1. business and industrial
2. advertising and marketing
3. advertising

H tStuff
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n e w s l e t t e r
f r o m
D D B
M u d r a
G r o u p
-
I s s u e
2,
2 0 1 5
Madhukar’s Message
Madhukar Kamath
Group CEO & Managing Director
DDB Mudra Group
Customer-Centricity
Customer-Centricity is not a new
phenomenon. In a speech in South
Africa in 1890 Mahatma Gandhi said,
“A customer is the most important
visitor on our premises. He is not
dependent on us. We are dependent on
him. He is not an interruption of our
work. He is the purpose of it. He is not
an outsider of our business. He is part
of it. We are not doing him a favour by
serving him. He is doing us a favour by
giving us the opportunity to do so.”
For decades businesses have been
paying lip service to cliches like
“Customer is King” or “The Customer is
always right”. Today, of course, it has
not only become a necessity but maybe
even something of a business
obsession. The power equation has
clearly shifted. We have moved from the
age of the seller to the age of the
customer. Customers have access to
instant information, are empowered to
share their opinions about products and
services, and have more alternatives
than ever before. Those who ignore this,
may well run the risk of becoming
irrelevant.
In this, the digital age:
• Brands live in fear of angry customers
sharing their experiences on social
media. This makes positive customer
experience crucial.
• Organisations have access to more
customer data than ever before. This
allows them to get closer than ever to
their customers.
Marketing as a discipline and its
practitioners have become central to this
agenda. Marketing is now more than
ever before, all about being the ‘voice of
the consumer’ within organisations.
The UK Marketing Society recently
announced an updated definition of the
term – “To create sustainable growth by
understanding, anticipating and
satisfying customer need.” What could
be more customer-centric?
Marketers are now scrambling to adapt.
A much-quoted report by Gartner
predicted that CMOs would end up with
bigger technology budgets than CIOs,
as the marketing function became key to
interpreting and responding to
consumers.
Previous declarations of marketing’s
importance to the business agenda now
look premature. Only now, when the
finance department alone isn't enough to
secure growth, is marketing really fulfilling
its potential.
There is a huge prize here, if marketers
can recognise it! But what does this
mean for agencies? It definitely does not
mean that procurement will suddenly
ease up. CEOs are looking to marketers
for creative approaches that deliver
growth – but not necessarily the creativity
of a 30-second advertising spot.
Agencies have already begun to rethink
what they mean by creativity.
As technology disrupts industry
categories, clients require
‘business creativity’ – the application
of creative thinking across business
processes to deliver competitive
advantage - not necessarily advertising
creativity.
Brands have begun to ask what could be
done differently.
• How can they innovate through a
service offering or product design?
• How can fresh understanding of the
path-to-purchase unlock growth?
• How can brands maintain engagement
with consumers beyond an ad campaign
that launches and then disappears?
The ad industry has begun to reinvent
itself as a provider of a broad spectrum
of creative services, ready to help
customer-centric businesses. It has
begun to identify new growth areas, not
as a new industry - but certainly as an
industry that is looking to change the
way it is used and what it does.
Creativity is all about knowing how to
touch and manage customers,
non-customers, clients and staff. It is the
lifeblood of how a business builds, takes
to market, supports through staff
engagement the actions that stimulate
competitive advantage and growth.
Getting this right is a major challenge for
the agency business. But it is a
challenge, and an opportunity, agencies
– and their clients – cannot afford to
miss.
In closing, let me say in the words of
Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO,
salesforce.com, “You need to get to the
future ahead of your customers and be
ready to greet them when they arrive.”
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Global Connect
Global Wins
adam&eveDDB is Ad Age's 2015
International Agency of the Year
As a result of an amazing performance
both creatively and in new business,
adam&eveDDB took home Advertising
Age’s “International Agency of the Year”
in the recent “A-List” issue. This marks
the 13th Agency of the Year title for
adam&eveDDB.
Past accolades include:
• Campaign Agency of the Year
• Cannes International Festival of
Creativity Agency of the Year
• IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix
• British Arrows Agency of the Year
Their total of 820 Creative Ranking
points made them the best performing
creative agency in the country and a
“worthy winner” of the award. It also saw
them making the prestigious overall
Top 10 in Asia Creative Rankings table.
• More About Advertising Agency of
the Year
Success for DDB Latvia at Baltic PR
Awards
The agency, led by Chairman & Chief
Creative Officer Merlee Jayme, scored a
large proportion of their points for their
Smart Communications ‘TXTBKS’
campaign, however other awarded work
on Pharex, City of Las Pinas and Bodum
also picked up points.
DDB DM9JaymeSyfu was also one of
the very few agencies in Asia to score
points at 10 of the 11 shows that count
towards the rankings. Their biggest
performance was at New York Festivals
where they picked up 260 points
followed by Clio with 170 points.
The agency also did very well at D&AD,
The Work and AWARD.
DDB Latvia’s participation in the Baltic
PR Awards was a huge success with the
agency winning three gold and one
silver.
The awarded campaigns included “Let’s
Beat Stanford” for SSE Riga Alumni,
which also received a prestigious gold
award at the Euro Effie Awards 2014.
• Clios Top UK Agency
• Shots Agency of the Year
and analyze Hispanic conversations
online. Overall, efforts generated an
increase of 28 percent in digital revenue
for the year.
Alma is Advertising Age’s
Multicultural Agency of the Year
At the Baltic PR Awards, the campaign
won the gold in the Low Budget
category.
• Epica Awards Agency of the Year
• Eurobest Agency of the Year
Also, the LMT rebranding campaign
• LIA Agency of the Year
“Think-Do,” in partnership with Nords
Porter Novelli, Necom and other
• Marketing Week Agency of the Year
partners, was praised at this year’s
• The Drum Agency of the Year
awards ceremony, winning the gold in
the Corporate Communications
DDB DM9JaymeSyfu is Philippines’
Creative Agency of the Year
category.
Alma was named 2015 “Multicultural
Agency of the Year” as part of
Advertising Age’s Agency A-List honors
for the nation’s best advertising and
marketing firms. For the second year in a
row, the Miami-based shop took the
multicultural title by combining
technology with a total market approach
to multicultural targets.
Tribal Worldwide Shanghai ranked
among world’s best Digital Agencies
by Warc 100
According to the latest ranking released
by Warc 100, Tribal Worldwide Shanghai
was number 15 among the best digital
agencies in the world. Tribal Worldwide
Shanghai is the only China agency listed
in the top 20 rankings.
DDB DM9JaymeSyfu was named
Creative Agency of the Year by the 2014
Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings.
2
In 2014, Alma boosted its interactive
profile with the help of The Social Media
Lab, a proprietary tool that helps identify
Warc 100 is an annual ranking of the
world’s 100 best marketing campaigns
Global Connect
and companies, based on the tracking
results of more than 2,200 individual
award winners across 87 different
effectiveness and strategy awards
schemes held around the world. As a
global marketing independent online
service, Warc’s annual list is recognized
as one of the most reliable and influential
rankings in the marketing and
The Creative Report Card’s methodology
advertising industry.
tracks and tallies the awards earned by
DDB Canada takes home six
CASSIES
agencies, marketers and creatives over
the Integrated, Digital and Interactive
the year to let the industry know who’s
and Out-of-Home campaign categories.
at the top of their game. ‘strategy’
selects a range of shows and assigns
Overall, the agency was awarded
every award a point value, weighted to
3 Grand Prix, 8 gold, 9 silver and
recognize international, national and
14 bronze across 13 different campaigns
regional shows, in order to determine a
for clients: SKY TV, Steinlager Pure,
ranking in each category.
Speight’s, YWCA and Westpac.
‘strategy’ revised the Creative Report
In addition to the wins at AXIS, DDB NZ
Card this year to offer a more
has recently been awarded the following:
content-heavy overview of the agencies
At the CASSIES annual award show in
that ranked on the list, the campaigns
Toronto on 19 February 2015, DDB
that helped them get there, and the
Canada garnered six CASSIES Awards
points collected for each of the
from a list of Canada’s top 60
agencies.
business-building campaigns. The six
DDB Canada Edmonton earns Top
different clients, and marked the first
Honors at the 2015 ACE Awards
time that CASSIES have been awarded
Edmonton and Vancouver.
Agency of the Year (two years running)
• Campaign Asia-Pacific runner-up
Digital Agency of the Year
awards were recognized for work on six
to three DDB Canada offices – Toronto,
• Campaign Asia-Pacific Creative
• Spikes Asia No. 1 ranked New
Zealand agency (two years running)
At the 36th annual Advertising Club of
Edmonton (ACE) Awards, DDB Canada
Edmonton was the most awarded
The prestigious CASSIES Awards is
agency at the competition, proudly
Canada’s only industry awards program
taking home 16 awards.
that recognizes business effectiveness
based on detailed published case
Celebrating advertising creative
studies. This award platform focuses on
excellence, the ACE awards honor the
hard business results, making these
best locally produced work, while
wins all the more powerful in the eyes of
recognizing and rewarding the
clients and prospects.
professionalism and entrepreneurial spirit
• Effies Most Effective Agency 2012 &
2013
DDB New Zealand scores again at
AWARD
of the industry.
DDB Canada tops ‘strategy’
magazine’s Creative Report Card
DDB NZ dominates AXIS Awards
2015
On 19 February 2015, ‘strategy’
magazine’s annual Creative Report Card
DDB New Zealand capped off the
Straight off the back of being named
revealed that DDB Canada is #1 for the
AXIS Awards 2015 with a stellar
AXIS’ Creative Agency of the Year,
second year in a row, topping the Report
performance - taking home the title of
DDB New Zealand picked up one gold,
Card’s Agency List after a sweep of
Creative Agency of the Year,
seven silver and seven bronze at
60 awards across nine shows for
Best Emerging Talent and 34 other
AWARD - more than double the metal of
13 different clients.
accolades, including three Grand Prix in
any NZ agency.
3
Global Connect
Global News
Omnicom Agencies lead The Gunn
Report 2014
The Omnicom networks BBDO and
DDB took top honors, first and second
place respectively, as the Gunn Report's
"Most Awarded Networks in the World".
The Gunn Report is an annual analysis
of the winners' lists of the world's most
important advertising industry award
shows.
More than any other holding company,
Omnicom had five of the ten most
awarded agencies in the world,
representing London, Sao Paulo,
New York, and Melbourne/Sydney.
Clemenger BBDO, BBDO New York,
and TBWA/Paris were among the
Most Awarded Agencies in Digital.
“Our continued success in The Gunn
Report reaffirms our commitment to
doing extraordinarily creative and
effective work on behalf of our clients”,
said John Wren, President and CEO of
Omnicom. "Our winning streak is also a
testament to having the best talent in the
industry. I want to congratulate all our
people and agencies for their
outstanding performance and creativity”.
The Big Won Directory also recognized
DDB as the third Most Awarded
Network. In addition, Omnicom won the
holding company category for the fourth
year running.
On the heels of The Big Won, Omnicom
agencies took three of the top spots of
Advertising Age A-list. BBDO was
crowned B-to-B Agency of the Year and
adam&eveDDB was named International
Agency of the Year. For the second year
in a row, Alma DDB won Multicultural
Agency of the Year. Advertising Age also
recognized Omnicom Group as the
world's Most Awarded Agency
Company.
Twitter Crowns McDonald's as Best
in the Super Bowl
Ad Age was first to reveal the results of
"Top Spot," Twitter's online polling where
viewers picked the top spot through
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hashtag voting for the best ads at the
Super Bowl on 1 February 2015.
McDonald's earned almost 200,000
more interactions on Twitter than the
runner-up, Always.
Twitter measured interactions as
mentions of the brand, its product, its
tailored hashtag, its stars in the ad and
other unspecified metrics. Those
interaction metrics undoubtedly helped
put McDonald's over the top. Over
28.4 million tweets were sent during the
game, related to the match and the
halftime show, topping last year's total
by over 3 million missives.
Amir Kassaei weighs in on Bestads’
Six of the Best
In the last week of January 2015,
Amir Kassaei, DDB Worldwide’s Chief
Creative Officer was the guest judge for
Bestadsontv.com and chose his
favorites across TV, Print, Outdoor and
Interactive.
Amir is one of the most lauded creatives
in the world. He and his teams are the
recipients of more than 4,000 national
and international awards, including 140
Cannes Lions in the past five years. He
was named The Big Won Report’s Top
Chief Creative Officer in 2009, and has
been one of The Big Won’s Top 3 Chief
Creative Officers for each of the last
three years.
A past President of the Art Directors
Club of Germany and a member of ADC
New York, CCA and D&AD, he has
served as a judge in some of the world’s
most famous award shows. He was
President of the Jury at Eurobest and
Meribel in 2007 and judged the Dubai
Lynx 2010. Amir has taught at such
famous advertising schools as the Miami
Ad School, spoken at the Berlin School
of Creative Leadership and served as a
Professor at the Salzburg University of
Applied Sciences. His most celebrated
presentations include “Digital Thinking”
and “Manifesto of Successful
Marketing”.
AdForum’s Greatest Hits celebrates
Eight Campaigns from DDB and
Tribal Worldwide
AdForum has recognized eight ads from
DDB Worldwide and Tribal Worldwide in
its Greatest Hits Awards for 2014.
Based on the most watched creative
work on AdForum by agency and
network members, winning campaigns
will be featured on AdForum’s website
and in a dedicated newsletter distributed
to the greater AdForum community.
Congratulations to all the winning teams!
• Sorry, I Spent It On Myself
(Harvey Nichols) – adam&eveDDB –
Category: TV, Cinema, Film
• Lost & Found Service (KLM) –
DDB & Tribal Amsterdam –
Category: Experiential, Branded
Content, Stunt
Global Connect
• Toast (Borsodi) – DDB Budapest –
Category: Print, Outdoor, Ambient
DDB Chicago hosts an Intimate
Lunch with Acclaimed Author
Adam Morgan
“Better by Half” will bring men and
women together, at every level, to
discuss and find opportunities to
improve gender balance. Research
shows that the better the gender
balance in leadership positions, the
better the company’s performance.
