 You know, a very senior marketer once spoke to joked that back in the day, if you asked a bunch of creative professionals, how's the gut feeling? And the response was, hi sir, then the creative being discussed was sealed. You know, when he spoke, of course, he was talking, he knew pretty well how hard you guys worked to make that award-winning idea come true. And having said that, you know, today in advertising, gut feeling, impulse, intuition has tough competition in data, systems, and numbers. Here with me are some senior leaders from the agency ecosystem who are going to help us understand, decode why there is a need for an intelligent creative. Hey, month, I've known you the longest, so I think I'm going to start with you first. You know, Hey month is the man behind ADL's winning share the load campaign, which has literally won our hearts year after year. So I want to understand from you, Hey month, in this era of technology, how differently are you taking creative decisions vis-a-vis what used to happen, say, 10 years ago? I mean, I have a feeling that creative decisions will still be taken the same way as they were earlier. I have a feeling that everything else becomes a tool in the process. And I think why we're discussing data, right? Everything is data. The fact that we go ahead and sort of look for deep data, but at the fact that something as simple as comment sections on the ads that you put out is data itself, right? I feel the number of times that we've had an inspiration for the next conversation and share the load that we're going to have has come up from some of the comments. So starting with that, you know, the fact that, but yeah, to answer a question, I feel the creative decisions are still made from the heart, I think. But you know, when you're creating a social movement at the kind of scale that shared the load achieved, I'm sure there is more to it than, you know, my neighbor suffered this problem. So let me put that out as a campaign. So what are the intricacies involved? What is the detailing that goes into creating a campaign like this? Yeah. And again, again, starting from data again, right? Of course, for a conversation which is so emotionally led and culturally led, you can make a hypothesis of it, but you will need numbers to even make your convictions stronger. And we came across an article at one point in time around the time was that women spend five and a half hours in a day doing household chores versus men spend 19 minutes. And that figure and that data in a way was something that led us to this conversation, right? So and the fact that, you know, with a campaign like share the load, what again happens is that data is not just about facts. I think data also tells you about the sentiment. You also realize from comments, conversations. What's the tone that people are people are talking about in a way it's it is the conversation of equality and it is a women's movement in a way. But each year that tone sort of changes. We know that there was there was an open conversation at one point. There was an aggressive conversation. There was a heartfelt conversation and the fact that with each passing year and with each new piece of information that we hear in terms of data, you know where the sentiment is going and how you've got to match up to that sentiment and you've got to sort of live up to that sentiment. So like I was saying, I was telling you the fact that it's actually a cyclical approach in a way when you said gut, the fact that you start with a gut and you look for data to sort of feed into that gut. And then that gut feeling just gets sort of it becomes the evidence for your gut in a way that data. So I think I think it's that cyclic process in a way. I'd like to come to thanks for that. I'd like to come to Ram now. Ram was at Meta for six years before he joined Malin Lintas as a CCO. You know, today a creative agency needs to make much more than that one TVC. You know, with the kind of digital platforms available today, you have to customize your creative for each of them. Also based on the customers, moods, the cohorts, everything that's available to you. But today to what extent is a creative agency just something, someone that's executing the work? You know, you have these digitally driven digital agencies. We have Manish sitting here and programmatic agency. Are they telling you that these are these 30 creators I need from you? Why don't you implement it for me? Or is it the reverse? Before I answer that, I would just like to take a moment to call out the eclectic hairstyles on this panel. So I think it's quite a diverse panel in that way. So I was with Meta for six and a half years and my role there was to co-create with creative agencies, which means that every time I worked with, say, Lintas or Ogilvy and today I'm at Malin Lintas. So I think the job has remained the same, which is to say the agency owns the idea. The agency comes up with the core idea. So agencies aren't told, listen, do this execution. They actually own the brand because they have enduring relationships with the brand. So how it used to work back in the