Of Gandhi, Kamasutra & Social ads

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At the core of BBDO India’s ‘Shave Sutra’ - inspired by Vatsyayan’s treatise - and the agency’s most celebrated campaign, ‘Women Against Lazy Stubble’ - created at its ‘ashram’ office - lies its philosophy: the work, the work, the work…

In the Gandhian precincts of BBDO India’s Mumbai office or ‘ashram’ is a mini library. Nestled among the many books on its shelves is Vatsyayan’s Kamasutra, the eternal treatise on sexual positions, that inspired BBDO India’s now famous ‘Shave Sutra’ ad. Advertisements for shaving products are usually simple and straight, so it was challenging for the creative team to inject action into one such ad. In 2009, the team had been asked to research what men and women think about the importance of shaving. After months of brainstorming, they hit upon the idea of a self-styled Maharaja who depicted shaving on the lines of Kamasutra positions.

Within a few days, at a mass Shave Sutra event in Delhi, hundreds of women shaved men in public. The event caught the attention of the media after a leading Bollywood actor was shaved by two leading ladies. The mass shaving also broke the Guinness record. The advertisement had touched the right chord with consumers through an act that was social and had mass appeal. For Josy Paul, chairman and CCO of BBDO India and his team, the response was beyond expectations. “A campaign like Shave Sutra started because Procter & Gamble in India believes in a nontraditional approach to communication. They believe that if all communication partners come together, the combined skills and mindsets can create new forms and interesting areas to engage men. That mindset opened our minds to look at it differently,” shares Paul.

So can brands really marry social movements? “When television came, it exposed consumers to fresh campaign ideas which received an unprecedented response. But today television does not provide the sole integrated platform to touch all sections of the consumer base,” says BBDO India CEO Ajai Jhala. His experience strongly supports the proposition that brands and social ideas can be brought on one platform. “Television was the dominant medium after the advent of satellite television. Brands focused more on benefits. Brands were more intimate, warmer and friendly like Cadbury, Asian Paints, etc. Eventually, we felt that it was about offering consumers the chance to participate, engage, co-create, have a say and act. This was the third frontier when consumers were socially aware and responsible,” Jhala adds.

Both records and awards show that the philosophy of ‘movement-led acts’ has given Jhala and Paul good returns in the last three years. The success of BBDO India at the Cannes Lions and Spikes Asia have boosted their confidence and their colleagues’. Experts, however, believe that experiments in the Indian market are not easy, especially for campaigns of established brands. But clients are ready to experiment with new creative ideas and use of different mediums. Many also attribute this reverse trend to the advent of digital and social media, which have enhanced consumers’ participation. Overall, there are diverse opinions about campaign formulas and a single creative formula has not been successful for long. “I believe there is no single theory of success and there are no champions when it comes to integrated creative work,” claims Jhala. “While interactivity has increased among the consumers, especially in young India, the task is to encourage discussion among them, be it Anna Hazare’s movement or a pop idol reality show. Consumers demand a space for interaction today.”

At BBDO India, a belief prevails that the best content must be disseminated, but with a social message. Strangely, Paul and Jhala absorbed this rare philosophy at Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. It took them 18 months to turn Gandhian, and turn action-oriented philosophy into reality. But do clients believe in social messages in the communication drive? Do they admire a brand-building method via touching the social chord of consumers? “People have not completely moved out of the single medium phase, hence there is an inconsistency in content and usage of medium,” admits Jhala. “Not all clients are the same, but I think most are brave and willing to experiment with the changing scenario. They are quite receptive about different campaign ideas. Thankfully, our clients have been the catalysts of their respective campaigns.”

Globally, BBDO Worldwide is a strong brand. In the advertising world, it is at the forefront of almost all awards. Recently, the Gunn Report in 2010 named BBDO Worldwide the ‘Most Awarded Agency Network in the World.’ However, it was not as easy for BBDO India to build its unique identity. Though the agency believed in the mantra of work, it had to find ground and prove its success in the Indian market which is very different from the rest of the world. Paul believes that there is one language that unites every Indian – the language of action. “When I talk about BBDO India, it is not just BBDO. We are incomplete without India. Over the years in this industry, we have realised that people won’t listen to us unless what we are saying is relevant. We had to change the way we worked. India is now a young people’s business. There is a new landscape altogether as compared to what it was two decades ago. The good point has been that we in BBDO don’t carry the baggage of the past. We could find stories in the Indian context. We also realised that Indians are divided by languages and culture, but united by the language of action, hence we introduced the idea of ‘acts, not ads’ in India,” explains Paul.

The first task before Paul and his team was to invent campaign ideas that were integrated in nature and not targeted at only a particular medium. Paul believes that interactivity is at the heart of any campaign, regardless of the medium. The world is observing that in today’s multimedia communication wave, when TV is not the sole carrier of a strong campaign, there is a growing demand for digital campaigns. He explains, “We are not medium-specific. An act can work in any medium. It depends upon the scale and size of the budget you have and your own ambitions, but within whatever budget you have, you can create action. You can create action through radio, through multimedia campaigns, or only through digital but the soul or idea is based on action. Increasingly, clients are also observing the trend.”

According to Jhala, “India was shackled for a long time by the idea of socialism. As a result, we are a nation of spectators. The only man who seemed to have realised it was Gandhi. The government behaved in an obscure way. They taxed many products and services, didn’t encourage entrepreneurship or individuality. So, the point was that everyone was a spectator and there was no joy or upliftment. You only saw Amitabh Bachchan demolish social structures and the justice system, so you could vent your anger through that. But, the moment India opened up; say by the act of learning English, working in call centers paid a young graduate Rs. 30,000 per month. Suddenly,

began the act of entering Indian pop idol shows and being on a stage which one could never imagine. Actions paid dividends. It was this whole potential energy bottled up for decades which got unleashed. And then we started wondering - How can brands not engage with consumers, provide them action, release their energy?”

As for clients, they are willing to experiment with the changing scenario, Jhala adds. “They are quite receptive about different campaign ideas. They are very dynamic and sensitive about what is happening around them. Thankfully, in the current list of clients, all have responded well to our ‘action-oriented’ ideas. They have also been interactive in building on any campaign, be it print, TV or digital. In short, they understand that there is no underlined success theory.”

Just as ‘marrying brands with social movements’ was a fresh task for BBDO India, retaining talent and engaging clients actively was also a challenge. The team of 70 young professionals at BBDO India includes many fresh graduates and trainees. “Most people have never left us. It is a big thing for us. One word that everyone believes in is ‘belief.’ It took us more than 18 months to find ourselves,” says Jhala. With the same prevailing belief in success, Paul’s team swept the Cannes Lions Awards in 2010 and 2011, but remained relatively quiet. They are secretive about their creatives that are in the pipeline currently, but believe that the only empty space on the ashram’s awards shelf will get filled pretty soon. “Certainly next year,” laughs Paul.

Feedback : rahul.dubey@exchange4media.com

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