• King Kong (Trivial Pursuit) –
DDB Paris –
Category: Print, Outdoor, Ambient
• Fruit Match (McDonald’s) –
DDB Stockholm –
Category: Digital, Viral
• Caritas Adshel Heater (Caritas) –
DDB Tribal Wien –
Category: Print, Outdoor, Ambient
• Hello My Name Means
(Johnson Baby) – DDB Latina Brazil –
Category: Digital, Viral
• Bucket List (WATERisLIFE) –
DDB New York –
Category: Digital, Viral
Petter Gulli named Media Person of
the Year
You know Adam Morgan, right?
Well, if you work with under-resourced
brands — and these days, who doesn’t?
— then you’ve probably thought about
challenger brands, those underdogs
who manage to do more with less. And
if you’ve thought about challenger
brands, then you know Adam Morgan
because he wrote the book about
challenger brands, Eating the Big Fish.
Members of DDB Chicago were lucky
to have Adam Morgan in-house to
introduce his new book, A Beautiful
Constraint. Both practical and
thoughtful, A Beautiful Constraint is
“a handbook about everyday
inventiveness, designed for the
constrained times in which we live….”
From years of research and dozens of
interviews, Adam and his co-author,
Mark Barden (another top strategist)
have created a tool kit to help make
more from less.
DDB Oslo’s Executive Creative Director,
Petter Gulli was named Media Person of
the Year in Norway. The competition for
the title included a cultural minister, the
chief editor of one of the most prominent
TV channels in the market and the
Norwegian Head of Google, as well as
the American actor/musician Steven van
Zandt.
The recognition comes after a year of
writing columns for industry papers and
delivering keynote speeches, both in
Norway and at international events, such
as the Epica Awards. The local industry
publication Kampanje also referred to
DDB Oslo as “the turnaround agency”.
female employees on Twitter answering
the question, “What empowers you?”
Think of A Beautiful Constraint as the
optimistic handbook for challenger
brands.
DDB U.S. launches “Better by Half”
initiative
DDB U.S. announced the launch of its
“Better by Half” initiative, a commitment
to help promote gender equality at DDB
and throughout the advertising industry.
“Better by Half” was created as a result
of DDB Worldwide’s International
Women’s Day campaign around
“Empower” in 2014. The Empower
website, created by DDB Chicago,
featured photos of women from across
the DDB Network and tweets from
The initiative will tackle today’s hot topics
when it comes to gender in the
workplace, including: career
development, mentor programs for
women, increasing the number of
women in leadership positions,
developing a network for overcoming
women’s challenges, and joining the
conversation at industry events and with
industry organisations, among many
others.
Richard Guest in Mobile Minds @Art
Basel 2014
On 2 and 3 December 2014, industry
influencers met for the first Annual
Mobile Minds Conference, organised by
Mobile Media Summit at Art Basel in
Miami. The exclusive event drew top
players in Mobile for a unique experience
during the world’s premier international
art show. Richard Guest, President of
North American Operations at
Tribal Worldwide, attended the
conference, sharing his thoughts and
ideas on the outlook of Mobile
Storytelling in 2015.
Joining Guest on the panel “How Tech is
Changing the Agency of the Future”,
was David Berkowitz, Chief Marketing
Officer at MRY, and Rachel Pasqua,
Head of Mobile at MEC. The 30-minute
session addressed the unavoidable shift
in client/agency relationships as a result
of intensified consumer expectations in
technology. Craig Cardon, Partner at
Sheppard Mullin, moderated the
session.
5
Back to the Books
DDB launches DDB-U in India
DDB-U@MICA, a learning institution
responsible for educating various levels
across the DDB Mudra Group was
launched in India on 27 January 2015.
Working along with MICA Ahmedabad,
India's foremost 'Strategic Marketing and
Communication' Management School,
the DDB Mudra Group conducted two
key Career Development and
Engagement Programs for its current and
future leaders.
This initiative which is perhaps both
historic and unique in the DDB world
globally, promises to be the foundation
for one of the best learning initiatives in
the entire Marketing Services and
Communication Industry in the country.
At the three-day MDP (Management
Development Program) and a unique
three-day IMP (India Management
Program) held in MICA Ahmedabad,
60 mid and senior level leaders from
DDB Mudra Group were taken through
bespoke programs addressing specially
identified operational challenges and
opportunities, designed to deliver on its
'People First' culture. Each of the
participants was recommended to the
IMP or the MDP by their Operating
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Heads, based on potential and
performance.
The MDP course was a hands-on,
interactive, skill-building learning
experience, loaded with tools and best
practices that prepare one to handle the
most difficult of management challenges.
All the case studies, tools, techniques
and exercises used in the program were
based on extensive leadership and
management research and real-life
agency issues. The program was led by
Nigel Beard, Trainer & Facilitator, DDB
Worldwide, based at adam&eveDDB in
London. Nigel has been with DDB for
over 30 years. He lectures and tutors at
London’s University of Westminster and
is a Member of the UK Institute of
Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).
The goal of the 3-day IMP course was to
explore the best contemporary thinking
available on professional service firm
management and leadership
development. It also introduced future
leaders and rising stars throughout the
DDB Mudra Group to the core principles
of leading and managing. The curriculum
included extensive pre-reading material
consisting of selected case studies
developed by the Harvard Business
School and Omnicom University. A large
number of these have been specially
written after identifying and analyzing
situations that have challenged managers
of various Omnicom Group Companies
and their clients.
The IMP was led by Craig Lonnee, the
Chief Development Officer & Regional
Talent Management Director of DDB
Group Asia-Pacific operating across
23 offices in 14 countries.
Said Madhukar Kamath, Group CEO &
Managing Director, DDB Mudra Group,
“Being a ‘People first organization’, we
are thrilled to launch DDB-U in India to
reinforce the organizational hierarchy of
‘People, Product, Profit, in that order’
with our employees. Through these
programs, we have been able to enhance
the skillsets and leadership quotient of
around 60 of our talented and dedicated
colleagues. All in a period of one week.
This is just the beginning."
The feedback from the participants was
excellent. They learned a lot, made some
good friends and, of course, posted
several pictures across Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram.
Back to the Books
Conducting the first ever MDP in a
dedicated, renowned learning
facility, and with the largest group
ever to attend the course at one
time, was a remarkable experience.
MICA’s outstanding facilities,
support team and hospitality made
this a very special MDP indeed.
Locating the course at MICA added
enormous value to the content,
magnifying by association the
importance of the teaching, the
commercial value of the case
studies and the lessons learnt from
them. MICA’s status lent additional
weight to the management models
and processes we discussed. The
quest for knowledge was all around
us, and I think everyone, participants
and facilitators alike, felt the
pressure to be equal to the ‘MICA
standard’. At one point on our first
day, even a family of monkeys
settled down on a tree outside our
classroom and listened intently! The
enthusiasm to learn is clearly shared
by all campus residents!
Nigel Beard
Trainer & Facilitator,
DDB Worldwide.
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The Highlights
India People Day
At DDB, people are considered the
ultimate resource and are placed ahead
of Product and Profit. And, People Day
presents an opportunity every year for the
regional and global leaders of DDB to
come together with the leaders of the
country organization to recognize,
discuss, and develop specific plans
around the region’s most talented
individuals.
a day of presentations made by the
respective Business and Function heads
which showcased their top talent, and
their future leaders in the respective
Agencies / Operating Units.
technology and the opportunity. Now you
need to do the math and change the way
you run the business.”
On Content
John Zeigler wrapped up the day with his
advice on the need to focus on Growth
and Survival. Here are a few of his
observations:
“Content is the biggest area of
opportunity. Content is King. It can
provide additional income streams that
we don’t have today.”
On People
John Zeigler (Chairman & CEO/DDB
Group Asia-Pacific, India, Japan), Daniel
Simon (Chief Operating Officer & Chief
Financial Officer Asia, DDB Group),
Craig Lonnee (Chief Development Officer
& Regional Talent Management Director DDB Group Asia-Pacific) and Veronica
Tucker (Talent Manager – Asia-Pacific,
based in DDB New York) hosted the
India People Day on 11 February 2015
at Mudra House, Mumbai.
“We clearly have people with huge
potential and the biggest challenge is to
stretch and learn from our differences to
learn from each other. We need to
challenge each other.”
On Creativity
“The entire organization needs to be
excited by great ideas. We need to spur
and spar with creative people. We are all
creative according to Bill Bernbach. More
On Mobility
than half the millennials are no longer kids
“Mobility was a big topic today and I am
convinced that India is waiting to take
over the world. DDB Mudra Group wants
to be the Unilever of its industry.”
but will soon be parents. We need to
understand this kind of insight and gain
creative control so that we can provide
the right advice to our clients.”
On Remote Working
Each of them was presented with a
‘Talent Book’ when they presided over
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“What is better ‘Homing from Work’ or
‘Working from Home’? You have the
His parting advice - Be hot. Be the
agency to watch.
The Highlights
India People Day - An Interview with
Craig Lonnee
performing employees in the agency.
Key learnings encompassed the value of
publicly acknowledging and recognising
staff that have proven high levels of
performance and potential (this was
arguably the most gratifying). The need
for a compelling multi-generational –
particularly millennial -- strategy to
engage their considerable intellect and
experience.
Craig Lonnee
Chief Development Officer & Regional
Talent Management Director
– DDB Group Asia-Pacific
Q1. At DDB, people are considered
the ultimate resource. Please
elaborate.
People drive growth, plain and simple.
At DDB, we operate our businesses
aligned to the SERVICE PROFIT CHAIN
(SPC). This model states that the
primary driver of growth and profitability
is client loyalty and viral behavior (the
willingness to tell others about our
services), enabled by a chain reaction
that begins with an engaged workforce.
SPC mirrors the DDB Values of
PEOPLE-PRODUCT-PROFIT - we put
our people first by giving them the
opportunities they need to succeed.
High performing staff then yields
groundbreaking strategic and creative
business solutions, in the end resulting in
satisfied clients and ultimately growth for
the agency.
Q 2. Today, DDB Mudra Group
presented and showcased for you its
top talent and future leaders. How
useful did you find this and what
were some of the key learnings?
Remarkably enriching. The senior
management of the DDB Mudra Group,
together with my regional and network
colleagues, actively devoted a full day
Q3. What are the next steps in your
plan to best utilize the talent you
saw on display today?
Next steps – an engagement plan will be
socialized and implemented for each of
our 100 or so top talent, focusing on
their future potential.
Q4. Are there any plans for creative
collaboration across the region?
Creative collaboration or as we like to
call it ENGAGING CREATIVITY FOR
GROWTH (ECG), has been operating
across the DDB Asia-Pacific region for
some time. Into the future, across India,
we will be bringing BULLSEYE, our
regional creative council program and
POW WOW, a creative collaboration
workshop, where we work on live client
briefs, to drive INFLUENTIAL work.
Q5. Are there any plans for exchange
of talent across the region?
plans for the region. The opportunities
for DDB, in this country, is incalculable.
Into the future, several of the growth
initiatives conceived in India may have
application across the region and
network, including the groundbreaking
DDB-U@MICA training program and
DDB Mudra Group’s robust HR system,
to name but a few.
Q8. A Talent Book was provided to
you. Please share your views on this.
DDB Mudra’s ability to package their
growth initiatives is legendary. It was
interesting to note that each office
showcased their richly talented people
differently. Each lent a deep
understanding of their people in a
memorable and impactful way.
Q9. Any parting words of advice on
what DDB Mudra Group can do
better in future?
• Help the region re-define operations
through ECG – to a large degree India is
already doing this.
• Build a talent community across
Yes, in fact just the other day, picking up
on our decisions made at India People
Day, the region announced it would be
leading a talent exchange program
involving DDB Mudra Group staff.
offices (perhaps via a mentoring
Q6. How does India compare
vis-a-vis talent with other countries
in the region?
resources, learn and grow from one
In my view, very highly. Why? They are
well educated, ingenious, have elevated
levels of curiosity, and are flexible in
transporting to other countries as their
English is arguably better than mine.
• We still need to differentiate ourselves,
Q7. How will India figure in your
future plans for the region?
program) connecting different business
units, office locations, and even floors
within the same building – allow your
talent the vehicle and impetus to share
another, regularly.
in order to retain talent. We aren’t yet
offering an opportunity that says
“I’m going to teach you something here
you can't learn anywhere else.” We
need to provide the long-term view – a
company vision, with an aligned
discussing engagement plans for around
For all the reasons stated, India will
engagement plan, that they can only get
100 of our most talented – our highest
always be at the business end of future
at the DDB Mudra Group.
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The Highlights
GutBandhan
22feet Tribal Worldwide’s annual offsite,
known as GutBandhan, one of the most
awaited events of the year for the team,
was held on 10 and 11 January 2015 at
the Park Hyatt, Goa. This annual event
was attended by every member of the
22feet tribe.
The company is called 22feet as the
human gut is 22-feet long. They pride on
the fact that they run on gut-fuel. Hence,
the name 'GutBandhan’ to refer to the
event as the coming together of
individuals who are driven by the gut.
The offsite retreat presents an annual
opportunity to get away from the normal
grind to allow the creative juices to
reboot. This year the team focussed on
the successes of 2014 and set the
agenda for 2015.
Day 2 began with Vineet Gupta,
Day 1 was spent on independent
working sessions for Business
Development, Content, Technology and
Design where the teams discussed the
ups and downs of 2014 and was followed
by a Technology session led by Sumit
Gupta of IBM. The evening was reserved
for the famous Internal Awards Night
where the top performers and teams
were rewarded with a trophy and a round
of shots.
team, Mumbai’s Shirley D’Costa, and
Managing Director, 22feet Tribal WW India setting the agenda followed by
independent city-wise presentations by
Rohan Talati representing the Bangalore
Delhi’s Vir Kullar.
Two external speakers Satyanarayan
Raghavan, Head of YouTube in India
(in his personal capacity) and Gaurav
Dublish, Founder of Wildcraft, took the
audience through their thoughts and
experiences. This was then followed by
a theme night party.
