 to eForum Creative Zone. My guests today are not just iconic ad makers but I call them as creatives who shown the industry the power of product innovations and providing real business solutions to clients. More importantly they are creatives, they are one of the few creatives who said how it is. So I am pleased to welcome with us today, Kaval Shure and Naveen Talreja from the group. Hi Kaval, how are you? Hi Naveen, how are you holding our lockdown? Good, good, good. It's all good. Just about getting good down for a walk so that helps. So Prasily, I want to speak to you about how have you been grappling up with shooting and creating I mean remote captivity? Okay. Whoever would like to take that up? Yeah, no so I think it's been a journey, I don't think it's, I mean it's changed since the time we started. So we have shot a couple of pieces, one for Sipla, which good morning friends and Bob shot. That was typically in our Indian way, a Jugaad shoot done. So Bob literally found, found that whose dad was a DOP and whose mom was an art director and they shot in that house. And Bob sort of, excuse me, directed that film over Zoom and then we made that other film for Saregama with the Saregama in-house team. But that was, I think, Saregama was about three weeks ago, Sipla was I think another five weeks ago. But now we are pretty much normal in the way shoots are happening. So we're shooting something for another client of ours next Monday, Tuesday in Goa actually. So that's a normal shoot, normal in the sense that normal with all the rules being followed with regards to 33% crew and so on and so forth. But it's a normal shoot, it's a full-fledged shoot which Amit Saregama from Chrome is shooting for us. So yeah, so I mean that's how it's sort of transpired. We've continued to work except for the physical proximity, we've continued to work as we would have if we were all in office. So we've continued to do the strategic pieces, we've continued to do the creative development in a way so that we'll be ready to shoot when the lockdown opens up. So we have a five or six sort of campaigns in the group and all the different stages of production. So in some cases, we'll be working towards it. But yeah, largely that's how it's transpired in the last sort of couple of times. Who are amazing and you're not finally traveling to Goa as well. So traveling after Goa and shooting after long physically? I don't know if we are traveling yet, but we're shooting for sure. So that we're figuring out. Exciting. Super. So that's the people I've spoken to who have told me that this is not a typical scenario where you know, a client gives you a brief and you go back to them all the time. Anytime agencies are just going back to their clients with some kind of solution, something that the brand can do in this scenario. So in terms of your work for Saregama Caravan, I wanted to understand that did you come up with that idea or did Caravan like Saregama Caravan come up with a brief to you and how did it all come together if you can just take us with that. Because that's a beautiful piece of work. You want to go? So okay, so I mean, we've spoken about this in the past, we don't work typically how agencies work with clients. So we are very sort of deeply involved with what the clients are doing on a daily basis. So really it's not, you know, in these COVID times or non COVID times, we never sort of, we don't expect a client to give us a brief. We don't expect a client to give us a brief and that's across clients, not just Saregama, it's across clients. So this as an opportunity came up because that was the reality of older people. The senior citizens were while others were still being allowed to sort of move around and move out with masks and all the necessary protection. The senior citizens, it was very clear that the mandate was that they cannot move out of the house. So I think in that sense, it was an opportunity that came through the client and we spoke about it. We felt it's an opportunity for us to try and in a way alleviate this loneliness and boredom that the older generation is going to struggle with. The brand has always been about that. It has been a loneliness buster. Old songs have that ability to do that. So in a way, it all sort of fell together in place. So to go back to your question, was it a brief or did we go proactive? I think it was a conversation based on an opportunity or something that came up in the environment and we co-created that piece with the client. So lockdown took us all by surprise and so I just wanted to understand are you still working from home and what were the initial hiccups when you first started working from home? What were the operational challenges that you guys were facing? And how is it now? No girl. I think it was the same for all of us. Nobody, none of us in an environment like this worked from home before March 17th, March 18th was one sexy term that we thought people would do it. We had never thought that this would become a way of life. And while we are not averse to technology, like many people who would be our age, we're actually very happy to embrace technology. But the thing with technology is that when you're remote conversing with people, it may be okay for certain businesses like in accounts and finance or where you do the work and you just come in for meetings, meetings are very transactional, it's easier to do conversations remotely. But our business is slightly different because our business is built on conversations and it's actually built on small talk or not even big talk. Big talk happens, yes. There is the small talk where people let down their guard when they expose themselves, when they make it with their expressions, with their emotions is when something new comes out. And actually we realized initially that Zoom or whatever technology we use was the enemy of small talk because the conversations were very purposive. And it took us a while for everybody to start chatting in the casual sense. But I think over a period of time, we've become comfortable with it. So much so that I think we end up working more now because even the gap between meetings is not available. So you would travel from one client office to another and you'd have that 45 minute for yourself. Now it's just back. It's