We strive to be a solution-oriented agency: Saurabh Saksena

Saurabh Saksena took charge as the CEO of VMLY&R India in December last year. Well-known in the industry for his various leadership roles, Saksena’s vision for the integrated agency includes combining the strengths of the company, increasing the scale, building capabilities and bringing in more diversity.

In a conversation with e4m Editor Naziya Alvi Rahman, Saksena talks about his plans for VMLY&R India, their hopes & preparations for the Cannes Lions Festival this year, and more

Edited Excerpts:

VMLY&R was integrated in India in 2018. Considering that the company does not have a long legacy in the country, how do you plan to take things forward?

While VMLY&R in its current avatar is new, the legacy of all the individual brands has been around for a long time in different forms within the WPP group. These are teams that have built capabilities. The Glitch, which is the jewel in our crown, has also been around for a long time.

So, going forward, we are working on combining our strengths. We plan to grow in scale and build on capabilities, whether it is customer experience, brand experience, D2C shopping, commerce or activations. We are taking all these capabilities and putting them together to create connected brand experiences for the businesses that we work for.

A lot of our clients may not require the entire suite of our services but they may require one or two or more. So that’s how we are restructuring; by ensuring that we have the right cast & crew to deliver to the marketing problems.

Some of your campaigns did exceedingly well and won you metals at the Cannes Lions soon after your inception in India, how are you planning to repeat or better the success this year? What kind of work are you sending to Cannes this time?

I wish I could share more at this stage, but what I can tell you is that the global creative council of VMLY&R is extremely happy with the entries we have this year and all the work that has happened over last few months under the supervision of our Chief Creative Officer Mukund (Olety). So, there are lots of promises and we are looking at it with great expectations and anticipation. We are hoping to break our last year’s record.

VMLY&R India was recently restructured, how has the agency benefitted from it?

We are now casting a crew specific to a business solution that a client might require. That means we no more have a social media silo or a silo which is only doing VX. We have an account management team or even a creative team that is pretty much integrated. So each team has the capabilities within to take care of the requirements of the clients.

Another thing that we are trying to rebuilt through restructuring is diversity. At the agency, we have 57 per cent men and 43 per cent women. But then there is also diversity in terms of the background of the people; like their socio-economic background, where have they grown up, their education and exposure. This gives us more inclusivity and diversity of ideas. We strive to be a solution-oriented agency. It’s not about a campaign here and there or a big idea communication. The solution to a marketing problem may not be a campaign but it could be launch of a D2C platform. So, the teams are working on these lines and we can see the shift already.

Last year, VMLY&R and Geometry joined forces to launch VMLY&R Commerce Encompass, an end-to-end creative commerce company. How has it benefitted the company?

VMLY&R Commerce is now a far bigger entity. We are amongst the very few agencies that have offline & online commerce capabilities. Kartik and Shankar (Shinde), who head our e-commerce business, come with experience in D2C businesses, in creating market spaces, demand generation and technology & solutions. So, this is the team which can deliver a lot and is already delivering.

How does VMLY&R differentiate itself from the competition in the market?

To begin with, we are a very connected team that works with very connected brands. Connected brand experiences are important. Consumers may not always look at one part of the puzzle but at the connected experience, and that’s what we provide.

Also, the capabilities of our leadership teams are immense. We just have to bring it together, harness it and take it to another level. Another thing I feel is that our creative teams are not always only thinking about campaigns but about solutions for the client.

Lastly, we are also a very connected network at the global level. Like, a solution that a team in Malaysia or Thailand might have worked on may become relevant for us and our Indian solutions can work for them too.