My agency will always have an enormous amount of talent.

KS Chakravarthy – better known as Chax – made a comeback to advertising as the national creative director of Rediffusion | DYR last year. In between, he had turned an ad film-maker, but left it since he missed the 'buzz' of advertising. At Rediffusion | DYR, Chax' mandate, not unusually different, is to improve the creative standards of the agency. Sumita Vaid Dixit of agencyfaqs! catches up with the veteran creative director. Chax, in his interview, talks about how he is going about strengthening the team at Rediffusion and his commitment towards getting back the creative focus of the agency.

Edited Excerpts

One of the things I discovered was that film-making is a very lonely life. A hermit's life. What do you do for conversations, for stimulation? The production house is full of a bunch of young enthusiastic kids, who run around for you. Temperamentally, you either enjoy sitting like a recluse reading books, watching films all by yourself, or, you actually start missing people and the dynamics of group bonding. There is a lot of buzz in advertising. So that was one big soft reason for me to come back to advertising.

Getting into ad film-making was an open-ended plan. I had given myself two years' time to try out things for myself.

When I entered the profession of film-making, I was clear that I would only concentrate at executing ideas and stay away from the process of ideation. Because, for 20 years, I had done just that – conceiving ideas and writing scripts.

Therefore, the first two years as a film-maker were great fun. It was fun in terms of the novelty of simply paying attention to the details of execution. However, after that, it became a little repetitive. The time had come to take a call.

But let me point out that when I had started out, it was feature films that I eventually wanted to make, and not ad films. Ad film-making helped me understand the medium. Essentially, I had to decide whether I will go ahead with making films, or come back to advertising because that was an option I always had. Advertising was the huge safety net for me.

One thing that I had anticipated – and which did not happen – was the digital revolution. I was hopeful that digital technology would change the way Bollywood operates. But nothing changed. Mainstream cinema remains the mainstay for the Indian film industry and parallel cinema still remains hugely marginalised.

Not really. As I said earlier, two years was the time I had given to myself, and I was more than happy to come back to advertising.

Ad film-making is an altogether different profession from making feature films. As an ad film-maker, you are focussed and precise. You decide what is right and wrong, and function accordingly.

The dynamics in the movie industry is very different. It is very consensus-driven in nature. Everybody, right from the director to the film's distributor, has to agree, and only then, the project moves ahead. Therefore, one has to be willing to flow with the current. One should have that kind of temperament.

You cannot experiment late in life.

After 20 years of being a bit of an autocrat in advertising and after saying how we will do it, or not do it, it is difficult to function in such an environment as the Bollywood industry. Suddenly, I could not reinvent myself and declare there should be democracy. Because, I have always maintained that in advertising, there should not be and cannot be democracy. Finally, one guy has to take a call and lead.

Yes. This had happened with Tata Salt. The client was in love with 'Desh ka namak' song and the agency was just not in the mood to shoot a montage. So I suggested, why not do mini stories as standalone commercials. And the 'Desh ka namak' campaign worked out extremely well. But otherwise, I was very clear that I will only do execution.

When I was thinking of returning to advertising, working in agencies was not the only option I was exploring. I thought working as the creative head of a mainline broadcaster such as the STAR would be equally exciting.

And, just then Rediffusion made the offer. Before I joined Rediffusion, I had never looked at the agency as one of the big agencies, or as a viable place worth exploring.

But then I discovered that the agency has a width of lovely accounts. Rediffusion is, as I would like to say, this ad industry's best kept secret. Moreover, historically Rediffusion has the DNA of being a creative hotshop. Arun (Nanda) started the agency not to become rich but famous. Somewhere along the way, the agency became rich.

Currently, the work of Rediffusion is patchy. It is only good in bits. My job is to get back the creative focus.

