give? You don't want to scare people into people are already scared, right? You don't want to scare them. So we were very keen to what you call make sure that the message was very positive. So the whole point about children is that they are fearless, right? While parents are fearful of the future, children are exactly the opposite. They're fearless about the future, right? So when you think when you talk about jobs, you talk about losing jobs, machines coming, automation, you start worrying about that. There's pollution. Of course, a lot of fears are legit. There's pollution and there's a lot of shortage and we all worry about it, right? But kids are kind of innocent in that sense and they're super bright and enthusiastic. And they look at the, they hear about technology and they get excited, right? They see it as a solution. We think of the problems, they think of solutions, right? So for us, that was a very interesting dynamic in that sense, right? So we really kind of thought it would be great to contrast these opinions, these attitudes in fact, right? Parents versus... So we did a campaign based on the children's attitude compared to the parents' attitudes. And the entire campaign called Future Fearless, right? How do we Future Fearless? Something as a brand ambassador. So that also was done in the lockdown. We just finished filming the camps, the campaigns going on ahead. So there's a lot of interesting and we are connecting again for Dell and stuff. And there's a lot of campaigns happening. But like I said, it's like suddenly because we've got all these brands on board in the lockdown, while we're working from home, you're Dell, you're Colgate, PepsiCools, SIPLA. The opportunities are much bigger, right? Like even for SIPLA, we did a campaign for a product, for a specialist pregnancy care brand, Mama Expert, right? There again, it's very interesting because there's a whole side to moms. Like this whole mom-baby world is a shiny happy world where it's all positive. Everybody's happy, the baby's smiling, mom's smiling. But when you get down and check on the internet, there's a side to motherhood that is out there, but that doesn't get acknowledged in public conversation, right? And we felt that it was important for us to... And we meant to be guilty for it, for feeling some of the thoughts that moms feel. I mean, I'm not talking about having to... It's not true to feel so, right? But moms feel guilty, right? And it's a huge burden on their heads. Not only are they feeling extreme duress, but they're also feeling bad about feeling the dutrus, right? So I think there again, we said that we need to kind of find a way to take the guilt, take the burden off moms. So our entire campaign was based on actual conversations on the net, real conversations, hard conversations, and how we dramatized it in a very interesting form, right? For moms with love. So the whole point is to show the real sides of moms, the real side of moms. And I think we're talking to millennial moms, younger moms, and for them, they don't want the shiny, happy version of things, right? They can handle the truth. They can give out the truth, they can belt out the truth, and they can handle the truth, right? And that's where the authenticity comes, and that's where you're able to connect. This is where our entire campaign was based on the real side, right? The side that doesn't get spoken about. Yeah, so that's some of the words, just some of the words that we've been doing, even Pepsi, Lays, I don't know if you're familiar with that. We just like last week, it went viral. There's a, what do you call it? Heart Box campaign where we created, digitally we created a, called it a lot of brands that are doing good work during the lockdown, right? And we thank them, dedicated packs, Lays packs designed specifically, and we're calling out some socialists, it trended in Twitter. So I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a pure Instagram campaign. So it's like different kinds of campaigns, whether it's a TikTok thing where it blew up on TikTok, or it's an Instagram thing, or it's like a bit more of a brand restater, or a relaunch where you do a film and do that. So there is a lot of action happening. I think we can never be as busy as we are now. Amazing. So this entire scenario has brought in a great deal of upheaval and the way we work. So where do you see the range of opportunity here, for the industry? So that's pretty interesting. I think, see, one of the things is green shoots are just something new coming up. And while, of course, that is also happening, I think one of the things is also there's a bit of a reprioritization happening, right? Because what happens is marketing behavior changes customer behavior in that sense, right? And money, again, cheeses attention. So we are just kind of trying to figure out basis this lockdown because of this work from home, because of the fear, how customer behavior is changing, right? So suddenly there are some categories, literally like a yo-yo, right? Some categories have suddenly unexpectedly kind of shut up, right, in terms of people wanting to buy, people wanting to engage, e-com, personal tech. A lot of different categories have suddenly become very hyperactive. At the same time, there are some categories that have kind of taken the backseat. This is a matter of reordering priorities. So yes, there is a, the interesting thing is that for digital, how it's translating is that, I read somewhere, it's a very interesting quote that they said that it's almost like three years of digital transformation got enacted in three months, literally, like in three months three years of transformation happened, right? So it's been great for digital, and for us also, we have a, what do you call, CX practice, just platforms, with platforms that people for clients as the e-com practice, and we're seeing suddenly there's so much traction happening and we're able to give solutions to clients where three, four months back, it was still just kind of taking off or we had a robust practice, but