 Welcome to exchange for media. With me today is recently appointed CEO of VML Y&R, India, Mr. Saurabh Saxena. Saurabh hi, welcome to exchange for media. Thank you so much Nazia, lovely to be here. Saurabh thanks for this first interview ever since you've been appointed as the new CEO of this newly integrated agency. I mean agency has been old but their integration has just taken place couple of years ago. So you know I wanted to understand from you the agency got finally integrated in 2018-19 and you joined it in 2022 considering that the company doesn't have a very long legacy in India. How do you plan to take things forward? Okay, so first off let me tell you that while VML Y&R in this current avatar is new and young the legacy of these individual brands is long and very admirable I would say. So VML Y&R commerce has been in various forms has been alive within WPP for many many years and this is the team that has built capabilities into shopper and rural activation and urban activation and the likes. The glitch which is a Julina crown has been around for a really long time as well and that you know if you do of course I'm sure no more Nazia but the glitch is a very successful agency. So while as a brand we may not have that much of legacy but that the constituents have legacy GTB which is forward really. And that's what I said after integration how do you want to take it forward? So to combine our strengths really that's the short answer let me explain what I mean. So the way that we'd like to grow is not necessarily through only social media or to do one little project in rural India for instance. We'd like to grow on in scale and to be able to do that we need capabilities right through the line whether it is customer experience or brand experience or D2C shopper commerce offline commerce rural activation. So therefore we what we're doing is we are taking all of these capabilities and putting them together to create connected brand experiences for businesses that we work on. Now a lot of our clients may not require the entire suite of our services but they may require more than one they may require three they may require two. So that's really what how we are restructuring ourselves. We are making sure that we have the right cast and crew to address any marketing problem or an opportunity that our clients would like to address. Sort of you also have this expectation that your agency did exceedingly well at Cannes last year and you after the integration you know you're relatively new and yet I think you won more than four medals last year at Cannes. Yeah we were very successful So what are your plans this year? So I wish I could tell you more but I can tell you that the Global Creative Council of VML Weiner is very happy with the entries that that we have with all the work that has happened in the last many months led by Mukun who's our Chief Creative Officer. I'm sure you know him know of him and know him as a superstar. So you know there is a lot of promise fingers crossed I can't tell you what those are just yet but I can tell you that we are looking at it with great expectation, great anticipation. We wish you all the best and do make us proud again this year. Yes, yes Nazia we'd love to be you know beat our own past year record. Sort of there also has been a lot of restructuring within the agency you know after you work. How has this restructuring helped the agency? Okay so like I said the first thing is the fact that we are now casting for casting a crew specific to a business solution that a client might require and that means that we have we don't have a social media silo we don't necessarily have a silo which is doing only BX. We have an account management team or even a creative team that is pretty much sort of integrated already. So each team has capabilities within to take care of what the requirement of the lead clients are going to be. The other thing we are doing is trying to build through restructuring trying to build diversity. So as an agency we are 57 43 in terms of our diversity ratio which we are happy about. There is a lot more that obviously has to be done even though this number sounds very very good. But aside of that I think there is diversity in terms of how what backgrounds are people come from the socioeconomic background their exposure their how they've grown up with the background that that they have and the kind of education that they bring to the table and I think that will give us even more inclusivity and and diversity to be able to have the diversity of ideas. As an agency in Asia I have to say that we'd like to strive to be a very solutions oriented company and not just you know a campaign here or a you know big idea communication there. But it could be anything if there is a marketing problem the response to that need not be a campaign it could be launch of a D2C platform for instance. So that's what we are hoping to achieve and this restructure should be able to help us do that. We are already seeing directionally some improvement in terms of how our teams are working together well on our top businesses. So yeah fingers crossed again there is there's more where this came from. So last year you and Jimetri joined forces to launch VMLY and our commerce encompass and end-to-end creative commerce company. How have that benefited the clients you know or the company? What kind of response are you getting? Okay so for instance our I talked about lineage and you know this our team which is led by Shankar when it comes to our some of our commerce capabilities. Shankar has worked for years on let's say Unilever and taking an example. Okay so the resident knowledge that his team and him have about Unilever products and across the spectrum has carried on. The brand name has changed also what we have done is VMLY and our commerce is a far bigger entity now. We are perhaps one of the very very few agencies that have offline commerce capabilities right up to online commerce capabilities. So Karthik who heads our e-commerce part of the business and partners Shankar comes with the experience in D2C in creating marketplaces and creating demand generation work technology and solutions and so therefore as VMLY and our commerce we have offline to online short answer offline to online capabilities as well as be able to do anything for instance if we look at rural activation if we look at demand generation on the ground if we look at behavior change that we'd like to do this is the team that can actually deliver and is delivering across various clients. So you know before I sum it up if you could tell me some five or four five things that make you different from your competition in the market what would they be? Okay so right on on top I think is the fact that we'd like to believe that we are a connected team that works on connected brands. So connected brand experiences are important when it comes to you know consumers don't necessarily look at one part of the puzzle and think of something that they'd like a connected brand experience. I think that makes us different that's something that VMLY and our has in its DNA aside of that people I am new to this role but I know that you know the capability in the leadership team is immense and that's what is something that we only have to bring together and harness and take to the next level. The other thing I would say is that our creative teams led by Mukul and Arpan and Shunetro and Raj are not necessarily only thinking about campaigns. So you know there are many agencies that think of what is the big idea in communication. We'd like to think of big ideas when it comes to a solution that may be required like I said I think that's what is exciting us quite a lot. The last thing I would say is that we're a very connected network ourselves. So you know within Asia Pacific we were in Thailand last week and this was really my first time interacting with the regional leadership and I realized that you know there are solutions that a Malaysia team might have thought of or our team in Singapore might have thought of which are relevant here so we don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. At the same time there are solutions that our team in India has worked on which may be very very possible to lift and ship to other markets. So I think as a network because we are so well connected we can benefit and you know case in our learning curve to offer solutions to clients. Thank you so much Arpan for talking to us we wish you all the best for Kans and also for you know your journey ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much Nazia it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks.