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Interview with V Sunil (New Delhi).

Q: You started working as a mechanic. Then you entered the advertising field: Lintas, Ogilvy. After that you founded an independent agency, “A”, that in 2007 merged in W&K Delhi, where you work now as Executive Creative Director. Your career evolved according to the Indian economic boom. Tell us about it.

V. S.: After I finished school, I went to Bangalore from the southern part of the country, to get a job in a industrial company where my uncle was working and it worked out, I also started to do painting and design. Those days the country was much poorer, especially the art field, and a friend of mine told me. “if you want to be an artist you must become a commercial artist and join an adv company, because as an artist you will not survive”. So I started just for fun to make simple layout, I put together a small portfolio and finally I got a job in a small studio in Bangalore. After that I came to Delhi: I found a job in a small company, I became an art-director, I was only 23. Our advertising works were influenced by the West. They were pretty much in English, we were always looking at some western star portfolio. Then Ogilvy started bringing in an Indian style (see Pyush Pandey interview). I was responsible to turn the office around and we made a lot of good works. There I worked with Neil French: besides being a strong player, he always had a strong point of view, he was a source of inspiration to me.

Q: The historical entry of India in the market economy began in 1991, so exactly twenty years ago. What kind of changes did happen in Indian advertising since that momentous change?

V. S.: It was a massive change. When I joined advertising we had very few TV channels, very few newspapers, you didn’t know exactly what was going on. Every layout was done by hand. Today we have more than 800 tv channels, so many newspapers in all the languages. In India we have 32 languages, a hundred of dialects. Everything changed. People were grown up without having a coke, once the only person that could afford a coke was a rich person, but after this global change, India is now like every other global economy. Half of the country is poor but the other half is prosperous, and live like any other people that do well in the rest of the world. Concerning advertising language, as I just said Ogilvy was resetting the western way of advertising. But when there was the economic boom, admen become very lazy in India, they started doing the same thing again and again, many of them were just following our approach, doing what Ogilvy was doing. Also people who left Ogilvy and go to other agencies just keep doing the same things. After sometimes you start to see the same of everything, the same thing everywhere. We understood something should be done. That was the time when we decided it was time to start our own new company called A. A is proper Indian independent company. When I was in Ogilvy I was very much fascinated by companies like Wienden&Kennedy, Mother, 180 Amsterdam. They were doing very good works, I realised you don’t need to be an international networks with have many offices full of people. You just need one office in Amsterdam and you can do work for all over Europe, you just need very few people. So that’s how we started our agency, and for a while that’s what happened: few people talking to the entire country. But one day we got one phone call from Dan Wieden, and then everything changed again.

Q: Few years ago, during a conference you and Mohit Jayal (the CEO of your agency, said that creativity could help building a better India, connecting marketing with reality. What’s the opinion of your clients about this?

V. S.: All brands want to express through advertising, but lots of them think that they’ve done just with the messaging, while there’s no real action. In the same way, when some brands behave differently and start spending their money meaningfully, I think they can create a dialogue with the people, and this is good for both. In some cases we manage to do a little bit, some cases we manage to you do properly, and some cases we fail very badly. We think that if a lot of big corporates – brands that could spend  – would use their money well, they could help a lot. In the case of the Airlines, we used our creativity rather than money power to change the experience of people that before were used to travel by train, now they can all fly.

Q: Let’s talk about Bollywood. Is it still a kind of entertainment that helps escaping reality or even in Indian cinema something has changed?

V. S.: Even in this case we need to speak about idleness and conventionality. People working in Bollywood do not want to change, they keep doing the same formula with love and dance and fight sequences, and these movies are really meaningless, they think they need to do something for poor people, because they think the people are dumb and they need to give an entertainment to distract  them from their suffering, a kind of escape. That was very much the case of the Seventies, when the people were much poorer, struggling, and needed for an escape, but now the people have the money: people can spend. Bollywood is stucked in the old clichés. But it is possible to produce real movies, make money and send a good message to the people. In the South and East of India we are producing cool movies that are meaningful like Slumdog Millionaire (the academy-award movie directed by  Danny Boyle).

Q: For the Western audience the movie Slumdog Millionaire represented a sort of window on modern India.

V. S.: It is interesting to know that the movie was inspired by a true story. It was a project right outside Delhi, to educate this slum children, the project was based on computers. Someone wrote a book on this as a case-story, and this book then was turned into a movie. A lot of people said this movie was selling slum boys abroad, I believe the people that were showing some skepticism, just didn’t want to face an uncomfortable truth. The movie showed how these kids really live. It’s time to go beyond Bollywood and try to do more realistic cinema. Some people are trying to do so just now, a fewer are succeeding so hopefully there’s a big change coming on the way.

Q: Few years ago you said that advertising agencies must give a contribution to help the middle class to go through a phase of evolution. What is your vision of Indian middle class today?

