Creativity is going to be our only differentiator: Raj Kamble

Raj Kamble is a gold-medallist from Sir JJ School of Arts. Starting his early career at Lowe India and then with Lowe London and New York, BBDO New York and back to Mumbai as Managing partner with BBH India. Over a career spanning 25 years Kamble has worked on several brands like Stella Artois, Unilever, Nestle, P&G, Saab, Diageo, Vaseline, Burger King and Google, which have achieved both critical acclaim and won several international awards. One of the most awarded and globally recognised Indians in advertising, Kamble has over 150 awards to his name, including several Cannes and One Show Golds. 

In 2013, he founded an independent creative agency – Famous Innovations. Today, Famous Innovation is a 120-people strong independent creative agency with offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Raj Kamble , Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Famous Innovations, speaks about how they have adapted to the digital transformation and continue to create some pathbreaking work for their clients. He also touches upon the importance of content and how creating fresh and exciting content has become their biggest priority for 2022.

You started off as a traditional advertising agency. With the changing mediascape, how did your agency adapt to digital and set your hybrid agency model?

I wouldn’t call us a traditional agency. We always prided ourselves on fresh creative thinking, and believed that the idea is the train and digital is just a platform. Over the years, some of our best work has been on digital and our teams have always been able to think for digital - even while we weren’t handling digital for many of our brands. Which is what made the transition to digital that much easier when Covid hit. Many of our clients were consolidating agencies, and decided to give us their digital mandate along with mainline. They supported us strongly through the learning curve, and here we are. I would still call us a hybrid agency, more than digital. It’s a hybrid between solid, strategic brand thinking and fresh, agile digital-first implementation.

Coming into the digital ecosystem with a creative-first approach has made us realise that most digital work is just a space-filler today. Everyone is doing posts and banners because they have to show up. Yes, showing up is important, but we are more about showing up right. Creative quality is the biggest gap in the digital space right now, and that’s the gap that we are attempting to fulfill for all our clients - bringing strategic input, meaningful ideas and greater aesthetic value - not just filling calendars and hygiene posts.

You were recently nominated as the digital agency of the year at Campaign India Digital awards. Can you elaborate and throw more light on the awards that you won?

Yes, we won Digital Agency of the Year at CIDCA Awards. We also won a Grand Prix and our client, Burger King, won Client of the Year, apart from a few Golds and Silvers.

More recently, we won Independent Agency of the Year for the 7th time in a row, Best Culture Agency 2nd time in a row and I won Agency Head of the Year for the 2nd time.

This year, we also bagged 11 One Show shortlists and 4 Merits, 5 Cannes shortlists, a D&AD Pencil (making us India’s only independent to win one), 9 One Show Asia Shortlists, 5 Effie’s (top 10 agencies).

Content is the King and it is always a challenge to keep churning fresh and interesting content. How do you manage this challenge and how do you motivate your team to come out with exciting content as the dynamics of media have changed due to digital transformation?

We have made content our biggest priority for 2022, by creating an in-house content studio – replete with directors, photographers, editors, equipment, etc. Production has become a very concentrated industry in India and it is very difficult to get high quality content, unless you’re really willing to splurge on a big director and big PH. They give you your money’s worth, sure, but that’s only possible if you’re doing 1 or 2 films in a year.

Today, brands need fresh content every single day. We call this 365-day advertising. The team is empowered knowing that the craziest thing they can think of, we can make it happen – fast and at a reasonable cost. The only mandate to them is – the content should be forward-worthy, we aren’t here to make more space fillers. Also, when the creative team gets more control of the content, you start seeing a consistent brand language and aesthetic form.

Winning new business pitches is a challenge in today’s time. What kind of differentiation do you bring in as an agency during pitches which excite clients?

It’s simple – clients select the people, not the agency. Famous is not Ogilvy or Leo Burnett or Wunderman Thompson, where there is a fancy name plate outside the door, but people don’t even know who they are working for. Being an independent means we take every client personally. I, and my key leadership team members, work on every business we pitch for. This is my agency, so the client’s success matters and my personal success comes from it. There is no global alignment or regional office coming to the rescue. At the same time, 30% of the client’s revenue is not going to some unknown global office either.

Personal accountability is at the centre of being an independent agency like Famous. And when client’s see all of us playing with our skin in the game, they appreciate that. Of course, the work matters and we can’t just expect blind faith - but more often than not, clients choose us for us, for our abilities and our past work. We have been very wary of pitches, especially large multi-agency ones, and prefer working with clients where we can personally connect and build a relationship instead.

It is quite creditable for an independent agency to be aligned with global brands. What kind of strategy worked for you to work on brands such as Burger King, Budweiser, Haier, Unilever?

Breaking through global brands is hard and we have often been in a situation where a local client has told us that they can’t work with us because we aren’t on their global roster, as much as they want to. But I see that culture changing today even in large multinationals. Local clients are hungry for growth, disruptive ideas and fresh perspectives. They are willing to take risks and stick their neck out in the system, if there are people they really believe in. Finally it comes back to personal accountability. When they see people as hungry to breakthrough and make an impact as they are, they are willing to take a bet on a new horse.

How is the outlook for the overall advertising industry in 2022 and what are some of the new work and campaigns that are planned by your agency?

Advertising has changed dramatically in the last 2 years. Lots of good talent has left us – for content, OTT, start-ups and brands. Going forward, as digital and tech become a level playing field, I believe that creativity is going to be our only differentiator. The value for creativity is going to rise once again and good creative talent will become a precious resource. That’s why we need to hold on hard to our creative talent and also ensure they are remunerated right. Today, talent doesn’t just want work-life balance, they want life-work balance. Which means, they want to live a good quality life, be able to afford good experiences, live in a good space and they want work to revolve around that, not the other way around. The shifts from Covid are tectonic and they are here to stay. Brands that value creativity, agencies that respect their talent and people who realise that working together is an emotion and not a transaction, are going to be the future of this industry.

We have lots in the pipeline – for Unilever, some make-up brands, Burger King, some global tech brands, Titan, etc.