Ajit Shah, who took over recently as executive director, RKSwamy/BBDO, and in-charge of the agency's northern operations, comes across as a person in control. Very much the quality the Delhi office needs having gone through a period of uncertainty, with people at the helm leaving at regular intervals over the past few years. Shah is unfazed with the set of 'issues' confronting him. They are, in fact, challenges as far as he is concerned, and the prime reason from him to move from Dhar & Hoon. "I realised that I feel most comfortable in a large agency set up and therefore when the offer of joining RKSwamy/BBDO was made, I accepted it," says Shah. In this interview to Sumita Vaid Dixit of agencyfaqs!, Shah talks about how RKSwamy/BBDO needs to market itself aggressively to reclaim its rightful place in the industry.

Q. The overall perception of the Delhi office of RKSwamy/BBDO is that of a beleaguered sibling of Chennai and Mumbai forever trying to get its act together. Why has the management been so slow in putting the house in order?

A. Are you saying that historically, the Delhi office has been weak? The management has made many efforts in getting the right set of people. Years ago, RKSwamy/BBDO used to be big in Delhi. The fact that the Delhi office had PSU and government businesses may have coloured the character of the Delhi office, and it has taken some time for the agency to change that character.

Q. You are moving into a position vacated by Sunil Gupta, who left the agency less than a year after joining it. What are the expectations placed on you by RKSwamy/BBDO, BBDO Worldwide and the local advertising fraternity?

A. I can only talk about the brief given to me by Shekhar. Which is for me to stabilise and grow the Delhi office. Make it as strong as the agency is nationally. Bring in new clients, and consolidate the existing businesses.

Q. What are the changes you would recommend and implement to put that brief into practice?

A. First of all, let me make this amply clear that the agency has been profitable, even in Delhi. The size of the Delhi office in billing terms is Rs 40 crore. But the fact remains the growth of the Delhi office has been like a roller-coaster ride. There have been ups and downs. Our research definitely needs to improve, the creative output needs to get better. But overall we are growing. The good thing is there is a good bunch of youngsters in here. Again, between Mann (Pranvir Mann, senior creative director), Terry (Tarun Ahuja, vice-president) and myself there is tremendous amount of experience at the disposal of RKSwamy/BBDO Delhi now. In short, we have all the recourses, all the elements in place. We just need to go out and prove it. Indeed, there are some incredible things happening at the agency...

Q. Could share some of that with us?

A. The agency is involved with a tremendous width and depth of activities - be it in pharma, in human resource activities… you name it. We are also getting into the customer relationship management area. The agency does rural and social marketing too. It is a big division in Delhi, which handles Rs 10 crore of business. Again, the agency is coming out with a book - a comprehensive book on the urban market, which has involved tremendous research, analysis etc.

Q. Over the last one week for so, you have been meeting up with the agency people, getting to know their work, aspirations etc. What is the morale here like? Do you think the period of uncertainly is over?

A. I would hope that they feel more comfortable now. I can understand they are feeling unsettled because of the change in management. But I hope they feel that there is a commitment to build this branch and settle down.

Q. In terms of client perception, where does RKSwamy/BBDO stand today? Considering that the branch has been absent from most of the big pitches that have taken place lately in and around the city...

A. I think that is because of RKSwamy/BBDO prefers to keep a low profile. But we need to get our story out. For example, I was surprised about the kind of things that the agency was doing - not just in Delhi, in the other offices as well - which I was not aware of as an outsider. We need to expose to our client what we are doing and what we are capable of. Take this example. For UNICEF, in just a matter of two weeks, the agency turned out 500 units of creative work. I think that's just great!

Q. Critics of RKSwamy/BBDO keep carping about the fact that there is very little 'BBDO' (be in terms of management control or in terms of the quality of thinking) in the agency, and that RKSwamy/BBDO is essentially a family-run enterprise. Do you think there is any merit in this line of thought?

A. Frankly no. Both Shekhar and Sundar have been with the agency for decades, and both of them are professionally qualified. They just happen to be sons of RKSwamy/BBDO, the founder. The agency, under their stewardship, is one of the Top 10 agencies in the country. As far as BBDO is concerned, I have no knowledge of the extent to which they are involved right now.

Q. Then, despite being a Top 10 agency (in size), RKSwamy/BBDO does not enjoy much of a creative reputation and let us not digress into awards won or scams produced. The regular work that agency produces is always safe, rarely outstanding. In an age of product parity, mustn't the quality of the creative simply get better?