day with Ogilvy, for example, they would come up with a core thought, how would we make it platform first would be my role. So pretty much today, even from this side, that really is the job, which is we own the brand, we own the idea, and we have the enduring relationship with the client. And then we reach out to platforms and work with them closely, depending on so if it's, for example, a campaign that has a lot of Instagram to it, I happen to know pretty much all of it, so I can sort of do it internally here. But otherwise, we would work with, say, Meta there, work with the Google. So we open external platform partners to sort of riff off your idea and make it more platform first. But nobody really tells you what to do because the starting point is still the idea and the idea starts with the agency. Manish, do you agree nobody is telling the creative agency what to do? Okay, yes, I will share my point. So good afternoon, everyone. I think after lunch, we will try and be a little interesting for you guys so that there is cheer in the room. So coming back to the question, I think you started with saying who owns the idea that was more like the crux. So I would say the boundaries have kind of completely blurred right now. So it's like you can't go on other days where say a certain idea could have come from only a certain so-called mainline agency of sorts, right? Now that boundaries has completely blurred, now you are getting ideas from a media agency. You are getting ideas from across, right? PR guys are doing some crazy work on digital, right? So from my point of view, I think we have to look, what is the client's ask? Okay, and can I solve that from a digital point of view? I think that is, and if the media is kind of helping you solve that problem, I think it's okay who owns the idea and where it comes from. I would fully agree with you just to add to what Manish was saying that I was specifically responding to like being told in that way of it. But yes, the boundaries are really blurring. Anyone can come up with the idea and who comes up with the idea really is the owner. And finally it's the brand that sort of at the end truly, truly owns it and knows what's right. So like the boundaries are blurring, so we work together and rope in the skill sets that you might not have or the skills that you're looking for and then you sort of go and do that. I'll just add one point here. So it's not a surprise now that a digital company, I'm not even calling an agency, a digital company is creating TVCs now. So that's, it's almost like it's come full circle. So as long as the client in the delivery is managed, I think we are at home. Thank you. Kegan, I'd like to come to you. I remember one of your campaigns, Two Bins, Life Wins. I think it was also shared by Rata and Tata, it was a very big one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you had shot that hard hitting video after you were done with that, were you all also involved with the populating part of it, with the targeting? Because as an agency which owns the idea, where does his ownership end and where does the agency's job really stop? So how did you go about that? I'm really glad you asked me this because this is the question I was expecting to be asked and I was hoping. So it's commendable that the promoter, the marketer, the team that's Tata Trust, which is the philanthropic arm of Rata and Tata of the Tata group. See these are, so I'm a big fan of being emotional and being human and the most intelligent times are when you're being human and when you're being instinctive. So there was an interesting story. There was a moment when they insisted that the guys who feel the heart of the idea should be in to deploy the idea. And sometimes you don't really know why they're asking for this. You kind of create something that may be powerful or not, but you just send it over to the media guys, tragically who might not really be part of the nerves and the tears of the idea. So this is a terrific story. We spend two days with the typicalities and the cliches of let's populate this way, let's do this, you know, all the 360 that we call 360, right? Which means half of the work is never produced. 360 is only like flat stuff that ends up in your hard disk of your computer, right? People still make coasters. You know, it's collateral where the chief design of the campaign becomes a coaster form, a coaster that keeps under the glass. People still do that in the so-called traditional world. So we sat for two days and we thought we were getting it right until we said, you know, this is seeming so typical. Is this a typical carpet bomb, multiple bullet approach? But we haven't found an atom to the bomb. This was an idea. This was a film about, you know, what happens to be called the Ati Dalit community in India. It's these are the gutter cleaners, the feces cleaners. The guys are going to your gutters and, you know, it was really powerful. But could we have gotten it wrong? And we were just intuitively feeling we might have gotten the media plan wrong until we realized that. Let's junk all of these ideas. There were some 