...That’s what Saurabh Varma, CEO of Leo Burnett India, wants to do. He says disruption is key to differentiation, and aims to bring fresh energy into the agency, that will create value in the system and encourage really good work
By Saloni Dutta
The man is on a mission. Saurabh Varma, CEO of the Leo Burnett Group in India, wants his agency to be future-ready and count among the top five agencies of the world, and to this end, the best way for him is to effect constant change. After a period of slow growth last year and a complete change in leadership, many in the advertising fraternity had their doubts about the future of Leo Burnett.
But when Varma took charge, he was firm on his agenda of disruption, and integrating the group’s offerings for the benefit of clients. Starting from changing the workspace to allow people to be more creative and have fun at work, to overturning the notion that only creative people can be creative, to taking a contingent of 25 people including account managers, planners, even a HR head to Cannes this year, Varma feels that the rules of the game need to be redefined.
Describing the last nine months spent at Leo Burnett India as a ‘great rush’, Varma says they were all about “communicating our mission, the kind of agency we want to be, taking people on a new journey together and finding great talent, who can be part of this journey and part of our future. It has been very, very exciting”. Now, his job is to continue the momentum and deliver.
Also mandated to double the agency’s revenues in the next three years, Varma is on a relentless mission to excel by providing ‘solutions’ to clients more than just creative work, and supporting him in this endeavour is Leo Burnett’s newly appointed Chief Creative Officer, Raj Deepak Das.
The energy is palpable as Varma and Das go about the office, checking up on the ‘Change Everything’ prop created by the team specially for the photoshoot with IMPACT. Even in this matter, they pay full attention to detail. They are playful as they pose with the letters and later relax on beanbags during the course of the interview. It is refreshing to see the change.
THE SAURABH VARMA PROTOCOL
Integration “with a dose of specialization” is what Varma brings to the table, and he is very open about his ambition to be the fastest growing creative agency within the Leo Burnett network. “What you can expect from Leo Burnett is incredible work, work which you don’t see in India, work which is integrated and is participative in design,” he says. Taking it a notch higher, Varma wants to do projects which would be comparable to the famous ‘Coke Small World Machine’ or ‘Always Like a Girl’ campaigns and create stories that have never been created in India earlier. For Leo Burnett, the focus is also on understanding the collective use of technology, creativity and media, which is rarely seen or done in our part of the world. No doubt Varma’s strong Planning background comes into play here.
INTEGRATION – THE NEW WAY AHEAD
All clients today look for integration at an agency and at the same time demand specialization. Delivering on that front is the focus of Leo Burnett in the days ahead. “An agency which can deliver both will be the agency that wins. That is something we do really well and it is established. We want to make people’s lives better by creating newer platforms, branded utility and the challenge is how we do that,” comments Varma. It is simple and difficult at the same time. The aim is to understand behaviour across different verticals or channels, and the focus at Leo Burnett is going to be on verticals like design, shopper, e-commerce, social, mobile, content, etc, and how to bring these disciplines together to play an integrated game in the next 12 months, as they build the agency. That is going to be the biggest change they see – media agnostic communication, encompassing a large array of unusual and new platforms.
EXPLORING NEWER PLATFORMS
Ideas are the starting point for any project. The ability to deliver those ideas across various screens and platforms is a challenge and it is also what clients demand from agencies. “Our problem is that we still think about television ads and nowadays it is about where the ads are getting consumed. We are limited in our thinking to just a 30-second piece of content, which by now can be a one-minute piece of content. Content is great, but it will always be about ideas... what about a piece of branded utility, what about something which genuinely makes people’s lives better?”asks Varma. But getting clients to agree to use of newer platforms is another challenge. Clients look for work which is not pushed by media and is passed on and shared by default. Varma thinks that a lot of clients want to embrace engagement, participation and maybe they will soon realize that that is actually the smarter way of doing things because it is more cost effective.
