 Welcome to the next episode of Eforum's Creative Zone. So our guest today is someone who believes that advertising is the most interesting conversation a brand can have with consumers. So stoked to have Sagar Kapoor's Chief Creative Officer of Lolinda's. Sagar has spent over 15 years with Lolinda's and done some very iconic campaigns. I love his work for Life Boy which has been one of the most renowned campaigns. He has been awarded for 5 years straight consistently among the best global campaigns. He's also been the global creative lead for the brand. Hi Sagar, great to have you with us today. How are you holding up amidst the lockdown? Hi, I am Isma. Thank you for having me. My pleasure totally. Holding on, yeah, I mean it's a new way of working and we all have kind of gotten accustomed to it now I believe and we are finding newer ways to make it smoother, learning every day and kind of changing our ways every single day. So yeah, it's been a journey. So I wanted to speak to you about a couple of things. One will be about the campaign you've done for Mumbai Police which is amazing. First I want to ask you that for an industry that relies so much on team chemistry, Panther and personal interactions, how has been your experience creating amidst remote captivity? So Isma, the deal is it's been remote, of course it's been remote and there's no eye for one, do not deny the power of sitting together and working organically the way we've always worked. So I can't say that the new digital way of working is more effective, probably not, but we have to make it as effective as possible. And hence initially there were some times when just staring at a screen and while you're brainstorming you're just doing it at times you're not saying anything for minutes and for half an hour or an hour at times and you're just staring at each other wondering, thinking, looking at various corners in your house like you would in your office. So it was unnerving initially but yeah like I said we are all getting more and more used to it and probably it has gotten a little faster in terms of thinking and timelines in terms of the output it's just getting a little faster because it's also while you're on that Zoom call or the Teams call you really want to contribute faster like I said you can't just keep staring at a computer screen for you know for x amount of time. So yeah it's been different of course it's been different but we're trying to keep it as organic as possible you know we still have our small talks we still have a you know occasional joke that happens when we are working those things are happening the interactions are happening like they used to in office but yeah this is the new way we've adapted to adapted to it yeah. So I want to firstly also congratulate you for your work for Mumbai Police very nicely done and I believe that the success of the campaign also got you know other police forces to adapt the idea for their respective states. So I want to know what was the genesis of that and you know how did it all come together? Sure so means what the the Mumbai Police campaign actually right right it stemmed from a very very real problem which was the amount of sheer amount of force we have for the size of the city we live in you know city like Mumbai I mean the amount of force that it requires 24 by 7 on on road on street. So it was virtually impossible for the police to do it alone until the citizens didn't kick it you know and then the citizens didn't take it upon themselves to kind of help the police do whatever they had to do and this was the stage of the first lockdown it was new for everybody we are not used to these kind of circumstances and it was essential for people to understand why the police was doing what they were doing and hence the idea came from saying everybody has to do a little bit of self-policing you know you can't just expect the police to do their job we have to get into a little bit of self-policing and self-discipline to help the police force do what they have to do right and which is what they are doing for us. So it stemmed from the maybe Mumbai Police and then when we spoke about it they're always even in a house there are you know there's always be a particular family member who'll take on more responsibility in times like these you know and who'll be a little more aware of things so at times even the kid of the house you know like man a few uh he's nine years old and he's probably the uh the strictest among everybody I mean he's just kind of he takes care of every little thing you know whether you wash your hands you sanitize your hands don't get out of the house so the idea came from that of self-policing and the execution ended itself to saying there's always a family member even if one guy's about to slip there'll be another member reminding that member not to do that right and the which is where maybe Mumbai Police I won't let my husband go out I won't let my father go out I won't let him go out so it was kept very simple and the whole vodka became maybe Mumbai Police which is which was the need of the art to self-police and not only the 11 of force that was already shot on uh people right so now that you're doing uh work from home like ads from home and all that and doing ads remotely had the turnaround time reduced versus how much it would be when you would do it out of office see it depends like I said the thinking has become faster because we we can't spend you know like we can't have two or three bouts in a day of of thinking so probably the thinking bit has become a bit faster miss Bob but uh on the production front uh strangely it requires a little more time because you have to uh before your shoot day there there are there are a lot of prep days because nobody's going into anybody's houses these are being happening at remote locations so you have to take um you have to take help of the people in that house to create everything you need for the shoot you know right from the art direction to the framing to the wrecking of the house and the location so that requires a little bit more time because you have to probably send spend more time pre uh compared to a shooting date where you would have landed at the shoot and things would have been ready because all the HOD's you know were there together so that process takes a little bit more time so how difficult is it for agencies to convince clients to continue engaging with these limited resources like do you see do your advertisers clients telling you negotiating deals and telling you that the shoot will happen to a phone there are limited resources and all that so how do you approach budget slash and limited resources when bringing an idea to life yeah so uh miss bahasi i was uh this was related to some other question i answered at some place where it's probably more relevant here as well uh at a larger macro level now but i have noticed is that uh both the marketeers and the advertising