Nokia biz brought Wieden + Kennedy to India

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Wieden + Kennedy's amazing creative credentials were already known and it was only a matter of a big account - in this case the Nokia account, before it set up shop in India. CNBC-TV18's Anuradha Sengupta spoke to Dan Wieden one of the agency's founders, in an exclusive interview.

 

Wieden informed that Nokia was central to getting the advertising agency to India. "We are not as big and rich as the larger holding company. So we tried to take our growth slow and make sure we have the people in place to do it. So when Nokia came and we found the boys at 'A,' it was a perfect situation," he said.

 

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Dan Wieden:

 

Q: You wouldn't have had the compulsion to do a Wieden + Kennedy in India if it hadn't been for the Nokia business isn't it, because India is the second largest market for Nokia currently?

 

Dan Wieden: Yes, Nokia was central to us getting in the country because we are not as big and rich as the larger holding company. So we tried to take our growth slow and make sure we have the people in place to do it. So when Nokia came and we found the boys at 'A,' it was a perfect situation.

 

Q: How did you find Sunil and Mohit because I have heard statements both from them and from David Luhr saying that it is great fit, we are likeminded people but there are marquee names in Indian business and Wieden and Kennedy in itself is a marquee agency in terms of its creative credentials - why the guys at 'A'?

 

A: Actually when we started this thing we sent out three of my partners David Luhr, Susan Hoffman and John Jay to India to just start interviewing everybody we had heard anything about and we had heard from some of our own people; they had told us about 'A' as the agency but we weren't really at the time, interested in getting involved with a whole group of people. We were just looking to handpick some folks but everybody came back and said you are not going to believe these people. It is very small independent minded shop with very talented folks; very devoted to their creative products.

 

Q: When we were at Cannes last year - that's 2007 the Nike plus effort on the internet won the Cyber Grand Prix and it wasn't done by W+K and one of the things that people said was that the digital effort or initiative that your agency had was not upto the mark perhaps - is that just someone's interpretation of why you didn't have that business?

 

A: I think we are not shy about admitting that we were slow to get into the digital age.

 

Q: Why is that?

 

A: I think just because we were very much craftsmen who make a product and in many degrees, we had a lot of interest in content and we even started our own music label for 5-6 years ago - so we have been very exploratory. The digital thing just didn't ring any bells with us for a while. But once as somebody told us that you missed the bell, since that time we have taken it extraordinarily seriously and are pretty excited as we have an amazing group of young people now and we have done some very interesting digital work for everybody from P&G to Starbucks.

 

Q: What do you think of the kind of empowerment that it gives to brand users and consumers when you put your communication and all these initiatives that most brands are getting on to or using on the internet - how do you react to that as a creative person?

 

A: Everybody is talking about this now, right? It is like digital is the new God of media and it may be prudent to take a little bit more balanced view of this because quite honestly there is a lot of innovation going on in areas besides just digital. If you really want to serve your clients well, you will have a well-rounded advertising agency that includes digital; that includes things that are events and a bunch of a lot of other things. There is no one medium that is going to solve all of the problems and you have to be a little careful to rush all the way over to one side of the boat without tipping the thing over.

 

Q: Do you think Microsoft is ill-advised when it wants to spend so much to acquire Yahoo! because there this huge effort to consolidate in that space?

 

A: All that is well and good. But it is not the only place where history is being made or where sales are being raised. You just have to look at it a more universal application and at the end of the day, it is not where you are, it is what you do when you are there. Being digital doesn't mean anything unless you are doing it extremely well.       

 

Q: Given that you are now close to 1000 employees, you have offices in different continents. How are you different from a DDB or Leo Burnett or JWT or whatever agency that belongs to a holding company?

 

A: Take any New York advertising agency - one office of agencies, say BBDO or DDB - that one office is larger by far than our entire network and that one office is just one office inside that agency; which is just one agency inside that network. So I think there is a vast difference between what we are doing and what the holding companies are doing.

 

Q: Operationally, how will it be different? For someone who is on the outside, I would like to know.

 

A: Scale is everything. We are a much more intimate family; we know each other, we move people around through the offices, there is less bureaucracy, for instance - we had Nokia, we had people from every office come to London for over a month to talk about this brand and get a handle on it and figure out the strategies, so they could be shared throughout the network. It's just; we are quicker, faster moving animals than the holding companies. Sometimes I take great joy in poking them in the eyes and saying, "You are so much different than us and we prefer being us." But the reality is that we need each other in business; we need bigger balance network in many cases to service global accounts and they probably take advantage of our quickness in some way. So it's not a mutually exclusive arrangement.

 

Q: It's not as if you are less bottomline focused?

 

A: We are much less bottomline focused. When we opened an office, we usually bleed money for several years before we make any money.

 

Q: That happened in London?

 

A: Yes because it's much more economical to buy an existing asset and then just trim it down and spruce it up and you are making money right from the beginning and that's what they do. But for us, it's been very important that is a holistic growth, it's not just a money play and that's worked well for us and we have kept our culture contiguous from one office to another.

 

Q: The big debate now in the US is, is it a slowdown or a recession but there is no debate on the fact that it is a downturn. Do you see it happening with your clients, the slowdown or do you think the fact that 2008 is the year of the Olympics and the US Presidential elections and so its sort of ad spends don't get affected?

 

A: We have not seen any giant slicing of budget or freezing of budgets. We were through the dotcom burst and that shook the tree pretty hard. I think people are very nervous. But I would say at this point, people are marching ahead.

 

Q: As on February 2008, you are not seeing from your set of advertisers or clients that there is any slowdown or indication of a slowdown where their spends are concerned?

 

A: No.

 

Q: We have all heard of the culture that you all have tried hard to foster at Wieden and Kennedy's. Given that culture what is it that you don't want Wieden and Kennedy in India to do?

 

A: I would say what they can't do is try to second-guess themselves because they are part of the Wieden and Kennedy family. We really depend upon people taking ownership in their market, in their work. We don't feel like we have solved anything in this agency. Everyday, is a day to start over and we invent something.

 

So it's not a culture based upon rules and formulas or anything like that. We have a saying, "You should walk in stupid everyday." And the world is changing so fast these days that's really important that you play loose and quick.