"Regardless of an O&M or whoever, Ambience attracts really great talent."

Despite stints at Lintas, O&M and Enterprise Advertising (where she formed the core creative team with veteran Mohammed Khan), Elsie Nanji is almost synonymous with Ambience, the agency that she and Ashok Kurien set up back in 1987. And thorough the agency's 15-year history, Nanji has been at the creative helm, taking the reputation of Ambience's product from strength to strength. So much so that she has become a regular at international award juries - including, most recently, an invitation to judge this years D&AD Awards. In this interview with N Shatrujeet of agencyfaqs!, Nanji, vice-chairman & chief creative officer, Ambience D'Arcy Advertising, shares some of her observations about international advertising and creativity in India. She also explains why "Fevicol should be the aspiration for every agency and client", and how "the hunger for international awards is unrealistic"…

Edited Excerpts

To me, it's a great honour, indeed. Of course, I wish I had won a D&AD Award myself to be a part of this jury. But the most important thing is the opportunity to meet like-minded people, some of the best creative brains in the world. I really am like a student out there. I just sit and listen to them, and try and absorb as much as I can.

Look, I am sitting with people like Marcello Serpa, right? Now Marcello has won just about every advertising award in the world. So who the hell am I? But yes, at the same time, it feels very nice being in such company because you finally come to a stage where you pit your judgement against theirs.

One way, yes. But well, let us also be honest… it's the money that's flowing in from India. That really is the bottomline. In all these award shows, there is a business angle. And there's a large amount of that coming from India. There is a large representation from India, and to honour that representation, they have now started getting Indians on board.

Yes, I don't think we're sending in as much as some other countries are… Some jury members were telling me that countries like Brazil and Germany spend huge amounts of money on entering these awards. But I do think the volume from India is a lot. After all, it's a big country with so many agencies.

That is definitely one reason, I would imagine. The second thing is that, as you might know, Donald Gunn has been compiling lists of the number of Top Five international awards (Cannes, Clio, D&AD, One Show and Asia-Pacific) won by country, agency and client on a yearly basis. Now, last year, I did a presentation to the Ad Club here, where I revealed that the number of international awards that India, as a country, is winning, is growing steadily. Per award won, India is the third-highest-growing market in the world.

No, and it is fantastic. Look, other countries have been winning awards all these years. Brazil is growing too, maybe. But the percentage of growth is one of the highest in India, as per the Gunn Report, last year. This is fantastic. But, of course, we must also remember that it is from zero to something… we were zero till some time back. But still it's great. And I think this growth has also contributed to Indians finding place in international juries.

I've noticed many different things about how different regions appreciate creative work. Things like how the Europeans - actually, more the northern Europeans - are really very freaked out. They are so extreme in their ideas… completely way out. So much so that sometimes, the rest of the jury can't quite get it. It's true. So you will find that the Swedes, Norway, Germany form a group. They are together in their decisions.

On the other side, the Spanish and the ones from Brazil and Argentina are together. They have a very macho, male, 'stud' kind of view on everything. It's a different view on things, and a lot of it goes into their judgement. The Japanese are more in tune with the Americans, I would say. The Japanese seem to relate to the typical New York advertising. Maybe because they understand the culture, or because they have been educated in the States. Of course, I am only talking about the ones I've met. The South East Asians are another group.

India is somewhere between all this. We don't really fall in anywhere. We tend to like ideas that are powerful, ideas such as Nike… that stem from the West. At the same time, we find the South Asian ideas appealing because of their simplicity. I notice that we have a good mix. We are not part of South East Asia, we're not part of Europe, yet we have a good balance, I think, in appreciating work.

And the kind of work we also do, perhaps, could relate to people from different regions.

Honestly, let me tell you that the work that I see out there is really world class. They have tonnes of really good stuff. I think what is most important is that out there, when they have a really good idea, they go all out to make that good idea hundred per cent better. Here - and I'm not really sure if that is the answer to our problems - I feel that our ideas are very good, but our execution often suffers. And maybe we are not seeing things in a wholly international way when we execute our ideas. Our ideas are universal, no doubt. Anybody can understand our ideas. I think the execution has to be more universal.

