Bobby Pawar comes to town

Last week, a couple of days before the 'Impact Person of the Year' bash, we were doing the phone rounds, calling up all our invitees to ask, confirm and cajole them into coming. One of those souls was the president of a Bombay-based agency.

"I have a friend visiting from out of town, do you think it would be alright if I brought him along?" he asked. "Well, what's his name?" we counter-asked, "We'll address an invite to him", polite as ever. And we're so glad we did. Thank you Mr. President.

The next day, we had a few of calls from agency creative-types. They'd heard that afore-mentioned visitor was in town, after spending about a decade - very successfully - in North America, and they wanted to know if we had the dish on which agency he was going to be National Creative Director at the helm of in India.

That he was in town for a short chutti dampened more than just few spirits. "He's the sort of Creative Director any creative person would give an arm to work for", was the gist of most disappointed woes and grievances.

Bobby Pawar, Group Creative Director/Senior Vice President Energy BBDO, Chicago, hardly needs an introduction. He made some time for us and invited us into his home, to grill him on what really went down the night Neil French was blackballed, the challenges faced with marketing to the American consumer, and his thoughts on Indian advertising in the international arena.

How long have you been in the States for now?

I went there in June of 2000, so it's been almost 6 years now.

Did Ogilvy send you via an internal transfer?

Well, that's how it eventually worked out. Anil Bathwal - my partner at the time - and I went out there hunting for jobs. We got offers from lot of different places like Fallon and Lowe - thank God we didn't take that one up. Neil French has always been like a mentor to me, and while we were there he pushed me into meeting Rick Boyko, the then Chief of Ogilvy North America. So we went and met the guy, and it was fun; he's an amazing human being and a truly visionary creative leader. So at the end of it, we liked Rick and we wanted to stay in the system with Frenchie, so we decided to just roll the dice and do this. That's how we moved to New York.

Speaking of Neil French, I believe you were present at the ihaveanidea 'Night with Neil French'. What was your reaction to his derogatory comment about women in advertising?

We were two and a half hours into the evening when the question and answer round began. You had three guys over the age of 60 on stage, who'd been drinking steadily for the past two and a half hours and talking about stuff. They were being plied with Jack and Coke by a beautiful young woman in a very short French Maid's outfit. So a sexist platform was already set up. The first time the woman asked the question, his answer was pretty logical; she asked him pretty much the same question the second time, is when he got very flippant about it.

Those who know him know that that's the way he speaks. His intent is one thing, but at that point, he had a victim and he was going to make fun of her; so that's how it was. I agree with what he said; the meaning behind what he said. What he said was that if you can't dedicate yourself wholly and solely to something, then you'll never be great at it. Van Gogh went mad; that's not to say advertising's anywhere near art, but to do anything really great, you have to be possessed by it completely.

I do know a lot of women who do it. My boss Tonise Paul, the CEO of Energy BBDO - we've just renamed ourselves - is married, she's got kids, but she's on all the time. She literally sleeps two hours a day; I've got e-mails from her at like 5 in the morning; maybe she's an alien in disguise or something. So there are women who're out there. Maybe they don't get the perks that the guys do; maybe they conduct themselves more responsibly than the guys do; guys are prone to be more flamboyant, more stupid, so they're the ones that get the headlines. I've been everywhere but answered your question, and I've forgotten what it was…

What were your thoughts when Neil French passed that comment about women in advertising; or did you not give it a second thought because it was such a 'Neil French' thing to say?

No, I did; because it just got heated up pretty damn quickly. And in the middle of it, he just turned, and asked, "So Bobby, what do you think?" And I looked away; I was sitting right in the middle of a lot of women, and I didn't want to get stabbed to death with lipsticks. I knew there was going to be trouble. It's a very sensitive issue and there is a reason for people to be sensitive about it. Does a dichotomy exist? It does. And sometimes, as a senior person in the business, you need to be cognisant of that. It's not his fault and he was painted entirely the wrong way. Nancy Vonk who made a public outcry against Frenchie is very hypocritical; we went out drinking after that, and she was there with us right to the end, chatting with him. If you're that pissed off, walk away. It's not for me to say, but I think Neil French got the shitty end of the stick for something he said. Is some of the fault his? Yes. But not all of it; and it was definitely not as bad as it was made out to be.

When you're not being sent via an inter-agency transfer, how does one go about getting a job abroad, in this case, the US? How difficult is it? It's not easy; therefore it's worth it. It's definitely easier going to a place like Singapore, but for me that's not a trip worth making. What you have to do it put together your book. You can't keep your ads fullsize and have them laminated and all that. Just print it out in A4 or tabloid size. Keep the ads small; make it look as much like the One Show as you can - layout wise - but put one ad per page. Be very hard on yourself as far as your selection is concerned, and you need to have a wide range of work. If you have something really funny, you also need to have something thought provoking and insightful.

The other part is films; you just have to be judicious in picking the right spots. Don't do stuff that's hammed up to much, because it just doesn't play out there. What a creative director will look for is whether your kind of work and your kind of thinking will play in their market.