28 ideas. Let's junk all these ideas. Let's, the heart of this idea, the nature of this film is such that, let's get Mr. Tata in. Let's just do one thing. The atom to the bomb was, let's get Mr. Tata to tweet it. That's it. It's over, game over. Let's get Ratan Tata to spread this to kind of, you know, sort of propagate this and that was the end of it. So that's the answer to your question. And then it exploded, right? The explosion we needed. Then from my so-called Facebook, I remember getting, for my personal Facebook, some 18,000 shares for a film. That's something that is quite crazy from my personal Facebook. So, rest is history. I'd like to ask the others, you know, would you also say that creative agencies have to be involved in the targeting process today and populating the videos as well? You know, now we're in the age of performance marketing where it doesn't, only one creative obviously is not working. There are multiple creatives that you have to create. So how do you really go about creating that diverse, those diverse creatives which can actually reach out to that consumer at the right time? Can I take a short? So first, I think the campaign that he has done is, I'm a die-hard fan of that work, you know, it's, like, whenever you see it, and I tell my team and, you know, everybody who's coming into advertising right now say that this is where you go and learn. This is where content, this is where ideas are, you know, this is how it is created. So I will take a step back on, so there was an ask that was given to them, right? Say that, you know, I don't need a general content piece, you know, I need something which has a soul, which will touch people, and you don't need a media push to it. You know, that 18,000 shares that he's talking about, that purely happened because of, you know, somebody felt something in that gut saying that, okay, shit, this is happening in our country. And is there a way I can solve it? Yes, maybe one DM, one share can do that. Yes, I'm sure media planning and all that will be in place, but coming back to your question, so it depends what, so whenever we create content, right? Like, for example, in his case, he would have defined saying that, okay, my audience is a lean back audience, okay, they might have a little more than two minutes of time when I create this content. So let it put, you know, so hence, a YouTube comes first. But if I'm doing the same thing for, you know, the gen-z's of the world, so I might have a different approach, you know, I might tweak that idea and make it into a pledge or something or whatever. Please don't judge me for the idea right now. But, or maybe a filter or something, you know, which is relevant and platform first. Then put your might behind, okay, how do we populate this idea, how do we take it to everybody, you know? But if your core is right, you know, you will get these 18,000 or 18 lakhs or whatever irrespective, so. I'd like to come to you, Amrish. You know, in your case, publicists has spent a lot of money invested majorly in Epsilon and Sapient. I'd like to understand to what extent have these investments really helped the creative agencies in your company? Sure. See, that's an interesting question, right? And there are probably two parts to that answer. First of all, I think Sapient and Epsilon are still extremely Western market focused. So they have a very large presence in the India market, but that's mainly from a talent perspective. In terms of where the work and the revenues come from, a lot of it is focused on the Western markets because that's where that level of evolved work is happening. What they have done for us is, however, that we are able to leverage Sapient and Epsilon, the learnings, the DNA, the structures, and build our local market offering to mirror that and bring that to the India market. So therefore, Epsilon is a data-centric company. You see we've built a very strong offering in India on data. Sapient is technology focused. That's the entire business that I run for publicist group. Now, what it does in terms of creativity, there are two parts to it. One is it actually puts us in two businesses. So one part of it is the creative business, which is the advertising industry and everything that we're used to, but it also puts us in the business of system integrators and IT companies. So there are a lot of mandates where what we're doing has nothing to do with the creative idea. The massive mandates which are about experience design or system transformation, et cetera. I won't get into that right now because this is a creative discussion. But for the first part of it, having that level of data, that level of technology brings the intelligence that we've been talking about in this topic. So if imagination powers ideas like the ones that we just spoke about, right? Intelligence actually can then solve the problem at hand. So what these offerings are allowing us to do is one, leverage the power of data to do precision targeting at scale. So we spoke about how when do creative agencies get involved in targeting. A great example of that and not from publicists, from