Look at the film directors out there. They bring something huge to the table. All the top directors… Jonathan Glazer, Traktor… It's fantastic what they do to the script. I think the advertising professionals out there exercise a level of film appreciation, art appreciation and craft appreciation that takes the idea way ahead. And we are just not up there.

There is no reconciliation, and let us recognize this fact honestly. There are very few instances where the two meet, and Fevicol is one example of that 'meeting'. It seems to work there, and it seems to have worked here as well. So hats off to that. But otherwise, it is a very difficult thing to do. Because I know how difficult it is. Take the Lakme lipstick film ('tennis') we did. The whole country is raving about it. Every client I go to has asked me, 'Can you do an ad like that for me?' It's a rage, and I am proud to say we've done it. But it'll never make it to any international award - we all know that. It's sad, but that's just the way it is. And I know that if I had done a cutting-edge film for Lakme, the masses would not have got it.

I think what Fevicol is doing should be the aspiration for every agency and client. If you can appeal to the masses, and do something that appeals to the judges, it's the ideal scenario. That is the standard. But, at the same time, if you don't get that mix right, you have to be good to the business. After all, it's the clients who are feeding you. I am a jury member because my business is doing well and my clients are paying me. I can't just say 'art' and do a few nice visiting cards and then run to these awards shows. I am responsible for business - my client's and mine.

I think you should do best for your business, and I really think that's where Ambience has great qualities. Because, whatever business we have, we're raising the standards always. It's a culture, an approach to advertising that we've somehow nurtured in this agency.

No. Because, these countries are small, and more importantly, their audiences are very similar. Take Germany, for instance. There is not too much difference between consumers in Germany. Their sense of humour or their sense of emotion is pretty much in the same area. Their symbols of success, their symbols of happiness, the kind of TV they watch and the kind of art shows they go to… everything is similar. Agencies there are already blessed with a niche audience. And they have an understanding that is easy to translate into good advertising ideas of mass appeal.

Our country is something altogether different. The kind of people who go for art shows, the people who go for the Satyajit Ray kind of films, the people who go for Bollywood films… a world of difference. In our country, even humour is seen differently. Some people will find something terribly funny, others will find it offensive. So the audiences we have to deal with is very different, very diverse.

It has to. It just has to.

If you're asking me to look at it in my capacity of an international jury member or whatever, it's not terribly inspiring, unfortunately. But coming from where I started in this business some 20 years ago, it's definitely really, really advanced. Partly it's because of the satellite invasion - we're seeing advertising from around the world, we're seeing better television. Everywhere, the standards are going higher. The tools that advertising has at its disposal have improved a lot. The ideas have definitely got much better too.

Ashok had the vision at that time to ask me - and I was just an art director at Enterprise back then - to start an agency with him. It was a huge responsibility. He had two very big clients - Garden and Thums Up - and he decided to start with me heading creative. And I remember the whole industry was laughing at Ashok for picking me to handle the whole agency's creative product. But he just stuck to his guns and said that this is his vision, and these two clients need this sort of a person.

For me it was a big risk, because I was very comfortable at Enterprise. In fact, I wasn't prepared to take up Ashok's offer, but it was really my husband who prodded me into it. And for the first six months, I was weeping all along, as I didn't know what I had gotten into. There was Ashok at one desk, me at another, and just these two studio boys. And they were not the people I had hired, so even that made me weep, as they were not to the quality I wanted. I was so nervous.

We did quite well with both clients, both in terms of the advertising we created for them, and the business we got from them. In fact, at that time, we were quite arrogant - Ashok said we'd only do two clients a year. So the next year we got two more clients. And if there were more than two clients, we'd say we don't think we can handle it now, so let's wait till next year. This went on for some time. And for eight or nine years, we never made a pitch. Business just came our way. Lakme came to us… of course, both Ashok and I had worked on Lakme earlier. Vadilal came to us. Ashok had a list of five clients we'd like to have, and all five came to us without our going to them. It was amazing. I think God was just showering us with blessings.