just relentless. And by the end of the day, pretty fagged out. So in a way, it's productive. We also realize the benefits of not having to travel to cities to have a meeting. So those are great things. In the last week or 10 days, we realized that we had a great conversation. Our teams hadn't cracked the beef right. And then we asked some people to stay back on the call while the rest left. And then we said, yeah, what's going on? Is there something that's coming in the way? Is the breach not working? And that half an hour actually was fantastic because we just spoke about the little things. And Naveen and I then later chatted here, yeah, she's up and missing. When it comes to the office. So yes, in most creative industries, which depend on collaboration, not just ours, I think the power of the small talk, we can't underestimate. And that happens best when people are together. We are making do with what we have. Ideally, we'd rather be together. I just add one sentence. I mean, small talk, usually when we, you know, we both sit in the same room in the office, right? Now we are fixing meetings with each other. We are fixing times with each other, which is not normal at all. You know, I mean, it's, it's something, I mean, we've known each other for more than now 12 years. And it's only in these three months that we've had to take an appointment with each other to have a conversation, you know, which is bizarre. Yeah. Tell me about it. It's been very, I've been talking to Maria, man, she's like, I can't get these people together at the same time. It'll be very difficult for me. So yeah. So the next question, I've always called the womb as a purely independent agency. And right now you'll put a great show at Epis as one of the most independent agency, Epis Asia Pacific. So I know that the womb doesn't work for awards, but what do you think, what do you think has worked in your favor? And how did you crack this code? How do you crack the Epis code, maybe? And what do you attribute this to daily? Actually, you know, Ms. Ma, we got to know about it. We didn't plan for it. We got to know about it. We didn't, there was no code to crack. We got to know about it as we were getting some client. And I happened to browse through one of these industry websites and we were pushed to do some of the most effective agency awards. So there is no code to crack. One thing which is great and one thing which we'd like to change. So one thing which is great is that Saragama Karva has contributed a lot to us winning that because being quite a landmark, I wouldn't call it a campaign. It's just the entire initiative, the product through the campaign and so on and so forth. And the success is part of the market. We're very happy about that. There are a couple of other grants that contributed to our ranking. So that's great. What we'd like to change and we know that's not true. There are about 13, 14 clients that we work at and we know that for each of those clients, we've done a first class product, whether it's strategy or creative. But for various reasons, and you know, I mean, it's natural. Sometimes the budgets are not good enough. Sometimes different things come in. So many of the other pieces of our work hasn't gained traction as much. That is the thing we'd like to change because we know that's not true. But it's okay. Even if you were to look at the biggest agencies, not just in India but around the world. And if you were to look at the brands that contribute to their fame and to their success, you can actually count the brands on the fingers of one hand. And you can, I don't want to name names. And in a good way, you know, because that's true. That's true everywhere in the world. Whether it's a widen that became famous for Mikey, it was Droga in New York, which became famous to Underama and two or three others. It always happens that way. Where you wish that all of your clients keep hitting jackpot at the effectiveness awards. Can you plan for that? Hopefully, there'll be a day when that happens. But on winning the effectiveness independent agency in Asia, in a way, it's just the reaffirmation of where we started from. Okay, so just to put things in perspective, we don't hate awards. There's nothing to hate. Everybody likes to go on to the stage, but you should go on to the stage for the right things. When you really deserve it, when the world thinks, yes, you deserve to be on the stage. We wouldn't want to be on the stage for things that win at a certain award show and clients outside don't even know about it or care about it. That's not something so we're very happy. Mr, were you there or you dropped off? There was there was a lag. So, but I was just saying that if you if you just speak to our clients, the one thing they vouch for is that we do not move forward without having first personally spoken to consumers, understood the problem, tried to find various ways to solve the problem. So there's a there's a degree of I think integrity to the solution that we provide the clients with. And because of that, because of the because of the process that's been followed in the integrity with which we approach it, more often than not, clients have reposed their faith in the solutions that we are offering them. And those solutions have gone on and sort of been effective in the market with regards to business which has gone on and helped us win. Yeah, so I also want to now understand that, you know, how a client budgets now and how are your clients responded to this situation? Are clients finally ready now to spend or are they still tightening their first drinks? So what is your general mood like, because a lot of big events are cancelled, production, TV shows are not happening, it's stopped and all that. So now where are marketers investing in as things open up? And what is really happening to these allotted budgets? Where do you see them going? And what is the general mood like? I think it's different. I think it's different across categories. I mean, if you look at pharma essential items, then the mood is not so sort of despondent. Even I would say in general, most marketers, at least the ones who are working with us are now sort of raring to get back, get back to sort of, you know, communicating about themselves and getting the business going, because