another company is the Cadbury campaign over three different years. I think I was at Google and Ram was at Meta when the first campaign was conceptualized. So our respective teams partnered with Ogilvy and WaveMaker at that point of time to bring that first pin code targeting campaign alive, which was an Ogilvy idea powered by everyone else. Second is personalization at scale, which is the Shah Rukh Khan campaign you saw last year. But I think now with the generated AI coming in, data is also able to do experiences at scale. Now when I say experiences at scale, we recently dropped a campaign where we've done so Oreo, the whole tagline for you is say it with Oreo. Right, that's a brand idea. Where if you aren't able to come up with something, Oreo will help you come up with it. So we've actually done thousands of responses in the voice and bit of Farhan Akbar, where he gives advice to people of how to say something. Now that kind of a campaign wasn't possible till a year back, right? Because if you had to pull off 20,000 responses, 100,000 responses, how many writers can you deploy who will write like Farhan Akbar? How many recordings will Farhan Akbar do to put those voices out there? Now we are able to do that. So it's almost like when back in the day, James Cameron thought of avatar and we didn't have the technology for it. Today we have the technology to do those ideas. So I think that's where it's really coming in. So precision at scale, personalization at scale and now experiences at scale. That's what we're able to do with this. Interesting. I'd like to bring in Hemant and Ram here. You both are from a network agency to so to say. Would you say it is doable for every creative agency, especially even the independent ones, to invest in such massive data undertakings, tech, research, R&D. Is it something that is a must have for a creative agency doesn't matter which size? And is it something that the clients are really actively demanding from an agency today? That all your decisions are specifically based on numbers and not subjective anymore? I think what's really necessary at this point in time is partnerships and collaborations. And I think, of course, you can keep building in in-house capabilities. But the fact that, like how we're saying, the idea now doesn't belong to one person anymore. The fact that the idea, you know, like of course it starts from an agency and of course starts from the client in that sense. But the fact that there are more and more avenues for that idea to go. So I think more than in-house capabilities, it is the collaboration than partnerships because I have a feeling that there is such a great potential of doing things. And I actually somehow feel that maybe some of those in-house things may limit you than sort of set you free in that sense. But yeah, I think that's the short answer of it. Yeah, if I were to add to that, I would say that more than the in-house capability, of course, which agencies are developing, I think what's really important is a change in mindset. Like agencies have to be a lot more curious now. So you have to be really aware of what's happening in the world and curious about the technologies that exist and the partners that you can sort of collaborate with. So as long as you're curious and as long as you care enough about what's happening in the world around you, because ultimately technology is nothing but, you know, a new canvas to tell all human truths and stories. So as long as you are curious and interested, you will find the right people to collaborate. And yes, some of upskilling is important internally so that, you know, you need to get some of that being there. But more than that, it's a mindset thing. It's about being curious and it's about willing to learn, being open enough, secure enough to partner and to pass your baby and share your baby with other people and sort of, you know, bring it to life together. Yeah, and I think also in a way, more than just the idea of control and ownership of the idea, I think it really is about strengthening the core of that idea, right? The fact that now it's actually not just one agency and a second agency and the multiple partner agencies that own the ideas, actually people who own the idea as well. Once you put an idea out right now, an idea like Shadowlord, for example, has champions and ambassadors and people who carry that idea forward. And beyond the point, I don't think you'll be able to create that in-house. You know, the fact, the voices of the people, we'll not be able to bring in-house, but they are actually taking your idea forward, which is what becomes extremely important is how strong is the core of your idea that no matter where it goes, it doesn't get diluted or dissected in any way, but that the core stays as honest and as truthful as you started out to be. So, yeah. I'd like to actually come to Amarish. What truly is the ROI for a creative agency today then? Look, I think it depends on the objective and what role you're playing. If you're taking end-to-end ownership of the campaign, then you could measure it in uplift and sales and the more traditional