RBI governor gives the Green Batti
Speaking at an event organized by
Samyak Chakrabarty, Chief Youth
Marketer, DDB Mudra Group, for the
Green Batti project on 13 February
2015, the Reserve Bank of India
governor, Raghuram Rajan urged young
professionals to have a global approach
and emphasized how the orientation
towards India has become more positive
in the developed world.
Referring to the recent visit by high-level
US policy makers, including US treasury
secretary to RBI, Rajan said to the
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mentors of the underprivileged students
“It's not just lip service. They are very
serious about working with us.”
The ‘Green Batti’, is an initiative
launched by Samyak Chakrabarty to
bring together young professionals and
children from under-resourced
communities to facilitate an exchange of
life skills, social skills, financial literacy
and essential exposure to technology.
‘For India, it's important to have an open
world and free enterprise as democracy
and free markets are linked,’ said Rajan.
He also underscored the importance of
networks the youth are connected to,
as these bring down information
asymmetries. He advised the young
professionals to leverage this social
capital that many are not aware of.
The Highlights
Firki - The Integrated Planning Meet
A busload of planners from across the
Session 2 dealt with the Influence Tool
anymore, as everything is mainline. We
DDB Mudra Group took off from Mudra
Kit and demonstrated how influential
have the privilege of having every service
House on 1 March 2015 and headed for
brands grow disproportionately, have a
under one roof.
Sula Wines in Nasik. And, it was not just
wider audience, are more efficient and
to wet their whistles! Although billed as
sustainable.
a Planning meet, the Introduction said
that it was not about “Planning” but
about how each one of the audience,
brought in their personal expertise, and
added to each other’s growth. Hence,
it promised to be more of an “Integrated
Planning Meet”. Not just connecting
On Day 2 there was a presentation by
Toru Jhaveri, Director, Brand
Communications, DDB Mudra West.
She spoke of Culture/Sign-banking the picking up of micro signs and then
The Firkies 2015, the internal awards
given to the top performers followed.
There were 180 entries that were sent to
the National Strategic Planning Heads,
across 27 categories, including ‘Best
Brief’, ‘Most challenging Idea/Insight’,
‘Most Entrepreneurial campaign’, etc.
dots but converging them. looking at the aggregate, the trend
towards Compulsive Instagramming and
Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group
Several subjects were covered on
the Selfie Culture and the Rise of
took the gathering through ‘The Art of
Day 1, including Planning Process &
Exercise as Entertainment.
Storytelling’. He shared the best pieces
On Day 3, Sonal Dabral, Chairman &
of work that play on emotions. He
DDB Tools, Role Definition & Goals,
Focus on Collaboration & Integration,
Later, Mou Roy, Director, Brand
explained about the importance of
Vision from Planning, Team Building,
Communications, DDB Mudra West said
having/finding an emotional connect and
Action Plan, Inspiration, Best Practices
that if one starts early, every brief can be
shared his own experiences relating
and FUN.
EFFIE worthy. This was followed by
interesting stories around some of the
In the days that followed, the focus was
sharply on “Engaging Creativity for
Growth” particularly the need to engage
with the client at a strategic rather than
day to day level. Creativity is what
individual presentations from each office
on Best Practices they have used on
Brands. A sharing of experiences on
what has worked and what can be done
better.
biggest campaigns that he had been a
part of.
Later, a session was devoted to Teach
for India - the pro bono project that the
DDB Mudra Group has taken up.
distinguishes DDB Mudra Group and this
enables it to compare favourably with
Finally, Madhukar Kamath, Group CEO &
Breakaway teams worked on an
the leading management consultants in
Managing Director addressed the
exercise and the winning team was to
so far as helping corporate clients grow
gathering on the importance of Planning
get the opportunity to make their idea
their business.
saying that it’s not about mainline
come alive.
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The Highlights
DDB MudraMax’s Misunderstood Scoreboard
makes a cross-border impact
different kind in Jammu &
Kashmir, New Delhi in
India and Lahore, Karachi
in Pakistan.
While spectators felt that
these were normal
run-of-the-mill
scoreboards which kept
on-lookers updated with
the status of the match,
they were caught
off-guard as the numbers
didn’t tally.
Before long, onlookers on either side of
the border decided that the scoreboard
had gone faulty. To the surprise of the
spectators, no one came to rectify the
faulty boards, instead the wickets
column seemed to be in a hurry.
It moved briskly from tens to thousands
to tens of thousands in no time. A similar
pattern followed when Pakistan batted.
The scoreboard at the end of the match
read: India 0 for the loss of 546030,
Pakistan 0 for the loss of 546228.
After India won the match, the copy on
the scoreboard changed. It read “WHEN
LIVES ARE LOST, NO ONE WINS”.
As India started to bat and
the first wicket fell, the
Indian wickets column
displayed ‘1’. Within
minutes, the wickets
column read ‘2’. Our
On the day of India-Pakistan WC 2015
country neighbours standing in front of
match on 15 February 2015,
the billboards in Lahore and Karachi
DDB MudraMax executed a one-of-a-kind
celebrated.
outdoor campaign for Zee News.
The Indians on the other hand checked
As the tension built up, with fans
the score on their mobile phones and
exchanging videos of varying statistics
realized the second wicket hadn’t fallen.
of the past matches, DDB MudraMax
A few minutes later, the wickets column
installed manual scoreboards of a
said ‘3’.
The numbers kept increasing and
stopped at 547290 for India and 546371
for Pakistan - the numbers of lives lost
by soldiers since 1947 during the battles
fought between both the countries.
Thus depicting that neither country won
anything by losing her soldiers.
The message was loud, clear and was
well-addressed by the passers-by who
started lighting candles at the site, in
memory of the fallen. Thus, a powerful
statement on the futility of war was
well-conveyed through the
‘Misunderstood Scoreboard’.
DDB MudraMax-Experiential creates
signature bat for LG
Cricket is a religion in India and to
Cricket Trophy, which was kept on
leverage this craze, DB MudraMax-
display for spectators.
Experiential created a giant-sized
signature bat for LG, the official sponsor
The bat pulled in the audience with its
of the ICC World Cup 2015. The bat was
sheer size and gave them an opportunity
created for cricket lovers to write their
to send personal good wishes and
wishes for their favourite teams and was
messages to their favourite team. The
installed at strategic locations across
original World Cup Cricket Trophy being
Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and
on display brought back the nostalgia of
Noida, along with the ICC World Cup
winning the World Cup last time and
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geared the audience to cheer India to win
it back this year.
The Mumbai location for the bat
campaign experienced footfalls of over
50,000 people. More than 2,500 people
signed on the bat and wished their team.
The zeal multiplied with the presence of
famous Indian cricketer Virendra Sehwag
who addressed his fans at Gurgaon and
Noida.
The Highlights
LG Electronics India, has been the official
sporting spectacle, the ICC World Cup
them a platform to share their wishes
global partner of ICC for several years
2015. With this activity, LG brought the
directly with their favourite team.
and was a part of 2015's biggest
game closer to the cricket fans and gave
South African Tourism invites
Indians to #MeetSouthAfrica
campaign, #MeetSouthAfrica was
unveiled in January 2015 which
showcased a diversity of experiences
available in South Africa.
South Africa is a world in one country
with every province offering a wide
variety of unique experiences and
exceptional attractions that go into
making up a most memorable holiday.
South African Tourism wanted a
campaign that would attract more Indian
travellers to the country. And, what
better way than to communicate the
variety of experiences people have when
they travel to South Africa. Working on
this creative platform, the team came up
with the idea of an OOH 'travel postcard', the old friend of travellers around
the world. A new outdoor advertising
But it was a campaign with a unique
difference. Research revealed that
certain regions like Gujarat, Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh attract more
international holiday travellers and that
travellers from these regions could best
express certain emotions of experiences
such as pleasure, eternity and beauty
only in their mother tongue. So, it was
decided to use vernacular language to
arouse curiosity and likability among
these prospective travellers, thus
bringing alive emotions that resonate
with customers at a regional level to
draw a stronger connect with the
potential travellers.
The creative executions of the
#MeetSouthAfrica campaign were
customized with the use of impactful
one-liners in local languages that were
engaging and appealing. The skilful use
of vernacular expression led nicely into
the English description and visual
imagery and made it stand out in the
OOH medium which has a very short
span to catch the attention of a consumer.
The visuals integrated the underlying
essence of the campaign through
impactful illustrations on adventure, scenic
beauty, wildlife and luxury experiences
on offer in the Rainbow Nation.
The campaign was launched across
14 cities including Mumbai, Kolkata,
Ahmedabad, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon,
Jaipur, Chandigarh and Bengaluru
among others. The media mix
comprised large format hoardings,
bus shelters and ambient media such as
malls in strategic locations to further
enhance consumer reach.
In addition to the outdoor campaign,
South African Tourism also launched a
robust digital promotion programme to
engage with and drive more visitors to
their website http:
//country.southafrica.net/country/in/en/
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The Highlights
Wassup @ MICA?
Sweet Success
• MICA participated in the “Vibrant
Gujarat Global Trade Show 2015”
organized by the Government of Gujarat
and was accorded the status of ‘Institute
of National Importance’.
• MICA won the Green Warriors award
set up by the Ahmedabad Mirror –
Times of India group for the most green
campus among educational institutes in
town.
• Surabhi Goswami, Anshuman Sharma
and Sonal Dhingra (all PGP-2) presented
their brand extension idea at the finals of
Brandathlon at Transcend 15, SIBM
Pune for which they were awarded the
‘Best Business Idea’ prize for their
recommendations.
Events at MICA
• A two-day Workshop on Positive
Deviance and Liberating Structures was
conducted by Dr. Arvind Singhal,
University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP).
• A one month training programme on
Marketing and Brand Management was
held for executives from Cadila
Healthcare Ltd., Ahmedabad
(Zydus Cadila). The programme was
inaugurated by Pankaj Patel, CMD,
Cadila Healthcare Ltd.
• MICA hosted TEDx 2015 which saw
eminent personalities like Piyush Mishra
(actor, lyricist, singer), Akshai Abraham
(founder pf Project KHEL), Nirali Karthik
(classical vocalist), Moji Riba (film maker),
Rishad Saam Mehta (travel writer),
Sarbani Das Roy (psychotherapist) and
Madhu Kishwar (women’s rights activist)
to come to MICA and speak about their
life experiences and share insights of
their work.
• The 2nd edition of MICA’s International
Communication Management
Conference (ICMC) with the theme
“Digital Future : Content, Community
and Communication” was inaugurated
by Prof. Renee Hobbs, University of
Rhode Island, USA and Prof. Mohan J
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Dutta, National University, Singapore.
Manoj Kumar Sharma, Head-HR , Adani
Power Limited delivered the valedictory
address.
(EDI) of India’s annual entrepreneurship
event Empresario and also at Gujarat
Law Society Workshop on
Communication & Entrepreneurship.
• LitComm (MICA’s Literary Committee)
held AuthorSpeak where two big names
in the world of graphic novels Orijit Sen
and Appupen came and spoke.
• Prof. Manisha Pathak Shelat was
invited to be a member of the Scientific
Committee for the Media Education
Research Section of the International
Association for Media and
Communication Research ( IAMCR).
Speaking Engagements
• Prof. Panda chaired a session on
Leadership in the Changing Environment
at the 18th Nirma International
Conference on Management
(NICOM-2015) held at Institute of
Management, Nirma University. He was
also invited to participate at the Vibrant
Gujarat Summit in a session on
Sustainable Energy for All.
• Lavji Zala (KEIC) was invited as a
visiting faculty at Department of Library
and Information Science at Gujarat
University to share his thoughts on
“Digital Archival Management/Digital
Library”. He was invited to make a
presentation on “Increasing usage of
e-resources in college libraries” in the
quarterly seminar jointly organized by
ADINET and K. K. Shah Jarodwala
Maninagar Science College,
Ahmedabad.
• Prof. T. T. Sreekumar Pillai gave a
keynote speech in the inaugural session
of the international seminar on
“Media Initiative for Peace and
Communal Harmony in North East
India”, organized by Assam University,
Silchar, Assam.
• Rahul Mane (RA) presented a
research paper on ‘Utility of User
Networks for Development
Communication: A Social Network
driven approach for Diffusion of
Innovation’ at the Third International
Conference on Creativity, Grassroots
and Innovation (ICCGI), at Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
• Prof. U. T. Rao was a keynote
speaker at the echai Demo Day at
Entrepreneurship Development Institute
• Rashmi Taparia (RA) participated and
presented a paper on “Understanding
and Differentiating the Online Purchase
Behaviour between Males and Females”
at the ICMC 2015 held at MICA.
• Prof. Panda was invited as a
discussant to the National Development
Convention on “Resources, Institutions
and Development: Contestations and
Possibilities in Globalizing India”
organized by Gujarat Institute of
Development Research (GIDR). This
apart, he also delivered a talk on
Building Economic Consensus: The Role
of India Inc. at Ahmedabad Management
Association (AMA), attended the
2nd Assam International Agri-horti Show
2015 at Guwahati and was invited as a
subject expert on Economics to design
the undergraduate economics
specialization course curriculum of
Ahmedabad University.
• Prof. Keval Kumar gave the
valedictory address at the International
Conference on ‘Changing Media,
Changing Audience’ held at the
Department of Communication Studies,
Pune University.
Eminent Visitors
• Prof. Kerstin Mey, Dean of Faculty
Media, Arts and Design (MAD),
University of Westminster visited MICA
to explore opportunities for collaborating
with MICA.
• Harish Krishnamachar, Country Head
and Senior Vice President at World
Sport Group (WSG) came for the MICA
Colloquium.
The Highlights
• A group of Indian Administrative
Service (IAS) officer trainees visited MICA
for a one-day tour to learn more about
MICA and the government projects that
the institute is involved in.
• S. P. Shukla, President - Group
Strategy and Chief Brand Officer,
President - Defence Sector and Member
of Group Executive Board, Mahindra &
Mahindra Ltd. visited as part of the
MICA Lecture Series (MLS).
• British author and poet William N.
Herbert, Prof. of Poetry and Creative
Writing, Newcastle University, UK took
sessions with the CCC students.
Editor, Hindu and National Film Awardee
for ‘Best Film Critic’ came as part of the
Yellow Umbrella Culfest.
• Budhan Theatre Group - a dedicated
participative theatre group and
• Renowned sarangi maestro Ustaad
Moinuddin Khan visited as part of ICMC
cultural programme.
ambassador of community right
• Baradwaj Rangan, Senior Deputy
course.
performed at MICA as part of the
PGP-Culture and Communication
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The Highlights
The Undisputed Champions!
The DDB Mudra Group cricket team
made it to the top of the cricket league
after a nail biting finals match played
against Interactive Avenues on
31 January 2015.
The day began well with DDB Mudra
Group winning the toss and electing to
bowl first. In 20 overs, Interactive
Avenues scored 155/4. DDB Mudra
improved on this, hitting 161/6 in
19.3 overs to claim its right to the APL
Champions Trophy.
With 63 runs each under the belt,
Ameya Joshi and Ravindra Jadhav
were respectively declared
Man-Of-The-Match.
New Joinees
Ajay Menon
Tejali Shete
Ajay Menon joined DDB South as Sr.
Creative Director on 11 February 2015.
Prior to joining DDB, he was working
with JWT, Chennai as Sr. Creative
Director & AVP. His past stints include
brands like HP, Bosch, Mitsubishi
Motors, Cinthol, Godrej, Blackberry,
MRF and others. He has won gold for
a campaign for Assets, a real estate
section for the Times of India. Ajay is a
compulsive reader with a keen interest
in music and movies. He has a
Bachelor’s degree in Computer
Science, from PES College, Bangalore
University.
Tejali Shete joined DDB South as
Sr. Creative Director on 2 March 2015.
Prior to joining DDB, she was working
with Leo Burnett (Kuala Lumpur) as a
Sr. Art Director. Her past stints include
brands like Samsung, Coca Cola,
P&G – Pantene, Godrej Cinthol, Asian
Paints, Louis Philippe and others.
Jaydeep Gokhale joined TracyLocke
She has won silver at Effies, silver at
Goafest, bronze at Goafest. Her
hobbies include music, dance and
football. She has a Diploma In Applied
Art from L S Raheja School Of Arts.
He has also worked with Ergo Asia Ply
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HotStuff Book Issue (Page 4)
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Jaydeep Gokhale
as AVP on 9 March 2015. He was
previously with Atco Health Care,
Shaw Wallace, Firmenich Aromatics
India, Tech Pacific India, Play! Audio
Enviroments, Integra Retail, Percept
OOH.
Ltd as Account Director. He is a BSc
Physics graduate with an MMS in
Marketing.
Media Spotlight
Kyoorius - March-April 2015
Business Standard 16 February 2015
ET Panache - 20 February 2015
Brand Equity - 4 March 2015
Brand Wagon - 17 March 2015
Brand Wagon - 17 March 2015
Times of India - 15 February 2015
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Media Spotlight
Best of DDB Worldwide
BBVA | Blindfold | DDB Spain
BBVA, the official bank of the NBA celebrated the renewal of its
sponsorship of the NBA by proposing a spectacular challenge
to its global ambassadors Kevin Durant and James Harden.
Called #theblindfold, the unusual challenge was not for the
players to work against one another, but to discover what they
were capable of doing by working as a team. The stunt saw the
two players 7,800 km away from one another, connected only
by mobile, with the goal of Durant coaching a blindfolded
Harden to play against an opposing team. The spot was filmed
in both the US and Spain. A blindfolded Harden (who was in the
city competing for the USA Basketball Men’s National Team)
was on an urban street court erected on the roof of the BBVA
Tower in Madrid and Durrant was at home in Oklahoma City guiding Harden’s every move. The ad, a metaphor for teamwork,
technology and communications skills, aimed to reinforce the group’s brand as a global, digital enterprise that coaches
people to reach their goals.
Amnesty International | Spot Against Silence | DDB Brasil
Kyoorius - March-April 2015
Business Standard 16 February 2015
For over 50 years, concerned people have been fighting to break the
silence in cases of oppression or mistreatment. Yet, in Brazil only 40% of
victims of oppression and human rights violations would report their
plight to the authorities. To encourage everyone to break their silence,
DDB Brasil broke the radio silence inside tunnels by broadcasting its
audio message where the radio signals cut off. It demonstrated with
impact that the time had come to not be quiet. People were urged to join
the voices of Amnesty International. DDB Brasil’s innovative use of radio
took the top award in the Audio category of the Bill Bernbach Awards.
ET Panache - 20 February 2015
State Farm | Never | DDB Chicago
Brand Equity - 4 March 2015
DDB Chicago’s 30-second "Never" spot for State Farm followed a young man
from his single, partying days through major life changes and into a previously
unimaginable existence with a wife and kids in the suburbs. In each scene, the
hero vowed "never" to do something, only to do it immediately in the following
scene. "I am never getting married," he said at first, after spotting an attractive girl
at a pool party. In the next scene, he was ring shopping. Other things he promised
never to do, then did: have a kid; move to the suburbs; get a minivan; and have a
second child. In the final scene, with his wife and daughters snoozing on him in
front of the TV, he offered a twist on the theme, saying: “I’m never letting go”. The spot ended with on-screen text, the logo
and a male voiceover: "For all the nevers in life, State Farm is there.” The finished spot was well-paced, charming and funny,
and reinforced State Farm’s long positioning as the company that is there for people and helps them with all those
unexpected twists in life, not just their stuff.
Brand Wagon - 17 March 2015
Deutsche Telekom | Wi-Fi Dogs | DDB Dusseldorf
Brand Wagon - 17 March 2015
Everyone knows the problem: frightened by unexpected phone bills, people often
waste their precious holiday time searching for free Wi-Fi. Aware of this, Deutsche
Telekom wished to present “Travel & Surf”, a Pass for worry-free mobile Internet
surfing abroad, by drawing attention to the more absurd things people do to find
the connection. How? By creating the craziest – and cutest – of them all, Jose’s
“Wi-Fi Dogs” a start-up that claimed to have developed a training technique that
enabled dogs to locate the nearest Wi-Fi source. So holiday makers could rent one
of Jose’s dogs and follow them while they sniffed their way to the nearest router.
Improbable but not impossible, the Wi-Fi dogs aimed to make people laugh but
also to question the absurdity of their holiday behavior. Was it still necessary to spoil
all that time looking for Wi-Fi when there was an easy solution like “Travel & Surf”?
Times of India - 15 February 2015
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18
Best of DDB Worldwide
Radiant | Radiant Return | DDB Melbourne
StarHub | 4G4Good | DDB Singapore
Centraal Beheer | Self-Driving Car | DDB Amsterdam
In an initiative never before seen in Singapore, customers of StarHub Mobile were empowered to pledge their
unused talk time, mobile data and SMS for a good cause. Entitled 4G4Good, this unique charity campaign
enabled eligible StarHub Mobile post-paid customers to pledge their unused talk time, mobile data and SMS in
support of selected beneficiaries. These beneficiaries were from AWWA (Asian Women’s Welfare Association),
CPAS (Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore), ISCOS (Industrial & Services Co-Operative Society), SAVH (Singapore
Association of the Visually Handicapped) and SPD (Society for the Physically Disabled). They were selected as
their clients and caregivers would benefit greatly from mobile communication for staying in touch with their loved
ones, potential employers and medical help, yet they were in circumstances where maintaining a mobile
communication device was difficult or impossible. Through this community-centric public engagement, StarHub
was able to reach out to its hundreds of thousands of eligible mobile post-paid subscribers to support 500
beneficiaries for one year with free talk time, mobile data and SMS.
The self-driving car is a hot topic at the moment and Centraal
Beheer Achmea, the Dutch insurance company known for its
funny commercials, saw in it an opportunity to be exploited.
Their premise - technology is there for a self-driving car. It's
just that, we're not ready for it. That's why there's Centraal
Beheer insurance. The new ad running on TV explained
features of the self-driving car and at first appeared to be a
promo for the car itself. But, even as the voiceover extolled the
virtues of the technological innovations, it led to all kinds of
disastrous accidents by people distracted at the sight of
seeing a car with no driver. DDB’s spot crammed a lot of
slapstick into its 60 seconds, leading into the brand’s “Just
Call Us” tagline.
R a d i a n t ' s n e w r a n g e o f p ro d u c t s c o n t a i n a n u m b e r o f b re a k t h ro u g h
technologies that keep colors newer, for longer. To prove it, DDB Melbourne
created Radiant Return - an audacious 'product demo' of the brand's claims.
The integrated campaign centered on a series of web films, shot over two
weeks with director Stephen Carroll and Exit Films. The concept involved
purchasing garments at retail stores (shot using hidden spy cameras). The
clothes were then worn in a series of extreme torture tests - from pig feeding to
garbage collecting. Afterwards, the items were washed, using Radiant, in real
world conditions. Finally, a 'return' was attempted at the stores where the
garments were first purchased. Of the 14 garments purchased, 13 were
successfully returned (one item was unexpectedly torn by a spiky fish during
filming). The online films form the hub of the campaign and are supported by
digital media, PR, a social seeding strategy, outdoor and television.
Netflix | Airport | DDB Vancouver
Uniforms For The Dedicated | RagBag | DDB Stockholm
McDonald’s | Lunchbox | DDB Sydney
In an effort to get more Aussies interested in their newest fast-food fare, McDonald's Australia set up a pop-up
restaurant in the shape of a gigantic lunchbox. The massive red and yellow box was first set up in Melbourne’s
Federation Square, with plans to pop up in the Gold Coast, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. The mobile restaurant
handed out free AUD 3 (£1.60) mini steak taster wraps as part of the restaurant's efforts to highlight the new steak
offerings on the menu. Unlike the steak products on the US menu – which are chopped steak – the offerings Down
Under featured marinated and slow-cooked pieces of rump steak. The new menu in Australia included two new
McWraps (Steak & Garlic Aioli, and Steak and BBQ), a steak salad with Thai-style dressing, and a steak and egg
wrap. The company also launched its first ever consumer outreach exercise, inviting customers to ask questions
on their Our Food Your Questions website.
Swedish fashion brand Uniforms For The Dedicated pioneered and tested a
unique project with the goal of all major fashion brands following suit. It was
called The RagBag to be used by stores to bag purchased clothes. When
someone bought something new, he or she could then donate something old
by simply removing the new purchase from the bag, flipping the bag inside out,
inserting the used garment, resealing and placing it in a postbox. Since
postage and address had already been printed on the bag, the garment would
find its way to a charity where another cycle would be added to its life. So
instead of letting the bag go to waste, it was used to empower brands and
consumers to make a difference through recycling and social responsibility.
The RagBag initiative promoted recycling and social responsibility by using
something every shopper had in his or her hand, the shopping bag. It was an
easy way to move from talking to acting – through a simple shopping bag.
19
HotStuff Book Issue (Page 19 - 20 Gate fold)
Size : (W) 222 + 232 X (H) 345 mm
An airport might be a romantic place to run to your love, but
sometimes certain questions are more important, like what the
Netflix password is. A man ran through an airport looking for a
woman about to get onto a plane. He scrambled through the
crowd, jumped over luggage, checked flight times, and finally
saw the woman he was looking for on the second level of the
airport. He screamed out to her “Elizabeth!” but she did not
hear him and continued walking. The man then ran up the
escalators to try and catch up with her. After a very long run,
and some intense searching, he finally found himself right
b e h i n d h e r. “ E l i z a b e t h . ” S h e w a s s u r p r i s e d t o s e e h i m
“Steven.” He replied, “I can’t believe I caught you.” Elizabeth
almost broke into tears “You came back. I knew you’d come
back.” Steven replied “I have to ask you something.” Elizabeth
replied “Anything.” Steven asked “What is the Netflix
password?” She looked stunned, in disbelief at what Steven
had asked, but gave him the password anyway: “ilovesteven.”
“It’s all lowercase? One word?” Steven asked. She confirmed
and Steven walked away. “You gotta get it, to get it.”
20
Best of DDB Worldwide
Radiant | Radiant Return | DDB Melbourne
StarHub | 4G4Good | DDB Singapore
Centraal Beheer | Self-Driving Car | DDB Amsterdam
In an initiative never before seen in Singapore, customers of StarHub Mobile were empowered to pledge their
unused talk time, mobile data and SMS for a good cause. Entitled 4G4Good, this unique charity campaign
enabled eligible StarHub Mobile post-paid customers to pledge their unused talk time, mobile data and SMS in
support of selected beneficiaries. These beneficiaries were from AWWA (Asian Women’s Welfare Association),
CPAS (Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore), ISCOS (Industrial & Services Co-Operative Society), SAVH (Singapore
Association of the Visually Handicapped) and SPD (Society for the Physically Disabled). They were selected as
their clients and caregivers would benefit greatly from mobile communication for staying in touch with their loved
ones, potential employers and medical help, yet they were in circumstances where maintaining a mobile
communication device was difficult or impossible. Through this community-centric public engagement, StarHub
was able to reach out to its hundreds of thousands of eligible mobile post-paid subscribers to support 500
beneficiaries for one year with free talk time, mobile data and SMS.
The self-driving car is a hot topic at the moment and Centraal
Beheer Achmea, the Dutch insurance company known for its
funny commercials, saw in it an opportunity to be exploited.
Their premise - technology is there for a self-driving car. It's
just that, we're not ready for it. That's why there's Centraal
Beheer insurance. The new ad running on TV explained
features of the self-driving car and at first appeared to be a
promo for the car itself. But, even as the voiceover extolled the
virtues of the technological innovations, it led to all kinds of
disastrous accidents by people distracted at the sight of
seeing a car with no driver. DDB’s spot crammed a lot of
slapstick into its 60 seconds, leading into the brand’s “Just
Call Us” tagline.
R a d i a n t ' s n e w r a n g e o f p ro d u c t s c o n t a i n a n u m b e r o f b re a k t h ro u g h
technologies that keep colors newer, for longer. To prove it, DDB Melbourne
created Radiant Return - an audacious 'product demo' of the brand's claims.