in many ways, you've pretty much lost one quarter. So you have now nine months to make up what you would have otherwise done in 12 months. And therefore there is intent, we can feel that from marketers and clients saying we'd like to now move on and do stuff. And we can sense that because I mean, like I said in the beginning, we are in the midst of five or six productions waiting to get on. I think the challenges and what maybe stopping them, if at all, is just this gradual opening up of the country, gradual distribution. What will also hold them back in some categories is the consumer sentiment of wanting to go to a store and shop. Whether it is for a can of deodorant or it is for a white good sort of product. So that consumer sentiment is something that everybody is looking for. Everybody is watching out for to say, you know, will consumers come back to the store? So on and so forth. So if you look at China, US, yes, they've come back. But like you said, television, the GECs, television shows are just about getting shot. And I would say it will take about a month for new episodes to start coming through for women to sort of go and start watching those stuff. From a male audience perspective, there is no sport happening. And sports and news typically movies tend to be the big sort of genres in which the male audiences are advertised for. And there is no sport is conversation about some India, South Africa series happening in August. There's some conversation about IPL happening. I think if those events happen, you will see advertisers coming back and spending substantially enough. I would say in terms of awareness or the share of voice that they would have would be high, the share of expenditures would be high, except that maybe the rates themselves, I don't know how the demand supply equation would work out at that time, the rates themselves might be slightly suppressed, depending on the properties that are being advertised. If I were to just, this situation does not apply equally to all categories today. So if you go to look at online education, for instance, that's going month on month. You look at the dairy and cookies and pistachio. On the other hand, you look at big-ticket items like automobiles, real estate. They're not. A lot of categories that are used outside the house obviously are not. So even let's say, for instance, a deodorant, if you're not stepping out of the house, that category has a lesser role to play in that. So this situation hasn't been the same for everyone. For some, it has been actually very good. Because people like, for instance, people sitting at home and consuming a lot of junk stuff is coming through in some of the research that we are doing. Because there is nothing else to do. So things like technology, so laptops and printers and those kind of things are on the rise. But social categories and high-ticket categories are two that have suffered enough. So this situation has led to far more digital adoption while digital was already having a moment. Now it's increasingly a lot of, even creative agencies are getting into digital and they are getting into things like social engagement, enhancement of social engagement, lead generation and all that. It's no more about just tracking a TVC. So while there are already agencies that specialize in this situation, how equipped are creative agencies now to take on these things? Yeah, I don't want to comment on any other agency. We have always believed that you need to stay close to what your specialization and your core expertise is. I mean, yes, everybody can do everything. We can get into lead generation. We can get into everything. But our job, as we define it for brands that work with the boom, is to provide strategic direction, big brand platforms that can then get executed across different mediums. We do a few mediums. We do a lot of digital, but yes, we don't get into the performance marketing or whether it's lead generations. We don't do that. And I don't think we would ever want to go into that area because we are not the experts at it. If a client says, listen, I need a campaign that will generate leads, we would partner with the best lead generation company, learn from them and we go create with them for the client. And that's something that we've done through the five years as and when clients have come to us with different sort of leads that they have. We've partnered with the best that's available in the industry. But to do everything on your own, I think that's old world thinking. I think time today is of collaboration. One agency having all services and a client expected to use all the services. You don't have the best talent in all the services. So in a way, you're actually just in some cases offering BS to clients and that's something that we don't do. So my last question is that, you know, COVID-19 is a humanitarian crisis and many award shows have spoken about not factoring in work, actually created for these times. So what would be your take on how brands and agencies can create a conversation on COVID-19 without being exploitative and just using it as a mere marketing product? So I think there are two questions that I missed, but one is about awards. I think it's I'm just trying to find the most polite word. I think it's a stupid conversation to have, whether we should use this year's work to be entered in awards. I'm sorry, there are many freaking people who have died and we are concerned about, you know, which what work will enter which award show and largely this is creative. And I know which show you're talking about. I think, you know, I think we should not waste our time in this interview talking about it. Your second question. Can you just repeat that? I didn't get that. Well, I don't know if you picked that up. So it's just about, you know, many brands want to be a part of the conversation as they just want to be a part of that conversation. But at the same time, what do you say? What do you say and how much do you say at this time when it is a humanitarian crisis? And how do you say it without being exploitative? Cover, you want to just talk about that journey? Journey from the beginning to now, what's happening? Yeah, so we're doing some work with consumers and on this situation, on the COVID situation, in fact, we