metrics. But if you're playing a niche role, then you can only measure niche metrics. So, the more ownership a client gives to a particular partner to take end-to-end views, the more you'll be able to deliver ROI in terms of end metrics, like business convergence and sales. It also depends on whether a brand is sold digitally or not. So, the point being, I think at the end of the day, we've always measured some of these through brand-lifts and sales convergence. There are just digital ways to do it now. Just one last question before we move out. The biggest villain for all creative agencies today is social media outrage. Is there any way you can actually curb that monster? Once you've put that ad out, is there any kind of social listening that can kind of keep it in check in our agencies? Keegan? So, I think I'm sure everybody will have a point of view. So, there are two approaches that, typically brands and agencies can do. First is, whenever there is an idea that somebody is creating, right? You know this will work for a certain section of audience or this might not work for a certain section of audience. You already know that when you're doing your analysis, when you're doing a prelim research and all that. Still, there is chances that that campaign might blow up on your face and it might not work. So, yes, the first important thing is on up. On up in a way saying that, okay, we have done a mistake. And if you plan it well in advance, maybe there can be a way where you damage control that entire exercise and then kind of move on. So, I mean, of course, sometimes outrage can also be the strategy. So, it's the best way to get eyeballs. So, if that is the case, then that's planned outrage in that way. But of course, a sweet story always helps. And the other thing is you really never know what offends anyone nowadays. So, I think overall the thing is that you should be true to what the brand's personality is, to the messaging, not seek to sort of hurt anyone or be outrageous just for the heck of being outrageous. And as long as you're honest to the idea and to the people you're serving, an apology should work in case you've sort of crossed the boundary. Keegan, I think it was for you originally. That's cool, man. Ha ha ha. See, I think so outrage, right? I think marketers could, maybe the time has come for marketers to be a little less paranoid. You know, I think, and especially the network guys, let's assume the network guys work with the slightly bigger, tad more powerful marketers. So, is outrage resulting in pulling out campaigns instantly? I think more often than not, right? I think it'll be, you know, double outrage, quote unquote, for some outrage to happen that starts with courage and bravery, which is sort of a brave campaign should have that as default parameter. If there is some outrage, imagine the double outrage with a marketer or a team of marketers or a brand not taking it out. So it's a win-win, right? So there's an interesting example of, was it Zomato? And there was somebody who had a problem with a Muslim community delivery boy, and he said, I accept ne karunga iske hato ka, sort of kana vagehra. So I think the, so that is just a brand being a well-meant brand and doing its thing. And then the double outrage and the double love of sticking to their stance and defending with dignity and articulation. I think that time has come for us to manage outrage and out be outraged by outrage. You know, so I think we should, in fact, I just beg and request marketers and all of us to just be braver, more courageous. I'm just worried that, you know, I don't see, like, it's a tad embarrassing that we still the traditional guys, and I'm traditional, so you called me, then I'll just say, you know, we still are talking about be stupid, yeah? India may be stupid bholne ke liye patti hai, aaj kal. You know, so we gotta, we can be braver. You know, there's, so I think, and speaking of tech, right? Are the responses, which we call date and we are very happy about it, are the responses rendering us a soft target? Bollywood does not have, you can't sit there with your laptop and have responses while you're watching Rocky Irani ke Prem kaani, while Dharamji and Shabanaaz me are kissing. They are brave. They are looking emancipated and cool and contemporary. They are getting away. Our campaigns are sanitized at word go. We put it out like he's saying correctly, I moved this bottle from year to year, it's offended someone, yeah? Mene Ram ka naam chupa dir, dekho. Hi, Rabba. Hena, toh mai ka bholtaon ki, we should be brave and then be braver beyond that as marketers, because we are polished, we are well meant and we have the power of digital agencies managing us being our verbal stylists and managing our journeys. I think we should continue to be that personally. So on that note, here's hoping for braver clients and also that handshake between creative and technology, which is hopefully take us on a better course in the days to come. Thank you so much everyone for all the insights. I think it was a lovely discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Thank you.