A. I don't think there is any doubt in our minds that the creative has to get better. There is room for improvement. I also think it is more a question of marketing ourselves. We have always believed that the client should do the talking. But the agency must also be aggressive about itself. RKSwamy/BBDO has not marketed itself. The work has been of very good standard - though not always brilliant - but we haven't really done any talking for ourselves.

Q. You have been in the industry for more than two decades now. What are the learning you have brought in and how do you intent marketing the RKSwamy/BBDO brand from here?

A. Stability is very important. You ensure stability by keeping your top people happy, by providing a growth path, by giving a clear vision to where the agency is heading. Transparency in they way the agency works because that is the only way forward. So the thing that will be important is the clarity of vision. What kind of agency do we want to be? What is the culture we wish to inculcate within the agency? The culture should be easily identifiable and transferable. Everest had a very strong culture. It was a not flamboyant kind of agency. It had a family kind of atmosphere.

Q. Talking about Everest, how different or similar was the culture at Everest when compared with RKSwamy/BBDO?

A. Both Everest and RKSwamy/BBDO are low profile agencies, both are well respected within the industry for how sound they are financially and how stable they have been. Everest's relationship with Y&R helped it to be in business, helped it to start attracting talent. There was an air of optimism when I left the agency. It had touched billings Rs 100 crore when I decided to move on. In fact, both Everest and RKSwamy/BBDO have enjoyed a sound relationship with their clients. I would say both the agencies look after their people very well.

Q. How would you describe your stint at Dhar & Hoon?

A. Dhar & Hoon was a completely different kind of experience. The idea of joining Dhar & Hoon was born out of the need for a complete change. The agency had a good set of clients, outstanding people. I knew both Ajit (Hoon) and Abhinav (Dhar). I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. It seemed like an interesting thing to do at that point in time.

Q. Was the experience at Dhar & Hoon close to what you had imagined it would be?

A. I wish we had been more successful. In terms of getting more business and being able to showcase the creative work Dhar & Hoon had done for Honda. Getting Honda was a great thing but unfortunately the amount of work done was not exposed. Paradoxically, Dhar & Hoon had concentrated on one client in the sheer excitement. As a result, the agency was not very aggressive with new businesses. The work had tremendous potential, but it did not see the fruition as we had hoped it would.

Q. While you have spent bulk of your life in advertising working at two agencies, they were very different set-ups in terms of businesses and the outlook to business in general. Overall, how would you say advertising as a discipline has evolved form the time you started out to the current times?

A. Agencies have become far leaner. Knowledge has become far more important in an agency set-up today than, say, it was in the eighties or even as recently as the nineties. The depth of the work that clients expect the agency to do now keeps the agency far more focused. The seventies and the eighties was a time when there was hardly any competition. Back then advertising was not a very necessary input in the clients' success. It was something you did - but it was not a do or die kind of thing for the clients.

Things changed drastically in the nineties. It was a boom period as the economy was being opened up. And so a lot of new sectors warmed up to the discipline and practice of advertising. There were far more clients than agencies could handle. Which is why the larger ones grew at an enormous pace and the not-so-good ones also grew at a fantastic pace. Even the non-accredited agencies enjoyed a substantial share of the business.

Then of course the whole explosion of the media happened in the nineties. A fallout of these development was the deterioration of the 15 per cent commission system.

Now advertising has become far more realistic. Clients are paying for what is being delivered. Many clients are paying even more than the textbook 15 per cent. So there is a built-in incentive for campaigns to produce results. On the other hand, there are those clients who are asking why should they pay the 15 per cent. The agencies that can justify that demand are getting their money.

Q. And how has the creative product of the industry evolved to keep up with the crosswinds of demand?

A. Agencies today provide a far wider range of activities than just print and television and at the same time are more creative than ever before. But there is a need for creativity in below-the-line. I think a lot more creativity would come in in the use of media and not necessarily the message. The great thing is, on a global level, the Indian advertising fraternity is being looked upon with greater respect as the years go by.

Q. Things are definitely looking up for Indian advertising in general. What is the way forward for RKSwamy/BBDO in particular?

A. The first thing is to consolidate our existing client base. The second is to look at the activities that we are doing for our clients, and see what more can be done. There is always room for improvement. Only when we have got this right would we like to get aggressive about new business.

February 02, 2004
New Delhi
You can write to Ajit Shah at
ajitshah@rksbbdo.com