Ad land’s Young Guns: Vinesh Nandikol, FCB Ulka

Vinesh Nandikol started his career in advertising while he was still a college student, joining McCann Erickson as an intern, before becoming a client service executive. He started his career with Creativeland Asia in 2010. In June 2011, he joined DDB Mudra as Account Executive. He moved on to Whyness Worldwide in 2014, where he had a dual role of servicing and planning, but chose to focus extensively on planning. Four years later in 2018, he joined FCB Ulka in his current position as Senior Brand Planning Manager - Digital. 

Nandikol is a Power Point expert and an automobile fanatic, in fact, after advertising, his second love is his car. He dreams of exploring the length and breadth of India by road one day. 

What does it takes to climb up the ladder in advertising? Here’s Vinesh Nandikol in his own words... 

How did you get into the role you are serving?
I had quite an early start in the business. In my second year in college, I was the runners-up on MTV’s ‘On The Job Season 2’, which won me an internship with McCann Erickson. I started off in account management and worked across various brands till about 2014, after which I started investing time in mastering the art of account planning. Since then, my love for the business of advertising has only gotten deeper and stronger. I was very clear that I wanted to create my own niche and focused on learning the skills required to become a Digital Strategist. 

What particular skill sets do you think you bring to the table?
I can only operate if I have absolute clarity in the head. And to get there, I try and ask all the right questions. Once you’ve answered the questions in the head, it becomes pretty convenient to join the dots and achieve the brand’s objective. I commit to this process all the time and it’s often helped me as a planner to arrive at the meatiest insights for my creative team. 

One campaign that you have worked on that you are particularly proud of? Please take us through the making of the campaign.
A campaign we had conceived for Moneycontrol in my previous agency. The brief: to drive high engagement on social media platforms during the Union Budget session. High engagement meant we had to eliminate the regular hygiene posts on social media. 

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The Finance Minister’s speech on the Union Budget is usually filled with jargons and complex economic theories. And traditionally, the Budget is decoded and simplified post the speech and seen in the papers only the next morning. That was our window of opportunity. An opportunity that could be exploited by digital media. We did something that had never been done before. We gave decoded and simplified feeds of the Union Budget for every Indian in real time. The execution of the campaign was one of the most daunting tasks – right from picking up the information from the speech, to simplifying, and publishing it across platforms. We barely had minutes and the margin of error was negligible. We did an amazing job and delivered a campaign that not just exceeded the KPIs, but opened a new channel of conversations for the brand. While I was at the helm of the campaign, this wouldn’t have been possible without the team and the support of our clients, whose office we turned into a social media command centre for a couple of hours. 

When a creative is positioned for digital, how do you strategise?
The basics of arriving at a digital positioning are still about knowing the fundamentals of brand building. It still hinges on the right insight and the power of ideas. Digital strategy is all about joining the dots, where you make sense of data, trends, and create experiences for online users. It also expects you to be adept with technology or at least be inclined towards learning it. I generally ensure that I accommodate the following elements in my strategy: 

Data – It all starts with the data, all the relevant metrics help me build a strong foundation to my strategy

User Journey – Based on the data points and reports, I try to map the user journey to identify the engagement opportunities across channels

Channels – It is all about understanding how content will work across platforms. Today, it has become important to focus on platform-agnostic strategies than being extremely linear in just disseminating content across touchpoints 

Also, you must constantly monitor, evaluate and if need be, modify the strategy based on the level of user interaction. 

Icons in advertising you look up to and how they have influenced you and your work?
I try to spend at least half an hour everyday and looking up digital innovations happening around the world. I am a complete Bob Greenberg and David Droga fan boy. Looking at their work and just looking at their immense passion for the business of advertising motivates me to push harder and think beyond the possibilities. 

What are the five most productive things that you do in your everyday routine?
Task list – It must start with this. Prioritise the jobs, meetings and basically plan your hours and try to knock off the smaller tasks within the first half and focus on the bigger ones for the second. While the task list is never ending, it still makes you feel better when you strike off 7 out of 10 by the end of the day. 

Team discussions – I have always believed in team effort, where you discuss the problems and possibilities about your brands with them. I ensure that I spend enough time with my entire team. 

Research – I spend a substantial amount of my time going through all the research reports, trends, innovations that will help me crack a brief. 

Talk to people – Clients, colleagues, friends, family. Just talk to people. As a planner you need to be open enough to accept point of views and different opinions, coming from anywhere and everywhere. 

The No Advertising hour – This is the time when I read, watch flicks or do something which is not related to my work. This works as an escape that gives your brain the break it deserves. 

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Do you think a career in digital advertising is a viable one in the long term?
Advertising itself is going through a massive digital transformation and it has become imperative for every advertising professional to learn digital and make it a part of their skill-set. The demand for digital professionals is only growing and it makes sense to have a career in such a domain. 

What does it take to succeed in a career like yours?
Advertising is a very serious business. We are in the business of ideas and thinking of ideas is not easy. You need to have immense grit, passion, perseverance and the discipline to look forward to work every day. Above all, having a very happy mindset in life helps. 

What would be your advice to youngsters planning to enter this industry?
Never get too attached to your ideas. At times we just fall in love with the idea that blocks us to think of something new. Spend time and focus your energies in the whole process of arriving at the ideas. 

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
A better professional, a lot healthier, and still open to learning something new. 

Is there any agency/ organisation that you would like to work with in the future?
Great organisations have great cultures. FCB has a strong culture to nurture young talent and has great leaders who inspire you every day to do effective work. At this point in my career, FCB is the place where I want to learn, grow and do some amazing work. I would rather invest my energies working on my brands than plan my next career move.

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