Fearlessness, delusional optimism - Devika Bulchandani’s many mantras for the ad world

Born in Amritsar to a very conservative Punjabi family, Devika Bulchandani, who was recently elevated as the Global CEO of Ogilvy, was always asked not to do a lot of things by her parents as she is “Girl”. Today, Bulchandani has carved a niche for herself in global advertising, holding important positions in leading ad networks. Prior to her elevation as the Global CEO, she was Global President and CEO of Ogilvy North America. Before joining Ogilvy two years ago, Bulchandani had spent 26 years at McCann in various leadership roles, including President of McCann North America, where she won numerous awards and accolades.

In order to promote workplace gender diversity, she led the "The Fearless Girl" campaign in 2021, which challenged Wall Street’s symbol of the charging bull with a bronze statue of a young girl, hands on her hips. One of the most celebrated campaigns in the history of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the Fearless Girl statue, which is located in front of the New York Stock Exchange and represents women’s equality.

Currently in India, Bulchandani, popularly known as Dev in the ad industry, addressed the media at a press conference held at Ogilvy’s Mumbai office yesterday (October 18, 2022). Edited excerpts from the meet...

Reminiscing about her childhood, Bulchandani said, “Girls don’t do that – these have been the resounding words of my childhood. I wanted to climb trees, but girls don’t do that; I wanted to ride bikes as my Bhaiyas did, but girls don’t do that; I wanted to jump off a roof, but girls don’t do that. One of my earliest memories is that I wanted to be myself and wanted to do things. One day I ran out and said ‘I did it’ and everyone asked, ‘What did you do?’ I said, ‘I can pee standing up’, because I thought if I could do that, then I can do anything. So, I could not understand the difference, and why we were not allowed to do things. When I was 13, I told my mother that I would leave and go to the US. I wanted my independence, I wanted to have my worth defined by what I do, and now I feel like I did it.”

Continuing further about her journey, she shared, “I fell into advertising by accident and it was the best thing in the world for me. The ability that we have as an industry, to use the power of human imagination, because we understand human beings, we create new realities and today, the ability is not just limited to using human imagination and creating solutions for business, we are also creating solutions for humanity, for society, for small businesses – it is an incredible moment and we don’t have to do it in any one industry.”

Bulchandani confessed that she has attention deficit disorder, where one tends to get bored easily. “Advertising is one thing where you will never get bored as it is interesting and secondly, if you are on a desert island, you will always find a way out. It is a people business and I love the energy of people, and when you have people together, where you create an environment of psychological safety, my mantra is chasing greatness, but doing it with goodness. According to me, we should have a healthy dose of delusional optimism in life. We don’t have too many choices in life. If you choose a healthy dose of delusional optimism, if you choose chasing greatness and doing it with goodness, I promise you whatever it is you are going to do, will be spectacular.”

“The most important thing for women is not to give up, because a barrier should be an invitation to say ‘I will show you’, and that takes fearlessness. Women come with so much baggage, that we have to shed it and that is a conscious choice that we have to make and it takes fearlessness and strength to do it – you can't just be born one, you have to make conscious choices to be one. Delusional optimism is a prerequisite of what we do. We are constantly imagining new things that have never been done before. That is the main gate of our industry today, by using technology in new ways, using data in new ways, how would you do that if you don’t have delusional optimism. I don’t know how to do that without a sense that it is possible, it can be done, ” she shared.

On the experience of being a woman in the ad industry

Bulchandani noted that “The reality is we always take two steps forward, and now we take one step back. The US is the only country in the world that does not give women equal rights in the Constitution. The whole sort of gender thing is much more than what we do in our work. I want to say that we create preference for brands, we create passion, and today we have the ability of using creativity, and clients who want to push the boundaries today and create policy, an impact policy.”

According to her, equality is not just a sprint. Equality of all shapes, sizes, forms is a marathon. “People always say you are so passionate then why you are not depressed, and I say if I get depressed then I am going to go into my cocoon, which is the worst thing that we can do. Women have less recognition in the constitution than corporations,” she said candidly.

Recounting an incident, Bulchandani said, “I had this young girl come to me in the New York office in the hallway and say ‘It's so great to see a desi girl’, I think it makes the journey easier for women to do it, because you are like ‘If she can do it, I can also do it.’ ‘Hope’ is a very important human factor that drives us, so when she saw me, she saw hope.  Some other parents came up to me and said ‘You have a desi girl as a CEO’, so pride keeps us going, and then there were black women who came up to me. So hope, pride, these are very important human drivers and it makes a difference to girls. Some five-seven years ago, there were some women who came up to me and said ‘We don’t want to be like you actually’ and I did not sleep for days. What they meant was that I was not standing up enough, and that I should talk to them more to know how they want to do it. So, any event that I go to, I try to take three young girls with me.”

On plans for Ogilvy India

Bulchandani said that the plan is to continue on the journey in terms of creative excellence, as well as to continue to expand the way creativity shows up – be it content, CRM or performance marketing, and never to lose the soul. It is about continuously modernising and expanding. She added, “I said to these guys ‘You are doing the best work in the network, from a scale and size perspective you dominate, you have got a business like no other in the network with a plan for 2023 and expanding into new territories and getting into markets in India in many ways.”