 Welcome to EPON and CreativeZone, the COVID-19 lockdown has left a dimension of challenges at us, not just as humans, as businesses, but one of the major challenges for the Adworld is shooting and producing ad campaigns. And how do you produce that work amidst these constraints? And how do you produce work that continues to shine and continues to inspire? So despite of these challenges, our creatives actually continue to create work that inspires. One such creative I have with us today is Arjuna Gohar, the Executive Creative Director of Leo Burnett India. Hi Arjuna, how are you? Hi Ms. Gohar, I'm good, how are you? All good, all good. So just to give you an introduction, Arjuna has over 14 years of experience working across Mumbai, Delhi, Kuala Lumpur. He's currently based in New Delhi, right? Yes. So his workbook plans like Coca-Cola, Apple Card, Echo, Amazon, and he's done some amazing work for Pampers right now amidst lockdown, which I wanted to also preach to you about. So firstly, I want to just start by asking you that how has it been creating at a time like this? Well, you know, I think what this has forced us to do right is really look at our own skills as creative people. So you know, a lot of times you get used to working with so many people that, you know, you get kind of dependent on having this large team and this collaborative environment. And I think what this has really done is it's minimized that and you know now all you have is yourself, your ideas and at that top. And I think personally for me it's been a challenge, but it's also been something that's helped me grow as a creative person. You know, without for all these years you've been dependent on, you know, you're dependent on this agency infrastructure. And suddenly that's taken away. And so what can you create when you have nothing, right? So so it's been a challenge, but it's been immensely something that's immensely added, I think, to my own growth. So I'd love to work with them because it just emotionally like just tug at your heart strings. So I want to speak to you about what was the client's belief to you and what were the production related challenges you were putting it together and all that. Yeah, so, you know, I mean, this is not a situation where things are working in the way they used to, you know, clients, it's not like clients are coming with a brief and we're going back with an answer. Really, this is about approaching this time collaboratively because nobody has an answer. Right. No marketing school or creative school has ever taught us how to deal with this. So, I mean, what happened with Pampers is Raj, who's the creative head of Liobanet and the MD and the client, they had a conversation and they have a mutual friend. And one of the things that came up in that conversation was that ladies were expecting had just had a child and you know, her fear and her anxiety and that is something that I think that that conversation threw up. And then later in my conversations with Raj, and you know, obviously we were thinking of what can we as a brand do with these times, you're a brand that works on about babies. I mean, it's inherently an optimistic space, right? And so what can we say as a brand at this time, you know, with all this anxiety to mothers, new mothers across the country and now across the world that in some way gives them optimism and hope, you know, and that's the best you can do as a brand at this time. If you can, if you can alleviate some of that anxiety for a mother right now, I think you've done more than what you could have ever imagined you could do as a brand. Now, in that whole scenario, I mean, we started thinking about this and how do we, you know, how do we, how do we tell that story? And one of the, one of the things that this lady had said was very interesting was that when she had the baby, right, instead of feeling anxious and instead of feeling, you know, afraid, she has an opposite effect. She felt extremely optimistic, you know, and which was kind of a strange thing. And I mean, I mean, for me, especially, you know, it's something that I could not really understand. But when we thought about it a little more and I spoke to that lady, I mean, one of the things that we realized is, I mean, it makes perfect sense, right? Because what is a baby? A baby is optimism. It's really hope for the future in your hands, right? And a mother feeling optimistic when she holds a baby is really, I mean, it's very natural. But given the context we are in today, it suddenly, you know, takes on this other dimension. And so that's, that's really the thinking behind it. That's the story that we wanted to tell. What could a mother tell her baby and herself at the same time that would make her feel optimistic and hopeful in these, you know, very dark times? So how much time did it take from deep execution to really pull this off? About two weeks. So, I mean, it's interesting because we didn't know how to do it. I mean, there was, you can't shoot. Right. So what happens normally? Normally a client tells you, gives you a brief, you go back to them with, you know, a campaign and scripts, they approve it, you talk to the production house, you talk to a director, you say, I'm getting it. Then you get on a flight and you go for the shoot. And, you know, that's, that's the world we were all coming from. And none of that is there now. None of that is available. We can't shoot, we can't, we can't depend on all, all the other, you know, apparatus that we are so used to. So in the two weeks, it, it took us about a week to really figure out how to do this. How do we tell this story? Right. Should we, it was an extremely messy process, as you could imagine, because we had no clue. So we said, okay, um, you know, we, inherently, we want to tell a story. And we want to tell a story through a film. So should we do animation? Should we do, um, you know, drawings? Should we, should we reach out to people out there and ask them for footage? How do you go about it? So that took some time. And then what we really realized was that, I mean, what you need to do is be extremely resourceful and