 "Colvyn Harris")
Colvyn Harris, CEO of JWT, South Asia, tells Alokananda Chakraborty that the agency believes in chasing market leadership for the brands it manages. Excerpts:
Goafest was your best performance at an award function in many years. What are the three things to which you will ascribe your success in 2014?
First, there was relentless focus by the full team towards this one goal. Our vision was to raise our creative standards, across our full body of work, be it mainstream or digital. Second, we recruited the best of talent across the six cities where we have full-service offices. This freshness in our talent strategy has paid off, as besides improving what we do for clients in the respective marketplaces, the overall quality and effectiveness has improved considerably. Third, and this follows from the last point I made, our skills and capabilities across the specialist disciplines of account management, planning, digital and creative are more cohesive owing to our triumvirate structure.
Cannes will not be such a cakewalk with the whole world converging there to prove their creative prowess. How have you prepared for it?
As an agency, we don't chase awards: What we chase is market leadership for the brands we steward. That comes with brilliant strategy and sparkling creativity. That's our first award, and that's what our professional integrity rests on. If we win on the work, then that's reward enough. However, yes, we've been preparing all year: the work we do for our clients has built in it our desire to meet the expectations and ambitions of the market categories in which those brands compete in. We know we've done great work this year, and are most hopeful that we get recognition that our work deserves.
One persistent criticism of Goafest has been that it turns a blind eye to effectiveness in advertising. Do you think creativity is measurable and that it can influence consumer behaviour, sales revenues and profitability?
There is a time for craft, and our creative craft skills. Goafest celebrates that, and so does Cannes. We have Effies, and the Cannes Effectiveness awards as a forum for that recognition. Creativity is for market success and to build brands for the long term - that means it is only about market effectiveness and metrics which establish success or failure of a business. It's not for art's sake, it's about brand success.
As a jury member for Creative Effectiveness at Cannes, what are the things you would be looking out for? How would you measure the creative effectiveness of a campaign?
The campaign effectiveness evaluation needs to be around strategy, ideas, measurement and results. The analysis of the results is critical and complex and needs comprehensive understanding of where all creativity made the difference. It's also about scale, because small ideas with small ambition may meet some criteria but that's not the way it's required to be looked at. Another element is that the idea needs enough legs to last - longer than a gimmick - and the residual values should accrue to a brand in the long term.
What do you think could be done to improve participation in the event and the fraternity's enthusiasm in celebrating new work and upcoming talent?
As an industry forum, there is adequate marketing and awareness of the event. Our young talent enjoys the experience, and the celebration is evident for those that witness the three days. The industry needs to support a forum like this as it has been created by us, and for us, and it's the only consistent platform to reward creativity and talent. Like at the IPL (Indian Premier League) you identify fresh talent, Goafest can be that forum for our creative benchmarking.
Talking about talent, the last few years haven't been terribly promising for JWT, with a lot of top talent deserting you for greener pastures. In fact, you seem to always look outside all the time to fill the top slots in the agency. What does it say about succession planning at JWT?
We are a dynamically driven agency with huge ambition for growth. That comes from ensuring our clients continue to do well in their respective marketplaces. To that end, we know great talent delivers that for them and us. Our scale requires us to be comprehensively staffed in all our full-service offices, across disciplines. Our talent mining process is continuous and that will continue. When we identify great talent, we take it forward. Our last year's track record of hiring senior talent is evidence, and now we have the best the industry has to offer.
Talking about the Indian advertising industry, do you think the improving sentiment will make clients loosen their purse strings? Also, has digital measurement metrics made advertising more accountable?
What does loosen mean? To us nothing. We have to remain focused on what our intent is on the brands we work with. Market sentiment plays no role. Our clients are clear and it is those objectives which we pursue. Digital is a different subject. My advice to all is that the future is here, near, and we should make the investments required to be specific and target those that are most likely to buy the brands in question.