The integrated campaign centered on a series of web films, shot over two
weeks with director Stephen Carroll and Exit Films. The concept involved
purchasing garments at retail stores (shot using hidden spy cameras). The
clothes were then worn in a series of extreme torture tests - from pig feeding to
garbage collecting. Afterwards, the items were washed, using Radiant, in real
world conditions. Finally, a 'return' was attempted at the stores where the
garments were first purchased. Of the 14 garments purchased, 13 were
successfully returned (one item was unexpectedly torn by a spiky fish during
filming). The online films form the hub of the campaign and are supported by
digital media, PR, a social seeding strategy, outdoor and television.
Netflix | Airport | DDB Vancouver
Uniforms For The Dedicated | RagBag | DDB Stockholm
McDonald’s | Lunchbox | DDB Sydney
In an effort to get more Aussies interested in their newest fast-food fare, McDonald's Australia set up a pop-up
restaurant in the shape of a gigantic lunchbox. The massive red and yellow box was first set up in Melbourne’s
Federation Square, with plans to pop up in the Gold Coast, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. The mobile restaurant
handed out free AUD 3 (£1.60) mini steak taster wraps as part of the restaurant's efforts to highlight the new steak
offerings on the menu. Unlike the steak products on the US menu – which are chopped steak – the offerings Down
Under featured marinated and slow-cooked pieces of rump steak. The new menu in Australia included two new
McWraps (Steak & Garlic Aioli, and Steak and BBQ), a steak salad with Thai-style dressing, and a steak and egg
wrap. The company also launched its first ever consumer outreach exercise, inviting customers to ask questions
on their Our Food Your Questions website.
Swedish fashion brand Uniforms For The Dedicated pioneered and tested a
unique project with the goal of all major fashion brands following suit. It was
called The RagBag to be used by stores to bag purchased clothes. When
someone bought something new, he or she could then donate something old
by simply removing the new purchase from the bag, flipping the bag inside out,
inserting the used garment, resealing and placing it in a postbox. Since
postage and address had already been printed on the bag, the garment would
find its way to a charity where another cycle would be added to its life. So
instead of letting the bag go to waste, it was used to empower brands and
consumers to make a difference through recycling and social responsibility.
The RagBag initiative promoted recycling and social responsibility by using
something every shopper had in his or her hand, the shopping bag. It was an
easy way to move from talking to acting – through a simple shopping bag.
19
HotStuff Book Issue (Page 19 - 20 Gate fold)
Size : (W) 222 + 232 X (H) 345 mm
An airport might be a romantic place to run to your love, but
sometimes certain questions are more important, like what the
Netflix password is. A man ran through an airport looking for a
woman about to get onto a plane. He scrambled through the
crowd, jumped over luggage, checked flight times, and finally
saw the woman he was looking for on the second level of the
airport. He screamed out to her “Elizabeth!” but she did not
hear him and continued walking. The man then ran up the
escalators to try and catch up with her. After a very long run,
and some intense searching, he finally found himself right
b e h i n d h e r. “ E l i z a b e t h . ” S h e w a s s u r p r i s e d t o s e e h i m
“Steven.” He replied, “I can’t believe I caught you.” Elizabeth
almost broke into tears “You came back. I knew you’d come
back.” Steven replied “I have to ask you something.” Elizabeth
replied “Anything.” Steven asked “What is the Netflix
password?” She looked stunned, in disbelief at what Steven
had asked, but gave him the password anyway: “ilovesteven.”
“It’s all lowercase? One word?” Steven asked. She confirmed
and Steven walked away. “You gotta get it, to get it.”
20
Best of DDB Mudra
Canon | Creative Solutions | TracyLocke
Canon a world leader in Imaging Technologies is reputed for bringing
quality products to the market. It minimizes its environmental footprint
by focusing on the development of resource conserving products that
are smaller, lighter and easy to recycle. Brands like Canon look at life
ahead of the curve to maintain their leadership and relationship with the
customer. Canon needed to expand while cutting costs but without
compromising on its Brand Image. Focusing on Tier III cities provided
the opportunity to make the brand grow and yet contain its expenses.
Canon also shifted to smaller stores and was therefore able to cut on the
retail costs and balance the ROI. Several other creative solutions for
cutting costs were developed. In line with Canon’s ROI focused
approach, TracyLocke developed the designs for the brand into a linear
and straight down format.
Orbit | Eat, Drink, Chew Orbit | DDB Mudra North
I n l i n e w i t h i t s g l o b a l a p p ro a c h t o p o s i t i o n i n g i n 2 0 1 4 ,
Wrigley’s Orbit gum kicked off its new campaign: “Eat. Drink.
Chew Orbit” which emphasized the benefits of chewing gum
after eating and drinking. To connect instantly with it TG and
reinforce the brand message of oral health care with a fresh
and new approach the brand used the celebrity endorsement
route but with a humorous twist. The Indian adaption of the
campaign featured Bollywood actress, Deepika Padukone
Logitech | Driving Engagement | TracyLocke
who was shown breaking up with Sandy (her favourite
food ‘sandwich’) even as she walked into an event
with a lot of media presence. The clingy ex, played by
an animated sandwich, protests to the break-up,
claiming that she had just given him a ‘love bite’.
Padukone turns around and eats an Orbit Sugarfree
gum, thereby finally saying goodbye to the clingy
ex-lover.
TVS Wego | Louder Than Words | 22feet Tribal WW
In the Digital world, Logitech is regarded as a successful Swiss
company focused on innovation and quality. Since 1981, it has been
designing personal peripherals that help people enjoy a better
experience of connecting intuitively with technology. Logitech needed to
increase awareness for Logitech products and make its brand more
visible. To do this TracyLocke decided to drive “Engagement” with the
audiences as it was earlier missing in larger prospects. The team also
had to reinforce the brands visual Identity. The team focused on VM and
Fixture Work successfully executing the LFR Unit in Gurgaon and the
KIOSK installation at the airport. Design and set up of Exclusive brand
Store's was another feather in the cap, one each in Delhi and Kolkata.
Pfizer | Gelusil MPS Antacid | DDB Remedy
Pan Bahar | Pehchan Kamyabi Ki | DDB Mudra North
Pan Bahar has a rich legacy and is a heritage Pan Masala brand. To
launch Pan Bahar Crystals in the ultra-premium segment the brand
needed to be invested with a unique and aspirational identity that
consumers could easily associate with success and the glorious feeling
of 'having arrived'. And, who better to promote this than Saif Ali Khan?
Of royal descent and the epitome of sophistication, Saif represents a
class of people whose achievements are their identity - they don’t need
to shout out loud that they’ve ‘arrived’. He, therefore, complimented the
heritage and the class of the brand which can justly lay claim to be worn
as a badge, a symbol for the kind of success, that’s understated yet not
underestimated.
TVS Motors urged people to express their love in its latest
digital campaign, the scooter brand came out with a
long-format film urging couples to come closer and spend
more time together. The film opens with a wife complaining
and the husband trying to assuage her feelings by offering
chocolates and flowers. But all she wants is a ride on his
Wego. All through, the couple is seen communicating in sign
language and only later is it revealed that only the husband
has hearing and speech impairment. The wife, however,
21
HotStuff Book (Page 21 - 22 Gate fold)
Size : (W) 232 + 222 X (H) 345 mm
reminds him that it's not always necessary to ‘use
words’ to say something. The campaign was
primarily on the digital media. Scooters are also the
fastest growing segment in the automobile industry,
with a growth of 25 per cent year on year. TVS enjoys
a 27-30 per cent market share in the scooter
category which sees sales of about four lakh units a
month with an equal number of male and female
customers.
In the recent Nielsen study of ‘Most Trusted Brands of 2012’, Gelusil
MPS Antacid was ranked No. 18 in the Personal Care (OTC) category.
Research revealed that Indians tend to ignore or self-medicate to get
relief from acidity but many consume inadequate dosage leading to
partial relief. To establish Gelusil as an expert in the acidity domain and
ensure growth above category as well as competition in 2013 called for
a different approach. So two characters ‘doctor’ and ‘dadi’ were
created to tell the story of ‘acidity relief’ and Gelusil, in an interesting
conversational manner. The stories are imaginatively crafted around a
humorous duel between the two. The doctor brings the scientific
approach alive by talking about Gelusil and its contents, while the loving
dadi with a ‘chalta hain’ attitude towards acidity, finally becomes a
convert to Gelusil and its scientific way!
22
Best of DDB Mudra
Canon | Creative Solutions | TracyLocke
Canon a world leader in Imaging Technologies is reputed for bringing
quality products to the market. It minimizes its environmental footprint
by focusing on the development of resource conserving products that
are smaller, lighter and easy to recycle. Brands like Canon look at life
ahead of the curve to maintain their leadership and relationship with the
customer. Canon needed to expand while cutting costs but without
compromising on its Brand Image. Focusing on Tier III cities provided
the opportunity to make the brand grow and yet contain its expenses.
Canon also shifted to smaller stores and was therefore able to cut on the
retail costs and balance the ROI. Several other creative solutions for
cutting costs were developed. In line with Canon’s ROI focused
approach, TracyLocke developed the designs for the brand into a linear
and straight down format.
Orbit | Eat, Drink, Chew Orbit | DDB Mudra North
I n l i n e w i t h i t s g l o b a l a p p ro a c h t o p o s i t i o n i n g i n 2 0 1 4 ,
Wrigley’s Orbit gum kicked off its new campaign: “Eat. Drink.
Chew Orbit” which emphasized the benefits of chewing gum
after eating and drinking. To connect instantly with it TG and
reinforce the brand message of oral health care with a fresh
and new approach the brand used the celebrity endorsement
route but with a humorous twist. The Indian adaption of the
campaign featured Bollywood actress, Deepika Padukone
Logitech | Driving Engagement | TracyLocke
who was shown breaking up with Sandy (her favourite
food ‘sandwich’) even as she walked into an event
with a lot of media presence. The clingy ex, played by
an animated sandwich, protests to the break-up,
claiming that she had just given him a ‘love bite’.
Padukone turns around and eats an Orbit Sugarfree
gum, thereby finally saying goodbye to the clingy
ex-lover.
TVS Wego | Louder Than Words | 22feet Tribal WW
In the Digital world, Logitech is regarded as a successful Swiss
company focused on innovation and quality. Since 1981, it has been
designing personal peripherals that help people enjoy a better
experience of connecting intuitively with technology. Logitech needed to
increase awareness for Logitech products and make its brand more
visible. To do this TracyLocke decided to drive “Engagement” with the
audiences as it was earlier missing in larger prospects. The team also
had to reinforce the brands visual Identity. The team focused on VM and
Fixture Work successfully executing the LFR Unit in Gurgaon and the
KIOSK installation at the airport. Design and set up of Exclusive brand
Store's was another feather in the cap, one each in Delhi and Kolkata.
Pfizer | Gelusil MPS Antacid | DDB Remedy
Pan Bahar | Pehchan Kamyabi Ki | DDB Mudra North
Pan Bahar has a rich legacy and is a heritage Pan Masala brand. To
launch Pan Bahar Crystals in the ultra-premium segment the brand
needed to be invested with a unique and aspirational identity that
consumers could easily associate with success and the glorious feeling
of 'having arrived'. And, who better to promote this than Saif Ali Khan?
Of royal descent and the epitome of sophistication, Saif represents a
class of people whose achievements are their identity - they don’t need
to shout out loud that they’ve ‘arrived’. He, therefore, complimented the
heritage and the class of the brand which can justly lay claim to be worn
as a badge, a symbol for the kind of success, that’s understated yet not
underestimated.
TVS Motors urged people to express their love in its latest
digital campaign, the scooter brand came out with a
long-format film urging couples to come closer and spend
more time together. The film opens with a wife complaining
and the husband trying to assuage her feelings by offering
chocolates and flowers. But all she wants is a ride on his
Wego. All through, the couple is seen communicating in sign
language and only later is it revealed that only the husband
has hearing and speech impairment. The wife, however,
21
HotStuff Book (Page 21 - 22 Gate fold)
Size : (W) 232 + 222 X (H) 345 mm
reminds him that it's not always necessary to ‘use
words’ to say something. The campaign was
primarily on the digital media. Scooters are also the
fastest growing segment in the automobile industry,
with a growth of 25 per cent year on year. TVS enjoys
a 27-30 per cent market share in the scooter
category which sees sales of about four lakh units a
month with an equal number of male and female
customers.
In the recent Nielsen study of ‘Most Trusted Brands of 2012’, Gelusil
MPS Antacid was ranked No. 18 in the Personal Care (OTC) category.
Research revealed that Indians tend to ignore or self-medicate to get
relief from acidity but many consume inadequate dosage leading to
partial relief. To establish Gelusil as an expert in the acidity domain and
ensure growth above category as well as competition in 2013 called for
a different approach. So two characters ‘doctor’ and ‘dadi’ were
created to tell the story of ‘acidity relief’ and Gelusil, in an interesting
conversational manner. The stories are imaginatively crafted around a
humorous duel between the two. The doctor brings the scientific
approach alive by talking about Gelusil and its contents, while the loving
dadi with a ‘chalta hain’ attitude towards acidity, finally becomes a
convert to Gelusil and its scientific way!
22
Best of DDB Mudra
Huawei Honor | #TestofHonor | 22feet Tribal WW
Huawei, a world leader in telecommunications is also a major
player in smartphones globally. Launched in October 2014,
Honor is an independent Internet Smart Phone brand under
Huawei Terminals. Research showed that, with increased
usage of mobile apps, camera and digital entertainment
content, battery back-up was a very important consideration
f o r c u s t o m e r s w h i l e d e c i d i n g o n t h e p u rc h a s e o f t h e i r
smartphone. Taking a cue from this insight, Huawei executed a
digital campaign #TestofHonor that showcased the exceptional
battery life of its soon-to-be-launched Honor 4X smartphone.
Viewers had to call on the number - 07045386911, which
dialled into a fully-charged Honor 4X smartphone, and the
battery was tested with the number of calls the phone could
take, without a recharge. The contest, run via YouTube feed,
showed the phone live, and viewers had to keep dialling in, for
as long as the phone's battery lasted. The last person to call till
the battery lasted would win a free Honor 4X smartphone. The
activity was live streamed at www.hihonor.in/testofhonor.