now it's like suddenly everybody wants time for that, right? So I think in terms of how the green shoe, there's a lot of interesting opportunities that are coming up, right? So even in terms of business opportunities, I just talked about, right? Even in terms of brand opportunities, right? A lot of brands that have been doing kind of work, not necessarily to sell their stuff, but also to get into good books of people. I mean, that's a whole world we are saying it, but I think brands have been winning a lot of love from customers also, right? So there is that part of it also. And I think in terms of one more green shoes of opportunity, slightly a different kind of opportunity, but I would say that smaller budgets is a good opportunity. It's actually an opportunity because it forces everybody to focus, right? Whereas when you don't have the discipline of smaller budgets, you kind of want to chase everything. You want to be always on. You want to chase every topical day. You want to do everything for every occasion. Whereas now you say that, listen, I've got all these challenges and I've got just this much budget. What do we do, right? So it forces the client also to be kind of much sharper in focus. It forces us also to be far more creative in that sense, saying that, okay, this is our one shot. We are not going to get a second and a third shot in this quarter or in the first half of the year. So it also forces us to be creative, which is also cool. So I think there are a lot of opportunities coming up. I think it fundamentally is a function of which side of the opportunity you're on or your agency is on. And that's what decides how good or bad you feel about it. But I think there is enough opportunity. I think even clients also like categories, like I said, hygiene is becoming so big and everybody's getting into hygiene, right? Like there's the other day, right? The Asian Paints is kind of doing some toilet cleaners and floor cleaners. So everybody's getting into hygiene. There's a face, sanitizers. So that's become a huge thing, literally, right? So you could argue that that's a temporary fleeting thing, but it is what it is, right? And now as a thing, there is a need, right? People are the biggest fear that is as we open up, is people are having to get out of their cocoons and step out into the world, right? You're having to actually go out there, right? So then what all does it mean? How do you reassure people? What are the fears that are emerging, right? So there's a lot of different ways of looking at it besides the digital transformation piece. But I think fundamentally, like I said, it is everybody's tracking behavior, customer behavior to kind of figure out what do we do with it and how do we cater to what's happening out there. Right. So according to you, what has this entire landscape, this entire situation, taught us about brands as they navigate this really volatile landscape and what to say and how much to say it remains as a question right now. It's a very interesting question. Actually, it's a bit of a reckoning actually for brands if you ask me. So there's this very, very interesting quote by Wadden Buffett that says that it's when the tide goes down is when you realize who's been swimming naked, right? So it's kind of like that, right? So suddenly the tide has gone down and you know, you can see brands kind of being exposed for what they are, for good of us, right? So I would say just to give you an example, right? I mean, I'm talking about a very pure personal thing and it was the first thing that kind of, it was literally like almost like a knee-jerk reaction. It was so fast out of the gate when LVMH said that four of our perfume brands, factories, they're going to convert them into manufacturing sanitizers straight off the bat. Those are early days, right? Right. And I was really stunned because LVMH, it's okay kind of it's a super luxury brand. At some level you're saying okay fine, is it really necessary or thinking is it, does the world need luxury and consumption exists in the world and we need to be thinking about the environment. That is my space about LVMH. I said it's okay fine, it's like, yeah. But the moment they did this, it was like, whoa, you know, I knew respect. I mean they said it's not like they did a campaign, nothing, and the speed of the decision making, right? So suddenly like LVMH said okay fine, solid, you're not a brand, you're a solid corporate citizen in that sense, right? I think that was a bit of a, it set up a race. It literally an arms race, a number of companies that immediately after that stepped up and say, Diageo and Coke and stuff like that. A lot of people donated money, but I think the key point is that people, a lot of brands and organizations stepped up and became corporate citizens, you know, good corporate citizens. And that was the kind of a, that was the first step, it was really cool. Right. And because this has been something especially for the millennials, we've been seeing this in the last many years that brands that do good or that speak the good language are what that find favor with the millennials, right? But now here was a time when it was a truly, it was not a marketing playbook at all out of the, it was an opportunity for you to step up and do good, right? So a lot of brands did that and it was pretty good because there was a website that came up saying DidTheHealth.com People are keeping track. You could go there and enter any celebrities name, any brands name, and it would surface whether they did help for COVID or not. So the world was keeping track and I'm sure that a lot of guys who did the genuine thing stepped out and without hesitation went out and did the stuff, they're going to be remembered by people personally, right? So I think there's a lot of work washing happening because of course this caused advertising and stepping up and doing good. It had become fad almost as a lot of brands were jumping onto the bandwagon but this one, this opportunity kind of exposed, this is what I meant by the tide went down and