 It's been weeks into a global lockdown which has left many unable to leave the confines of their homes and hence the concept of shooting and producing and ad campaign anywhere in the world now feels alien. Despite these challenges and many obstacles, our creatives continue to shine and they continue to tell stories that inspire and one such creative I have with us today is Titus Uputru, the national creative director of Densu One and the creative head of Tabru Densu. He spent over 25 years in Indian advertising and he's won not just national but many international awards. His work for the Afghan telecom also won the interest of the White House where it was exhibited. So it's such an honor to have you with us Titus. Thank you so much. I'm very glad to be here to talk to you. So I'll start by speaking to you about how the overall creative concepting has changed after the lockdown for the ad world while working from home. Is creativity closer to home now? Actually the way typically we work you know within an advertising agency or a brand communication framework is we usually get a brief by a client at the client's office sometimes or we internally discuss with the planning and account management teams and we start off with the briefing sessions and when we gather we usually gather in a physical room and everyone comes in and we find chairs for everybody. We order some rounds of tea and coffee. We start with a few laughs and I really miss if somebody I miss it's Munir my office boy who keeps bringing us tea and coffee. So after these rounds of nice pleasantries and laughs we deep dive into the objectives and the challenges by the brand or the company. So once the briefing happens you know once we get the inspiration sometimes we revisit the brief and you know like sit again. Once the inspiration happens you know the creative folks usually they tend to fly and you know the flight of imagination happens and typically you know when in my office when I sit with my team members when the brief happens I tell them disappear somewhere don't sit on your seat because usually there's a deadline or there's an artwork that needs to be signed of course those are important things but when you are sitting and thinking and somebody comes and disturbs you every two minutes it just becomes a hindrance hindrance you know because you are lost in a thought and suddenly somebody is bringing you back. So I tell them go go go just disappear into some room some conference room or go downstairs to a coffee shop you know and and just come back with some ideas you know sit with yourselves or with your team members. So you know like and I feel like when we are locked down like this in the confines of our home you know at least one thing is not happening is somebody is over the shoulder asking you what happened to this you know you are able to shut shut down yourself certain things if you want to really disappear into the you know the world of creativity or you know the world of cracking and if you see ideals you know they don't really are designated to occur within the confines of an office. So typically for creative people you know the ideas occur anytime because your mind keeps working it's not like you're only sitting in front of a paper and a machine and a pen you know and then that's when the mind works you know the seeds have come in you know they have been sowed into your brain and when you are driving or when you are you know into a shower or you know when you are about to sleep you know or maybe when you are in a coffee shop you know ideas just occurs ideas occur and the typical practice is you take down the ideas you know because the moment they come sometimes you forget so you want to take them take them down on a tissue paper or even on your notes file in the mobile phone etc. So in this lockdown period I think you know this all these video calls have enabled us to congregate together anyway the planning account management and creative folks come together and they jam and they discuss you know etc. But the creative process itself the creative process of thinking I think it's more peaceful because you are able to confine yourself you're able to lock yourself into some corner some terrace some garden you know some backyard you know and you're just thinking you know and thinking of the ideas so it's not such a bad place actually Right. So I also want to speak to you about your beautiful beautiful work for Honda Creative Commons lockdown. So what was the starting point of that and what was Honda's belief to you? Thank you so much. I'm glad you liked it. Actually Honda always has been known for its wing mark which is one of its iconic symbols you know. So it looks like a wing the brand logo. So back in 2012 I think that was that year when we did this film called Dekho Dekhe Zamanah Panchi Uda Jaire you know and that film was about the skydivers who created the logo in the sky and Akshay Kumar says jab zamee se pao ur jate hai to punk apne aap lag jaate hai. So it was this aspect about how I when I take off my feet of ground and that's what you do typically when you are on a two wheeler right because your feet are not on ground. So and that's when the flight happened. So the wing mark was really integral to the brand and when this lockdown happened you know and we were thinking about all these motorcyclists you know and if you see the two wheeler experiences all almost naked like you are out in the open unlike a car which has a shield there is nothing you experience the sun you experience the wind the raindrops it's such an outdoor experience. So all these bikers you know they are now told