Thus Spake Zeigler
The demise and rise of our industry
McDowells | No.1 Yaari Jam | DDB Mudra South & East
In November 2014, McDowell’s No. 1 had released #No.1Yaari
campaign to celebrate the essence of long lasting friendship.
The campaign comprising the song - ‘Aisi Waisi Dosti Nahi Ye
Number One Yaari Hai’, sung by Mohit Chauhan, music by
Rajeev Bhalla and written by Sonal Dabral was released digitally
and then across other media platforms. Within two months,
#No.1Yaari short film received over 5 million views (Facebook +
YouTube). Inspired by the campaign, ‘No. 1 Yaari Jam’ was
conceptualized as a one-of-a-kind national engagement
platform for bands, singers and music lovers. First, the baton
was passed by Rajeev Bhalla and Sonal Dabral to Shankar,
Ehsaan, Loy who created their version of the anthem. They, in
turn, invited Indian Ocean to create their version of the No.1 Yaari
anthem. Through ‘No.1 Yaari Jam,’ McDowell’s No.1 created
an opportunity for friends to get together and celebrate close
friendship. To enter the contest, bands or a group of friends had
to sing their own version, submit videos online and nominate a
group of their friends to make their own version. The winning
group would be selected through audience voting an artiste’s
choice and would be featured on Pepsi MTV Indies for a month.
John Zeigler
Chairman & CEO / DDB Group,
Asia-Pacific, India, Japan
I recently asked a senior team at DDB for
a show of hands. Who, I asked them,
would be willing to do their job for half
their current salary? Not surprisingly,
there were few takers.
Yet the question wasn’t asked out of idle
curiosity. It is an increasingly likely
scenario, given the challenges facing the
business model of advertising. The
situation is so severe, in fact, that in my
view, the current collapse of the
advertising business is likely in just five
years.
Every year agencies are faced with
Sony Max | IPL teaser | DDB Mudra West
demands for a ten per cent reduction in
the Full Time Employee (FTE) rate and
we think we’re doing well if we settle at
eight per cent. The multiplier effect our
industry has relied on for so long is also
slowly being withered away. To ease the
Sony PIX | Amazing Spiderman 2 | DDB MudraMax OOH
pressure, agency managers have cut
costs to meet these demands. But there
is a point at which savings can only come
Amazing Spiderman 2 premiered on Indian television on Sony
PIX on 2 March 2015. To build excitement and generate
awareness, DDB MudraMax executed a one-of-a-kind outdoor
innovation lasting 10 days across Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bengaluru
and Kolkata. Backlit 3D installations and hoardings of
Spiderman lifting a rickshaw were placed at strategic locations
in order to create an Indian connect with the superhero. The
onlookers approved of this innovation as a stimulating attempt
for ensuring that nobody gives Amazing Spiderman 2 a miss.
Other outdoor mediums such as backlit panels, billboards and
pillars were also used for the campaign.
In another World Cup year, Sony looked to score with IPL. The
by reducing people. And you can only
brand needed to neutralise the fatigue impact of the World Cup,
cut so far before your ability to deliver is
by keeping the campaign very emotional, different and generic
compromised, after all we are meant to
at the same time. The campaign went on air with teasers on
be in the people business. We are facing
24 February 2015 followed by a big 60-seconder, the big
a vicious circle in which cost-cutting will
anthem track. This was followed by three more creatives
lead to a decline in performance, which
around the theme of the anthem ‘Isme hai dilon ka pyaar, yeh
will then be used to justify further
hai India ka tyohar’. The anthem had two very powerful lines
cost-cutting. And in an industry that
which encapsulated the entire flavour of the campaign. Smaller
relies on talent as its USP, this is
versions of the anthem ran on TV until the 20 March 2015. Post
concerning.
that, three other creatives went on air. Through these IPL was
projected as the biggest unifier in India. India is a land of
Clients either don’t seem to understand
festivals, where people come together and the IPL is now part
this or they are ignoring the problem.
of the festival calendar.
Why is there such a disconnect between
23
HotStuff Book Issue (Page 23 - 24 Gate fold)
Size : (W) 222 + 232 X (H) 345 mm
24
clients and agencies? The industry has
put forward multiple cases and
explanations. Some argue that the rise of
the procurement function has led to the
commoditisation of creativity, with clients
believing they can buy creative ideas, as
they would stationery. Others point to an
oversupplied agency market, which has
led to ruthless price competition. And
some still claim that agencies have failed
to sell a solid case for their services to
client-side executives, particularly to
finance teams.
There is truth in all of these. But they are
all reflections of a broader truth. The
issues the agency world faces are rooted
in the changing priorities of the marketing
function within client organisations. In
fact, they are rooted in the failure of
marketing to fulfil its full potential.
Today our clients have different business
challenges. There are few real ‘new’
products – we have moved from an age
of invention to an age of consolidation.
Today’s business environment is about
gaining share in very tight markets. The
role of ‘promotion’ is also very different.
In many organisations marketing is
basically marketing communications.
The remaining three ‘Ps’ have been
taken over by other departments or by
consultants.
I think part of our problem is we don’t
often talk about the context of our
industry with relation to context of our
clients’ business. We tend to think an ad
is an ad, whenever it was made. But if
you want to fully understand the mess
the advertising industry is in, we should
start with the role of client-side marketers
within their own organisations.
Dr Philip Kotler, one of the most influential
thinkers about marketing and S.C.
Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor
of International Marketing at the North
Western University Kellogg Graduate
School of Management in Chicago, has
been warning of the rise of the ‘One P
Marketer’ for over a decade. Marketers,
he argues, are often under pressure to
meet short-term sales goals, and that
has become their chief role.
This means marketing has in many firms
failed to reach its potential. In classic
definitions of the discipline, it is the ‘voice
of the consumer’ within organisations,
and should be playing a key role in
guiding areas like product innovation.
Instead, it often plays a secondary role to
manufacturing, promoting products that
have already been created. Or as Kotler
put it: “senior management tells
marketing what it expects the company
to sell, rather than listening to
marketing's ideas of what can be sold.”
The result is a department with less
influence internally, and less connection
with the actual drivers of the business.
A study by Adobe, for example, found
that 80% of CEOs do not trust
marketers, 70% of CEOs believe
marketers are disconnected from
business results, and 69% of CEOs
believe marketers like to stay too much
in ‘their creative and social-media
bubbles’.
You could argue that this is unfair –
marketers have ended up focusing so
much on promotion in part because they
have been put under pressure by CEOs
to generate short-term sales. But, rightly
or wrongly, it is the situation the entire
marketing ecosystem faces. It means
agencies are supplying solutions for a
non-core business unit – and if agencies
are only there to drive short-term sales
uplifts, their work will never be viewed as
a long-term driver of business
performance.
The rising influence of procurement
reflects this transition of marketing to a
secondary department. Procurement is a
process function. It reports to finance,
and is focused on the efficient
management of money. It is not about
the effectiveness of the work relevant to
the business goal. In too many cases,
procurement has shifted the emphasis
onto efficiencies (namely, minimising the
amount of cash leaving the business)
Best of DDB Mudra
Huawei Honor | #TestofHonor | 22feet Tribal WW
Huawei, a world leader in telecommunications is also a major
player in smartphones globally. Launched in October 2014,
Honor is an independent Internet Smart Phone brand under
Huawei Terminals. Research showed that, with increased
usage of mobile apps, camera and digital entertainment
content, battery back-up was a very important consideration
f o r c u s t o m e r s w h i l e d e c i d i n g o n t h e p u rc h a s e o f t h e i r
smartphone. Taking a cue from this insight, Huawei executed a
digital campaign #TestofHonor that showcased the exceptional
battery life of its soon-to-be-launched Honor 4X smartphone.
Viewers had to call on the number - 07045386911, which
dialled into a fully-charged Honor 4X smartphone, and the
battery was tested with the number of calls the phone could
take, without a recharge. The contest, run via YouTube feed,
showed the phone live, and viewers had to keep dialling in, for
as long as the phone's battery lasted. The last person to call till
the battery lasted would win a free Honor 4X smartphone. The
activity was live streamed at www.hihonor.in/testofhonor.
Thus Spake Zeigler
The demise and rise of our industry
McDowells | No.1 Yaari Jam | DDB Mudra South & East
In November 2014, McDowell’s No. 1 had released #No.1Yaari
campaign to celebrate the essence of long lasting friendship.
The campaign comprising the song - ‘Aisi Waisi Dosti Nahi Ye
Number One Yaari Hai’, sung by Mohit Chauhan, music by
Rajeev Bhalla and written by Sonal Dabral was released digitally
and then across other media platforms. Within two months,
#No.1Yaari short film received over 5 million views (Facebook +
YouTube). Inspired by the campaign, ‘No. 1 Yaari Jam’ was
conceptualized as a one-of-a-kind national engagement
platform for bands, singers and music lovers. First, the baton
was passed by Rajeev Bhalla and Sonal Dabral to Shankar,
Ehsaan, Loy who created their version of the anthem. They, in
turn, invited Indian Ocean to create their version of the No.1 Yaari
anthem. Through ‘No.1 Yaari Jam,’ McDowell’s No.1 created
an opportunity for friends to get together and celebrate close
friendship. To enter the contest, bands or a group of friends had
to sing their own version, submit videos online and nominate a
group of their friends to make their own version. The winning
group would be selected through audience voting an artiste’s
choice and would be featured on Pepsi MTV Indies for a month.
John Zeigler
Chairman & CEO / DDB Group,
Asia-Pacific, India, Japan
I recently asked a senior team at DDB for
a show of hands. Who, I asked them,
would be willing to do their job for half
their current salary? Not surprisingly,
there were few takers.
Yet the question wasn’t asked out of idle
curiosity. It is an increasingly likely
scenario, given the challenges facing the
business model of advertising. The
situation is so severe, in fact, that in my
view, the current collapse of the
advertising business is likely in just five
years.
Every year agencies are faced with
Sony Max | IPL teaser | DDB Mudra West
demands for a ten per cent reduction in
the Full Time Employee (FTE) rate and
we think we’re doing well if we settle at
eight per cent. The multiplier effect our
industry has relied on for so long is also
slowly being withered away. To ease the
Sony PIX | Amazing Spiderman 2 | DDB MudraMax OOH
pressure, agency managers have cut
costs to meet these demands. But there
is a point at which savings can only come
Amazing Spiderman 2 premiered on Indian television on Sony
PIX on 2 March 2015. To build excitement and generate
awareness, DDB MudraMax executed a one-of-a-kind outdoor
innovation lasting 10 days across Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bengaluru
and Kolkata. Backlit 3D installations and hoardings of
Spiderman lifting a rickshaw were placed at strategic locations
in order to create an Indian connect with the superhero. The
onlookers approved of this innovation as a stimulating attempt
for ensuring that nobody gives Amazing Spiderman 2 a miss.
Other outdoor mediums such as backlit panels, billboards and
pillars were also used for the campaign.
In another World Cup year, Sony looked to score with IPL. The
by reducing people. And you can only
brand needed to neutralise the fatigue impact of the World Cup,
cut so far before your ability to deliver is
by keeping the campaign very emotional, different and generic
compromised, after all we are meant to
at the same time. The campaign went on air with teasers on
be in the people business. We are facing
24 February 2015 followed by a big 60-seconder, the big
a vicious circle in which cost-cutting will
anthem track. This was followed by three more creatives
lead to a decline in performance, which
around the theme of the anthem ‘Isme hai dilon ka pyaar, yeh
will then be used to justify further
hai India ka tyohar’. The anthem had two very powerful lines
cost-cutting. And in an industry that
which encapsulated the entire flavour of the campaign. Smaller
relies on talent as its USP, this is
versions of the anthem ran on TV until the 20 March 2015. Post
concerning.
that, three other creatives went on air. Through these IPL was
projected as the biggest unifier in India. India is a land of
Clients either don’t seem to understand
festivals, where people come together and the IPL is now part
this or they are ignoring the problem.
of the festival calendar.
Why is there such a disconnect between
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clients and agencies? The industry has
put forward multiple cases and
explanations. Some argue that the rise of
the procurement function has led to the
commoditisation of creativity, with clients
believing they can buy creative ideas, as
they would stationery. Others point to an
oversupplied agency market, which has
led to ruthless price competition. And
some still claim that agencies have failed
to sell a solid case for their services to
client-side executives, particularly to
finance teams.
There is truth in all of these. But they are
all reflections of a broader truth. The
issues the agency world faces are rooted
in the changing priorities of the marketing
function within client organisations. In
fact, they are rooted in the failure of
marketing to fulfil its full potential.
Today our clients have different business
challenges. There are few real ‘new’
products – we have moved from an age
of invention to an age of consolidation.
Today’s business environment is about
gaining share in very tight markets. The
role of ‘promotion’ is also very different.
In many organisations marketing is
basically marketing communications.
The remaining three ‘Ps’ have been
taken over by other departments or by
consultants.
I think part of our problem is we don’t
often talk about the context of our
industry with relation to context of our
clients’ business. We tend to think an ad
is an ad, whenever it was made. But if
you want to fully understand the mess
the advertising industry is in, we should
start with the role of client-side marketers
within their own organisations.
Dr Philip Kotler, one of the most influential
thinkers about marketing and S.C.
Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor
of International Marketing at the North
Western University Kellogg Graduate
School of Management in Chicago, has
been warning of the rise of the ‘One P
Marketer’ for over a decade. Marketers,
he argues, are often under pressure to
meet short-term sales goals, and that
has become their chief role.
This means marketing has in many firms
failed to reach its potential. In classic
definitions of the discipline, it is the ‘voice
of the consumer’ within organisations,
and should be playing a key role in
guiding areas like product innovation.
Instead, it often plays a secondary role to
manufacturing, promoting products that
have already been created. Or as Kotler
put it: “senior management tells
marketing what it expects the company
to sell, rather than listening to
marketing's ideas of what can be sold.”
The result is a department with less
influence internally, and less connection
with the actual drivers of the business.
A study by Adobe, for example, found
that 80% of CEOs do not trust
marketers, 70% of CEOs believe
marketers are disconnected from
business results, and 69% of CEOs
believe marketers like to stay too much
in ‘their creative and social-media
bubbles’.