V. S.: Typical what happens all over the world is that middle class drives the feeling    of the country. But in India when low class becomes middle class they start behaving like upper class. Our middle class is a little bit self-centred. They say they want to leave together in the same country, but then they misbehave in everyday life… they are not ready to make the effort. They want a change but cannot face it. In India it’s more exciting what happens in small towns and villages. I strongly believe that the change will come from really lower classes, that live in small towns, religious, less global. These people are more intelligent and smarter, while middle class in the cities is stucked. They are got used to money, because by now they had money for a long time, and just think about how to hold it, instead of using it to do useful things. They should, could be much more giving and much more understanding.

Q: Your agency also publishes a two-month magazine on India, “Motherland”. Do you consider this magazine as a mean to influence the middle class?

V. S.: This magazine was created to fill the gap of not having a magazine on Indian culture, so to speak. Everyone here who speaks about India says “Oh my God, we have so much culture, every state has its own culture”. But most of local magazines are badly designed, and the alternative is the international magazines like Times, Elle, GQ, etc. Obviously they talk to a different audience. There was a need for a beautifully designed magazine speaking about culture, something that could represent a kind of mean of education for the young people.

Q: Let’s speak about your campaign “Incredible !ndia”. It has updated the image of India in the world, set it free from several cliché.

V. S.: People used to think of poor India, we want to show a different side of India. Of course there is one India that is very poor, but there is also a India which is the one we are living in and that could be very different. We all like to eat very good food, went to good schools, we have a great sense of aesthetics and a very rich culture, but this is not the India that is seen by the world. We wanted to package everything very well, without putting any filter. In the campaign everything is actually truth, every picture is rough but real, as a message from a friend from another part of the world. When we started the campaign the tourism industry was really down, the business was running half of its capacity, hotels were selling rooms very cheap. Like 50 dollars for a luxury hotel suites. The 11th September had just happened, India was seen as a unique block with Afghanistan and Pakistan. In that precise historic moment our campaign had a strong impact, changed the way the world was looking at the country, and it really helped a lot of Indian businessmen to do business abroad. Since then we did the campaign every year, with new subjects and style, and in the end it became a big international campaign. The success of the campaign really changed the hospitality industry in a huge way. It caused a lot of pressure on the Government to change things, so they started building airports, roads, and it’s great to feel to be part of this.

Q: “Incredible !ndia” was using stereotypes on India with a smile, showing the humour of your country, and this is a feature that most of the time is hidden by cliché.

V. S.: That’s true! There is a lot of humor in the way the country behaves, a lot of laugh and happiness. But then, when you see Indian people abroad they are different, they are not outgoing, they are less confident. This is something we are trying to change. The economic growth gave us confidence: fifteen years ago, when you went to a western city, could be London or Milan, you used to feel under pressure. But in the last six, seven years it is different. We want to know where are the best places, the best restaurants. Once we were overwhelmed by the things we saw. Now this is no longer the case. I think that also the humor injected in the campaign helped.

Q: There’s another claim, that was not signed by you, that was created for a campaign to describe your country but then became political in the campaign of  BJP.  We mean “India Shining”. The scientist Vandana Shiva accused this slogan to be an arrogant statement, totally unaware of the problems of the majority of Indian people.

V. S.: I agree with this. I know the people who did the campaign, they asked us to do another campaign and we say not to them. Because I don’t think India is shining, I think we have a lot of problems. It is a very superficial campaign, but the campaign showed a really bad taste, it was wrong. I don’t want to say too much because it was made by another company, it was almost political propaganda. The only thing shining was a couple of cities, in the rest of the country there was suicides, people had no money to eat. So how can you say “India is shining”? It was a mistake to deliver that message, because it does not stand. It was a self-inward looking campaign, to celebrate, but there was nothing to celebrate.

Q: Many experts say that India is a country very complex and difficult to understand, but recently very few countries communicated with the same effectiveness than India. To make an example we think of the big campaign that was on air during the World Economic Forum in Davos on 2006). India, in order to attract investments, aired a massive campaign involving advertising and P.R. How do you explain this contradiction?

V. S.: This is why we can say “Incredible India”, our system is very complex. There are plenty of contradictions. You can see a fancy hotel on one side of the street, and on the other there is a slum. When we say Incredible India it’s a self-mocking joke. For example our office is very beautiful, because we are part of a corporate world, we are in a shopping area, but just around the corner there’s a slum. Here everyone is different, everyone speaks a different language, we have a lot of dialects. Our campaigns, realised in English, are then translated in hindi, and in the end they can exist in 18 different versions. When we starting executing the campaign we realised we need to hold all these things together. And the best fitting world was “incredible”.

Q: In all countries advertising could be split in two categories: mass market and a more sophisticated communication. In India social gaps are even bigger, is bigger also the distance between these two markets?

