 for a creative zone. So our guest today is someone who's the infectious energy and passion not just creates great creative work but also strong creative teams. We're pleased to welcome today Sujo Dutt the National Creative Director of FCB Yolka. Sujo has done some amazing award-winning work for British Airways and for Nestle. He spent over 15 years at JWT when he started his career and he joined FCB at around 2016. So we're pleased to have you with us today and we'd love to speak to you about creating through crisis and how you manage putting out work for brands across different categories like Dominoes, Olympics etc. So first we want to understand from you how the entire concept of you know like creative concepting has changed over Thank you. Thank you for having me. Creative concept is at the very core hasn't changed. What has definitely changed is we have to now keep in mind circumstances and ground realities especially when it comes to shooting audio-visual stuff whether it is a television commercial or a digital campaign. So keeping in mind executional limitations and realities while creating an idea is the big thing that has changed. So now for some time to come I don't think we can think of ideas without thinking of how we are going to extend given the reality and given the environment in which we live now. So that's the big change. It's like you know you go out to bat knowing that it's a really difficult weekend so the plan is very different. So I also want to speak to you about your worker Dominoes. So you know since you know with the remote shooting and all that how was that entire commercial shot how was the entire commercial shot and that lovely expressions like it was emotive beautifully also so how did you pull that off that entire shooting remotely thing. Well to tell you honestly whether it's Dominoes or any other work that has been put together during this Covid time it is extremely challenging from footage to post-production to music to final computer projects everything is a really challenging task and you know it's the realities of doing this kind of work are completely different from what I'm calling the pre-Covid era. Right. Nobody is we can't all gather together. We can't be in studios. We can't oversee a lot of things collectively. Lots of there are lots of restrictions obviously so the entire creative process becomes quite the creation process not the creative process the creation process becomes very very challenging and I must say on an emotional level the the great thrill and enjoyment and camaraderie and creative coming together that we used to get before on shoots or when we went into execute that has now changed completely. It's really hard is all I can tell you. So tell me how are your clients approach this. I must say that all our clients whether it is Unilever whether it is Dominoes or any other clients of us they have been extremely understanding. They have been extremely understanding and extremely mature. There have been no unreasonable demands made to the agency with regard to us. There has been a huge amount of understanding and I say that I say that very very honestly every meeting every pre-production meeting I have been a part of or every script narration every idea narration meeting I've been a part of has always begun with our clients saying we understand new realities and we understand the restrictions agencies are working under as creators. So I would say very understanding really really understanding I think it's a pretty I think it's it's a great commentary on the mature of marketing teams in India because it's all very well to say that you know I don't care how you do it get it done in this matter in a certain manner but I'm happy to tell you nobody said that nobody. So tell me at a personal level how is it creating amidst remote captivity because you belong to a world where you know there's a lot of personal interaction a lot of banter sitting over tea and coffee and you know like team chemistry so coming from that world to this. You know I get asked this a lot and I think I think there is one really important thing here for us to understand just because an industry or a bunch of people have proven themselves in different things doesn't mean they enjoy it it's these are two separate things I think people tend to I don't know why people seem to think that if something is being done well it must be enjoyable. I beg to differ. I think one truth is that the advertising industry and not just our agency all agencies they have done a superb job in adapting to this new reality as in creating at the levels we are creating at while that is one truth the other truth and this is my hypothesis I certainly do not enjoy it most creative people certainly do not enjoy it for all the reasons that you spoke about and my hypothesis would be that most creative people in other agencies also would say it's more challenging than enjoyable there's nothing I don't like this term what is normal about what's happening right now there is nothing normal this is a crisis there is this is not a new normal this is a crisis this is a continuously unfolding ongoing crisis in which we are creating advertising I think normal is the wrong word here so for me I think all our to all of us for the way we have dealt with the crisis but it is it is nothing there is nothing normal about it nothing very well put up finally somebody said I'm glad so this entire scenario is also brought in by the great deal of upheaval in the very world so where do you see the green shoots of opportunity for example I see a couple of things like I see so many creatives now doing work on their own then I see a lot of integration across teams somebody sitting from here somewhere working with the team in Chicago or even you know London so I see a couple of opportunities and you know things that have happened for good where do you see the good year I think if you look at it through the filter of creating in adversity if you apply that filter and that filter only then the list of positives is endless and you touched upon people connecting from all over the world virtually to make something come together you know you we have found new ways of creating advertising with phones using existing footage using animation using graphics all of that and being sharp about it yet and you know being strategically right and yet executionally trying to engage and entertain in with with one hand tied behind our backs so that way I think all in all reactions in in difficult times if you have to look at it through that filter it's been just amazing full of positives but again maybe I'm in a minority here I don't know what what what long-term gains we are going to get from this I I really don't know I I also don't confident enough to name any because we are squarely in the middle of a crisis right now and everything my agency is doing it's squarely focused on how we can create the best best communication for our client in trying circumstances when this crisis blow over then we'll maybe back and see so I want to speak to you about flatten the curve that FCB you know did and how it fits in the picture and you know what was really the starting point and working on that yeah that's one another campaign we are so proud of flatten the curve was born as a static digital campaign it was born as static posts and you know when the team came up with this campaign we all of us felt that this is such a beautifully simple way to deliver such an important message that we were very very excited right from the beginning and then our our chief creative officer she reached out to the UN AIDS office in Geneva and this campaign was sent to them and they liked this campaign so much they found it so simple and so useful and such a helpful campaign that they launched it on Easter weekend on all their social media handles it was primarily targeted because at that point of time a lot of people in Europe were thinking of taking advantage of the good weather and stepping out and therefore the UN AIDS team felt that this would be very very relevant at that moment and it got released to tremendous response and then we felt that you know if this is if this has come out so beautifully in static why can't we convert them in convert this into a film and fuel content is our internal content creation company it's a company owned by FCB so few content then collaborated with the FCB Ulka creative team to come up with this to turn this static campaign into a film so the campaign was converted into a film it was sent to the UN AIDS team in Geneva one day later they had released it it was on their social media handle it was on Twitter it was on Facebook it was just I think I'd be right in saying that they loved it enough to release it the next day and that makes us very very proud as FCB to create a campaign that is helpful, educative yet so engaging and again just we look at the way it's executed there is no shoe it's all graphics the music is created and then the whole piece is put together and look at you know it's just as everybody says if there is a good idea and a good campaign it travels all over the world like this one day right I loved it too thank you I like to like you know also leave a message to creatives on creating amidst adversity because these are trying time there is a stream of Deadpool news affecting allies there's so much media fatigue and in fact people tell me that it's getting tougher because there is more work from home than it was before so what would be your message to creatives on creating amidst constraints and adversity well I think not losing hope and you know proceeding forward bravely is the only way to go and I also absolutely want to say one thing I want every creative person every not just creative every advertising person who's seeing this to take a little time to congratulate themselves please take a little time to tell yourself how good a job you are doing because only we know how difficult it is and while it's it's it's easy to say that okay the job is done let's move on I think taking a moment to feel a sense of pride and feel a sense of achievement with every piece of work serves as will serve as a great motivation I do it every time we put out a campaign during this time I tell the whole team to take a moment and say well done and look into a mirror and say well done because it's it's it's really important it's very very important I think we do ourselves a great disservice by not appreciating and not giving ourselves enough credit we just keep keep moving and keep moving and keep moving but we must we must say well done to ourselves absolutely so thank you so much for your time and for this very candid conversation we enjoyed chatting with you thank you so much thank you yes thank you thank you bye