Adgully Exclusive | BBDO India: To boldly go where no idea has gone before

Within the first two years of its establishment in India, BBDO took a crack at Guinness Book of World Records glory, with its campaign for Gillette Mach3 razor. BBDO's ambition was spectacular because when the agency opened, in December 2007 in India, its office was a car. The space may have been cramped, but BBDO's creativity and energy were not: the Gillette campaign increased the sales of the razor to 500% and market share to 400%.

The man who drove the effort ' indeed, he was the guy behind the wheels of that agency-on-wheels ” Josy Paul, the chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO India, now has two conventional offices to take care of, in Mumbai and Delhi. And the total staff strength has swelled to 65.

What worked for BBDO is its rationale for existence: "To contribute to the reputation of clients in a way that has never been done before," Paul said, in an exclusive conversation with Adgully.

Paul then elucidated the idea. "Contribution is what we are seeking and growth isn't a challenge," he said. "Clients are very brave now and they are happy to take risks and to try new things. [A campaign] is a combination of your idea and their mindset."

Paul then took us through the beginning. "When Chris Thomas of BBDO called me to start something new, I knew this was it!" Paul said. "You just know it. You've lived your whole life turning your body into an antenna. The body talks, you listen, you walk! So I walked! And I drove! My first three months at BBDO were spent driving around in a car. We had no office, just coffee shops."

Paul said that he and Ajai Jhala became the founding management heads of BBDO India, along with a bright set of creative, account management and planning professionals. "We could sense that advertising, as we knew it, was evolving," Paul said. "Consumers were changing. Ideas were becoming more interactive. It was time for brands to say, "This is what I am, and I want you to be a part of the idea and I want you to express yourself through me.' That's how the new and young India was getting involved."

The Gillette campaign, Paul suggested, exemplified the bold thinking that BBDO favoured. "Along with Gillette and their many communication partners, we did something that defined the new frontier of advertising," Paul said. "We created a group on Facebook called "Women Against Lazy Stubble' because men were not shaving every day. They thought stubble was very cool and women liked it." But BBDO had found a piece of research that showed that 77% of Indian women liked their men clean shaven. "Within a few days, we had 75,000 Facebook hits and people joined the cause," Paul said. "After that, some Bollywood actresses joined in, then newspapers and the TV channels began to pick the campaign up, and today it's a top case study for Gillette."

As for future projects, Paul wants to keep them confidential. But he is happy to share his thoughts on advertising, marketing and creativity, in general terms:

Advertising: "Advertising is that warm arm on the shoulder of friendship! with which you are not trying to sell anything; you are starting a conversation."

Marketing: "Like advertising, marketing is such an old fashioned word! If advertising is about starting a conversation, then marketing is about spending time with the brand, product or service."

Creativity: "It's all about finding a fresh connection, creating change and affecting behavior. On a lighter note, creativity is also about hiding your source."

Such uncluttered thoughts have made BBDO the world's second largest agency network in the world with over 287 offices in 79 countries and a family of over 15,000 employees.

Adgully does a SWOT analysis with BBDO India

"There's no security, only opportunity. That's what we believe in," Paul said. "And we are excited by what the new India holds for us. Our work and our ideology are our strengths. To some, our size is a weakness, but to us it is our strength." Paul said that his company's size taught his team to reach out and become more interdependent. "We realise the future belongs to those who can collaborate and sing around the bonfire that's ignited by an idea!" he said. "Threats? We are so blind that we can't see threats. Our threat is probably ourselves. We hope we can continue to be an antenna, listening to the consumer, the client, the environment and, importantly, ourselves!"

In the next 24 hours we will share "Walking down the memory lane" by Josy Paul. A story told exclusively to Adgully about his personal journey by the man himself. Keep a close watch on this space.