it suddenly showed who was going to make it, right? They were the brands that didn't step up and put money where the mouth was, right? And I'm going to contribute around a million dollars and stuff like that. So this suddenly exposed that stuff. So that's on one side, okay? That's as a response to an outstanding crisis. How can companies behave? Especially that's another trend that we're seeing because internationally also governments are trying to pull back or companies are stepping up and doing what governments used to do, right? Because it's not like a set in stone there is a lot of friction between factions but the thing is companies are doing what governments should be doing, right? And so this was a great thing but having said that coming down to the business of bread and butter and building brands and selling stuff, there again you could see the messaging how the messaging changed, right? So for instance, like, straight off the bat, the first reaction knee-jump was, we are with you, right? We are in this together, you and us and let's smile and keep smiling and keep your chin up. And I think Facebook did some... BrogaFy did some very cool stuff for Facebook using that port. Very powerful stuff. So I think there's a... suddenly there was a speed of a lot of ads trying to say, hey, we are there for you, because nobody knew what was happening and they said, okay fine, I can't not be heard out there. Like, everybody stopped trying to jump. You know, I'm literally like a tower of Babel and I need to add my voice to it whether it is needed or not but there were even schools of how similar all those ads were but that was the first step, okay? And from there it kind of went to now what can we do for you, right? So a lot of brands said, okay fine, now all that is okay, now we need to get down to our business. How do we do something? How do we sell our product? How do we push a brand, right? Now there's also certain seriousness to it which, because everybody was saying that it's COVID time, it's COVID time, how can we, how can we? But then there's also the next phase is why so serious? There are a lot of brands that say, hey man, we can't stop laughing, right? Like your... advisors could brought back the what's up campaign or cruise light with the zoom background generator So a lot of fun stuff like you have to recognize you can't be morose all the time and people are in the serious stress, right? So like when I say that when, what can I do for you? The campaign that would fit would the jumpy campaign that I talked about for parachute advancement where we said we're going to help people with the stress. So there's a role for the product and there's a role, a specific thing that would do for our customers that would fit there, right? And from there to treating it lighter, saying that okay, it's okay, this is here for a long time and we don't need to be morose anymore and we can all have a laugh and we can kind of take it lightly. And then also, then the thing is now, I mean, suddenly if I don't know if you've seen the womb stories that came out recently, epic storytelling, right? Broken during a lockdown, it came out because there's been a certain kind of budgetary constraint, situational constraint, lockdown constraint that was defining how we behave until now, right? You couldn't go out and shoot and all these handheld camera shoots and remote shoots were happening. But here suddenly one epic storytelling, right? Like nobody could tell that this was not done during a lockdown. So that's what's so bad. So I think what is happening is that now as like I said, that thing about when you started it, you're kind of trying to understand how what's what's up and how long it's going to last. So from a one month thing to a three month thing to a six month thing to a two year thing. Now suddenly you're saying that, okay, this is going to be it and we need to come up with campaign, right? Like why like, yeah, even like we have our Dell, it's a very interesting exercise, our client, they have a huge campaign coming up for the second half of the year. And we've seen that like three months we've seen the messaging, do we, don't we? What's going to happen? Not going to happen. And finally it's getting right. And it is, it is, it is, it is a function of how unstable things are, how things are changing on a day to day basis, right? So I think it's kind of coming out. So I think overall one of the learnings has been that at the end of the day that that thing about what I said is that did the help.com it's kind of cool because you're now, you're really reconsidering brands that are really serious about this and what are the brands that are kind of playing, you know? Right. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunities for us to, what do you call, put out messaging, but I think we just need to evaluate because people are going to, are going to see through stuff right now, right? And now it is the time where you kind of get down to the brass tacks, all superfluous stuff is out. You are kind of say this is skeletal, this is kind of survival and I'm going to just kind of say this will go from a custom point of view and from our marketing point of view saying that, okay, fine, now how do we kind of just make sure keep our eyes on the ball and on the goal and we kind of achieve what we can, right? So it's kind of, change for the better, I would say in that sense. Amazing. So lastly, as businesses get affected at budgets are the first that kind of see a meeting. So what would be your message to agencies on, you know, how do you should remain relevant? That's an interesting, see, this is something that's been, the writing's been on the wall, frankly, last many years. Like I think two, three years back, I think the spends on digital world bigger than the spends on TV globally, right? That's one and we've been seeing how more and more, like I said, right? The money goes where the attention goes, right? And the attention has been shifting to digital for the last few years, right? In terms of the number of hours