5 Minutes With … Sandipan Bhattacharyya

Sandipan> GREY’s width and depth of creative talent across the region is quite amazing and, luckily, I’ve had the chance to work closely with some of these teams in the past as well. We’ve had many culturally relevant, multiple Lion-winning campaigns that have come out of our South Asia studios, like the Gillette Barbershop Girls, The child marriage prevention loan for IPDC, The Health Purse for Mahindra Rise and UCB Agro-Banking. 

These brilliant ideas have underlined GREY’s creative reputation in the region, besides having an undeniable impact on businesses as well as society at large. When we say Famously Effective, we mean ideas that can make a mark on popular culture to become multipliers for our clients’ businesses. That’s the focus and that’s what I will continue to try and make happen with a great bunch of clients and diverse creative teams across the region. I also think it’s time for more South Asian creatives to expand their creative footprint with the power of cultural creativity across the globe, and I’d be thrilled if I could give that more momentum.

Sandipan> It helps that we have similar cultural roots and a shared history across all three countries, but what’s really important is to understand the growth narrative and aspirations of people. Great ideas are as much about capturing a collective sentiment as they are about bringing brands and consumers closer. So, while I’m familiar with the cultural similarities in the region, it’s the nuanced differences that I would focus on understanding a bit more.

The other thing I would try and do is make our creativity more ‘borderless’ in the region, which essentially means our best talent should be deployed for the right opportunities on brands regardless of their geographical location. This gives great creatives more flex and scope while ensuring the best output for our clients.

Sandipan> As creatives, we’re lucky if our ideas are spoken of, years after they come out. I’m not a big one for glorious self-written work retrospectives, but there were a few that were indeed very satisfying for me.

‘Gillette’s Barbershop Girls’ for pushing the conversation around gender roles in India and for bringing home the country’s first Entertainment Lion.

‘The Health Purse’ for its observational simplicity and for bringing in the first D&AD Yellow Pencil in Design for India.

‘A video appeal to Cannes Lions jury members’ for its brave and satirical take on mindless awards mongering.

And the ‘Orbit White Cow’ series for still reminding me that advertising can be fun.

Sandipan> Put in the effort to understand your client’s business problems and the consumer. When clients know you care about their business as much as they do, they will respect your creative thinking.

Try and remind yourself from time to time that advertising is applied creativity. Work that is created for the sole purpose of catering to a business need. That gives your thinking some perspective.

Never underestimate the power of simplicity. It’s far more compelling than complex, indulgent ideas.

Lastly, genuine insights are extremely hard to find. Don’t let go when you get one.

Sandipan> For creative people, the transformation is usually in the mind. It’s essentially the realisation that ideas need to live and breathe where the consumer is. How we arrive at creative insights and ideas doesn’t change, how they manifest themselves does. It was in 2019 that we started the process of integrating our creative teams, combining hyper-specialised digital creative folks with mainline thinkers and mashing it all up. 

Interestingly, there’s always a bit of inertia in the beginning but when you get over that, you end up expanding the creative canvas for pretty much everyone. It’s been a very interesting journey and one that’s taught me a lot about managing change and how it can be liberating.

Of course, the integration process had an immediate impact on the agency’s creative approach. We started going to our mainline clients with more digital-first thinking and to our digital clients with more strategic creative thinking, surprising them with our capabilities. Today, 50% of our client base is for integrated mandates and that is succinct proof of our transformation.

Sandipan> At GREY we have a robust process of running the Creative Council which builds up from local to regional to global. It’s basically an upward filtration of ideas which allows our top creative minds to input ideas as they’re collaboratively shaped to win in the real world. We also have frequent borderless collabs on projects which ensures the GREY global creative community is very tight knit and accessible at all times.

For our region, I’ll be actively working with the teams to ensure the big ideas get the global attention to creative strategy, craft and PR that they deserve. Like I mentioned before, nothing would give me more satisfaction than expanding the global footprint of South Asian creativity.

Sandipan> South Asian creativity has come a very long way and that’s evident in the Cannes Lions Grands Prix and Golds that Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani agencies are winning. An Indian agency winning Global Agency of the Year at Cannes in 2022 is undeniable proof of that!

Subcontinental creativity has perhaps been dominated by social or developmental themes but then, that’s fair considering we are emerging economies with genuine issues that need addressing. From a creative perspective, our classical and indigenous music, folklore, performing arts and fine arts haven’t been leveraged enough for the world to take notice. That’s where our thriving tech and start-up ecosystem can play a big role. I think the next wave of advertising creativity could emerge from this exciting intersection of tech and cultural arts.