V. S.: On one side you have what is called aspirational works that consists of copies of western clichés, and this is 50% of the works, things like heavy eye brush or unbelievable shampoo ads. On the other you have campaigns very loud and irritating. It’s a very clear separation that splits in two the advertising world. Once in a while, in the middle of this you see some good stuff. Like Vodafone, Cadbury’s or Indigo airlines. We believe in this “space” in-between. Every time we do something new and good the public loves it. Besides advertising, there are really good cases that show that people like change. For example…India is a tea-drinking country. In Delhi there were not places where young people were hanging out, no cafés or coffee shops where young people can go on a date. And then suddenly out of the blue came two coffee-shop chains. And they are doing really well. When there is a change and the change is good people love it. This is something lot of marketing people and clients don’t understand because they don’t want to leave their comfort zone. There’s a lot interesting advertising that happens in the country. But the creative level isn’t good enough, we have a huge problem in terms of lack of talents, that is something that happens all across the world but particularly in India.

Q: The most popular testimonials are cricket players or Bollywood actors, while in Italy we have football players and TV celebrities. Do you happen to work with this personalities?

V. S.: We plan to avoid as much as possible but sometime we do. The problem happens when the same person does advertising for several brands. The same person can be selling in television soft drinks, fashion, anything. So you have very important stars who demands a lot of money to sell shampoo, jewellery, retail, and the result is very confusing.

Q: India is also the homeland of software. Are new technologies creating something new?

V. S.: India is the homeland of a huge outsourcing of the so-called IT industry. I don’t’ think they are creating anything new here, they all work for big international companies, but we are just used as outsourcing staff. Many people working, but a very few innovation discoveries are coming out from there. Here people are not creating the new Apple.

Q: In Europe advertising is considered to be guilty to create unnecessary needs and cover all that corporations do wrong. On the other side, we read that in India advertising is accused to act in favour of a loss of cultural identity. For example all protests against Pepsi Cola o Kentucky Fried Chicken.

V. S.: This thing that happened at KFC it was just the case of a few farmers who burst into the KFC outlet in Bangalore, and broke the place down. But the brand is still doing well, it is selling chickens in countries where there’s a lot of chicken already! Pepsi had some issues in some states in the South, but they are doing good. It’s the same in Europe with the difference that here things still need to be fixed, we are a work-in-progress country, under construction, we all need to help. This is something that W+K especially in Delhi is very interested in doing, what we are trying to do. And this is why we publish a magazine, we do art and are involved in so many other things, hopefully to fix things. We want to use our power to influence through communication the government and we hope our work for the brands could be of help for everybody.

Q: Your campaign for motorcycle Royal Enfield says: “Leave Home”, and the call-to-action is to use the bike as a mean to leave the parents’ home. This issue of young people still very attached to their families is something very Italian too.

V. S.: All of us grow up thinking you can never leave your parents. The society built around us a security and comfort level, most people think that something could ever go wrong. So you make insurance policies, make the right investments, so that in the future everything is fine, everyone holds to each other, kids don’t want to leave their parents, parents don’t want to leave their kids. But how can we become a strong nation if everyone is like stuck with each other and no one wants to leave this comfort zone? We need to start a conversation about this. We wanted to give a contribution to bring up the issue. When we released this campaign “Leave home”, we know the campaign cannot change it but at least can stimulate a conversation. We believe that we as a society to become independent means to became strong. This is the kind o message we wanted to give to India.

Q: Every campaign tells us something about the society. We read that in India products like “Afghan Snow” or “Fair and Lovely”, are used to make the face skin paler. The famous writer Arundhati Roy used these examples to prove that India is – among all modern societies – the most racist.

V. S.: India could be very racist. If you put together people coming from all states of India, you can immediately know where they come from, because they will look very different. People from the South like me would look very dark, while others from the North will look very fair. People from North- East look oriental, almost Chinese. Everyone has his own accent, but for a while people lived together very peacefully, even if they belonged to different religions. Recently, up to the last government, there was a kind of HIndu fundamentalist sentiment. So there were issues of Hindu muslin fights. This fair clean thing is not completely racist, but it is also true that from the time you were born, you will listen all mothers saying that if their daughter is not fair, she will not get married, or will not get a job. So it is normal that a company sells products to make the skin fair. The problem is not what the people want to buy, but the message that the company gives. If a tv commercial shows a girl that goes for an job interview and she is rejected, and then she put on some make-up that makes her face paler and she gets the job. I think this kind of message is wrong. In the end we have this product and people buy it because believe in this shit, but my issue is: why advertisers should spread this message?

Q: We read that in your office there’s a sign that says: “Work is Worship”.

V. S.: There’ s a double key to the reading. Basically we really believe work comes first. We put work before everything else, we really want to do the kind of work we like to do. In fact, in the past year we walked away from two clients, loosing the money and all. But this is a line that was said in the socialist era and we are using it now with a different meaning.

Q: A final question. You grew up in the economic boom, can you tell us what kind of future do you imagine for yourself?

V. S.: Well, a part from the all art, design, publishing and music, all stuff that is already going on, we are also involved in other cultural activities that the country is doing, so I think my future will evolve in that direction.