fraternity have adapted like seamlessly to this situation of course there are challenges of course there are you know new ways to uh think of every time but they've taken the organic system of working over there on to this platform now and we are trying to keep it as as real as possible you know the meetings the way we used to have feedback sessions the way we used to have presentations so i don't think it is about forcing a client or creating the need for the client to kind of advertise in this uh uh you know agent stage it's more about for whom is it more relevant if if the if the situation is relevant for them they will have to advertise that they will advertise you know they will come to you and they will need uh work get done uh of course there are other opportunities where brands wouldn't think of having a COVID conversation but one could think of a brand connect and have a very fresh conversation uh with the with the COVID angle in mind right uh but that said a lot of regular brand advertising also has to go on not everything will be COVID related because that's not the only reality of our lives we consume products for other reasons they're not just this reality right this happens to affect a lot of things and impact a lot of things but regular advertising and the relationship between the consumer and the brand that has to go on and that does go on so whichever brand needs to do that we will that brand will you know kick in and do that so there's it's not more about creating that need or asking them to do stuff uh which you know they are organically doing they need to do uh yeah and in terms of budgets uh of course now in terms of the production budgets it has come down because when you when you work out of home uh clearly the location cost goes down the the crew cost goes down yeah there's uh so i don't think that's as much of a problem the HODs will still get their fees there'll still be people uh there's gonna be a head of art there's gonna be a DOP who'll be working remotely there's still a director who works remotely and the agency also kind of attends the shoots so it's not as much uh affecting the budget because also the cost of production has come down along with that right so you know there there's a lot of like most ads are done using the phone and all that are short using a mobile phone and then there's a lot of UGC adoption and all that but don't you think that we'll see a saturation soon see it's not about the saturation because the what what you're making also will define what you're making right i mean it's not just a format that you're shooting in what really matters is what are you going to make if the conversation is interesting and is new and is relevant it won't get kind of boring or choking right uh that's that's where we'll be really to focus so and we all keep reminding ourselves not to get bogged down about the execution at this point in time you know the execution will happen we will figure out ways to do it and every time we speak to a filmmaker or another HOD that person has a new idea to kind of do something you know and you have like i said we are navigating and we are finding new ways to make it happen if you get bogged down on the format of execution the thinking will get deterred and at this point it's very important for the thinking to not get deterred and get dominated by the by the executioner constraints of course you can't think a lot of outdoors we can't think that that would be plain stupid to kind of think that way because that's that's not feasible right but it's not as restrictive the stories will still happen the conversations can still happen so as of now i'm not seeing that level of uh ceiling being hit where you know we are feeling choked or we are feeling bored of this constraint and that's not happening at this point in time so what are the new formats and opportunities that are cropping up in the lockdown scenario for creatives see i'm to be very real i wouldn't say opportunities like i said we have to create some opportunities uh there won't be much coming uh we have to keep our standards going our thinking going not get affected by it uh not not be limited by the the resource constraints uh but what is what i've seen uh is happening is a lot of our people are directing you know stuff on their own you know because a lot of creative directors have uh chipped in and they will be directing their own stuff because not every time would you have a budget or you have a you know kind of uh scenario where you can get the entire team involved so that is happening a lot the execution uh involvement has increased quite a lot because like you said UGC content as well we depend a lot on footage uh as well at this point in time so it's also about sourcing that footage and how people are getting involved in creating the visual world also for the for the communication so the involvement in the uh in the literal execution has has increased quite a lot we've seen lots and lots of uh the communication based on the pandemic based on uh corona virus and all that through all the lockdown so as we enter unlock one how should this then communication change what is your message to brands and agencies uh miss ma that's that's the mackerel once see the it'll again depend on which brand needs to talk what at that point in time you know and uh what we have seen is while of course there's a lot of uh uh talk about the pandemic but if you just see deeper one layer deeper that also has evolved with the in phases you know as because it is a dynamic situation it changes you know within days it changes right but as the situation is evolving so is the communication if you if you notice you know brands have started talking of the next step of the covid reality you know it's not just the original reality of just reminding people to keep washing their hands not your not go out of the house that happened now now there's a next leg say don't forget in the life or context i can tell you if it's about saying it's still time to keep up with the regime don't forget you know this is not the time to stop doing this and so on and so forth brands will have a newer thing to say as people are evolving emotionally through this through this pandemic the next leg of communication will also have to evolve and that and that's happening on most ranks that we are working on because that's we see it's a very unique situation that we are living this pandemic ourselves as well right it's not just that we are talking to somebody outside so we know the realities of this you know what we are emotionally feeling about it right and as that changes in our heads and hearts even the work will evolve along with that so that that's happening at a great level right that's right perfect thank you so much for your time it was amazing chatting with you and thanks for giving us this story of how creativity actually shines through constraints thanks so much thank you thank you so much