to kichu betu ke ghan wetu. So we said like you know it must be so stifling for them you know that you know you can't go out and you can't just you know because in kair ghar pe tiktin ye. So we thought we should do this film where you know we can tell them that there is a time for everything and currently the time is to rest your wings you know and that's how the idea came about and that was the film. So tell us about the challenges between idea and execution and how many days you will take to pull it off from brief to execution. So when the idea occurred you know like I wrote down the narrative itself the voice of that how you know as birds you know like you are you know you are supposed to stay at home because there is a time to rest your wings you know even though you want to just go about and fly. So the video when typically when we get a brief you know when we want to make a video we call up a production house or a director and then we have long chats on the vision of the film on how to go about this making this film then we have pre-production meetings you know extensive conversations with the client even we evaluate cost, costume, location you know we seek location permissions you know then we of course go into shooting then we do music composition with Lovely and I really love those sessions you know sitting with music directors and one of the lovely experience, loveliest experience was sitting with Vishal Bhardwaj where he was composing a track for my film on harmonium. So that kind of luxury we don't have now because the film industry was shut so I was thinking like how to execute this so I have a little bit of experience in terms of making films like I directed a few films myself so I thought let me just do it you know like how let me just give it a shot so what we did was we engaged with people who you know love the brand the brand Honda you know the two wheelers the guys who have motorcycles, Honda motorcycles or Honda Activa or Scooters you know and we thought you know we can talk to them we engage them so we found them professing love for the brand on Instagram so we spoke to young Instagrammers and they were willing to share their beautiful photographs you know for this film and I edited the whole sequence myself and once we had that then P. P. Bajaj who's a acclaimed voiceover artist I requested him saying that can you lend your voice for this video and he loved the script and he said sure and he recorded it from his own home and he sent us few samples one of which we picked and then the sound engineering was done by Melvin in Bombay he was also working out of home and he was very kind and very patient you know to keep revising you know the mix as per the need of the hour and the music of course I picked it from a library so it all came together very well and beautifully and I thought the sound design and even the pictures each of them were very beautiful very soulful so it was completely a user generated content piece you know if you ask me and I'm really grateful to all these Instagrammers who have just given those photographs you know just to be featured in this ad I think also because they love the brand not because you know we ask them or we engage them but I think they love the brand and they wanted to really put something forward at this time in terms of the duration you know when we when I put together the video it typically took me about 4-5 days not more than that but then there were changes which we did thereafter that took some time Super so you know team chemistry is considered a very very important part of the entire creative process so while working from home does it go for a toss and you know with so much video fatigue team being you know home bound and you know a lot of dreadful news effecting us how do you foster that creativity I can speak for myself I don't watch news okay and of course in this lockdown unfortunately newspapers have been shut down so one doesn't get into that morning ritual television and you know internet news we don't watch once in two weeks possibly one switches on and checks out what's going on most of the news anyway comes to you on your social feed on your whatsapp and you know if there is something urgent people call up you know so we are not really worried about it you know of course I have an aunt who said that there is so much news out there and it is so depressing so I told aunt my aunt just don't switch off you know what's the point these are not under your control the forest fires locus attacks and the cyclones so what can you do about it except keep listening that how many of course it is important to know what is going on in terms of the virus attack and how one must prevent oneself and also to know all these warriors who are continuously working you know about them but beyond that you can't do anything so it is better to shut the news and pray to god and seek his mercy and grace to have mercy on this planet earth and redeem us from this problems so what we do focus and I kept telling my team is let's focus on the work at hand let's get inspired by creating pieces of work that we must constantly view to get inspired and also focus on family this is a time when we have the opportunity of having a meal with the family because usually you are outside whether you are on road or you are with the teams outside but this is a time when you can grab a beautiful lunch with the family and I must tell you one of the things is like when my kids were growing up they were really young I used to think you know oh my god I am really missing what is happening during the day because I am gone practically the whole