You could argue that this is unfair –
marketers have ended up focusing so
much on promotion in part because they
have been put under pressure by CEOs
to generate short-term sales. But, rightly
or wrongly, it is the situation the entire
marketing ecosystem faces. It means
agencies are supplying solutions for a
non-core business unit – and if agencies
are only there to drive short-term sales
uplifts, their work will never be viewed as
a long-term driver of business
performance.
The rising influence of procurement
reflects this transition of marketing to a
secondary department. Procurement is a
process function. It reports to finance,
and is focused on the efficient
management of money. It is not about
the effectiveness of the work relevant to
the business goal. In too many cases,
procurement has shifted the emphasis
onto efficiencies (namely, minimising the
amount of cash leaving the business)
Guts & Glory
away from effectiveness (maximising the
cash coming into the business).
There is, of course, good evidence that
creative advertising can work far more
efficiently than non-creative advertising,
and that investment in creativity pays
dividends over the long term. But on the
whole, marketers (and their agencies)
have not sold this case properly to
finance directors. The finance
department likes predictability of
performance, so their default option is to
view investment in creativity as a luxury,
compared with the necessary
investment in media exposure. Media
spend can be controlled, modelled and
predicted in a way that creativity cannot.
DDB Mudra Group bagged a silver, a bronze and five finalist awards at ADFEST
2015. Under Direct Lotus, it received a silver for the Health Cha Shree Ganesh
campaign for Nutralite in the Direct Ambient Large Scale category and a bronze also
for Nutralite in the Field Marketing category. Under Design Lotus, it was awarded
two finalists for Volkswagen in the Poster category. Under Press Lotus it bagged a
finalist for Hometown under the Best of Home Appliances and Furnishing category
and under Print Craft Lotus it received two finalist awards for Volkswagen under the
Art Direction category.
exchange4media OOH Awards
So how do we change the industry
deliverables to create and leverage more
creative advantage?
It is all about changing how and why we
engage. It's all about knowing how to get
best thinking first before any work is
done; about allowing enough time for the
thinking to be strong then doing work
that delivers. I believe it’s time to use our
greatest asset – creativity – to prove to
brands that agencies can build the
business growth they are seeking.
I call it Engaging Creativity for Growth or,
put simply, ECG. It’s using an agency’s
creativity and know how to develop a
new product, a new distribution
advantage, a new way of connecting
socially with customers.
If we don't change to meet these
business needs, sure, there may well still
be a creative industry. But business in
general will keep accepting the mostly
bad work it receives today. Real creative
talent will migrate to more
entrepreneurial areas to invent and
evolve. And business will start a new
cycle of low growth and 'competitive
inadequacy’ – so many signs already
point to this today. Getting this right is a
major challenge for the agency business.
But it is a challenge, and an opportunity,
agencies – and their clients – cannot
afford to miss.
DDB MudraMax won a gold, a silver and four bronze awards at the fifth edition of
exchange4media’s annual OOH Conference and NEONS Awards in Gurgaon on
27 March 2015. In all, 49 awards were given away (including Popular Choice and
Excellence Awards). DDB Mudra Group received a gold for Nerolac’s ‘Rang De
Patang’ (Most Innovative Use of Moving Media), a silver and a bronze for Zydus
Wellness’ Health Cha Shree Ganesh (Innovative Creation of a new medium) and
(Best Outdoor Plan -strategy); two bronze for South Africa Tourism’s Meet South
Africa (Innovative Use of Existing Medium) and (Travel & Leisure); a bronze for
Shine.com’s Mr M (Others).
54th ABCI Awards
HotStuff the external newsletter published by DDB Mudra Group was awarded a
bronze in the Newsletter category at the 54th Awards event of the Association of
Business Communicators of India held in Mumbai on 27 February 2015. The award
was presented to Pilloo Mullan and Neeti Nayak the Corporate Communications
team of DDB Mudra Group by Bharat Patel, Chairman & MD, Dainik Sandhya
Prakash – Bhopal. This is the second consecutive year that HotStuff has picked up
an award from the ABCI.
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Thought Leadership
Madhukar Kamath
Madhukar Kamath, Group CEO & Managing Director, DDB Mudra Group
was invited to share his rich experience from his long career in the
corporate sector with the participants of the CEP on "Strategies for
Organisations' growth" held at the SJM School of Management, IIT
Bombay from 19 to 23 January 2015.
Executives from leading organizations such as Axis Bank , BOB Capital
Markets, Canara Bank, Capgemini India, Electronic Payment and
Services (P) Ltd, Future Group, GSK Pharma, HDFC Ltd, IndusInd Bank,
NABARD, Oil India Ltd and ONGC attended the programme.
Sonal Dabral
Jury President @ADFEST 2015
Sonal Dabral, Chairman and CCO, DDB Mudra
Group had the honour of being invited to be the
Jury President of Direct Lotus category at ADFEST
2015 which took place at the Royal Cliff Hotels
Group in Pattaya, Thailand from 19-21 March
2015. After presiding over the Direct Lotus Jury,
Sonal also joined the rest of the Jury Presidents to
judge the Intergrated Lotus, Innova Lotus and the
Lotus Roots category.
“It was an intense round of judging with my fellow
jury members and in keeping with the ‘Be Bad’
theme of ADFEST 2015, we were totally ruthless
in sifting the best from the rest,” quipped Dabral.
Speaker @SPJIMR
“Stereotypes become a problem when they become a lazy
option. They are simplistic and just wrong,” said Sonal Dabral
when he participated in a panel discussion on 'marketing to
women' at the SP Jain Institute of Management campus on
31 January 2015. From all accounts, the students found it a
brilliant session, as he took them through his journey, his
understanding of advertising, from the dusty bus in Agra to
being the Chairman and CCO of DDB Mudra Group.
Visiting Faculty @NID
Sonal was invited by the Films and Video department at his
alma mater, the National Institute of Design from
2-3 February 2015 to give pre-production master feedback
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to 13 PG First Year students who subsequently went on to
make their respective individual advertising film projects.
Thought Leadership
Sambit Mohanty at Bullseye
Having grown up on a steady diet of war films such as
Francis Ford Coppola’s epic ‘Apocalypse Now’, Rambo
First Blood Part II and the TV series ‘Tour of Duty’,
visiting Vietnam (or ’Nam) was always on his wish list.
And, earlier this year, he got to represent India at the
regional DDB Bullseye meet at Vietnam.
Landing in Ho Chi Minh City (better known as Saigon) the
first thing that struck him was that there were hardly any
Indian tourists. Notwithstanding the visa-on-arrival facility
for Indians. Or that the high-octane city of commerce
and culture is marked by a pulsating energy that can
make people from India feel right at home!.
At the office of DDB Vietnam, he was closeted for two
whole days. It was an immersive experience getting to
meet the best minds from across the region and
watching them present their best work - for this was a
countdown to Cannes – and only the topmost ideas
would make the cut. The hours zipped by as they
debated, discussed, appreciated and ripped apart idea
after idea, in their quest to separate the good, the bad
and the ugly (there were a few!). The evenings, of course,
were reserved for letting their hair down and the good
people at DDB played the perfect hosts – from arranging
a night-time Vespa tour of the city to helping them
sample authentic Vietnamese cuisine.
Mandeep Malhotra
DDB MudraMax was invited by the state government
of Andhra Pradesh to pitch for a street furniture
project in January 2015. This provided Mandeep
Malhotra, President, DDB MudraMax – OOH, Retail
& Experiential, a great photo op with
N. Chandrababu Naidu, the President of the Telugu
Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh who is currently
serving his second non-consecutive term as the
Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.The Honourable
CM is a key contributor to the change in IT industry
in Andhra Pradesh.
Samyak Chakrabarty
Samyak Chakrabarty, Chief Youth Marketer, DDB Mudra
Group had the privilege of speaking at the Seeds of
Peace annual meet "Gather+962" which was held at the
Mövenpick Resort at the Dead Sea in Jordan, from
26 February to 1 March 2015. Over three productive
days, it brought together emerging leaders with
established figures from the world of philanthropy,
diplomacy, finance, education, technology and media
to exchange best practices. Founded in 1993, Seeds of
Peace is a peace-building youth organization based in
New York City.
27
Amazing People
Pradeep Debnath
facets of Agra to their best use for
representation.
The contest’s mission was to
acknowledge and reward the design
which had the potential to express the
City of Agra in the most magnetic way.
The design needed to brush off the
bewildered image of Agra which seems
to be lost in transition. It needed to
celebrate Agra as a ‘world destination’
which is green, rich with handicrafts,
equipped with world heritage sites, great
culinary and wonders.
Pradeep Debnath
Creative Director, Interbrand India
Interbrand India was chosen from over
7000 entries across the world as a
finalist in the TDV MERAGRA design
contest. TDV MERAGRA contest was
the first design competition launched by
"The Design Village" in collaboration with
Uttar Pradesh government, Department
of Tourism and the Dutch Embassy. The
goal of the competition was to call for
thematic designs which not only explain
Agra as ‘City of Taj’ but also bring other
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The City of Agra attracts more than
2.5 million domestic and foreign visitors
annually. To enhance the experience of
the visitors and for creating a sense of
belonging amongst citizens of India, the
Uttar Pradesh government undertook a
project to create an identity for this
vibrant city. To fuel this intention,
MERAGRA was conceptualized with an
intent to welcome varied views of the
City of Agra.
After few rounds of judging and scrutiny,
Pradeep’s design was selected as one
amongst the best three designs. The
slogan of his poster was- ‘Passion with
Purpose’. Talking about his logo, he
explained, “In creating the identity, I built
on the same passion which built Agra to
make it more purposeful. ‘MERAGRA’
thus stood for finding opportunities to
make passion purposeful. The identity,
based on a heart created with the letters
‘M’ and ‘A’ not only taps into the
passion of the people, but also creates a
distinctive graphic language that can
spread across the environment, digital
and even mobile applications.”
Further explaining the concept of his
poster, Pradeep said, “My design for
‘MERAGRA’ attempts to create a
memorable brand for Agra, as the first
step in rejuvenating the glory of the city.
The need to create a memorable and
recognizable identity that people across
all demographics could relate to, was
the primary task. To do this, deep diving
into the city’s rich cultural past seemed
apt. Agra was built centuries ago around
one powerful emotion ‘Passion’.
Whether it was the monuments, craft,
recipes or more, passion is what went
into making them. The outcome was
magnificent. This outcome was the
ground for all the design elements used
in the poster.”
Amazing People
Anurag Bansal
awarded a place on the 5th Annual
CFO100 Roll of Honour. He was
accorded the recognition under the
‘Integration of Technology’ category.
This is his second consecutive year
of being accorded the recognition.
He was also the only awardee from the
marketing communication fraternity.
The CFO100 is an annual initiative to
distinguish India's finance leader's
extraordinary contributions to the
corporate world. CFO India magazine
identifies and brings together 100 CFOs,
who are clearly a cut above the others,
to honour their achievements in areas
On 19 March 2015, Anurag Bansal,
Chief Financial Officer and Executive
Board Member, DDB Mudra Group was
including cost management, raising
capital, green initiatives, risk
management, governance and strategy.
The CFO100 is an annual benchmark for
rising stars among India's CFOs.
The Jury for this year’s honour included
12 important names from senior
management teams of various
multinational organizations.
Anurag was awarded with the
recognition under the ‘Integration of
Technology’ category along with
financial heads from Bajaj Allianz
General Insurance Company Limited,
Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company
Limited, Birla Sunlife Insurance, Phoenix
ARC Private Limited, JBM Auto Limited,
SLK Group, iMerit Technology Services
and Anudip Foundation, Sansera
Engineering Private Limited, Mahindra &
Mahindra Limited, Johnson & Johnson
Medical and Vodafone India Limited.
Kabir Sen
teaches him life lessons and lets him be
whoever he wants to be! “It's such an
amazing feeling to stand alone on the
stage in front of an audience. I feel so
empowered standing centre stage,
looking out into the audience; the lights
shining back at me.”
As Associate Vice President – Buying at
DDB MudraMax, Delhi, Kabir Sen is
responsible for media buying, deal
management and unconventional media
and impactful ideas for clients. While
client relationship and bonding are a
priority which he achieves through
maximizing returns for them via strong
relationship with media partners, his real
strengths lie in leveraging unconventional,
innovative media and out of the box
thinking (Kuch Hatke…Soch).
He has independently handled
Bollywood Movie Marketing for LG, and
has developed Advertising Funded
Program (AFP) for LG Mobile and
LG Microwave.
Among his accolades can be counted
an Agency Excellence Award by LG
Electronics India, a Client Excellence
Award for Outstanding Performance by
Bata India and Carrier Midea; Agency
Excellence Award by DDB MudraMax
(Media) for “Dependability and Loyalty”.
But, it’s not all work and no play for
Kabir who also has an abiding passion
for theatre and has made the stage his
second home. Theatre, he tells us,
Kabir has been on stage from his school
days and over the last 25 years, he has
been associated with professional
theatre groups like Prayog (Delhi), Little
Theatre Group (Mumbai) and Aamra
Kajon (Delhi). He has been in more than
150 shows in different parts of India and
has performed in Hindi, English and
Bengali plays like Aurangzeb,
Court Marshel, Saheb-Biwi-Gulam,
The Price, Aaurat, Avam Indrajit,
Kabuliwala, Dilli Chalo, Pagla Ghora,
Akorik, Andhajon, Hamlet the Prince of
Garanhata, Gotraheen, Ascharya Basanto
and many more.
The accolades he has won include 2nd
Best Actor award for ‘Aaurat’ (Hindi-1983)
& Avam Indrajit (Hindi-1984) and Best
Actor award for Khanan (Bengali-1992).
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Know More
Aditya Kanthy
National Strategic Planning Head,
DDB Mudra Group
Progressively Patronizing – Indian Advertising and Sexism
On our responsibility as advertising
people Bill Bernbach said “All of us who
professionally use the mass media are
the shapers of society. We can vulgarize
that society. We can brutalize it. Or we
can help lift it onto a higher level.”