I think in the past few months, we have managed hitting the high notes more consistently. You see, I have been here for eight months. Of which, the first three months went in getting the sense of the place. It is only in the last three months that we have started hiring. Now, we have a great team. We believe that every business that we have is a great creative opportunity. As someone had said once: Don't wait for work, what you have on your table now is the next great opportunity.

Hiring people was one focus, making every opportunity count was another. And, of course, we networked aggressively. Also to an extent, it was about getting good opportunities at the right time. This is how DNA happened. We were hungry and waiting, and the opportunity of the year – DNA – walked in.

Working on DNA has been simply great. It was great challenge to take on a huge brand, The Times of India. But when you have clients such as Pradeep Guha and Girish Aggarwal, who have a tremendous understanding of the work, and, give a lot of support, then the work becomes all the more exciting.

In addition to DNA, Airtel is going to be another creative high point for us. We are doing a new campaign around the 'Express Yourself' theme.

I must tell you that the Onida film, which is likely to break soon, is going to be another good one. I cannot tell you much at this stage, but with this yet-to-be launched Onida film, we have used the 'devil' to liberate the creative process.

So, what I am implying is that the momentum of our work is building up. Soon, I would have a full-house in terms of the people I want in the agency.

An agency cannot afford to have a distinct style because every brand needs a voice. Any agency's job is to give each brand the voice it deserves. Take the example of Onida. We are very clear that our Onida advertising must be loved by 60 per cent and hated by 40 per cent of those who see it. The moment that ceases to happen, the brand will die.

But in case of Airtel, every single person, from child to adult, must love the brand. Our work on Maha Lacto, which too will break soon, is another example of looking into the needs of the brand. It is a nice, simple ad that centres around the taste experience of having a candy rather than being tongue-in-cheek.

Talking about candies, I really like the work on Alpenliebe. It has been consistent.

As for Choco-tella, it is a lovely commercial, except for that fact that I do not know what it has got to do with a candy.

At Rediffusion, we see to it that each problem has its own solution. The strength of an agency is to be able to do just about any kind of work, in any style, in any manner, in any tone. And creative judgment is about figuring out which is right for which.

My agency will always have an enormous amount of talent. You want hardcore desi humour, we can do it. You want very sophisticated stuff, we will give it. Most talented people can easily adapt.

My top creative guys – Ashish Khazanchi, Adrian Mendonca, Rahul Jauhari, Zarwan Patel – can do any kind of creative work. They have no mental blocks.

In advertising, if you want to make a difference to the agency, you would have to do great work on big brands.

When I was at Leo Burnett, Arvind (Sharma) and I used to fight battles hands-on with clients such as Complan. With big brands, there are bound to be check-points. Complan's advertising used to be so boring once. Suddenly, all that changed and it became the biggest award winner. Look at Ariel. We showed a husband washing clothes. It may not have won at the Cannes, but it was breakthrough advertising.

My point is, if you want the agency to grow creatively, it has to be on the most visible brands. And, Rediffusion has them in plenty – be it Airtel, or Colgate.

From Tata Sumo to STAR, O&M has a tremendous width of work to boast of. I understand, because O&M is successful, there is a certain amount of resentment. But the truth is, O&M has consistently produced big ideas in the heartland, in the mainstream across brands.

O&M has built a very strong work culture. Now, the position where O&M is today has its disadvantages as well. Many of the bright guys do not want to be in the established camp but in the challenger's camp. O&M is very established, and frankly speaking, Rediffusion is not. This is the natural fallout of success.

This is because we do not have good casting directors. I like performance-oriented films. Like when I did the Balbir Pasha films, I auditioned some 30 people. Look at the Dinku-Manhattan card ad. The casting is so believable. Even for the Greenply ad, the casting is superb. However, there are only a handful of people who take casting seriously.

But you see, the clients are to be blamed as well. They want chocolate faces, beautiful faces. I guess, this debate will carry on for sometime.

Rediffusion is very strong in planning, and strategically very sound. Now, we want to make Rediffusion a top creative agency.