clever. If you look at the film, it looks like we shot it, but we didn't shoot it. We just put footage together in a style and a narrative, you know, using a narrative technique of having a central spine and then cutting away to a, to other plots. We put that together on, you know, on my, on the, on this laptop that I'm talking to you on. That's, that's all we did. And we, we kind of found footage. We took, took us quite a few days to find just the right footage. And then, you know, all these three AM, two AM calls that we had me and Raj constantly about, you know, can we do this? Can you do that? Can we try this? Can we try that? So it overall took about two weeks to produce it. And about, um, let's say about four or five days to even just wrap our heads around the pro, you know, around the problem, even before we started doing the work. I'm sure it was very creatively satisfying as well, creating the summits on these constraints and all of that. It was, yeah, of course. I mean, I mean, you, uh, you know, like it makes you realize that you could make people feel something and you could move people with, with the right story, uh, and very limited resources. You know, you could achieve a lot and that for a creative person is, is extremely satisfying. And I mean, it gives you a lot of confidence. It gives you a lot of confidence in your own ability as a creative professional. So the lockdown took us all by surprise. So what was your immediate reaction and decision in terms of working and what were the initial hiccups adapting to this important? I mean, the hiccups continue. I don't think we've really found, uh, you know, a smooth working pattern because, uh, new problems throw up, you know, you get a new challenges and suddenly realize, oh my God, how do you do this? So I mean, it's basic things, man. Like, uh, there are, there are, um, you know, um, grand, uh, elements and, and, you know, artworks which are on servers and you don't have access to those servers. And how do you get that out? And then from, from really basic logistical things like that to how do you shoot or how do you tell a story? You know, it, the, the challenges are, are, are immense. But, uh, like I said, I mean, we're going step by step. Um, and see that, that, so that's the problem. Those are the problems. But I think there's also an interesting, um, a new kind of a workflow that has come up, which we never did. And I think what this is, because we've had this technology, if we've had, you know, zoom calls and we've had all this at our fingertips. Uh, I mean, the average, uh, uh, Joe walks around with more computing power in his pocket than the Apollo program had to land those spacecraft. So we've had it, right? Uh, but I don't think we were ever forced to really use it and therefore see its potential. And I think that's what's happening. So what I find myself doing increasingly now is, uh, having a collaborative campaigns and, and, you know, creative sessions with, uh, you know, Leo Burnett teams across the world. So I'm currently working on a team from Chicago or something, which is something we never did in the past, because some, for some reason we had, we assumed that we all must be in the same room to get it done. So I think that the, the challenges we're all aware of, I think what's, what's the, the kind of advantages and the upside of this is that we've become a lot more efficient in using the tools you've had for many years, but never really used, you know, video conferencing, uh, uh, brainstorming sessions, you know, uh, why online digital whiteboards. So it's, it's kind of coming together in that way. And it's not that it's, it's a, we're not simulating the past. We're not, we're not trying to make it like it used to be when we were, you know, all together in the same space. I think what we're doing is creating something new, a new way of functioning entirely, uh, which is very exciting. So how have clients responded to all of this? What is the general mood like? Are they, are they, you know, are they tightening their constraints or are they ready to spend? Are they ready to talk to consumers and are there any concerns there when they are creating a conversation? So, yeah, that, that is an interesting thing because, you know, I, I, I've not done an MBA. So I don't know. But I think what has happened is that in the past, you know, we always look at, I mean, you really, uh, we worked with them in the same mode. And I think what's happening now, which is very interesting, which I've also noticed is, see, a lot of our clients are very smart people, right? They've gone to the best universities in the world and you never really got to experience how sharp some of them are, you know, till this time, right? And so on the contrary, I mean, what you see is, you know, the best coming out of our clients, you know, their, uh, their training, their education, their ability to adapt is all, is pretty, um, pretty fascinating actually. I mean, I've been, I've been seeing my clients at work and I've realized that, you know, they, they were in some way the, the education and training they've had, they're able to adapt it very fast to a situation like this, a business challenge like this. Are they spending money? I think they're ramping up. I think when we started off, it was like a shock to the system. We didn't know, um, you know, and it's even at a personal level. I mean, at the moment I found out about this, about the lockdown, I decided I'm going to spend no money till I figure out what's happening. I'm not going to buy anything, right? Uh, people pushed their purchases, buying a car or whatever. People just stopped spending money just to see what this is going to pan out as. And I think that's the same thing that's happened with, with a lot of our clients is first there was, there was a shock, you know? Then the, you know, all, all those years of business training kicked in, they kind of analyzed the problem and we did that together. And you know, at Lyobonet, we had this, you know, these very long sessions or something called zero three six, which is really in with the client coming up with what