So when campaigns are hailed for doing
so, we must examine them closely, lest
we lull ourselves into a false sense of
achievement.
Using the media’s focus on the plight of
women in our cities (the obviously upper
caste and class slant to the conversation
notwithstanding), we’ve seen a spate of
advertising campaigns dealing with the
subject. Look at us fighting the good
fight firmly in the corner of women’s
rights, they yell. We’re oh-so-progressive.
Not enough critical attention has been
paid to how this really plays out in
advertising. Yet, we’re quick to applaud
progressive brands and progressive
views on gender in campaign after
campaign. What signal are we sending?
Sexism is easy to spot in item girl (Item
girl refers to a promiscuous woman
usually portrayed as a dancer in a bar or
nightclub in Bollywood films) type
advertising for products targeted at men
with its attendant subtext of
objectification. She is a thing to be had.
Her affections are easy enough to win.
The man must see it as his right.
The more insidious ones are those that
presume to speak on behalf of women in
categories that sell to them or those that
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ride on the subject by telling us stories
featuring apparently progressive women
and themes. They often stumble all over
their own preachy self-righteous selves
but they do get people talking. Does that
kind of work have a place in the
pantheon of advertising?
We're in the business of making our
brands relevant. We make our way into
hearts by entertaining or moving people.
Not by lecturing and certainly not by
presuming to give women permission.
That is what advertising does when it
commands us to respect women or
expects to be lauded for the conceit that
the tigress boss who orders a man to
work late into the evening is actually the
doting wife who still cooks for him and
coaxes him back as she waits for him.
Yes, I’m taking as an example, the
campaign for a major telecom brand in
India, that stirred up a social media
outrage.
What about this story should surprise
us? That she's a boss? Or that she
cooks for her husband? It is impossible
to answer that question without feeling a
little shame about the starting point of
such thinking or underlying assumptions
that drive the plot. So, if it doesn’t work
as storytelling, maybe it attempts to win
us over by showing us a different
“progressive” view of the world. What
does this say about the way we see the
world? That we think it’s our job to give
women permission to be bosses and
housewives at the same time. Really,
we're that progressive?
Perhaps, we do more service to society
and lift it to a higher level when our
stories create a moment of magic from
the mundane. When we choose the
chastising whisper over the theatrical
scolding, by telling stories that move us
with their observation of how sexism
plays out unwittingly in our lives everyday
- the sexism underlying a man's
expectation that a woman give up her
career to be with him or that she dress
down because it distracts from what
she’s saying - over those that lecture by
putting a seal of approval on second
marriages or dark-skinned brides.
Maybe it's the heavy-handed way in
which some of these stories are told.
Maybe it’s the seduction of the epic
statement over the subtler charms of the
everyday. Maybe it’s the execution.
Maybe it stems from a misunderstanding
on how advertising works or what people
seek from brands.
Whatever the reason, these grand and
lofty overstatements are a different type
of sexism because they so
self-consciously reference the very
institutions that repress women yet pat
themselves on the back. They indulge in
an exaggerated sense of their own
importance while ignoring the principles
of what effective advertising must do.
This is not progressive advertising. It's
just another type of brutality.
Know More
Vineet Gupta
Managing Director
22feet Tribal Worldwide
The Advertising Hangover…
The biggest advantage of the digital
industry is the lack of legacy. This allows
all players an opportunity to define the
rules for themselves and draft their own
charter. However, by virtue of it being
clubbed with the advertising industry,
a lot of its practices are being forced on
the digital industry. The onus is on each
of us to make sure we do not fall into
that trap. While emulating might seem to
be easiest, it will not be the most effective.
Imagine asking an industry where all hell
breaks loose over a typo to be ok with
the concept of perpetual beta. Tough.
But if they really want to be a part of this
change, there are a few things they
would need to reconsider and relook.
First of all, it requires a complete overhaul
of the current culture where everything
starts and stops at the ‘creative director’.
Organisations need to stop building
creative functions and instead work
towards building a creative culture. One
where every individual is encouraged to
contribute and make mistakes, without
the fear of being judged or overruled.
Where every individual is able to provide
unbiased feedback, irrespective of whom
it is meant for. Building a strong culture is
the foundation of any successful
organisation and in the case of digital it
becomes even more critical as it runs the
risk of being overpowered by an existing
(advertising) culture.
Hiring is another critical pillar. Digital
organisations need to understand and
embrace a dramatic shift in who and why
they hire. The new breed of talent is
doing things in new ways. This kind of
talent doesn't necessarily fill any job
description or stereotype. It is therefore
important to redefine hiring policy and
revisit retention policies. To not just hire
people for skills but to ensure that the
work that is expected out of them is in
line with what they have been hired for.
The biggest challenge is not competition
but the inability to foster an entrepreneurial
spirit within the organisation. That can
only happen if you give your people the
freedom to do what they are good at and
foster an environment that encourages
them to make mistakes.
The other challenge is to attract the right
technology talent. This is a tough task
given that for most of India’s technology
talent, joining a Digital Marketing
organisation is not even an option. Their
preference would be the likes of Google,
Infosys, TCS, etc. It's a massive task
therefore to not just increase awareness
for ourselves within the tech talent pool
but also build systems within the
organisation that allow them to lead the
mandate, given that in most cases
technology is the differentiator. It is
important for all digital organisations to
have a clear and strong tech / innovation
story that helps them in attracting this
talent.
Digital organisations need to get over the
Advertising hangover. Advertising is just a
small aspect of what this medium can
deliver. Today, digital players have the
opportunity to directly impact every
aspect of the marketing organisation
including CRM, Loyalty, Business
Intelligence and Sales. It is important to
focus less on just competition and a lot
more on collaboration. This includes
collaboration in the technology space
and service providers who so far have
probably been looked at as vendors only.
This also requires a huge change in the
internal team structures that makes the
potential technology partners look at us
as serious collaborators. For long the
industry has looked at itself as a services
player. Today, we have the opportunity to
move a significant part of our offering
from a service offering to a product
offering. That requires a fundamental
change in how we define our life cycle,
our revenue streams and our team
structures. It includes a different mindset
that believes in investing for the future in
new ways. It requires a stronger focus on
prototyping and creating our own briefs
rather than hiding behind one or the lack
of one.
Last but not the least, we need to
reinvent our approach to leadership and
encourage younger, fresher talent to step
up and take charge in a manner that is
disruptive and focuses more on changing
the game rather than focusing on game
changers.
It is time for Digital to move out of the
advertising fold in India and make a mark
of its own. The organisations that
provide that independence to their digital
counterparts are the ones that will reap
the benefits.
I am lucky enough to be a part of one.
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Know More
Alex Hesz
Director of Digital
adam&eveDDB
Understanding the new 'third state'
We all know the drill. The buzz of the
phone on the bedside table.
The Sunday conference call.
The “I’ve-got-to-send-a-quick-email”
holiday. Sure, it’s 7.30 pm on Friday, but
not in California, it’s not. Somewhere,
someone is at the office, and they have
something terribly important to tell you.
Right now.
The traditional lines between work and
life have been blurred. The idea of
checking out and “powering down” is no
longer viable for many of us. Constant
connection to our clients, colleagues and
work means office environments and
working hours have become a fraction of
what we call work.
This is not news – it’s seen as a cause of
our diminishing home lives. We’re worse
off for it. Worse parents, husbands and
wives. Worse people.
There is another theory:
this phenomenon has led to a new state
– a third state – where we are always a
bit at work, always a bit not at work.
The major factor, of course, is
technology. Devices, applications and
processes have transformed our access
to one another, and the way we work.
The presumption in discussions about
work-life balance is that this has been a
one-way street; these devices and
applications have simply bled work into
life, diminishing the latter and letting the
former grow dominant. I’m not sure
that’s true.
The OECD has found that nations in
which people work the fewest average
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hours (Turkey, Mexico, Korea, Chile) also
have the poorest work-life balance.
Working more hours doesn’t equal a
poor work-life balance. The number of
hours devoted to leisure (“socialising with
friends/family, hobbies, games”) has no
correlation with the time devoted to work.
Something is happening to the way we
work and socialise, allowing us to do
these things simultaneously. Sure, there
are times where we are only at work or at
leisure, but so many of us often find
ourselves in situations that cannot
reasonably be described as 100% either.
Imagining work intruding on home is very
easy. What we ignore is the opposite.
There are enormous benefits to work
feeling less like work, to life intruding.
Working hours were not a critical
consideration in The Sunday Times’
100 Best Companies to Work For
Rankings. Environment was. Physical
space was. Even closeness of
relationship with co-workers was.
Anyone who has seen the BBC’s The
Call Centre, which features the firm Save
Britain Money – consistently rated as one
of the country’s top five workplaces –
can see the benefits of work made to feel
like life.
And we can see that merger happening
in technology more than anywhere else.
No longer are leisure products restricted
to that space, and no longer are work
tools viable if confined to those occasions.
Tools and technologies designed for
leisure (and dismissed as for kids) –
instant messaging, multiplayer gaming,
vanishing messaging, gesture control –
are rapidly and effectively being
appropriated into the workplace just as
fast as tools designed for work are being
disrupted or discontinued (now
BlackBerrys, next linear email).
Whole corporations are lubricated
internally by off-the-record,
person-to-person group chats that more
closely resemble teenager-friendly
messenger products of old (remember
MSN?) or new (WhatsApp) than email.
Gaming dynamics have been applied to
business problems such as group
training and dynamic problem-solving.
Accenture’s Gamification and Workplace
Behaviour Modification podcast is its
most popular download.
The blurring of lines between leisure and
work poses a challenge to marketers.
Work and play are no longer clear-cut
and this means targeting that third
space. How can products or services
make life support work and work
resemble life?
The success of the iPhone over the
BlackBerrys will, in part, go down to its
recognition of that third space. Products,
services and businesses as diverse as
Graze, Skype, Soho House, Barclays
Cycle Hire and Nike+ FuelBand all play in
that third space.
As technologies further blur the lines,
products, services and businesses will
need to specifically and effectively serve
that space, and those that serve only
one extreme or the other will find
themselves pushed toward the margin.
Last Word
Contents
No Shoes, No Wallet, No Problem
Is Apple Pay gonna be old news before you even had the
01
Madhukar’s Message
21- 23
Customer - Centricity
Best of DDB Mudra
Canon
Pan Bahar
Orbit
TVS Wego
02 - 05
Global Connect
Logitech
Global Wins
Pfizer
Global News
Huawei Honor
Sony PIX
06 - 07
Back to the Books
DDB Launches DDB- U in India
chance to use it? Maybe. New technology developed at
Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, is making even the
most advanced alternative payment methods look like
bartering with gold doubloons. Facial recognition software
finally found a use for itself besides creeping everyone out.
Facepay might finally be the answer.
Facepay’s state-of-the-art scanning technology uses an
individual’s distinctive facial capillary structure to identify
McDowells
them much in the same way fingerprints do. Every person’s
Sony Max
capillary networks are different (yes, even identical twins)
which makes this new scanning technology a natural fit for the biometric payment industry. And it’s
24
08 - 16
Thus Spake Zeigler
The demise and rise of our industry
The Highlights
India People Day
RBI governor gives the Green Batti
Firki - The Integrated Planning Meet
25
26-27
Signature bat for LG
#MeetSouthAfrica
Wassup @ MICA?
18 - 20
28-29
30-31
And new surveys show that as many as 75% of American shoppers are open to alternative payment
Sonal Dabral
methods thanks to increased security concerns surrounding traditional credit cards and cold, hard
Sambit Mohanty
cash. The biggest hurdle for retailers and payment processors may be convincing skeptics that
Mandeep Malhotra
with increased technology actually comes increased financial safety.
Amazing People
Know More
Indian Advertising and Sexism
State Farm
The Advertising Hangover…
Deutsche Telekom
Understanding the new 'third state'
Radiant
McDonald’s
Madhukar Kamath
Kabir Sen
BBVA
StarHub
80% of mobile payments in China with Apple Pay and Android Pay being launched in early 2015.
Anurag Bansal
Best of DDB Worldwide
Uniforms For The Dedicated
This nationwide pay-play marks a smart move by Facepay as the country quickly becomes the
Thought Leadership
Pradeep Debnath
Media Spotlight
Amnesty International
Guts & Glory
Samyak Chakrabarty
The Undisputed Champions!
17
chain is targeting $2 billion in Chinese sales by the end of this year and hopes to open up over 5,000
epicenter of alternative mobile payment technology. National favorite Alipay currently accounts for
DDB MudraMax’s Misunderstood
Scoreboard
New Joinees
Shanghai’s 100% Genuine Imported Foods chain stores. Never heard of it? The Australian-based
Chinese locations in the next few years.
An Interview with Craig Lonnee
GutBandhan
not just a pipe dream: Facepay facial scanning is now an acceptable form of payment at all of
IBC
Surprisingly, 100% Genuine Foods isn’t the only brick-and-mortar store willing to take a risk on
facial scanning payments. A handful of Finnish cafes have agreed to soon install facial recognition
software developed by tech firm Uniqul that measures facial geometry for identification. It’s no
fluke. The biometrics industry is expected to grow to over $23 billion globally by 2019 and is
catching the attention of everyone from startups to global beverage marketers. Would you feel
comfortable letting a cash register scan your expression for a loaf of bread? If Facepay has
anything to do with it, you will soon enough.
Sources: Psfk.com, Takepart.com, Banktech.com, Bostonglobe.com
Last Word
No Shoes, No Wallet, No Problem
Centraal Beheer
Netflix
Editor - Pilloo Mullan | Editorial Team - Neeti Nayak and Siddharth Raman | Cover Design - Prasad Kamtekar, Art Director, DDB Mudra West.
Artwork – Vithal Malgundkar and Sachin Panchal | Print Production – Chandrashekhar Deshmukh and Hrushikesh Inamdar, Gutenberg Networks India.
HotStuff Book Issue (Cover Inside Front Back)
Open Size : (W) 472 X (H) 345 mm
H tStuff
A
HotStuff Book Issue (Cover Front Back)
Open Size : (W) 472 X (H) 345 mm
n e w s l e t t e r
f r o m
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M u d r a
G r o u p
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