THE HUMANKIND CULTURE
One of the harbingers of change at Leo Burnett is the extra emphasis on the role of the organization’s Humankind philosophy in its functioning. It starts with theoretical understanding of what the Humankind approach is and using it at a practical level on a daily basis, to speak to human beings, identify with them and offer them solutions. The suite of Leo Burnett’s Humankind tools like World of Mapping, Brand Prospect Segmentation, Brand Persona Segmentation are helping them tap into the Human lab - the data and research division in Chicago – to bring value to clients. “That is what we are doing. I keep saying there are three kinds of strategists – those who start with simplicity and leave it at simplicity, and that doesn’t do anything for anybody; those who explore the complexity but leave it at complexity and everybody is enamoured by what you said but nobody knows what to do with it, it is just so complex; and third is those who explore the data, explore the complexity, but leave it to simplicity, where people can be inspired to do something with it, and that is where the magic is. For us it is really about exploring the complexity and delivering the simplicity. That is where the real experience and magic lies,” explains Varma. Training helps freshers inculcate these tools, through real work, and that helps them benchmark the Humankind thinking.
For Varma, meanwhile, it is time to deliver. “We finished two-thirds of the puzzle; we delivered on communicating our ambition clearly, we have hired people, and now it is really about the work and a lot more to come,” says Varma. According to him, “This is just the beginning.”
CANnes You?
A trip to Cannes is what every particle and even sub-particle existing in the advertising world dreams of. Leo Burnett wants its people to experience it firsthand. Hence its ‘CANnes You’ initiative - to give the finest performers a chance to live their most fabled dream - being at the Cannes festival! The first such trip to the Lions took place this June, with more than 20 people from across The Leo Group travelling. The team included Planners, People Managers, Servicing resources besides, of course, the Creatives. To find a place in the team going to Cannes, Leo Burnett employees need to qualify for any of these three criteria: Become ‘Employee of the Year’, Win at Cannes or Score three 7+ on brand/s at the Global Product Committee (GPC).
The Councils
Proud of its democratic set up where everyone has a say and the opportunity to contribute to what transpires at the agency, TLG has set up a group of five Councils, viz:
• Culture
• Client
• Reputation
• Training
• HumanKind
In line with the vision of the CEO to become the most integrated agency in the country and an agency where young people are at the forefront of this integration, these Councils were set up to achieve these very objectives, supported by the management team and the executive board. Each council has a Council Leader, a Management Board and Rising Stars, whose members cut across different levels of people at the agency.
BLACK PENCIL
(Full service agency)
SAMARJIT CHOUDHRY
Executive Director, Black Pencil & Chief Growth Officer, TLG
USP:
Entrepreneurial ventures of today and tomorrow need partners who understand their mindset; who in the case of agencies are willing to say “Hey we are not brand custodians but business custodians”, who are willing to say “I’m not your communication partner, but your business partner…”
Over the next couple of years, India is set to boom again… there are a lot more opportunities out there, but to truly thrive rather than just survive in this new India, businesses, new and old, will need to adopt this entrepreneurial spirit in everything they do. Their agency partners too will have to contribute more than just creative advertising solutions. Black Pencil India was created with this thinking. Since Day One, the approach has been to first identify the larger business opportunity for its clients and then back it through excellent communication. In the three odd years of its existence, it has partnered with some giants of India Inc. who have trusted it with being their business partner.
CLIENTS:
RSPL (Ghari detergent, Uniwash detergent, Venus soap), DLF, JK Lakshmi Cement, JK Tyres, Panasonic, TVTN (Aaj Tak, Headlines Today, 104.8 Oye FM), Times Business Solutions Ltd. (Times Jobs, Happy Keys), Jukaso Hotels & Resorts, Glocal University
On Saurabh Varma’s ‘Change Everything’ and integration philosophy
“The businesses of today don’t want a passing the buck attitude from the agencies, they want partners who can not just create an idea, but walk the whole nine yards with it. Integrated thinking was, is and will always have to be at the heart of truly great agencies.”