I've never really thought about 'building an ethos'. What I do know is that, for some reason, good people have always wanted to work with us. Right from day one, Ryan Menezes wanted to work here, and he eventually came and joined. Sippy (Sanjay Sipahimalani) came too, and the work started shining. I think we are very lucky we have always had good people. And I know for a fact that regardless of an O&M or whoever, Ambience attracts really great talent.

Creative talent, certainly. I think in servicing - now not so much because we have P&G and Levers and all - there was always this feeling that I dominated the scene and never gave servicing the space to grow. Which is not the case. Now, of course, with the multinational clients we have, perceptions have changed.

I still have a large part to play in the judgement of the work that goes out of this agency. I am talking about the large decisions like the campaign idea or the film idea. It's not possible for me to see every POP and every leaflet, of course. And I don't need to.

Now, when an idea is presented to me and I don't find it strong enough, I throw the brief open to different teams, to improve the quality. It's all for the greater good. But the good part is that now I have people here who think about that as well. So, in a way, I have instituted a way of thinking. I have chosen people who think like me - who think, yes, we need to run a business and run it well, but we also need to take the work much higher.

Not really. I would feel very awful if something bad were to come out of this agency. Not that everything we've done is great and that I am proud of everything we've done. There are things that I am uncomfortable about, but again, I have had to become a bit more business-minded today.

Also, today, we have very marketing-savvy and research-oriented clients - clients like P&G and Levers. But even within that, they all know that Ambience is not like any one of their other plum agencies. So they expect better work from us. And they are okay if we do come out with a different idea.

Many people think so. But the fact is that we are handling Marico, P&G, Levers, Godrej Sara Lee… some of the largest clients around. It's just that because we started off with some very exclusive clients, people tend to associate us with 'boutique work'. Garden, Lakme… Naturally, we are seen as that sort of agency. (Laughs)

I certainly think it has, especially after Nakul (Chopra) and Subhash (Kamath) came in from Trikaya (Grey Worldwide). In fact, when we pitched for General Motors and got Astra and Vectra, I believe it was the people from planning and servicing who did the trick. GM buys advertising purely on strategy. Ambience is certainly growing in its strategic planning discipline.

The funny thing is that even when people thought we didn't have planning capabilities, I would say we had. Ashok is a brilliant strategic planner - he thinks totally out-of-the-box. And in a very different way, he is a strategic planner. It's just that his planning ideas used to have a creative way of looking at things. Now I wonder why nobody values that. Tell me, would clients stay with you for 15 years if they didn't see value in what you were doing?

I don't think we're perfect, and I don't think anybody is perfect, for that matter. I think we have a long way to go in terms of our creative product and its quality, which is what I am really in charge of. And trust me, I am working on that every day. I am constantly in touch with my people, and I myself try and do things that will raise the bar.

Yes, the perception is probably right, because we've never really hogged a whole Ad Club show, for instance. But then we're not such a big agency. We're being compared to an O&M and an HTA that are so much older and bigger. You really cannot compare us to them when we are at No 18 or No 20 in terms of billing. I wouldn't even have that big a body of work to enter. But for what I do enter, I end up winning something or the other. I would say, put us into a different block of agencies of a similar billing size, and I tell you, we're by far the best.

Billing-wise… yes, obviously we are working at it too. We are a small setup. We have one office in Delhi, and this one here in Mumbai. We've been growing slowly. But we are now quite aggressive in picking up new businesses. We have a good team going. So that should also start looking up. And now with GM in Delhi, that office too will be strengthened. In fact, we've told GM that we'll have independent creative and account management teams over there in Delhi.

I would really like to see work that I am proud of. Work that is the best and most loved within the country. And work that miraculously wins awards at the international festivals. Specifically in that order, I must add.

I really believe that the hunger for international awards is too much. And it is unrealistic in every which way. There are lots of constraints that agencies in India work under, so don't be unrealistic. But what is heartening is that people do make it to international awards despite the constraints, which is great. But my point is, don't focus on that. Creative people must learn that the purpose of advertising is not feeling good about yourself.