Ashish Khazanchi, managing partner, Enormous, believes that the agency has already shot one of the best films of 2025, referring to a piece of work which will be released shortly for Jaquar.

In a chat with Manifest (full interview available in our January issue), he stated that the agency is entering 2025 full of confidence. This confidence stems from a philosophy change Enormous embraced in 2021.

He explained, "We took a call that if we want to do good work, we need to bring time to the table. A lot of time in agencies goes into pitching. We realised that if we need to do good work for our existing set of clients who trust us and are on retainers or bring projects, we need to get the best possible thinking on their brand. That can only happen if you have a fair amount of time on the table. We decided to move away from all speculative jobs and that was a turning point for the agency. A third of the pitches don’t result in anything at all. Craft takes time. We are seeing that because of a lack of time, the final product suffers."

While Enormous isn't alone in taking this stand of staying away from pitches, Khazanchi wants more agency heads to take this route.

"I try to evangelise this with all the agency heads I meet and I have seen a difference in the market. There are a lot of times when we refuse to pitch, especially for projects - clients mention that they are seeing this as a trend. This makes me happy. It’s needed for the industry to protect our people and the kind of work we create. When one is hiring a CEO or CMO – one doesn’t ask them to create a speculative presentation. One goes by the track record and the conversation with the person. Clients pay a CMO considerably more than they pay an entire agency."

He added, "There are pressures to do with revenue and growth targets. So, agencies don’t stand their ground and go out there to chase a number. If one is chasing the right kind of thing, the numbers will eventually take care of themselves. Clients will ask for it. While pitching seems easier, I don’t think it’s a great process because one is getting sub-optimal solutions. After all, it’s not thought through to the level of actually executing it. While it looks decent on paper, it doesn’t turn out to be good because there’s not enough time spent on it. If five agencies are saying no to pitches, there are five of them that turn up for them. And that’s an issue. Pitching has become like a pandemic."

On talent, and the lack of it within the industry, Khazanchi noted that the only reason agencies are profitable in the current scenario is because they work long hours.

"Talent is regressing for sure. It has always been terrible and there was never a time when it was great. Earlier, the money in advertising would be a third of what a person would earn from another industry after business school. Now, it’s to a level when one’s passion cannot sustain a household. If most advertising agency employees decide to shut shop at 6/7pm, there would be roughly zero agencies that would make a dime as a profit. It’s not possible. We make up by working longer hours. The excitement of being in an agency is also not that much because the culture has gotten democratised. We are seeing the start-up culture affecting legacy agencies too," he said.

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