Needed: A shoulder to cry on

An ad agency-client relationship is increasingly no longer about client service, but about client servility

The last couple of weeks have witnessed a pitched and high-decibel battle between ad agency MullenLowe Lintas and client Motilal Oswal Financial Services on where does the actual ownership of a creative idea eventually reside. On October 15, MullenLowe Lintas Group Chief Creative Officer and Chairman Amer Jaleel took to LinkedIn to share his angst, his absolute dismay and complete disgust over Motilal Oswal’s in-house campaign released recently, which did not give credit to the agency for the original idea and allegedly copied the creative.

Ramnik Chhabra from the client’s end was quick to react. “I always tried to acknowledge the agency for the specific work they had done through my posts on LI/SM as well as awards credits etc. At the same time, we had also made it clear that there would be some projects, where certain circumstances demand we would not engage with an agency and do it in-house. Over the past five years, we have done eight plus such campaigns. This is one such; where, based on circumstances, we decided to do it in-house. We created the script/situations, and a production house added some more and executed the film.”

He went on to add, “Didn’t realise this would create an issue. Acknowledge that while the original idea has come from the agency, we have built it together. Also assumed that since we have compensated the agency for the idea over previous campaigns; it is the client's property and can be used for a campaign created in-house. Apologies for any angst caused.”

Mr Jaleel’s original grouse was, “It’s common these days to take the most valuable output of the agency, ‘the brand idea’ and move on. Get the exact same campaign done ‘outside’. No shame. No guilt. No ethics.” And Mr Jaleel got a lot of support from within his fraternity. In my nearly 40 years in the business, I have seen a lot of this stuff happen. Only it has become more blatant in recent times. I can, therefore, fully sympathise with Mr Jaleel.

About 20 years ago, I was running Dentsu. We created an absolute winner of a campaign for insurance client HDFC Standard Life — Sir Utha Ke Jiyo — that went on to redefine the contours of the life insurance business. It lifted HDFC Standard Life from an obscure also-ran brand to a front-runner in almost no time. Then, in came a new chief marketing officer (CMO). He wanted an ad agency of his choice. So, within three months of the launch of a stupendously successful campaign, the agency was fired. But HDFC Life continues to use the Sir Utha Ke Jiyo line and campaign-thought to this day. Dentsu got a total of perhaps three months’ retainer fee for a campaign that has now run for nearly two decades, and may continue for much longer.

At the heart of the problem lies the retainer system of compensation. Mostly, a sum of money is agreed upon as monthly compensation for a certain team size, but the rest of the relationship is invariably not clearly defined. Very recently we ran into a problem with a leading mutual fund brand. Much of the campaign work, including four to five television commercials, were frontloaded on to the first few months of the relationship. The agency team worked almost 18-hour days for the first six months to deliver a rather elaborate campaign with a lot of outstation shooting and travel. Then the workload kind of eased out a bit. But the CMO would have none of that. He felt the agency was sitting “idle”. So he started pushing assignments on to the agency that were not part of the agreed scope-of-work. When that was pointed out to him, he got aggressive and abusive. I called him and tried to reason with him. But, to no avail. He continued to be adamant. I even sought an audience with his boss. But nothing came of it. The client finally never renewed our contract and has not paid our retainer fees for the last three-four months of the relationship, but will surely use our campaign in full. I am much tempted to emulate Mr Jaleel’s example and make a public mockery of the client.

Most times it is not just only about the monetary loss. It is the client behaviour — unapologetic, blatant, in-the-face — that hurts more. It is as if the advertising business is longer about client service, but about client servility. It is not that all clients behave negatively, but those that do vitiate the atmosphere terribly and irreparably.

The Advertising Agencies Association of India mostly doesn’t want to get involved in such disputes. There is no other fall-back mechanism or grievance redress system. Which leads me to the thought that there should possibly be an ombudsman to whom all such cases should be referred to. An authority figure that can adjudicate when clients overstep contracts on softer issues. So that justice can visibly be done. 

The writer is managing director of Rediffusion