Rohit Ohri, Managing Partner, JWT Delhi

What I feel is that a lot of agencies win awards for ‘patli gali’ advertising, which no one has even seen. But yes, winning at the Cannes Lions, or the Agency of the Year Award at Effies carries a lot of brand equity with it. It is a recognition of one’s creativity and creates a strong perception about the quality of work done. Unfortunately, people associate creativity with the number of awards won and how extensively it is reported in the media.

Rohit Ohri, Managing Partner, JWT, is a 16-year veteran in the advertising industry, of which he has spent 15 years with JWT. He has worked on brands like ITC, Bata, Modi Telstra, Emami and the Himani Group in the course of his career.

Ohri, who has been managing the Delhi office since January 2007, led the team that created the successful ‘Yeh Dil Maange More’ and ‘Oye Bubbly’ campaigns for Pepsi. He had also led the team that launched Mountain Dew in India, which has been touted as one of the most successful brand launches in the last few years. Ohri also led the team that relaunched 7Up with Fido, which, too, is considered to a successful marketing exercise.

In a freewheeling conversation with exchange4media’s Pallavi Goorha, Ohri speaks about JWT Delhi’s performance in the year gone by and the plans for 2009.

Q. How is it that people working with JWT go out and become great guns in the industry?

It’s obviously because JWT is a fantastic training ground, and come to think of it, it is historical. We are first advertising agency and anyone who has become something in advertising has worked with JWT at one time or the other. That’s why JWT is called the ‘university of advertising’.

Q. On this issue, the overriding opinion is that a client should first approach the media agency and then go to the creative agency. Do you agree with this school of thought?

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No, I don’t think there is first among equals in this kind of race. And truly I think the way we work is through partnerships and leveraging each one’s strengths in the partnership. The media agency, the activation agency, the direct relationship and the design agency all work together from the very inception level. There’s a problem that the client has given us and we find a solution to that problem. All of us work together and put our collective solution expertise to the problem.

Q. Which, in your opinion, are the three best creative agencies in the country today?

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JWT, JWT and JWT!

Q. Have you achieved the growth targets that JWT had set for 2008?

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Yes, we have achieved our growth target, and remember that the Delhi office is the 5th or 6th largest agency in India. We are larger than Grey, BBDO, and RK Swamy BBDO. When we talk about 12-15 per cent growth, it’s a significant growth. A smaller agency can grow at 50 per cent, but then it would be a small amount really. The year 2008 was good for us and our growth remained in the healthy double digits.

Q. How is the advertising market in Delhi different from Mumbai? Do you think Delhi has caught up with Mumbai in terms of business/ billings?

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More than Delhi, if you look at it, all major clients are now headquartered in Gurgaon. For all the advertising agencies Delhi is an important market. All top spenders are now in Delhi, but unfortunately, the perception is that Mumbai is the Mecca of advertising. Plus the Bollywood industry is based in Mumbai. Going forward, agencies will realise the importance of advertising in its own scheme of things. There’s a lot of dramatic things expected in the next 2-3 years, where agencies are going to make sure the best talent is available in Delhi.

Q. How important are awards for an ad agency on the whole?

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My point of view on awards is quite different. What I feel is that a lot of agencies win awards for ‘patli gali’ advertising, which no one has even seen. But yes, winning at the Cannes Lions, or the Agency of the Year Award at Effies carries a lot of brand equity with it. It is a recognition of one’s creativity and creates a strong perception about the quality of work done. Unfortunately, people associate creativity with the number of awards won and how extensively it is reported in the media. But yes, awards are important.

Q. JWT shares the Delhi Congress ad duties with Crayons. How has your experience been working on the Congress campaign?

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I have really enjoyed working on the Congress campaign and this has been the highlight of the year. For a political campaign, you need to have a different mindset from the corporate world. Clients require a certain mindset and a process guided by international guidelines. It was a complete action-packed two weeks and you needed a strong entrepreneur streak in you, besides thinking and working together simultaneously. The fantastic thing is that results of your efforts are seen immediately. Whether it is a win or a loss, it’s decisive. It wasn’t only that advertising worked for the Congress campaign. Advertising is like a report card, and that report card reflects your success.

Q. What are the challenges before JWT Delhi? What are the goals that you have set for the Delhi branch for the year ahead?

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The big challenge for 2009 is to maintain the pace of growth that we had last year. It is always harder once you have actually blocked out newer categories coming in, then you have to ponder where the growth will come from. In 2009, we will be consolidating a lot of our new business wins. The Commonwealth Games will keep us occupied. The first goal is to keep the creative quality better than the benchmark that we have set for the agency. Secondly, to maintain the organic growth and strengthen our relationships. We are also looking at digital in a big way and aim to build that capability within the agency. New media is not what traditional large-sized agencies are good at. That’s a capability we need to have to be competitive in. As part of working with the digital agency, we are going to create a mindset for our creative guys to think cross media. We are looking at a healthy growth. The meltdown has resulted in people being retrenched. We see it as a great opportunity to enhance the talent in the agency.

Q. JWT is known for its hardworking advertising. Do you think perhaps that’s where creativity got lost?

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Is hardworking advertising not creative? Hardworking advertising is advertising that sells clients’ products. In today’s age, no client will buy if it is merely a great creative, but does nothing to the brand. So, you have to combine hardworking creative together. It has to work for the product and have a superb recall. I completely believe that you can be very persuasive and hardworking at the same time.

Q. What are the areas of concern or things to watch out for in 2009 for the industry, for JWT? What are your personal work targets for the year ahead?

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The year 2009 is going to be a year of slowdown and everyone says that things would come to a standstill. But I see it differently. Clearly, quite a few industries have been impacted like real estate, finance, and some part of the travel and tourism industry, among others. However, overall we are seeing the FMCG sector still going strong, so growth would not be affected much. The clients are bullish about increasing their market share and acquiring new customers, and they are not slowing down.

The personal work target that we have in our Delhi office is to win at Cannes this year. Now that we won at the Effies and GoaFest, Cannes is the one big thing that we want to achieve. We are JWT’s largest office in India and the most profitable office in Asia. We are working on the best of brands. Now winning a Gold at Cannes would top it all.

Q. How much of the new business has been contributed by the Delhi office and what has been winning strategy behind it?

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Basically, I think one of the big things that we have managed to achieve in the Delhi office is that in the last 16 months, we have picked up the best brands in the market place and also players in tomorrow’s categories like retail, technology and service providers like Airtel and Nokia. A lot of them are brands and business that have grown substantially and would be part of JWT’s future. And something that I am really happy about is the Commonwealth Games, which will fructify in 2010. This is not a business that we have got for today, but for tomorrow.

New businesses have contributed 25 per cent of our revenue. As far as winning strategy is concerned, we are focusing a lot on the work. When we go to clients for presentations, for instance in some of the biggest pitches like Bharti Airtel or the Commonwealth Games, or even Congress for the matter, we go with one idea. We create an idea for the brand, which is basically a media neutral idea that is brought alive for the client with multiple consumer touch points at malls and retail outlets where consumers hang out. The clients realised that they were buying an idea that was big, distinctive and sustainable over a period of time.

Q. Has the economic slowdown affected JWT?

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If you look at the Delhi office, we have clients in every category like FMCG, retail, technology. There are some clients who may not have performed well, while some have over-performed. So it balances out. When we take a holistic picture, it is shinning.