On the high points and low points (also challenges faced) in the last one year
“Finding talent which is entrepreneurial is one of the biggest challenges. Most agencies tend to kill this spirit in their people. Finding creative, planning and brand managers who have this streak in them is difficult.”
INDIGO CONSULTING
(Digital Marketing and Technology agency)
VIKAS TANDON
MD, Indigo Consulting
USP:
The agency has a focus on ‘Creativity that delivers business results’ and a track record of sustained client and employee relationships.
CLIENTS:
Key clients include HDFC Bank, Asian Paints, HSBC, Star TV, Max Life Insurance, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Vodafone, Axis Bank, Usha International, and Economic Times.
On Saurabh Varma’s ‘Change Everything’ and integration philosophy
“Digital media is forcing all marketers to accelerate the pace of change in the way they connect with their consumers. Whether it is to promote a brand, to sell your products or to service your customers, digital has rapidly changed the rules of the game. Therefore, a digital agency like Indigo quickly needs to understand the role of digital in the larger context of brand building while an agency like Leo Burnett needs to go beyond one way communication to think about creating participation platforms.”
On the high points and low points (also challenges faced) in the last one year
“Since that slight slowdown towards the middle of 2013, we’ve had a really busy year, with quite a few new wins, campaigns launched and awards won. One of the highlights was the Yahoo Big Idea Chair Gold award for the integrated ‘Donate a Caller Tune’ campaign. The real highlight is appreciation from clients like Asian Paints, Axis Bank, Max Life Insurance and Satyamev Jayate (Star TV) for making a difference to their business.
The other exciting development has been plugging firmly into the Leo Burnett Asia Pac network, and working closely with multi-national teams to deliver work for clients like Freisland Campina, P&G and others.
For Digital, the biggest challenge has been and continues to be availability of trained, quality talent. We’re now over the hurdle of educating clients about Digital. The bigger hurdle now is scaling up a team of bright, detail-oriented people who can deliver on that promise of the medium.”
ORCHARD ADVERTISING
(Full service agency)
KAUSHIK MITRA
Business head and Senior Vice President, Orchard Advertising
USP:
The agency’s philosophy is “Out-think”. For a second brand agency to survive without the might of stars or big brands was a challenge in itself, in the early years of our formation. Our strategy of “Out-think” was useful for pitching against bigger brands and agencies and winning against them. Out think pretty much applies to everything that we do at the workplace. This continues to remain our focus and pushes us always to think over what our competition is doing. Today, not many second
agencies have survived. We have not just survived, but grown year after year, through 14 years of our existence.
CLIENTS:
Major clients include Wipro Consumer Products, Viacom 18 (Colors channel), BlackBerry India, Godrej Security Solutions, Godrej & Boyce, Eureka Forbes, Axis Bank, Jyothy Laboratories, Essilor India, Vidal Health, Ruchi Soya, ADF Foods, Lux Hosiery, ITC, Amazon.com.
On Saurabh Varma’s ‘Change Everything’ and integration philosophy
Almost 50% of our gross billing comes from experiential/activation and the balance from our ATL businesses. We adopted integration into our work philosophy two years ago, and some of our client relationships are purely integration based. On others, we have been able to convince our ATL clients to extend the relationship into integration, and have grown organically on those relationships.
On the high points and low points (also challenges faced) in the last one year
We believe that we have added to our clients’ bottom line with the work that we produced for them. Our focus on doing real work that wins in the marketplace has stood the test of time and helped us grow. With integration being a core focus area for our business, we have seen the impact of it on our growth and relationships. The work we do on the Colors shows Bigg Boss, Khatron Ke Khiladi, Exo and Maxo from the Jyothy stable, Wipro brands, Crizal and Variluz from Essilor, and others is something that we are proud of and it’s the result of a great partnership with our clients.
Feedback: saloni.dutta@exchange4media.com
