We don’t want to be an agency: Juhi Kalia on Facebook Creative Shop

In an environment where people’s attention span is a mere 8 seconds, attracting consumers’ attention and retaining it is becoming increasingly difficult. According to Juhi Kalia, Head of Facebook Creative Shop India & Global Accounts APAC, the amount of information an average person is fed is equivalent to 174 newspapers a day. 

However, the flip side is that the human brain is adapting to this shift and evolving. We now register information at a faster rate and process information in different ways than before. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text, it gets coded in long term memory and, therefore, has more recall. 

Kalia further noted that the way people consume content is also evolving. Consumption is no longer linear. It is customised, frequent and fast. Even our bodies have adapted to this shift, wherein our postures reflect what kind of content we’re consuming. 

She elucidated on how the different platforms elicit different mindsets and perceptions. Instagram gives its users the perception of discovery, inspiration and transportation, while Facebook is known for connection and recognition. In the end though, it all boils down to the content. A great creative is a great creative regardless of the platform. “What we need to understand is how to tell stories based on how people are interacting with the platform. We are at that point in time where we have to find new ways to tell stories,” Kalia concluded. 

Kalia was speaking a Knowledge Seminar on the final day of the recently concluded Goafest 2017. 

On the sidelines of the festival, Adgully caught up with Juhi Kalia to know more about the operations of Facebook Creative Shop in India, the team, India as a market for Facebook, strategy to woo SMEs on to the platform and more. Excerpts 

How different is it working for Facebook than for agencies?
I think it is similar in many ways, because I still do what I know – which is ideas, creativity, brand building, strategic thinking, all of that. But it is a whole shift in terms of mindset and has been a bit of a very steep learning curve for all of us. Even if you are doing digital advertising and you are doing work on Facebook and mobile in an ad agency, it is still quite a huge learning curve when you work and really internalise all the science, data and tools. And it’s not just the knowledge, but intuitively sort of changing the way you think, and that has been interesting. 

Also, the one thing that is different I feel is that we have the choice to say we will work with people who are leaning in, which is a good place to be in because sometimes in an agency you are doing what you have to do as that is your job, that’s the nature of the business. But we have the luxury sometimes to say which agency or brand we would want to collaborate with on business terms. So we spend more time and energy on them. Therefore, to be in that position, to be able to sort of choose what you want to focus on is quite a nice place to be in for a creative person. 

How challenging has India been as a market for Facebook than the rest of the APAC market?
Interestingly, India has not been that challenging, it is very interesting here. Every country is different on the curve and every market has its own challenges and strengths. But for India, to be very honest, we have sessions, agencies and brands who just want to know how and they want to be on the platform and figure out how best to do it. In that sense it has been great. We actually have been doing more work here. The only challenge is that while we are a very lean team on purpose, we want to obviously reach, work and collaborate with everyone who wants to. So, sometimes that’s a bit hard to be able to prioritise, but other than that, there has been no challenge because most of my experiences in sessions have always been positive. The one thing is the storytelling mindset, which needs to change a bit, but that’s a challenge not just for India, but for everyone and everywhere – which is, how do we start. 

Why opt for a small team for such a big initiative?
We don’t want to be an agency. We are not equipped to start making everyday ads. We want to focus on choosing the best work; we don’t get paid to do all the work. Our goal really is to ensure that the best work comes out. We help partner with clients as well as agencies, so when you get too big and have many people in the team, you sometimes lose that momentum and vision. I always love working in smaller teams and the calibre of the people in our team is very senior. So, it is a lean team, but our people are stars. We have Ram Jayaraman in Mumbai, he used to be ECD and Creative Head at Grey. 

Please tell us more about Facebook Creative Shop Team India.
Right now there are three creative strategists – Ram Jayaraman (joined Facebook Creative Shop in August 2016), who is based out of Mumbai; Parul Arora, who came on board in May 2016. She was Executive Creative Director, L&K Saatchi and Saatchi before joining us; and we also have Nasheet Shadani in Delhi as one of the creative strategists. And I am based in Singapore. 

How do you strategise to bring SMEs on to the Facebook platform to advertise?
A lot of work goes into SMEs and there is someone who heads the business for small and medium businesses on our behalf. They do a fantastic job. It is a great team. In terms of creative support, we don’t have the bandwidth to give it yet. But it is simple. They have a lot of tools, sessions and workshops. Obviously it is not like an agency. What we do is we try to scale and enable it. You know I will give a link to Facebook for business, sometimes we do events where we have tutorials and hands-on working sessions, where you learn how to do it yourself. A lot of effort goes into those kinds of endeavours. If there is a special case or a really interesting brief, then we take it on.

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