were lucky to have an idea. On the day the lockdown was announced for the first time. So in a way, we got together on the same night when it was announced. And the next morning, we started off conversations with about 60 consumers across different kinds of segments. So from blue collar to factory workers to maids to white collar to home makers and so on and so forth. What we've done is we went to them on the first day, we went to them in the middle of the lockdown and we went to them on the 60th day to look at how human minds change over a period of time on the same issues. So the things that were exciting initially, how are they like right now? So I just deviated from the question that you asked to say that look, there is some work happening on understanding where India is and Indian hearts are the lockdown. So we don't want to become armchair commentators and look at social media feeds and give you my toolkit on where India is and the advertising industry should. So there's some real work happening. Hopefully in a week or so, we should be able to share that. But on how should brands become a part of this conversation, I just personally think it's a very pathetic, I sympathize with those brands who think like this. Brands need to sell and I think consumers can call a bluff from a mile now. So if and if you're doing an honest job selling and I think people are saying we need to be sensitive and we need to make ads that reflect the current sentiment, I can tell you we've been in touch with all these consumers. They are sick of sick and dying and a human being can't take that for too long. Now, if you ask me of all the stuff that has happened by other agencies and I've seen a lot of COVID related work that's come out. For some reason, I just love the seemingly mindless work that Amul seems to be doing on charts and the C and it's trying to sell. It's just such a relief to see some happy faces on the screen. I really don't care what the quality of creativeism, the quality of storytelling is, of connecting emotionally with consumers in a way that sells their products is even more important now and I just want to so there's a fluffy things like brand purpose and all those things surrounding us nowadays. The purpose of the brand is to build the client's business. That's it. There's no other all consumers can do without the brands that they use, all consumers. So, if you ask consumers a question, nobody will care to hoots about brands. They will find other things. Yeah, maybe an Apple or maybe a Times of India or maybe an Amul. There are some brands that just become part of your life. And I think those brands are lucky, those brands have done the right things over a period of time. But others, a detergent saying, I can get husband and wife together. To me, it's a little obnoxious. True. Thank you so much, Kavala Naveen for this very, very candid conversation. You said it how it is. And that's the reason I love speaking to you. Thank you so much for joining us today. I think there's been a lag in the consumers. But brands that have had a consistent voice on that issue have garnered more respect. But if you've been opportunistic, you're going to get people you can see through that. So authenticity, just say authentic. I think consumers will respect you even if you don't say anything. I don't know, there has just been some kind of a lag. So what I'm going to do is that I'm going to share the overall video with Latika and with Mariam. It all looks fine. But just in the middle, there are some spaces. So I just might need to clarify with you later on. So I'll just share that with you. Even I go to message saying the meeting's been ended by the host and now you're using some unlimited no, no, something that some message came through. I assume that was okay. How are you doing this book? Yeah, I just asked the same question. How are you doing? Perfect. It's been good, but it's been just too much work. It's been too much. It's very tiring. And then there's a stream of deathful news affecting your life. So it's a pretty crazy day right now. And I don't understand how creatives in this situation kind of bring out work that inspires. That's the reason we came up with this series because it's so difficult every day. Yeah. Yeah. It isn't easy. That's true. Will yourself to come and look at the screen for nine hours every day. Video fatigue is real because video is a very intense medium. Yes. So that's pretty crazy. Yeah. Otherwise, what is the plan like when I am planning to start office operations the next next month or something like that? Or are you planning to take more time? No, waiting and watching actually. We'll watch. I mean, let's see what's happening outside in terms of cases, etc. There's no point, you know, 2015, 20 of us getting to office, one of us falling sick and then the entire office getting quarantined. That's not going to serve any purpose. It's going to, you know, in way, interrupt our operations quite drastically if that happens. Makes sense. For us, it's, yeah, for us, we're going to sort of wait and watch. I don't think we're going. No hurry to like get back. Yeah. We haven't discussed it, the two of us, but I don't think before 15 July, we are even considering it. We'll see we'll take it as it comes. Because in a way, you know, except for the fatigue, except for the moments where you feel that you'd rather be together for some brainstorming, a couple of those things. Actually, none of the work stopping new plant conversations, so focus groups, depth discussions, expert interviews, everything is happening. So the only thing actually that us and I'm sure everyone in the industry suffering from is that they've been taking work to the level of the script and then it gets stuck because there's no production. Yeah. So once hopefully in the week or two that stabilizes, then I think we can pretty much pull on for some more time. Perfect. Thank you so much for your time. I'm very lucky to have got the time, both of your time together and I'm very grateful to you for making this time. Not at all miss, it's always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. I'll come and see you at your office someday once only if I get back to normal. Yes. Yeah, yeah, please do, please do. All right, take care. See you miss Pa. Bye.