I would like us to be better than yesterday, every day: Parikshit Bhattaccharya, BBH India

“Every other day, I hear an idea that scares me, which is a good sign,” said Parikshit Bhattaccharya, the Chief Creative Officer at BBH India, a creative arm of Publicis Groupe. Appointed a year ago to lead the creative responsibilities and transform the agency's culture, he embraces the challenge with open arms.

In an elaborate chat with exchange4media.com, Parikshit Bhattaccharya spoke about building a fearless team of creatives and adding new clients to the roster.

When asked about his experience with BBH India and completing a year, Bhattaccharya said, “The last year was about building a high talent density team, creating a robust client roster, shipping modern work, and creating a culture where everyone is at the service of an idea. All of this, simultaneously. We have a high-energy, collaborative, and almost optimally formed creative leadership team. We have our four ECDs: Ashwin Palkar, Nisheeth Srivastava, Arvind Menon, and Swati Balani with Ashwin double-hatting with the head of the experience role. And under them, we have a diverse, hungry, and ferociously talented bunch of creatives.”

On his strategy so far, Bhattaccharya said: “What was needed when I joined was to increase the RPM (revolutions per minute) of the agency, creating a culture where there is an obsession with ideas and an uncompromising attitude towards being great client partners. Himanshu and I wanted the agency to play like a sports team. And while we do everything put zag at the heart of everything that we do.”

The agency has won around a dozen pitches in the last year, including brands like HDFC Ergo, upGrad, and IHCL, among others. Other than them, some of the clients include CaratLane, Red Bull, Garnier, and many brands from Beam Suntory, among others.

“We wish to work with clients with tough problems. Our business is very subjective and eventually, everything boils down to taste, so obviously we look for clients with whom our taste matches. But also, clients who desperately need a zag to move ahead because ideas in our business are their growth engines; one idea can change the fate of a business”, he added on the growth of the agency in the last year having different clients on board.

While there has been an infinite amount of conversations on the scarcity of talent especially in the advertising world, Bhattaccharya feels otherwise.

He said, “Honestly, my experience says otherwise. We're witnessing an influx of new talent entering the business, with new roles being created and recruitment efforts expanding to new places and professions. Digital growth is driving this expansion immensely. I believe this is the most exciting time to be in the industry because we now have an incredible array of resources to draw upon and create solutions.”

“When I started two decades ago, advertising was defined by just one or two mediums, but now it's a complex landscape with blurred boundaries, offering endless creative possibilities. As a creative person, I feel there's no limit to what we can achieve. We must continue to have faith, do good work, and not be constrained by outdated definitions of advertising,” he added.

Since there has been an increasing conversation going on in the advertising world, on who is the true owner of the awards, we asked the same question to Bhattaccharya who said, that they belong to the agency, the people, and the clients. “I feel nobody cracks an idea; an idea comes to you, and then it takes a village to successfully execute it. So, the credit list is always going to be long. I feel that we sometimes identify too much with awards. Awards are a part of the business because they are important; they indicate where you stand and allow benchmarking of your work against the world's best. However, once they are achieved, it's time to move on”, he said.

“It's amazing to win awards because there are so many ferociously talented people all over the world, including our country, so to be recognized amongst them feels great. That feeling, however, comes at the end of all these amazing feelings that you experience, from converting a brief to cracking the idea to executing it, to seeing people react to it and playing back the idea and what it has done to them. That's what we live for in this business, and awards are a part of it. They give you a great high which lasts only a night, but what keeps you going is the constant desire to create work that impacts people”, he added on the importance of winning awards.

With software like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Generative AI taking centre stage in the future of advertising, and content creation, Bhattaccharya feels that advancement in technology will give more room for creativity and experimentation.

He said, “The Indian narrative will be distinct. We are witnessing significant transformation and innovation, leading to job creation as well. Technology, particularly AI, has fundamentally altered the landscape, enhancing creativity. It enables deep personalization, facilitating the creation of engaging brand content in various formats and guiding consumers through the entire purchase cycle. Technology provides us with greater room for experimentation and innovation, strengthening creativity and enabling creative agencies to craft complete transformation stories for businesses and brands. The more we engage with AI, the more our capabilities expand, allowing us to tackle the next problem with greater insight. The potential is vast, and AI is poised to elevate the quality of work while diminishing mediocre outputs.”

Finally, when asked about the future of the agency and what was his motto, he said, “I'd like us to go faster, do more, and do better. I would like us to be better than yesterday, every day.”