is the roadmap ahead? What do we do now, which is zero? What do we do three months from now, which is three and then six months from now. So a lot of that work went in. And once we were able to kind of see a head through, you know, the fog of the pandemic, uh, you know, and really chart out how are we going to navigate this? I think, uh, you know, budget started increasing because when you don't know what you're spending on, you stop spending. But now I think clients understand what the plan is. I think they all have a plan in mind and they're kind of working ahead. So I'm seeing that increasing. I'm seeing budgets increasing. I'm seeing more money being put into projects. Yeah, your teams telling you a lot of people telling me that this is getting more tiring than working from office and for advertising, you're not used to meeting in person. You're not used to a lot of banter. You're not used to tea coffee sessions, you know. So how is it creating this remote captivity? See, I mean, I think, I think there are some, there are some principles and laws that, you know, rules, you just have so I can talk about myself and my team and what we are doing at Leo Burnett. I think there are some basic, uh, hard rules that you need to put down, right? Uh, because in this kind of an isolated environment, it's really easy to kind of sink into, uh, you know, this slight sense of hopelessness, you know, where you're locked in. I mean, it's, it's natural for you to go through that. And so one of the things we do is, uh, we make sure that we have video calls every day with my team, right? And it's not just work, uh, sometimes just to chat, you know, we'll, we'll talk, uh, at an organization level, I mean, Raj and I will talk every day on video, not audio. Uh, a lot of times we'll, we'll get in touch with different teams and we'll have a kind of a conversation around. So what you need to do really is, and what we're trying to do. And, uh, I'm sorry if I sound like I know, you know, I know the answer, but I can only say what we're doing and what's working for us is, um, you kind of, you kind of keep that conversation going through other tools that are available to you, you know, you can't meet, but try to have a session of just hanging out with each other in a slight bit of banter on video, uh, put in a schedule for yourself. I think it's very important for teams to function as a team, because now that you're not in the same geographical space, how do you, how do you feel like a team and how do you keep that feeling and that sense of cohesion going is, uh, is really use the tools that you have. I mean, be in touch, be a lot more in touch, than you normally would be, uh, see each other on video, discuss work, discuss a movie, uh, you know, just, just keep working with each other. And, and, you know, as human beings, we figure out, is it more tiring? Yes. A lot more tiring. I think, uh, I think it's just, and I think, I think it's just screams, man. I mean, a lot of times just looking into a screen for so long is tiring. You know, I mean, I think is real. Yeah, screen fatigue is real, man. Lastly, I also want you to give out a message on creating work that works and, you know, importantly, how, how to function when they're going to get stuff for creatives because, uh, we want to continue telling stories that inspire. You know, a message for creatives out there. Okay. Um, I think, I think I just have, again, from my own experience, I think the only thing I can say is, uh, just because your old tools are gone, doesn't mean we can't invent these ones. Right. Uh, there is a huge change, and I think we need to embrace it. Right. We need to embrace it. The past is the past. I don't think we're going to go back to that way of functioning anytime soon. So forget about it. Right. Uh, but the need for good storytelling and good creative work is at the highest right now. You know, people are consuming content like they never have in the past. So you have this strange situation. You have a situation where you're unable to create things in the way you used to, but at the same time you have a, you have people who are consuming more content than they ever did. So it's really, I mean, it's really a test of our professional acumen to, to figure out how are we going to do that in this time? And I don't think, um, I don't think there are any excuses. I think we still need to do what we do. That's what makes us professionals. Like that's what makes us, uh, you know, who we are, which is creative people working, uh, in a professional capacity in the world as it is today. I mean, what you have, what you have, embrace it. Right. So at a personal level, what do you prefer, the old abnormal or new normal? You know, I've been thinking about this and it's so strange. I don't even remember the old world and what these three months have made. If they somehow they've just wiped it out of my head. Yeah. Like I don't remember or I, this seems to me like I was like born in this. Like I was born in a lockdown. I don't know, I don't know if it's my mental health or what it is, but I just, I just, I just don't, I can't recollect the time before this anymore. So was that better? Is this better? See, of course, there are this in, I think the time that we had before this, when there was no pandemic and there was, you know, people weren't dying was obviously better. But and we continue to function and go forward in the limitations that we have now. I think that's, I mean, I, I don't know if I, if I would I prefer if, if the pandemic vanished and we could all go back out and be normal? Of course, 100%. But since we are here, we will, I'll make the most of it. Okay. So thank you so much for this very real, very relatable and fun story of how creativity can actually shine through country. Thanks a lot. I had a blast chatting with you, Arjuna. Yeah, thank you for, yeah, you too. Thank you for reaching out to me. Absolutely. I'll come and see you at your office sometime. If at all, we get back to normal. If, if ever, yes. Otherwise, zoom in on us. Perfect. Thank you so much. Take care. Stay connected. Yeah, you too. Bye. Bye.