Soon after Leo Burnett won a plethora of awards which included the ‘Creative Agency of the Year’, ‘Technology Agency of the Year’, ‘Mobile Agency of the Year’, ‘Direct Agency of the Year’ and ‘Digital Agency of the Year’, at the Abby Awards during Goafest 2024, its chief creative officer, Publicis Groupe South Asia and chairperson, Leo Burnett South Asia, Rajdeepak Das, was in conversation with Manifest to discuss award wins and what they mean, diversity at the agency, how the first six months of his expanded role have been, and more...

This interview was conducted before the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This article first appeared in the June print issue of Manifest. Subscribe to Manifest here.

Edited excerpts:

You’ve bagged a major haul of awards at the Abbys. Of late, many believe that awards (not just the Abbys) don’t give an ROI that’s worthy of the cost of the entry, while some say that they do help attract the best talent. How much do awards matter to you both personally and for Leo Burnett as an agency?

At Leo Burnett, we don’t start with a thought about whether it is going to win awards. Our first thought is about creating the best piece of work for our client. I keep talking about ‘epic brands and epic work’. We have a few filters that we apply to our work – is it good for the consumers, brand and us? What I mean by the ‘us’ bit is – has it done something completely different that we believe in? We believe in impacting a billion people’s lives using creative work. When we start doing that, awards are just a byproduct. You don’t remember awards; you remember the campaigns.

Long ago, a boss of mine had told me ‘don’t worry about your winning but what you’re winning for’. Agencies have been built on the work they do and not the awards they win. You could win ‘agency of the year’ globally or in India, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t repeat success for five to ten years to change the industry.

We love Piyush (Pandey) because he changed the industry with the pieces of work he created. I didn’t know how many metals he won but I admired his work while growing up and wanted to be like him.

We’re not in the sports industry – there a Grand Slam or Grand Prix win defines your performance. We are in the industry of impacting people’s lives and businesses. We need to know whether the impact is big enough, new enough and having the culture or trends in the centre of it and making it happen. When you tick these boxes, you’ll end up winning (awards).

People laugh and claim that we win a lot. We win a lot because we experiment a lot and fail a lot too. What people don’t see is the amount of failure to get success.

You got an expanded role in December last year. What’s been the six-month update in terms of the goals you set?

This was the first role ever in India where a creative person from one agency was heading six creative agencies. I have to give it to Anupriya (Acharya, chief executive officer, Publicis Groupe South Asia) and the gang who entrusted me with this opportunity. They believe that when we’re offering integrated solutions to brands, the creative product needs to be integrated too. Yes, every brand is competing separately, but at the same time, they have an agenda – how to make the product big for the client.

To give you an example for Spotify, Reckitt and Pepsi we have multiple mandates. So if we have the agenda of making the brand creative, you’re not looking at it only from the creative agency side – but across categories.

I remember a client asking me during a pitch, that if the media business went to another agency, would we still have the same ‘one agenda’, and I said yes, we would, and that’s what my job is.

The reason for this is that – the work that I’ve done for the last 20 years, it has no structure to it. I’ve been looking for the next big thing – whether it’s changing the product in Bajaj, changing something for Whisper, or creating an India cricket jersey based on data for MPL, the Oreo campaign, and now, what we’re doing with Gatorade. There’s no pattern to what we do.

During your talk at Goafest, you were referred to as a ‘traditional’ agency.  How can you change that perception given you’re offering more than ‘traditional’ advertising?

The problem is that a decade ago the industry was going through a change. That’s when the divide happened between a digital or ‘new age’ agency or a traditional agency.

But agencies are about the people that you have. Clients are not coming to me and asking me to create a TVC. The client comes with a problem and is looking for the best possible solution.

The perception issue can’t be changed by talking about it – it’s about doing the best piece of work. In the last five years, when you see agencies like Ogilvy, Leo Burnett and now Talented – I love what Sukesh (Nayak, chief creative officer) and the team are doing. They’re changing the conversation. The Shah Rukh Khan ad for Cadbury was a massive retail solution on the phone. What Talented is doing with Swiggy – I love that. Everyone does TVCs and traditional work, and there’s no reason to shy away from it. But it’s about whether we’re trying to make change.

To add to this, during the panel, which was about gender stereotypes in advertising, we’re trying to change that too. We have been carrying a taboo for the last 30 years. We are trying to change that in this generation. It’s easy to create something new but difficult to change.

Pricing has been an issue. The industry seems to be undercutting each other and that’s creating more of an issue. How can this be solved?

It depends on what you stand for. If you are like everyone else, you will be commoditised like everyone else. Rice can be sold in different qualities. The good ones command a premium. You have to stand out.

I know clients who pay premiums to not only us but other agencies too, and get that premium service in return. If you don’t choose to pay the premium, you’ll get sub-standard work. It’s just that the clients don’t talk about paying premiums.

The market has Ghadi, Tide and Ariel. All of them come at different price points. And there’s a market for each of them. So, similarly, the agency world also has these options.

But at the end of the day, if you’re not in demand, you won’t get the premium.

Is that where your creative hat also helps when you’re pitching to clients? You can command the money for the creative accordingly?

Absolutely and they will trust me because at the end of the day, the creative will also be delivered by me. If I’m asking for a certain price, I’ll deliver accordingly.

If clients don’t have money, they should say that upfront. A lot of the startups we work with say it. We end up working with them and growing together. We would love to do that. There’s always a way we can tackle things.

Marketers go through a tough time themselves. We have to understand their challenges and figure out what can be done to make it happen.

Like, if you go to a car showroom and want to get a car, there are options like EMIs, balloon payments and more. Similarly, we have to make things work.

Diversity – where’s Leo Burnett with regards to it? We’re not just talking about the women-to-men ratio, but is there enough representation of other communities?

I believe a lot in education. When more women get educated and join the workforce, the quality of work changes. We are a creative industry. Sonal (Chhajerh – national creative director), Ayshwarya (Sharma – brand strategy partner) and Alisha (Sharma – associate executive creative director) are our top creative leaders, and they are female. Sonal is a mom who has come back to advertising. Ayshwarya could be labelled ‘born and brought up’ at Leo Burnett. Alisha has also been with us for a while and has grown with us. Noor (Samra – senior vice president - strategy) is one of our strongest planners. They’re leaders and fighters.

Sakshi (Chawla – AVP), Neha (Kapoor – SVP), Nitika (Aggarwal – managing partner) and Swati (Mongia – AVP) are also part of a very strong team.

With all of them, we have a certain kind of leadership we have never had before. Our head of social media is a 23-year-old girl. A lot of people growing in the system are homegrown and they’ll make things happen. It’s an army of leaders.

Diversity doesn’t happen only in gender. It’s also about what stage of life one is in. It’s all about empathy. If we don’t have empathy towards people, we can’t create things.

Last year you were very bullish about an initiative you worked on which touched upon water conservation by sharing a ‘Water Sustainability Score’. Back then you had signed on the Bengaluru airport as a client. What’s the update here, almost a year later?

It’s entered seven countries now which include India, Sri Lanka, Tuvalu, UAE, Kenya, USA. Brands like JSW, Bosch and MET have also entered it. Now, we are moving away from just scoring points – we are getting into how procedures can be changed.