that the average person spends on digital, on the screen, it's just going up, it's just going up, it's passing year. So I think clients have been kind of, poor has been kind of slow to wake up, clients, agencies, everybody, right? Every brands, even a lot of agencies also have been kind of slow to acknowledge that have been given a bit of a wake up call in that sense. So it's a, it's a bit of a rude awakening. And I think the only thing that can, and that's not just a case at this time, that can save anybody is sad if you're a learning organization, if you're learning is a way of life, then I think that's the best way you can cope because there's no set ways. You just need to learn to respond fast, respond well, right? And I think the only thing that can save us is that we're ever learning in that sense, right? Just to tell you how quick, how, how drastic, how fast change happens. I was just telling you about this huge campaign we did for Parachute Advanced Jumping Beats on TikTok. Huge spectacularly huge campaign. And we were like said, yes, we cracked this platform. Let's have, spread the learnings to the entire team, to the agency. Let's go talk to clients. And next thing, you know, TikTok is off the air. You got what I'm saying? So that's how it is. That's how brutal and fast change is, right? Now that's fine. Okay, fine. We mastered it. Now that's out. That's not to say it's completely out, but for now it's off, right? So what next? So it is like that. You have to be, you literally have to be on the transformation treadmill in that sense, right? As the, as the thing saying that it is not a, that pace of change does increase. Only you could, once some change happened, then you could say, okay, for the next couple of decades it's going to stay this way. Color TV came and it took so many decades. Now like change happens like it's hard to believe that this 10 years back is when the, I mean the 12 years back, 2007 is when the mobile phone, the true mobile phone was launched, Appalaya phone, right? So the transformation treadmill is kind of, you have to be on top of it, right? And you have to, you have to keep running so fast, right? Like the, it's changing the very notion of brand building. Like, VML 1R globally, if you look at how Wendy's has been transformed as a brand from an old world brand in a world where Burger King and KFC were, were cool and doing all the noise. Wendy's came from, from behind and today that's, that's a brand that, that customers ask Wendy's to roast them. Right. On Twitter, right? On Twitter, and they asked, roast me and Wendy's reply saying that why don't you ask your 11 followers to roast you. Right. That is, that is where the brand is at and that is brand building and it's most sublime. If you look at how they, this year's Grand Prix campaign on Fortnite, how Wendy's killed Fortnite, it was insane. Nobody would have thought it. It won the Grand Prix precisely because of that because the jury said that you know, it shows us where advertising can go. Right. So the very notion of campaign is, or how a brand can be built has changed. Right. So that's one thing. Right. And that's, that's just campaigns. I'm also talking about how you deliver your product, how you deliver your experience, brand experience. That's one thing. Right. The second thing is that a lot of brands, a lot of the new brands are and we don't realize it. A lot of brands, let's say Uber and Airbnb, they've been, they've become brands first and then they talk about traditional communication. They became brands overnight as experiences. Like before you knew it, they were huge brands. They were delighting in the proper of people. Right. And they were just using the internet and moving very smart, getting lost out and under the radar. And they just built themselves into huge brands and only then they started saying, okay, now we need to communicate. We need to define the message. So the fact that experienced brands started happening. Right. So that's the other thing that we need to look at. How is it that these brands have built themselves from scratch. Marketing, sorry, agencies and built the brand. Right. And you're seeing the speed of those small brands, internet-built brands coming up. Right. Whether it's Dollar Shave Club or Billy Razor or here, for instance, right. Beardo and Superbottoms and there are tons of brands, right. And you go down and suddenly like, I find myself buying more and more of those kind of brands. I go looking for, let's say, Cherry Blossom or Wally's shoe polish and I find suddenly this, this homespun internet brand that is offering me a shoe shampoo and something else and something else. And next thing, I've ordered like a brand worth of stuff and it's entirely some brand that I've not heard of. Right. That's just come surfaced out there. So that is an experience that's happening. Right. So this is the age of internet brands in the sense like it or not. Of course, brands have not built overnight, but you get that thing really suddenly overnight you're experiencing new brands and you're kind of they're becoming what else can I think of? I think the other thing is to keep moving fast that this whole Facebook has this kind of I don't know, they still follow it and move fast and break things. But I think everybody's breaking things all the time. Governments are breaking things right now. TikTok was broken by the Indian government in that sense. People are breaking things. Internet is breaking things. People are trying to break the internet. So everybody's breaking things and they're breaking things. And people are breaking things. They are breaking things and taking things and breaking things. So all of these people in the internet or in the media is of it is just going faster and faster. So bottom line, I would say at the end of it is to kind of see how fast you can keep learning and learning is the only way up and out. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. It was amazing chatting with you today. Thank you so much. Stay safe, stay connected. Thank you, you too.