day and I don't have that information of what are these toddlers doing what are they doing beautiful things they are called so while they have grown up a little bit now I am fortunate and grateful that I can grab a lunch maybe after a quick lunch we grab a game of carols or monopoly so it's nice those moments I tell my team to focus on these things focus on the positive aspects we are grateful to God that we are all safe and sound not fall and pray to this virus so far so good so let's focus on the positive and also work is keeping us occupied there is so much work it's not like the work has come down and we are all occupied and specifically because there is no time to like pick up your laptop and your bag and walk out of the office it's always you know you are sort of occupied but of course within that whole aspect we are trying to make sense of it and you know trying to follow a bit of a regime and schedule so that we don't go really mental right so speaking about the positives this entire situation has brought a great deal of upheaval in the way we work and all that so where do you see the green shoots of opportunity for the annual runners I think the silver lining in all of this is if there is one which is creative agencies a traditional creative agencies it is the you know I'll give you an example for example if I was and we were you know trying to get into the digital world digital work and maybe there were light guards and we were swimming in a pool before lockdown after lockdown we are just thrown into the deep waters into this gigantic ocean of worldwide web and most brands and everybody is just doing work on digital because that's where everyone is queued on to right now so we are all there and it's amazing you know it's amazing experience because you know not that we were not doing digital work earlier we were doing and we were doing a lot of video content but right now we are doing things like lead generation we are doing enhancement of social engagement you know content creation and so many other things you know like different models of digital you know how to engage and how to crack things you know so I think it's beautiful experience it's new freedom that one is enjoying and I think it's a great time in that sense you know so I think that is where the curve is you know moving completely on to digital world rather than you know crack a TVC and then something like an outdoor or a print and then go into digital the curve is already moved to digital before lockdown but this is like into the deep into the deep and I always had this dream that you know I want to swim in the ocean you know literally so this at least is giving me a metaphorical experience beautiful so you know we almost reached the peak of pandemic advertising I see so many ads in the starting when it all started off it was very nice it was very assuring and you know I was happy that brands are being part of the conversation but now I see ads and most ads are getting lost in this sea of sameness so you know what is your advice to brands and to creatives now you know when they navigate this landscape how do they decide what to say and how much to say because there is a fatigue building in right? because there is like a fatigue building in there is so much of corona where it is advertising so of course when this lockdown took us all by surprise we were not waiting for it or we didn't know there was an event like this in the very first quarter of the year so of course when it took us all by surprise and I think when brands and everyone of us were logged in I think it was important to reach out to consumers via brands to assure them to tell them that we are there we are listening and we care as brands and therefore I think a lot of brands came out with the kind of advertising that we've all seen but right now if this is a new normal that is continuing of course a lot of offices have opened and people are encouraged to do social distancing or wearing masks and how to wear masks so there are new conversations and also I think now of course we've gone through that phase and it's fair enough for brands to do all of that what they did I think it was very important it was not just a knee-jerk reaction but right now of course I think there are new ways new conversations that one must do like for example if I'm at home then how can I engage with a brand how can I buy a brand how can I you know know new aspects of the brand because I'm not going into a brick and mortar experience you know of a certain brand for instance so those are the aspects how can I you know engage with a brand and new conversations and I think new conversations will emerge out of this although the new Nike film Nike had done two films the first film was right about the empty stadiums and every empty basketball courts and all and now recently what they have done is that you know the last bit that you've got that you give it you know and that is so motivational and emotional and you don't feel like okay man enough of it you know tell me something new it is inspiring everybody and people are you know sharing it those of us who are not even in the business people are sharing it and it's just few days back right so I just feel like of course there's new ways to engage and new insights and new conversations and one is looking forward to it thank you so much for your time and I have conversation were not just insightful but very very positive so thank you so much for joining us today thank you so much miss ba I am glad you enjoyed I also enjoyed visiting the last few days few months and also you know my growing up with my children etc