Ad land’s Young Guns: Vishal Ponnappa, Dentsu Webchutney

Featured in this edition of Ad land’s Young Guns is Vishal Ponnappa, Planning Supervisor, Dentsu Webchutney. Ponnappa began as Vice-President - Outgoing Exchange at AIESEC, the world’s largest youth-run organisation developing the leadership potential of young people, while still in college.

He began his professional life as a management trainee at Textual Analytics Solutions. He then moved to Ogilvy & Mather as Assistant Account Executive, where he handled client servicing for Lenovo Asia Pacific. Ponnappa joined then Webchutney in May 2014 as Senior Account Executive, handling business development and digital advertising. He was made Brand Strategist within six months of joining the agency, and then became Account Planner at Dentsu Webchutney. Ponnappa was promoted to his current role of Planning Supervisor in May this year.

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

How did you get into the role that you are serving?
Landing a role as a Planning Supervisor in Dentsu Webchuntey was a journey that was four years in the making. I started my advertising career in the halls of one of the biggies of the industry Ogilvy & Mather. A junior servicing role that had me handing marketing communication for brand Lenovo’s Asia Pacific region. A role that ensured I developed a solid knowledge base in this exciting industry. Moving onto to Dentsu Webchutney’s Bangalore branch was a move I consciously made in order to work within a digital centric agency, where market trends were clearly outlining the importance of this branch of advertising over the coming years.  Webchutney’s Bangalore branch at the time was in a start-up mode, just establishing itself in the city and had lofty ambitions. Joining a team of 3 members to progressing to about 35 members currently is a journey that I was fortunate to be a part of. Starting off in mixed role of Business Development and Client Servicing to progressing to a Brand Strategy focused role in account planning has been the most educative years of my life. Landing one of India’s biggest digital marketers Flipkart ensured that the work we were executing over the last year has been of the highest quality.

What particular skill sets do you bring to the table?
The ability to simplify larger brand objectives into actionable result-driven activities, connector of dots within the diverse and dynamic market that is India and more than anything I feel, a sense of peace and calm within the agency even during our most stressful times.

One campaign that you have worked on that you are particularly proud of? Please take us through the making of the campaign.
‘Flipkart Thanks You’, which we had executed for our key client Flipkart, was one of the campaigns that were the most satisfying to work on. A video centric campaign that took real human values from a mother, father, sibling and uncle and related it to what learning’s brand Flipkart had imbibed from these personalities. True value from Fathers, Choice from mothers, the latest trends from our older sisters and the latest products from the always up to date abroad-wale uncle. This was a campaign that brought alive human emotions while humanising the brand at the same time. This being one of my first big budget digital video productions had a lot of learnings over the course of this campaign.

While working on the creatives, how do you prepare yourself? What goes on in your mind?
The main thing to be kept in mind while working on any brief is the ease of which one can get carried away with endless excitement of creative possibilities that we can bring to the table. I would say, establishing a clear boundary in terms of what the actual ask is and what would achieve results most efficiently for the brand. Before starting on any creative ask, the main task at hand is painting the larger picture of what going on so one can channel creative teams in the right direction in the most informed way possible.

Icons in advertising you look up to and how they have influenced you and your work?
David Ogilvy – “The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible” – is one of the truest things ever in our field; when one keeps an open mind is often when magic strikes. Often the simplest ideas cuts across all requirements, our brainstorm sessions often resemble 3 hour joke fests where we see how far we can push an idea and what would truly delight the market. ‘Confessions of an Advertising Man’ by Ogilvy is a book that I highly recommend every newcomer to this industry to read regardless of what department you would be getting into , as its the most straightforward understanding of the mad house you are getting into.

What are the five most productive things that you do in your everyday routine?
Planning the day ahead – An industry such as ours with multiple projects and various deadlines across multiple internal groups can very easily lead you to eventually living in the office itself. Personal joblists with listing out action items for the day do help in ensuring that while you get to tick off everything on your list, you also get to have a productive life outside work.

Soak in the digital world – Keeping track of what are the latest developments of the digital world across industries through a one-hour scan every morning. Afterall, with knowledge comes great power.

An hour of exercise a day – Waking up early in the mornings and getting that one hour of exercise does make a big difference through the day. Allowing you to be alert, fit and raging to make the most of the challenges that could come up. Again, an industry where it is very easy to neglect personal health, this goes a long way.

Open discussions with the team – The best thoughts and insights come out of discussions with one’s team. Do not allow your team to be segregated into silos, working on individual focus areas with no interaction above and beyond job asks. Catching up with the team on mini brainstorms and possibilities of what could shake things up, often do generate the most powerful insights over structured conference room group meetings.

Driving camaraderie – Ensuring a steady stream of good music, good jokes and an overall fun work environment to me is a very important facet of driving productivity in companies such as ours that have an average age of 25. When you love what you do and who you do it with, everything falls into place.

Do you think a career in advertising is a viable one in the long term?
Advertising is always going to be a field that is going to be high in demand across the ages, the only thing to note that advertising as a field is very fluid. The recent shift of focus from mainline centric budget spends by the nation’s biggest companies to a more digital first approach highlights the point. Advertising as an overall field will always be a viable career choice, but your specialisation within advertising is what one needs to keep in mind before stepping in.

What does it take to succeed in a career like advertising?
Hard work, creativity, patience and most importantly, the ability to work well within teams. The love of the industry honestly is what will keep you hooked and take you far.

What would be your advice to youngsters planning to enter this industry?
Just like any other field, advertising is filled with the most random bunch of people you would ever meet. Each with a hugely different temperament, work style and sense of responsibility, what you need to understand is that this is an industry that breeds and encourages uniqueness and there is always going to be differences and heated arguments. Don’t ever let things like that bring you down, patience is a must and the ability to get the best of out of people. This is a people driven industry and once you accept that, the better a time you are going to have.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
As a founder of a fluid digital agency with no full time employees, working on a country at a time, moving across the world with only a bag on my back and a head full of ideas.

Is there any agency/ organisation that you would like to work with in the future?
Droga5 is an agency that I look up to tremendously for the work they have been churning out steadily over the last few years in the digital space. I would also love to get an opportunity to work with Razorfish, which is clearly at the top of its game. Digitally mature markets such as the US would be extremely self gratifying for creative executions.