Q: You were to tell us which category or set of brands has replaced FMCG brands when it comes to leading advertising?

Desai: Without question, the category that is leading advertising today is telecom and the service providers in a category which otherwise is so easy. It is such a virtual category that the differentiation is difficult to manage, yet each of them have managed to build a very unique distinctive territory, very distinct languages are emerging, for instance, the Vodafone world has been consistent for many years through its various name avatars but the advertising has provided a certain amount of unity. Idea has opened out a rich new interesting space that we are beginning to see and over the last year certainly has developed.

Q: Consistently, so they keep coming up with the new ideas.

Desai: Yes, so you are beginning to see Idea emerge. Airtel of which, personally, I have never been a fan of.

Q: Not in the olden days where it had Rehman.

Desai: Also the earlier campaigns, which were the big campus campaigns, it is the whole connecting kind of a campaigns. I was not a great fan of this. This year for the first time it is a more intimate brand, the whole Madhavan-Vidya Balan campaign.

Q: Actually these commercials or the Madhavan-Vidya Balan campaign is really not about the brand. It is not about the brand, it is about services isn’t it?

Desai: Naturally.

Q: So, I find that interesting and it has done more for the brand.

Desai: Also, it is touching something real and Airtel problem always was that it did not have any reference to the real and I guess it has begun to do that.

Q: They have done it all. They had Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapur endorsing it at one point, they have had Rehman, Sachin Tendulkar, and they have had a very big canvas.

Desai: Spending money has not been their problem. They have spent money on everything. I think getting it right has been an issue and this time they have tracked it.

It is a vastly improved brand in terms of advertising. So when one looks at such distinct areas, it is really rare to do. So clearly today telecom leads the charge.

Q: Let us talk about Idea, because I think what they are doing is something that you have mentioned to me in the past––the social conscience that brands are getting onto or the social conscience plank.

Desai: If one was to say what is new in advertising in terms of creative trends, clearly, the fact that conventional mainstream brands, which have otherwise no reason to associate with larger issues, are beginning to whip them into advertising. Therefore, whether it is an Idea or a Tata Tea, one sees these brands doing that.

Q: Overall, are there any problems with brands like a telecom service provider and a tea brand to wear a social conscience on their sleeve?

Desai: No there isn’t. In fact, in some ways it talks about integration of brand with society and brands instead of being opposed to society become a part of it. The only caveat and the danger here is to speak too glibly. If one is actually not doing anything on the ground and is using, only using, the social plank then it can become exploitative because then one is using somebody else’s misery without any responsibility.

Q: When will Tata Tea turn around and say that they have this website and they have got a whole lot of people–over a lakh of people–who have registered to get registered as voters? I don’t know about Idea. What do you make of Idea? I want you to hear what Balakrishnan says because Lowe is behind both Tata Tea and Idea.

R Balakrishnan, Chairman and COO, Lowe Lintas: We started very long back. Lifebuoy was one of the first examples where a little boy cleans all the street, but it is not about having a social cause or whatever. It is about the idea. If the idea resonates with the brand and says you can do this as a brand, idea has got nothing to do. It is just about social cause, social causes will give you the platform for making the idea bigger and I would use the platform for that reason rather than for any social causes. The brand’s first job is to kind of project itself in the way it wants to. Social cause happens to be a fabulous platform.

Q: He is denying this big social cause platform but I am thinking he is protesting too much.

Desai: I also worry slightly about it because by that logic anything that is large scale becomes valid for the brand. Death is the biggest idea in the world for that matter. Disasters are massive scales. So if that becomes the logic, without any boundaries, then anything is fair game in it’s a user’s perspective. I don’t think he means exactly the way he said it, but I still feel that that view needs boundaries.

Q: You are saying that it is interesting and this would be perhaps the overarching most striking creative trend although there are not that many brands doing it. There are media brands, of course, you know about Times of India, we saw Dainik Bhaskar do what I think is a pretty exciting campaign with MS Dhoni, but otherwise do you see other brands getting onto this bandwagon?

Desai: I do think, especially, given the current mood in the country. The temptation will be there and we will see more brands take on a more activist kind of a hue. I see that coming.

Q: You are saying that there are pitfalls on that way.

Desai: Because, eventually, if it becomes too easy and it is a difference between use and scavenging, and I am using a strong word, but there is danger of being seen as praying on somebody because causes will always involve a certain amount of unhappiness. That is how they become causes.

So, I think some measure of restraint here is called for.

Q: When you go back to Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Tata Tea, Idea––which one resonates most with you?

Desai: As an idea I would say the Idea campaign. In terms of what it attempted to do is the one that resonates most with me subject to a couple of minor executions.

Q: You have a quibbles with the execution but overall it works for you, you like that.

Desai: Yes, I like that.

Q: Any other trends you think, because the Virgin Mobile campaign interesting sort of taboo topic, is that big enough a trend?

Desai: Everybody is beginning to see a comfort with more taboo subjects whether it is the whole question of alternative sexuality which gets referred to in Virgin ad.

Q: It is not a huge brand so they could do it.

Desai: But take the idea of death in life insurance. I think you are able to talk a little more about it.

Q: In an old LIC commercial where there was this husband who passed away but who has managed to give his family life cover.

Desai: I think by and large if you look at the new multinationals coming in and the new language, you would find certain insurance categories. It was almost as if there was no death involved. Everybody was flying kites and all.

Q: That was a positive because they changed the way they were looking at life insurance as an investment for a future when you are retired rather than this safety net when you are not there for the rest of your family.

Desai: But the fact that, I think, there is maturity where you are being able to handle slightly trickier conversations. For instance, the ICICI Jeete Raho commercial, where there is a husband-wife conversation about what happens if something were to happen to him and that conversation is a very difficult conversation to have in advertising to portray. I like that.

Q: You are picking all of Lowe’s commercials, any disclosure about Balakrishnan?

Desai: Nothing.

Q: You are saying that is a difficult conversation to have, I am shifting the conversation completely to another place. Bingo, I like their advertising. I don’t know how much it has helped their brand in terms of sales but definitely in terms of recall they did a great job and they are managing to continue with it.

Desai: It is a great example of some brand coming up with a new language. You create a completely different kind of a world for the brand to live in a category that is crowded and where there is not really that much to say. They have done a consistently good job. Again in a campaign like this, one will have hits and misses but the idea of taking a new landscape and that inspired zaniness of Bingo I think is very refreshing.

Q: Give us a word on the role of celebrities because I think celebrity power continues only thing is that it is not longer Amitabh Bachchan. It is a bit of Aamir Khan and MS Dhoni, the way I am seeing 2008 when it comes to celeb power.

Desai: Celebrities continue to ride strong in a lot of brands. What everyone is seeing is a deepening and widening of the celebrity ambit, whether it is Irfan Khan for Vodafone which is the least favourite part of the Vodafone; Madhavan and Vidya Balan––the most successful faces and brand ambassadors used by that brand it is not the Shah Rukhs, etc. So, all of us are beginning to see whether it is the fact that there are boxers and whether we have Abhinav Bindra.

Q: I am going to disagree on boxer and Abhinav Bindra front because that is 2008 Beijing Olympics’ incredible performance. Historic performance. I don’t think that is going to be a consistent thing going forward. I don’t see Bindra going beyond Samsung though I would like him to.

Desai: I agree with you, but the point I am making is that the desire to look elsewhere, today those options manifest themselves, those are easy options to take. Tomorrow, there will be somebody else but at least one is open.