‘Web films are the next big thing for us’

Adrian Mendonza, national creative director, Dentsu Marcom, handles the agency’s key clients such as Honda and Raymond. The soft-spoken creative maverick, who started as a trainee copywriter at Mudra, has worked in agencies like Forefront, Contract Advertising and Rediffusion DYR before joining Dentsu in November 2005. Today Mendonza dons the twin hats of a creative director and an ad film-maker with equal ease. He has scripted and directed the commercials for Suzlon and Mumbai Police.

Like Mendonza, Dentsu Marcom has also kept a low profile since its debut in India five years ago. DNA Money’s Arcopol Chaudhuri met up with Mendonza at Dentsu’s cosy office in Mumbai to check out what’s cooking in the agency. Excerpts:

What were the challenges when you joined Dentsu and how much have they been overcome?
When I joined Dentsu Marcom, it was just a year-old and was still starting up. It’s only now that we’ve kind of settled down. It’s a very young agency in comparison to others, but its growing very fast. And growth, alone, is not everything.

The creative product has to be really good while having the rest of the creative systems in place. We are winning lots of big accounts, but we now need to make Dentsu recognised as a creative place. We’ve still a long way to go.

What is causing this growth? Is it merely winning big accounts or attracting the right talent?
See, what is happening in the last one year is that our existing  businesses are giving us new businesses. For example, for Raymond, we’re handling all their brands. Then there’s Park Avenue as well. Parx is coming out with Parx Youth. These are pretty big businesses. We’ve recently won the ICICI Direct account.

How different are Dentsu and Rediffusion in terms of the ways in which they function and their creative products?
Rediffusion DYR is a very financially stable place to work in and some businesses (like Colgate) have stayed there for years. Diwan Arun Nanda (chairman and MD, Rediffusion DYR) is the greatest guy I’ve worked with in advertising.

On the other hand, Dentsu Marcom is more of a start-up and everything has to be created. It’s a different kind of challenge. I won’t call it chaotic. Everything is not as settled in, but it’s exciting. And I think the work that you’ll see in the next six months from Dentsu is what I’ll be really proud of. Dentsu’s advantage is that it is large, but not as large. Sandeep (Goyal, chairman, Dentsu India) encourages us to deal with clients more and more and give them suggestions at every step. The idea is to keep improving the quality of work and to make it award winning.

When you also direct the ad film, how does the resulting creative product stand to benefit?
I think, it benefits both the agency and the creative product, because when you write a script and direct it as well, you control every single nuance that you want to capture. The layer of a director is not there. At the same time, when you work with a director and he reads the script, he’ll also add his inputs and, maybe, give a nice dimension to it. I direct films because I’m passionate about it.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Generally, from life. Anything that is emotional is inspiring for me. It could be the way Roger Federer plays or the way Jack Nicholson acts. I’m always touched with somebody who’s trying to compete with himself. As a creative person, no matter what age you are, you constantly need to keep improving and doing different things.

Are you able to maintain the same creative waves on new media and below-the-line activities — areas which advertisers are now getting serious about?
We do have specialists in our agency, who focus on areas such as the Internet. Dentsu is getting into the digital creative work in a big way. We made the IFL — Indian Fantasy League — which consisted of fantasy football and cricket leagues during the IPL, wherein you could make your own teams and compare them to the way players were performing in the real league.

We’ve launched Clickstreamers as our digital initiative. Sandeep Goyal is really passionate about it. There’s a good reason to be so excited about the digital world. From a personal point of view, I think, creating films for the Internet is going to be the next big thing. Last year, we made a couple of films for Fedex. In fact, Fedex has chosen Dentsu as a hub to create films for the Asia Pacific and European markets. And we will be doing the same now for the Internet.

Such initiatives are happening on several brands since they develop micro sites, amongst other things. But how does one drive these people to the Internet?
See, at least in the case of Fedex, they got it all organised. They have a whole lot of schemes and contests that make people go to their site and watch the film. You’re absolutely right. If we do it for other clients also, then we’ll have to find similar ways to drive them online to watch it.

Being a creative person, does the entry of creative hot-shops such as BBH, Mother and Wieden+Kennedy excite you?
Sure, it’s very exciting, and their entry is bound to happen. Clients really know that the end product is creative. They are excited about creative people giving them suggestions in marketing the product. So, the line between marketing and creativity is heavily blurring today. And more and more clients want to deal with creative people directly. And that, to me, is a big thing.

Why has Dentsu kept away from the awards?
We narrowed down on some work that we wanted to send to the awards, but I don’t think sending only some of your work is always a good idea. But, yes, awards are going to be a key focus area for us this year. Awards are important, at least for a creative guy like me. Next year, we should bag some awards. If we don’t, then there’s something wrong with us. (Smiles)

Dentsu hasn’t been making much noise about its work either?
You’re right. We need to profile our work a bit better.

c_arcopol@dnaindia.net